"Inflection" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... uses of perversity," he said, with inimitable inflection. For a moment his wife eyed him, speechless ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... diminuendo sign] assuredly in accordance with the composer's intentions—thus we reached a more moderate degree of force, and the opening bars of the theme were at once distinguished by a softer inflection, which, I now could easily permit to swell to fortissimo—thus the warm and tender motive, gorgeously supported by the full orchestra, appeared happy ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... an open boat," she repeated, with a curious inflection; "but you perceive, Col. McVeigh, the situation is not at all like that. I am under my own roof tree, and a very substantial one it is," with a comprehensive glance about the imposing apartment; "and you are the first ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... your pardon," he said, his voice keyed to a curious inflection. "I was under the impression that you had—that, in fact, you changed a cheque for L200 made ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... disturbing causes, whether productive of an increase or decrease of heat, determines, as the total effect, the inflection of the isothermal lines, especially with relation to the expansion and configuration of solid continental masses, as compared with the liquid oceanic. These perturbations give rise to convex and concave summits ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... could judge by the inflection of his voice his sorrow was genuine. "I'll be with you in ten minutes—he's ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... having uttered the foregoing without pause or inflection of voice from beginning to end, came to an abrupt stop. Whether from want of breath or ideas it is difficult to ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... why should we fear the Change?" he answered her unspoken question, calm serenity in every inflection of his quiet voice. "The life-principle is unknowable to the finite mind, as is the All-Controlling Force. But even though we know nothing of the sublime goal toward which it is tending, any person ripe for the Change can, ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... to spare us the discomfort of repentance by teaching us to declare with a new inflection, "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves," forget that there is another side to this argument. It is, of course, very alluring to be told that we are not really blameworthy for acts which hitherto we have blamed ourselves for—that our ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... I might I could not rid my tone of an ironical inflection. I was goaded to it by her attitude, by the scornful turn of her lip and the disdainful glance of her grey eyes—she had her father's eyes, saving that her gaze was as steadfast as his ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... in her face and in the tones of her voice, which were soft and low, yet very decided. She possessed a clear, sweet tone, unlike the slow, peculiar drawl often aiding with the rising inflection peculiar to many country ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... "quee-o," sometimes hardly above a whisper. When everything is quiet about him one may often hear an extraordinary performance. Beginning the usual call of "quee-o," in a tender and mournful tone, he will repeat it again and again at short intervals, every time with more pathetic inflection, till the wrought-up listener cannot resist the feeling that the next sound must be a burst of tears. Although his notes seem melancholy to hearers, however, the beautiful bird himself is far from expressing that emotion in ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... him from the sheriff's recounting of "a highly desirable piece of property." His loud, flat voice had not changed by an inflection since he had "called out" Gordon's home; the merely curious or materially interested onlookers were the same, the dragging bidding had, apparently, continued unbroken from the other occasion. The dun, identical ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... being hamstrung." Porter pronounced the term with an inflection of disgust, as though it were a vulgarism no gentleman would use. "You say we do not realize the gravity of the situation. Perhaps we realize it far more than you do. It may be that your activities have been indirectly ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... as you young men do," Chrysler said, in an inflection suggestive of regret. "What may we effect beyond trying to keep Government pure and prudent, and we are often powerless to do even that? Nor can we form the future character of the people much, but must leave that to ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... delighted these good ladies of Monastier; it seemed to them frolicsome and racy, like a page of Pickwick; and they all got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. I have tried it since then with every sort of accent and inflection, but I seem to lack ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... attracted involuntarily. There was in our hero's features a distinction and an elegance which could not escape Bathilde's eyes. The chevalier's dress, simple as it was, betrayed the elegance of the wearer: then Bathilde had heard him give some orders, and they had been given with that inflection of voice which indicates in him who possesses it ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... more?" he said, wistfully, with the rising inflection, indeed, but not as one who had any idea ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... Thus, a correspondent tells me that he not only finds sexual pleasure in cruelty toward the woman he loves, but that he regards this as an essential element. He is convinced that it gives the woman pleasure, and that it is possible to distinguish by gesture, inflection of voice, etc., an hysterical, assumed, or imagined feeling of pain from real pain. He would not wish to give real pain, and would regard that ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... almost too slight to be recognized, he went on, and in a dozen words his tones had gathered volume, he had come to his power and dignity. There was no smile now on any face of those who listened. People stopped breathing rather, as if they feared to miss an inflection. A loose-hung figure, six feet four inches high, he towered above them, conscious of and quietly ignoring the bad first impression, unconscious of a charm of personality which reversed that impression within a sentence. That ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... connect this sound with food and comfort, and at once turned to the spot from which it proceeded. Later, when the same note was used as a call, they recognised that its meaning was varied; in turn it became, with subtle differences of inflection, an entreaty, a command, and a warning that it would be folly to ignore; but, whatever it might indicate, they instinctively remembered its first happy associations, and hurried to their mother's side. Hardly different from the call, when it conveyed ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... appealed to his artistic perceptions and his intelligence, and it must be admitted that she laid herself out to do so. She said nothing of any consequence, but she knew how to make a glance or a changed inflection expressive. He was sorry when she left him, but she smiled at him before ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... into my tapestry, gay with silver lace, coquettish fans, and high-heeled Spanish slippers. Eighteen years old, married, and dead; and muy querida, much beloved! My thoughts stayed behind, as I moved on, and the words, with their soft inflection, would recur dreamily to me, again and again—muy querida; ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... Fairfaxes of Kirkham? Is your grandfather Richard Fairfax of Abbotsmead?" she said in a quick voice, with an inflection of surprise. