"Vibration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rushing bareheaded to the footlights, he stands a few moments amid the roars of the house, snorting with rage and choking with passion. Like Burleigh's nod, Handel's wig seemed to have been a sure guide to his temper. When things went well, it had a certain complacent vibration; but when he was out of humor, the wig indicated the fact in a very positive way. The Princess of Wales was wont to blame her ladies for talking instead of listening. "Hush, hush!" she would say. "Don't you see ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... everything was almost back to normal. The other selves had vanished. Only the constant throbbing vibration of the ship remained; yet it was a discomfort that had to be endured for four solid straight weeks now. There was no other means known, by which a man-made vessel could travel faster ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... sandy ooze, and I held the line in one hand, there was a slight vibration of the lead, but it passed away again, and I fished, to pull up again at the end of a few minutes ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... pounced upon the image that filled Fitzpiers's half-awakened soul—wherein there had been a picture of a recent interview on a lawn with a capriciously passionate woman who had begged him not to come again in tones whose vibration incited him to disobey. "What are you doing here? Why do you pursue me? Another belongs to you. If they were to see you they would seize you as a thief!" And she had turbulently admitted to his wringing questions that her visit ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... service. In 1915, his volume of poems, Sappho in Leukas, attracted immediately the attention of discriminating critics. The prologue shows that noble devotion to art, that high faith in it, entirely beyond the understanding of the Philistine, but which awakens an instant and accurate vibration in the heart ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... him that I believed that I could sing as loudly as he. He never said a word, but at once let out his whole voice in a tremendous aria. I clapped my hands to my ears; I verily believed that he would shatter the windows! I have heard of a singer who actually broke a goblet by vibration, and I now believe that it is possible. I was once shown in the Hague Museum a goblet which rang marvellously in accompaniment when one sang to it, and have met with ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... picture as the Louvre "Pastoral Symphony" fails utterly to convey the sense of exhilaration one feels in presence of the actual painting, simply because the tonic effect of the colour is wholly wanting. The golden shimmer of light, the vibration of the air, the saturation of atmosphere with pure colour are not only ingredients in, but are of the very essence of the creation. It has been well said that almost literally the chief colour on Giorgione's palette was sunlight.[146] His masterly treatment of light and shadow, ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... whispered. It was like the far-off murmur of a gigantic caldron, softly a-boil—a dull vibration that seemed to reach us through the ground as well as ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... the bedsteads and chairs—sometimes of the floor; a motion which was quite perceptible to the touch when a hand was laid on the chairs, which was sometimes sensibly felt at night in the slightly oscillating motion of the bed, and which was occasionally perceived as a sort of vibration even when standing on the floor. After a time also, the noises varied in their character, sounding occasionally like distinct footfalls in ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... see are dependent upon the vibration frequency of the ether. The higher frequencies give us the colors blue and green, and the lower frequencies give us the colors yellow and red. The intermediate frequencies give us the intermediate colors blue-green and orange. By vibration frequencies is meant the ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... at her with his big brown eyes. He was thrilling with the vibration of her voice and the touch of her hand on ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... any delusion of the senses that caused this unparalleled spectacle. I was familiar with the phenomena of the mirage, and knew well that there was nothing of that kind here; for the mirage always shows great surfaces of stillness, or a regular vibration—glassy tides and indistinct distances; but here everything was sharply defined in the clear atmosphere: the sky overhung a deep blue vault; the waves danced and sparkled in the sun; the waters rolled and foamed on every side; and the fresh breeze, as it blew over the ocean, ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... fish are very fond of resorting, probably to feed upon the insects that are found upon the tender leaves; in moving about from one place to another they strike against the reeds, and produce a vibration in the tops above the water; this indicates to the native, who is sailing stealthily along in his canoe, the exact place where they are passing, and suddenly raising his arm with great energy he strikes forcibly among the reeds with his spear, without letting it go out of his ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the door, trembling. It seemed strange to him that his nerves only, and not his mind, should feel. — In moments of unusual excitement, it sometimes happens that the only consciousness a strong man has of emotion, lies in an unwonted physical vibration, the mind itself refusing to be disturbed. It is, however, but a seeming: the emotion is so deep, that consciousness can lay hold of its physical result only. — The cottage looked the same as ever, only the ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... being alternately 1/32 smaller than the block outside and 1/32 larger than the bush in the hole. One broad washer at the end holds the bearings central. These washers are pressed together by a spiral spring, N, and nut, and, by friction against each other, steady or damp any vibration in the spindle that may be set up by want of balance or other cause at the high rate of speed that