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... He loved music, and understood it passing well. He had heard all the rare voices which Paris prided itself in the possession of, but he thought he had never known what music was till now. His heart throbbed in sympathy with every inflection of the voice of Amelie, which went through him like a sweet spell of enchantment. It was the voice of a disembodied spirit singing in the language of earth, which changed at last into a benediction and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... desires," he said in an uncertain tone, as if fearful he might lose his way among his son's vagaries. "I wanted a pleasant home, and a loving wife and children. I wish there had been more of them, Jack, for your sake," and his voice took on a tender inflection. "Then, if one wanted to go away, there would have been others left. You see, Jack, mother's heart is bound up in you, and she's getting to be an old woman with but few ties. I might manage to comfort your own mother; but you are ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... absent, for the purchase of silks at Lyons—asked him some questions about France and the French, which evidently proceeded from the most ludicrous ignorance both of the country and the people. Mr. Mannion just set him right; and did no more. There was not the smallest inflection of sarcasm in his voice, not the slightest look of sarcasm in his eye, while he spoke. When we talked among ourselves, he did not join in the conversation; but sat quietly waiting until he might be pointedly and personally addressed again. At these times a suspicion crossed my mind that he might ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... face. Hard, cruel lines had furrowed their way across his forehead, and under his eyes were deep black marks. His bronze cheeks were white and sunken, and a bright red spot burned on one of them. But it was a change of which the details could give no idea. His face had caught the inflection of his inward agony, and retained it. It was there, if not for the world to see, at any rate terribly evident to me, to ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he murmured, "Miss Terroll," the inflection of surprise remained in his voice. It was well after ten o'clock and in those circles of society where he was received the system of chaperonage was rigid enough to fail of understanding for the women who dared the streets at night unescorted. He knew ladies who ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... herself but by a tone, an inflection, but we knew very well what she and the frescoed presences about us thought. I wish now I could have stayed behind and got the frescos to tell me just how far I ought recognize her sorrow in my tip, but one must always guess at these things, and I shall never know whether I rewarded ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... well as plural, so that one cannot with propriety use the singular form, mean, to signify that by which an end is attained; Second, That the subjective mood, to which he himself had previously given all the tenses without inflection, is not different in form from the indicative, except in the present tense. With regard to the later point, I have shown, in its proper place, that he taught erroneously, both before and after he changed his opinion; and concerning the former, the most that can be proved by quotation, is, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Eddring, it is you?" she said, and her voice had the upward inflection, as though she carelessly addressed an inferior. "I remember you very well, but I hardly thought to see you. Indeed, I should hardly have expected to see any one ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... pointing at the monuments with his whip. In this broad new thoroughfare there were only buildings of recent erection. Still, the wave of the cabman's whip became more pronounced and his voice rose to a higher key, with a somewhat ironical inflection, when he gave the name of a huge and still chalky pile on his left, a gigantic erection of stone, overladen ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... which is used to David's Psalter, banished from my ears, and the Church's too; and that mode seems to me safer, which I remember to have been often told me of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who made the reader of the psalm utter it with so slight inflection of voice, that it was nearer speaking than singing. Yet again, when I remember the tears I shed at the Psalmody of Thy Church, in the beginning of my recovered faith; and how at this time I am moved, not with the singing, but with the things sung, when they are sung with a clear ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... inflection of the last words had their intended effect. Roy's face fell. "O-oh, I see. But you've always been my sort of sister. Thea would understand. And nowadays girls do all ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Newton those which he made on the inflection of light hold a high place. They were first published in his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... discovered that I was none of the loquacious kind, in French. I asked for lait, pronouncing the word as if it was spelt l-a-t-e, but he did not understand me. I could adorn my conversation neither with verbs nor with adjectives, so I repeated the word lait several times with the rising inflection, by which he readily inferred that I wanted something, though what that something was, remained a mistery to him, all the same. By and by, I pointed out the word lait to him, on seeing which, he exclaimed "—— du la!" and gave me what I wanted. Thereafter I visited him from two to five times ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... said, "Ah, mon vieux!" You know the inflection they give this expression, particularly when it means, "This is something wonderful!" He added that they had seen the combat and my fall, and little expected to find the pilot living, to say nothing of speaking. I hoped that they would go on ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... I turned slowly it was because I knew what was waiting me, and was adjusting several possibilities to meet it. It was a man's voice that called, yet its every inflection was familiar, familiar as the beating of my heart. For madame, my wife, had called to me more or less often in the twin of that voice with its slurring deliberateness and its insolent disregard of the pitfall accents of a foreign tongue. And now I turned to meet her cousin, the man whom she ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... delicate inflection and the pause before the final word, Old Man Curry might have been inquiring about the last moments of a departed friend. The Kid was looking at the ground, so he missed the twinkle in ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... that he might elect to accompany her to Cavloccio. She would willingly have paid him for loss of time. Her ear was becoming better tuned each moment to his strange patois. Though he often gave a soft Italian inflection to the harsh German syllables, she grasped his meaning quite literally. She had read so much about Switzerland that she knew how Michel Croz was killed while descending the Matterhorn after having made the first ascent. That historic ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... The Tamtonian language forms its plurals most irregularly, but usually by an initial inflection. It has a certain crude and primitive grammar, but in point of orthoepy is extremely difficult. With our letters I can hardly hope to give an accurate conception of its pronunciation. As nearly as possible I write its words as they sounded ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... one!—The delight of that exquisite sound of refinement in the pronunciation. Miss Sharp never misplaces an inflection or slurs a word, she never uses slang, and yet there is nothing pedantic in her selection of language—it is just as if her habitual associates were all of the same class as herself, and that she never heard coarse ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... who harps upon her ailments, who appears at the breakfast table with a depressed and melancholy visage, who regales us with an account of how poorly she slept, the nightmares she experienced, the pain she suffers, and who puts into her inflection the poison of self-pity is an emissary of Satan. I have seen a whole family's happiness for the day destroyed by the meaningless ranting of a hysterical woman. Life is hard enough for all, for each of us to at least ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... Common and Proper Inflection Defined Number The Formation of Plurals Compound Nouns Case The Formation of ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... at the speedy gallop of an Arab horseman, managing his steed more by his limbs and the inflection of his body than by any use of the reins, which hung loose in his left hand; so that he was enabled to wield the light, round buckler of the skin of the rhinoceros, ornamented with silver loops, which he wore on his arm, swinging it as if he meant ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... his net with his right hand and never taking his small, glittering eye from the movements of the swordsman. Suddenly, when Sporus had approached nearly at arm's length, the retiarius threw himself forward and cast his net. A quick inflection of body saved the gladiator from the deadly snare; he uttered a sharp cry of joy and rage and rushed upon Niger; but Niger had already drawn in his net, thrown it across his shoulders, and now fled around the lists with a swiftness ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... commanded Angus, his voice rising to a more than usually Highland inflection, "and semaphore to Mucklewame that when he hears the explosion of this"—he pulled out the safety-pin of the grenade and gripped the grenade itself in his enormous paw—"followed, probably, by the temporary cessation of the machine-gun, he is to bring his men over here ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... after laying the matter before the proper authorities, such a formality is deemed necessary," said the girl, with a scornful inflection that cut her ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... would be no dispute about the advantages of that Greek culture which Schiller advocated with such generous eloquence, if the great authors of antiquity had not been degraded from teachers of thinking to drillers in grammar, and made the ruthless pedagogues of root and inflection, instead of companions for whose society the mind must put on her highest mood. The discouraged youth too naturally transfers the epithet of dead from the languages to the authors that wrote in them. What concern ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... a curious inflection to her voice that the candidate exclaimed, "Why, what do you mean, Anna?" and she merely replied, "Oh, nothing!" which meant everything. The candidate, understanding, looked more attentively, and his eyes contracted a little, ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... "Does not every moment stand a temple four-square to God? And in that morning, with its buoyant sunlight, was I any dearer to the Heart of the World than now?" "My beloved is mine, and I am his," she sang over and over again, with all varied inflection and profuse tune. How gently all the winter-wrapt things bent toward her then! into what relation with her had they grown! how this common dependence was the spell of their intimacy! how at one with Nature had she become! how all the night ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... he called 'Senilia;' in which he shews so little learning or taste in writing, as to make Carteret a dactyl[4]. In matters of genealogy it is necessary to give the bare names as they are; but in poetry, and in prose of any elegance in the writing, they require to have inflection given to them. His book of the Dialects[5] is a sad heap of confusion; the only way to write on them is to tabulate them with Notes, added at the bottom ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... steely Pittsburgh millionaires, or just a plain millionaire from the country at large; and I doubt whether the man who wrote the lines had any conception when he did write them of the fashion in which they were afterward read. Be that as it may, the actor who essayed to play the American used an inflection, or an accent, or a dialect, or a jargon—or whatever you might choose to call it—which was partly of the oldtime drawly Wild Western school of expression and partly of the oldtime nasal Down East school. I had thought—and had hoped—that both these actor-created lingoes were happily ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... to be derived from the same root as Paup-puk-ke-nay, a grasshopper, the inflection iss making it personal. The Indian idea is that of harum scarum. He is regarded as a foil to Manabozho, with whom he is frequently brought in contact in aboriginal ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... with a strong, rising inflection on the "los." And at that he drew his overcoat, which apparently had been thrown across his shoulders, high above his head and down over it, as if he were cold. I can see the silhouette of that coat against the stars now. Of course I could have been in the hole no longer than fifteen seconds, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... her daughter's tone an apology for something. Quick suspicion took the place of reproval. "And what were you doing in the Church?"