is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... magnificent chambers for the camarilla, the secretaries, and body-guard of the emperor. The whole is admirably arranged for convenience and comfort; and it is said that the motion, when the convoy is under way, is so soft and dreamy that it is scarcely possible to feel a vibration, the effect being as if the cars were floating through the air, or drawn over tracks of down. Fully equal to this, yet more subdued and delicate in the drapery and coloring, are the apartments of the empress. Here it may truly be said is "the poetry of motion" realized—saloons ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... was heard, and something dark rose up before them. It might be the hull of some vessel, that was approaching an ark of safety. This thought was the first that crossed them. But they felt a sudden shock and a vibration, as though their ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... this "only" greeted with laughter and innuendoes. Time passed on. The ringing vibration of the clock was at hand; the hour ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... he began, with a slight vibration in his usual dominant accents, "you have lately put me under a sense of personal obligation for a favor which I felt I could accept without derogation from a younger man, because it seemed to be one not only of youthful generosity ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... of a solid black mass looming in front of the bull's-eye window. An instant later the submarine came to a jarring stop, as if she had struck some soft, yielding substance. There was a confused shouting throughout the craft, the noise of machinery, a trembling and vibration, and then ominous quiet. ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... to me that the mere touching of this poetic height—the mere feat of causing this most exquisite vibration in the human nerves—gives a poem a quality and a rank apart; a quality and a rank not secured to 'Autumn' by all its excellence of expression. I grant, of course, that it takes two to produce this thrill—the reader as well as the poet. And if any man object to me that he, for ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sensation as if air passed through it into my throat. It seemed as if a bubble of air, formed deep in my ear, swelled, and burst there. The indescribable tension of my brain seemed all at once to give way; there was an odd humming in my head, and a sort of vibration through every nerve of my body, such as I have experienced in a limb that has been, in popular phraseology, asleep. I uttered a cry and half rose from my seat, and then fell back trembling, and with a sense of ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... with the study and development of the Harmony of Music, we of Mars have developed a high spiritual sense, and are able to hear and see many intermediate degrees of vibration that do not exist at all for you. Of course there are some exceptions among the few of your Earth who, after having striven hard for light have been favored by God's angels in the development ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... the Neuhauserstrasse, whatever the name on the street sign, and if you move westward toward the Karlsthor you will come inevitably to the Pschorrbraeu, and within you will find Fraeulein Tilde (to whom my regards), who will laugh at your German with a fine show of pearly teeth and the extreme vibration of her 195 pounds. Tilde, in these godless states, would be called fat. But observe her in the Pschorrbraeu, mellowed by that superb malt, glorified by that consummate kraut, and you will blush to think ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... because you think such ruin easy, and because you understand nothing—far less—of divinity. How could you know? You have not the fiber; the heart of a lady is a blank to you; you know nothing of the vibration. There are some words that were made only to tell of Lady Mary, for her alone—bellissima, divine, glorieuse! Ah, how I have watch' her! It is sad to me when I see her surround' by your yo'ng captains, your nobles, your rattles, your beaux—ha, ha!—and I mus' hol' far aloof. It is sad for me—but ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... with her storied shield, Brave in devices won on many a field; A splendid wreath snatched from the carnage grim Is twined around that buckler's burnished rim, And as we gaze, the brazen trumpets blare With shrill vibration shakes the frightened air— The roll of musketry—the clash of steel— The clang of hoofs as charging squadrons wheel— The hoarse command—the imprecative cry— Swell loud and long, while Fancy's eager eye Sees the stern van move on ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... at this day, when science in all fields is making such progress, why the ordinary music-teacher should have so limited a knowledge of his subject. He should be able to explain the fundamental principles of the different scales upon the theory of vibration, and to so educate the apprehension of his pupils that they will not be content with the imperfect catechisms of the music-books in vogue. And with the adoption of a rational system of writing music, which will reduce the time ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... spasmodic muscles, and echoing hoofs. This speed was incarnated in the visible contagion amongst brutes of some impulse, that, radiating into their natures, had yet its centre and beginning in man. The sensibility of the horse, uttering itself in the maniac light of his eye, might be the last vibration of such a movement; the glory of Salamanca might be the first—but the intervening link that connected them, that spread the earthquake of the battle into the eyeball of the horse, was the heart of man—kindling in the rapture of the fiery strife, and then propagating its own tumults by ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... ready with an answer: "At the final analysis all perception is due to some form of vibration. To be clairaudient is simply to be able to lay hold upon a different set of pulsations in the ether, and to be clairvoyant is to perceive directly without the aid of the eye, which is only a little ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... The Vagabonds of Space are cast into | | the hands of the vibration-maddened | | natives of Titan, satellite of ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... fitly seen against the background of the old wall. As he stood there he was the embodiment of his race, of its history, its fanaticisms, its "great refusals" at once of all mean joys and all new freedoms. To a few chosen notes in the universe, tender response and exquisite vibration—to all others, deaf, hard, insensitive, as the stone ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be a vibration of the hypothetical ether, or a state of tension of that ether equivalent to either a dynamic or a static condition," etc. 3,263. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... extreme weakness. The gymnoti and the torpedos then cause a twitching of the muscles, which is propagated from the part that rests on the electric organs, as far as the elbow. We seem to feel, at every stroke, an internal vibration, which lasts two or three seconds, and is followed by a painful numbness. Accordingly, the Tamanac Indians call the gymnotus, in their expressive language, arimna, which means something that ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... thought and conscious memory are functions one of another, so also are unconscious thought and unconscious memory. Memory is, as it were, the body of thought, and it is through memory that body and mind are linked together in rhythm or vibration; for body is such as it is by reason of the characteristics of the vibrations that are going on in it, and memory is only due to the fact that the vibrations are of such characteristics as to catch on to and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... when suddenly the great brazen gong was loudly struck, and the hard, blatant clatter rent the air of the temple-hall. The mighty waves of sound reverberated from the walls of the sanctuary like the surge of a clangorous sea, and sent their metallic vibration ringing through every room and cell, from the topmost observatory-turret to the deepest vault beneath, calling all who were within the precincts to assemble. The holy places filled at once; the throng poured in through the vestibule, and in a few minutes even the hypostyle, the sanctum of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The vibration of Dahlia's voice went through Rhoda like the heavy shaking of the bell after it had struck, and the room seemed to spin and hum. It was to her but another minute before her sister slid softly into the bed, and they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on Lord Hartfield and walked to the other end of the deck. Something in his face, in the vibration of his deep voice, convinced Hartfield of his truth. A bad man undoubtedly—steeped to the lips in evil—and yet so far true that he had passionately, deeply, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... sides. But, mind you, on no account touch those knobs until the train is moving fast and until you have switched out the lights. If No. 5 was dark when you opened the peep-hole, a ray of light from your side would give the show away. And unless there was a good deal of vibration and rattle in the train you might be heard. Now cut away to No. 6, fasten the door, and go to bed. I shall sit up and watch, but there is nothing for ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... filled his vast lungs with a mighty volume of New England air, set the long brazen trumpet to his lips, and blew such a blast that the led horses of the commissioners started and threw up their heads, and the windows of the court house shook with the strident vibration. Then, taking the paper on which the proclamation was written, and holding it up before him, he proceeded to bellow forth its contents in such stentorian wise that the commissioners might have heard it, had they been on Boston wharf preparing ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... of the head, as well as the dura-matral lining, serves to damp cranial vibration consequent upon concussion; while the sutural isolation of the several component bones of the cranium also prevents, in some degree, the extension of fractures and the vibrations of concussion. The contents of the head, like the contents of all hollow ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... do not possess a TRUE PIANO, just as we do not possess a TRUE FORTE; both are wanting in fulness of tone—to attain which our stringed instruments should watch the tone of the winds. Of course it is easy enough to produce a buzzing vibration by gently passing the bow over the strings; but it requires great artistic command of the breath to produce a delicate and pure tone upon a wind instrument. Players of stringed instruments should copy the full-toned piano of the best winds, and the latter, again, should endeavour ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... obtains still further tension. The other end of the ka is always left open. Across the face of the skin a string is tightly stretched, to which are attached, at intervals of about an inch apart, very short thin fragments of bamboo or cut feather stems. These lend a certain vibration to ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... surfaces; of the savour of kippers cooking over innumerable London grates and the aroma of mugs of beer served out over innumerable London bars; something at once acrid yet genial, suggesting sordidness and unlimited possibility. The vibration of adventure was in it and the sentiment, oddly intermingled, of human solidarity and ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... people in the trees that still held had descended to the ground. The wind had yet again increased. His own tree showed that. It no longer swayed or bent over and back. Instead, it remained practically stationary, curved in a rigid angle from the wind and merely vibrating. But the vibration was sickening. It was like that of a tuning-fork or the tongue of a jew's-harp. It was the rapidity of the vibration that made it so bad. Even though its roots held, it could not stand the strain for long. ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... reach the fish in several ways. There is what we should ourselves call the noise as conveyed by the air, and which in the case of a jack actually at the surface may be supposed to reach him direct. Next there is the