—with a rising inflection. ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... It is the third person plural, in the sixth "transition," of the Algonkin word mowa, which means "to eat," but which is only used of food that has had life. Literally it means "they eat them;" but the force of the verb and of the pronominal inflection suffices to give to the word, when used as an appellative, the meaning of "those who eat men," or, in other words, "the Cannibals." That the English, with whom the Caniengas were always fast friends, should have adopted this uncouth ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... speaking, the soothing inflection of her trade: she seemed to disdain to cajole or trick the sufferer. Her full young voice kept its cool note of authority, her sympathy revealing itself only in the expert touch of her hands and the constant vigilance ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... she doesn't," replied Aunt Hannah, with a curious inflection. "But don't you see, William, that all this isn't going to quite do? Billy's ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... subject of conversation, watching her placid face, wondered whether it were possible for any emotion ever to disturb that calm exterior. Presently she resumed her subject, speaking in low, even tones, which a slight, gentle inflection now and then just ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... all through the day, and shortly after he awoke Sherburne and two other officers, their horses splashed with mud, rode up to the hunting lodge. Jackson was standing in the door, and with a rising inflection he uttered one word: ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... every inflection of Mrs. Somers' voice, and every turn of her countenance, perceived that these words of praise were accompanied with strong feelings of displeasure. She was much embarrassed, especially as her friend ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... the faintest suggestion of the derisive inflection. After all, it might have been but a mannerism. The man had such a mild face and such a ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... to remember the long response. "Well," I must begin, in a doubtful drawl, every word and changing inflection his own, as I had been taught, "I wouldn't go quite t' the length o' that. Ol' Nicholas Top wouldn't claim it hisself. Ol' Nicholas Top on'y claims that he's good at standin' by. His cronies do 'low that he can't ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... Her eyes were very large and of a deep violet All these charms of dress and face and colour I could have gallantly withstood, but the voice of her settled my business at once. Its rich, full tone, its soft, appealing inflection, the pretty foreign accent with which she then chose to speak English—I can hear them now. I have always been sensitive to beautiful voices, and Madame Gilbert's voice is beyond comparison the most beautiful ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... never for a moment lost sight of the nest and the plump gray figure of his little mate. As she brooded over her eggs, he brooded over her; and that she might realize the depth and constancy of his devotion, he told her repeatedly, with every tender inflection he could throw into his tones, that she ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... eagerly for each movement of the eyelids, and the seductive rise and fall of her bosom as she breathed. Sometimes he fancied, suiting the tenor of his thoughts, that he could see a meaning in the expression of the eyes and the imperceptible inflection of the lips. Every gesture betrayed to him the soul, every motion a new aspect of the young girl. If a thought stirred those mobile features, if a sudden blush suffused the cheeks, or a smile brought life into the face, he found a fresh delight ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... repeated, with a rising inflection. "Why, I thought we were going to live on game,—birds and buffalo and the like! Side-meat? Well, ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... in love with Walter Dinsmore's protegee, Mona Montague," she at last remarked, with a bitter inflection. ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and intelligence may be reflected in their clothes, but only as such differences would be apparent in real life. Indeed, the aim today is to mimic reality in externals, precisely as the real characters themselves are impersonated in every shade of thought and artistic inflection of speech. There are, to be sure, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... —One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, One trivial letter ruins all, left out; A knot can change a felon into clay, A not will save him, spelt without the k; The smallest word has some unguarded spot, And danger lurks in i ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... The man's musical inflection jarred on Gifford, who began to wonder whether their companion could be a professional singer. One of their own class he ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... strode away from his interview with Patience deeply occupied with tumultuous reflections, not seeing the beauties of Millville which, but a short time before, he had been enthusiastically celebrating. He was, in fact, a young man walking in a dream. Every word the girl had uttered, every inflection of her voice, the involuntary confession of affection won from her by his own no less sudden avowal of love, projected themselves against his excited mind with all the vividness of kinetoscope pictures. He was very happy with these reflections that come to the youth in love when a familiar voice ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... said with a slightly rising inflection, the secondary as a mere statement of fact. For instance, suppose you say, "Are you there?" and then "It is raining!" Use the same inflection exactly and say, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... said, "Miss Allan?" with the usual dreadful interrogative inflection, and Lila shook her head. She slid back into her seat with her ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... on a key of spontaneous apology, with a very zealous inflection of concern—yet, at the same time, with a kind of entirely respectful and amiable abruptness, as of one hailing a familiar friend,—were pronounced in a breath by a ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... born of her own rejected passion, which caused her to read in the beautiful girl's face all that lay hidden behind the pale, impassive mask. That same second sight made her understand Merlin's hints and allusions. She caught every inflection of his voice, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... place within the chamber, and to which we of the biped race attach so awful an importance, lay a large gray cat, curled in a ball, and dozing with half-shut eyes, and ears that now and then denoted, by a gentle inflection, the jar of a louder or nearer sound than usual upon her lethargic senses. The dying woman did not at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or the female at the foot of the bed, but she turned herself round towards the child, and grasping ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Destruction refers to the conquest of desire and attachments, i.e., renunciation of all attractive things. Certainty means the unalterable belief that what is said about yoga in the Vedas and by preceptors is true. The nom. sing. inflection stands for the instrumental plural. Eyes include the other senses. All these should be restrained. Food means pure food. Suppression refers to the subjugation of our natural inclination towards earthly objects. Mind here has reference to the regulation of the will and its reverse, viz., irresolution. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... him Mr. Ryan and addressed him as Casey Ryan instead, with a little teasing inflection in her voice. Once Casey happened to mention Lund, and when he saw her look of surprise he explained that he drove a stage out of ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... unnecessary, for Bob won his way quite as uncontestedly with the little inventor as with Celestina. There was no question that his aunt was delighted with him. One could read it in her affectionate touch on his arm; in her soft, nervous laughter; in the tremulous inflection of her ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Inflection. Change in the form of a word to show a modification or shade of meaning. At a very early period in our language there was a separate form for practically every modification. Although separate forms are now less numerous, inflection ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... that it was in her interest that he had come, but an instinct stronger than her will forced her to continue improvising the words of her part, and it was her pleasure to provide it with suitable gesture, expression of face, and inflection of voice. She could hear the fiddles in the ball- room, and wished the wall away, and the company ranged behind a curtain. And, as these desires crossed her mind, she pitied poor Harold with his one idea, 'how he may serve me.' When she came ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... see,' 'I can see,' have sometimes been considered as a variety of mood, to which the name 'Potential' is given. But this can not properly be maintained. There is no trace of any inflection corresponding to this meaning, as we find with the subjunctive. Moreover, such a mood would have itself to be subdivided into indicative and subjunctive forms: 'I may go,' 'if I may go.' And further, we might proceed to constitute other moods on the same ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... Riding Hood's flowers, the splendor of the Prince's ball in Cinderella—these when perceived distinctly are intelligible, and when perceived delightfully are beautiful. Language is a kind of music, too; the mode of speaking, the sound of letters, the inflection of the voice—all are elements of beauty. But this material beauty is tied up in close association with things "eye hath not seen nor ear heard," the moral beauty of the good and the message of the true. ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... of the Imperial Military Police," said the Countess, in a clear voice, ending with that slightly rising inflection which demands an answer. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... game of grab—see?" he went on, with a new inflection of intimacy in his murmur. He was looking ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Lily, too, and failed. She had been very gentle over the telephone, but, attuned as he was to every inflection of her voice, he had thought there was unhappiness in it. Almost despair. But she had pleaded a week ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... noticeable difference in his delivery when he read the lessons after his visit. We all observed it, and some of the old-fashioned people thought that he was going to intone—to which there was a strong objection—but his efforts not carrying him beyond a peculiar rising inflection towards the middle of a verse, and a remarkable lingering fall into deep bass at the end, we soon regarded it as a praiseworthy attempt to give variety to his previous vapid utterances, and came rather ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... a satiric inflection. "Well, why in the name of common sense didn't you say so at first? I do not know, however, that I can positively get you an appointment today. You must not mind if His Lordship keeps you waiting for a few minutes if he happens to be talking with the Czar of Russia on the long-distance telephone. ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... manipulation is ingenious; observe the variety obtained by the striking dynamic changes from ff to pp; and, hand in hand with these, the changes from major to minor, and back (as shown by the inflection of b-flat to b-double-flat). These are first applied to members only, of the Antecedent, as indicated by the brackets a and b, and then to the entire Consequent phrase. Observe, also, that in the repeated form of ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... the language, if I may so call them, at once saw that it belongs to the great South African family Sichwana, Zulu, Kisawahili, Mbundo (Congoese), Fiote, and others, whose characteristics are polysyllabism, inflection by systematic prefixes, and an alliteration, the mystery of whose reciprocal letters is theoretically explained by a euphony in many cases unintelligible, like the modes of Hindu music, to the European ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the oldest of the Onondagas, walked back and forth in the space between the two groups, chanting a welcome. Like all Indian songs it was monotonous. Every line he uttered with emphasis and a rising inflection, the phrase "Haih-haih" which may be translated "Hail to thee!" or better, "All hail!" Nevertheless, under the moonlight in the wilderness and with rapt faces about him, it was deeply impressive. ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... it?" ejaculated Ree with an inflection of contempt in his voice; but the next instant the intruder's hands were about ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... look in his eyes as he raised his head her own widened, and she withdrew from him imperceptibly, dismissing him with a mere inflection. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... would have to say "the man, he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case, purposely, killed, by shooting an arrow, he, the one animate, sitting, in the objective case." "For the form of the verb to kill would have to be selected, and the verb changes its form by inflection, and by incorporated particles, to denote person, number and gender, as animate or inanimate, as standing, sitting ...
— The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages • Andrew Woods Williamson
... my dear, South America!" came flatly upon her announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, for he added hastily, with happier effect: "It's a wonderful chance, dearest, isn't it?" His voice by then had gained in heartiness, and his smile, always worshipful when turned on her, contained this time something of apology. So close were they, though, in thought, spoken ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... unexpected that Jerry found himself on the verge of tears one moment, and the next something she would say, some odd look or quaint inflection would compel his laughter again. He had a mental picture of "MICHAEL," the pet of Peg's home, submitting to the indignity of companionship with mere horses. Small wonder he was snapping at Ethel's ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... the curious inflection in that laugh now. Once before he had heard it—when he courted Florry's dead mother; and his old heart swelled a little with pain at the remembrance. He was wondering just what to do about that laugh when ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... good do they think that will do them?" Mrs. Oglethorpe's face and inflection betrayed no ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... patiently," she begins, "to all that you have said." (The devil himself could not deny this. "Patience" hardly seems the word. "Enthusiastically" she might almost have said). "Now"—with rising inflection—"you listen ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... watched the affair with amusement, although Mr. Clark's friends adopted an inflection of voice in speaking to him which reminded him strongly of funerals. Mr. Tucker's week was up, but the landlord of the George was responsible for the statement that he had postponed ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... several subjects which I thought might interest her, but could obtain little other response than "Yes," with a faint rising inflection. After one of these unsuccessful attempts I detected a slight, peculiar smile on Miss Warren's face. It was a mischievous light in her dark eyes more than anything else. As she met my puzzled look it vanished instantly, and she turned away. Everything in my training and calling stimulated ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... enunciated distinctly, with a rising inflection at the end, and in such manner that the command of execution ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... the slight change of inflection as she said "the packer" had not quite the effect she had intended. Stirling himself had once labored with his hands, and, what was more, afterward had a good deal to bear on that account. He was not particularly vindictive, but ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... go, but a slight sound came from the lake, and he stayed. It was merely the cry of the night bird, calling to its mate, one would have said, but Robert's attention was attracted by an odd inflection in it, a strain that seemed familiar. He listened with the utmost attention, and when it came a second time, he was so sure that his pulses ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Connors, flushing a little. "But, for God's sake, are you going to sit here like a wart on a dead dog an' wait for 'em?" he demanded with a rising inflection. "Do you reckon yo're running a dance, or a party, or ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... monsieur—bon soir, madame." Not an inflection was changed, not a note was altered. The firm hand of necessity had wound them up day after day, all those three years, and they had ticked together and tocked together to the swing of the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... master of the anecdote this generation has known. He claimed the humorous story as an American invention, and one that has remained at home. His public speeches were little mosaics in the finesse of their art; and the intricacies of inflection, insinuation, jovial innuendo which Mark Twain threw into his gestures, his implicative pauses, his suggestive shrugs and deprecative nods—all these are hopelessly volatilized and disappear entirely from the printed ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... these two aids to the eye is robbed of his rightful clues to the construction of the verse. It seems hardly possible that a poem could have been read aloud from an ancient manuscript, at sight, with proper inflection; yet this is just what printing can make possible for the modern reader. It has not usually done so, for the printer has been very conservative; he has taken his conception of a page from prose, and, ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... primary facts upon which rests intelligibility in reading are emphasis and inflection. Let it be said at the start that no one can read well who has not thoroughly mastered the thought in the selection he is rendering. If he is compelled to search his mind for the meanings of words or to grasp the complete idea of a sentence, he ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Spanish, could now be heard, and, from the inflection, the boys judged that whoever was talking was ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... of the teacher in each case, they must be taught what the reading or other subject is for. They must gradually get a fair idea, for instance, of what good reading is, and realize that it includes pleasant tones, a careful grouping of words, much inflection of voice, and clear enunciation of final consonants. As they become acquainted with this standard in reading, they will readily learn to overlook such details as have little ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... told the truth," he said maliciously, "I guess the lady has pretty near evened things up. If you haven't—if I don't find them both at the hotel—well—Anyway," he added, with an ominous inflection, "there'll be other ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... call you?" This was said with a contemptuous, rasping inflection that irritated the new scholar. His eyes twinkled, partly with annoyance ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... imprisoned within a circle in which the phantoms of all his sensations in presence of this woman surged and wheeled around him. Suddenly there would emerge from this tangle of memory, with singular precision, some phrase of hers, an inflection of her voice, an attitude, a glance, the seat where they had sat, the finale of the Beethoven sonata, a burst of melody from Mary Dyce, the face of the footman who had held back the portiere—anything that happened to have caught ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... handsome lad this time last week, with naturally curly hair," remarked the lady. She spoke with a rising inflection, suggestive ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... caresses the unequal heads of children, is this rhythm the law; and grace and strength are inflections thereof. All human movement is a variation upon symmetry, and without symmetry it would not be variation; it would be lawless, fortuitous, and as dull and broadcast as lawless art. The order of inflection that is not infraction has been explained in a most authoritative sentence of criticism of literature, a sentence that should save the world the trouble of some of its futile, violent, and weak experiments: "Law, the rectitude of humanity," says Mr Coventry Patmore, "should be the ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... brain as on a pivot. The drawing-room had not only been transformed into a study; it had been rechristened 'the study.' And in speaking of the apartment to each other or to Sarah, Mrs. Knight and Aunt Annie employed a vocal inflection of peculiar impressiveness. Sarah entered the study with awe, the ladies with pride. Henry sat in it nearly every night and laboured hard, with no result whatever. If the ladies ventured to question him about his progress, he replied with false gaiety that they must ask him again ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... lowering her voice to a compassionate inflection. "Poor boy! he has neither father nor mother! He is entirely dependent upon me. Out of my salary I have paid his expenses ever since I ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... she differs from the Parisiennes only in the greater delicacy of her lithe beauty, her innocence which is not ignorance, and her French pronunciation; if in London, she differs from English girls only in the matter of rosy cheeks and the rising inflection. Should none of these fortunate transplantings befall her, she always merits them by adorning with grace and industry and intelligence the narrower sphere to which ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... office, and in addition he knew the different cockney voices of all the rabble of the London streets. He had learnt to know the queer types of people who drifted about the river banks and the poorer sections of the city. He knew every small inflection of their voices and their every trick and gesture, and now he acted them out to the great delight of the other clerks. But he could put his powers of mimicry to greater uses. He went to the theatre, particularly to hear Shakespeare's ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... hard as I pronounce it. And so with a great many other words, that are softened and sweetened, and made almost poetical in their sound by the least bit of inflection. How surprised and pleased English ladies would be to hear you speak! Oh, I beg your pardon—I did not mean ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... The inflection of his tone was instantly noticed. "Oh, I say, Weeden, how do you know? Do tell me. I won't say a word, I promise." But the Head Gardener kept his one eye—the other was of glass—upon the spout of his watering-can, and answered in a voice that issued from his ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... rewards you. I'll see you get well paid," she promised, and the inflection of the words ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... good-looking young woman, with large, dark eyes, a profusion of dark hair, a low forehead, and healthy strawberry-and-cream complexion, she was personally attractive, and wonderfully effective. Every movement, gesture, and inflection of voice had been carefully studied, and when making an ordinary remark in conversation she would deliver her words with a deliberate attempt at stage effect. Her Juliet with her father's Romeo, was her best character, but they ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... when plain, and the same consonant when aspirated, has been easily traced thus far. This distinction readily discovers itself, not only in the pronunciation and orthography, but also (as will be seen in its proper place) throughout the system of inflection. It takes place uniformly in those consonants which have been already considered. With respect to the remaining linguals, l, n, r, a corresponding distinction will be found to take place ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... the visitors, the most capable of estimating the underlying significance of tone and inflection, was Lefty Werner. The other two, maintaining their usual expression of phlegmatic and stubborn sullenness, left the delivery of their message to him, the glibbest talker. And plainly he had taken a dislike to it. A wild and fleeting wish that civilisation ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... they talked in a low voice I could hear nothing of what they said. Nothing except one phrase, which the strange man repeated twice, very emphatically. 'Tomorrow night,' he said, and I noticed that his voice had not the Highland inflection which I looked for. Gresson nodded and glanced at his watch, and then the two began to move downhill towards the road I had ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... about this furnace you call a city, Mr. Renault," she said, with a pretty inflection of voice that flattered; and so I went over beside her, and, leaning there on the cupola rail together, we explored the damaged city from our bird's perch above it—the city that I had come to care for strangely, nay, to love almost as I loved my Mohawk hills. For it is that way with New York, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... speech with so disagreeable an inflection that Arved was astonished. He looked around and spat at ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... lots more'n that," the soft little voice, with its gay, courageous inflection, went on. "She's twenty. Isn't that old? You aren't much different of that, are you?" and the heavy, cropped, straight gold mass of her hair swung sideways as she turned her face up to scrutinize the ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... such a strong inflection of triumphant joy in Miss Clegg's voice as she called the momentous news to her friend that it would have been at once—and most truthfully—surmised that the getting of Hiram had been a more ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... creep as of some live horror over her very soul. Her flesh prickled with cold, before an inflection of his voice. She ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... thing that is lacking is sentence accent and variety in the inflection of phrases. Miss Keller pronounces each word as a foreigner does when he is still labouring with the elements of a sentence, or as children sometimes read in school when they have to pick ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... she was a worshipper, and could not at that early age even let Greek alone. Her wonderful power of seizing on the genius of a language, and becoming for the time a foreigner in spirit, was noticed by all her teachers; her ear was so delicate that no subtile inflection ever escaped her, nor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... of that," he answered, "and there seems to me only one of two things to do—either move into civilization, or import a pedagogue." A pause, and a whimsical inflection came into his voice. "Unfortunately, however, neither plan seems exactly practical at ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... muster, and releasing his passive prisoner, pushed her gently into the safe-keeping of the old cniht. Yet he was not so obtuse as to step back, as though the incident were closed; he read the King's inflection more correctly than that. Holding himself somewhat stiff in the tenseness of his feelings, he stood his ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... like a sheep's, but she gave no impression of foolishness, rather of extreme alertness; she had the quick movements of a bird. The most remarkable thing about her was her voice, high, metallic, and without inflection; it fell on the ear with a hard monotony, irritating to the nerves like the pitiless clamour of ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... contempt for any sort of manual labour, even to the saddling of the pony he was about to ride; and now and always by an affectation of proper English, which, while successful as to grammar and accentuation, did not escape the ludicrous in a certain stiltedness of tone and inflection, from which intrusion of the would-be gentleman, his father, a simple, old-fashioned man, shrank with more of dislike than he was willing to ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Mrs. Churchill," protested the girl. Her voice showed that she was very tired, but her inflection was as cheerful as ever. With a hot soapstone at her feet, a hot-water bag in her lap and Charlotte's arm about her, she leaned back on the fur-clad shoulder beside her and rejoiced. One thing was certain. She had had a real Northern good time, with an ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... tone and inflection of these words than by the phrases themselves, Thorpe divined that he was being offered the hand of the Hon. Winifred Plowden in marriage. He recalled vividly the fact that once the shadow of some such thought had floated through his own brain; there ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... English is the most concise and laconic of the great languages. Greek, French and German are all more expansive, more syllabically copious. Latin alone may be said to equal, or surpass English in concentration, because, although Latin words are longer on the average, by their greater inflection they cover a larger number of English words. This power of English to attain expression with a minimum expenditure of energy in written speech is one of its chief claims to succeed Latin as the auxiliary international language. But it furnishes no claim to preference for actual ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... a dry inflection. "I saw that they were upper incisors. How did this come about? An ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... a difference of four inches in their respective heights; Westonley being six feet two inches. He knew by the inflection of the big man's voice that he had become a much happier man within the last ten minutes, and the knowledge of it gave ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... with blundering?" she echoed; and the inflection of the pronoun might have flattered him had he not reflected that it was impossible she could have understood his allusion. And now she bethought her that she had not thanked him—and the debt was a heavy one. He had come to her aid in an hour when hope seemed dead. He had come ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... Crapps took on a more persuasive inflection as she delivered this peroration; and it was easy to see that she had affected the nerves if not the minds of her audience. There was a deep hush as she concluded. She lifted for a moment her sharp black eyes toward heaven, and then dropped her glance to earth, as if overcome by feeling, or ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... was deaf to the warning. Deborah's voice had but reminded him of Deborah's presence. Its tone had escaped him. He was too engrossed in the purpose he had in mind to notice shades of inflection. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... peculiar inflection of the voice, for though he could forgive the woman now, he could not forget his resentment towards the man who had supplanted him. "For your ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... mistaken," she said gravely, with that quaintest inflection of the English he had ever heard, "yes, mistaken. He mais—but it is just that the complaint. You ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... James with an inflection of command in his voice. "Go to the other section of the ship if you don't want to listen. He has to keep going over it, just like Ross has to ...
— Homesick • Lyn Venable
... Bullions, with a strange blunder of some sort in almost every sentence, propounds and defends his opinion on this subject thus: "Numeral adjectives, being also names of numbers, are often used as nouns, and so have the inflection and construction of nouns: thus, by twos, by tens, by fifties. Two is an even number. Twice two is four. Four is equal to twice two. In some arithmetics the language employed in the operation of multiplying—such ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... that none of these troubles afflicted Lady Maud, and when he spoke to her now and then, between the acts, she felt his sympathy for her in every word and inflection. ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... he hears himself screech. His harsh, shrill call, louder and more disagreeable than the kingbird's, cannot but rasp his ears as it does ours. And yet it is chiefly by this piercing note, given with a rising inflection, that we know the bird is in our neighborhood; for he is somewhat of a recluse, and we must often follow the disagreeable noise to its source in the tree-tops before we can catch a glimpse of the screecher. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... catch him," Frank commented. "He has stolen the car, for one thing..." his inflection implied that catching Banks might be only the beginning of ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... admire her collection of shells; and since then every noon and night he found her waiting here by her gate to speak to him; and she invariably asked the same question about his wife, always in the same tone, always with the same inflection. The meeting with her had become one of the frightfully unvarying things of his day. As he walked on now, he saw stretching before him an interminable vista of days, weeks, years—one deadly sameness of hard ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Chiara was added that closer sympathy produced by the sense of isolation. They were enclosed in their common risk as in some secret meeting-place where no consciousness of the outer world intruded; and though their talk kept the safe level of their immediate concerns he felt the change in every inflection of Fulvia's voice and in the subtler emphasis of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton |
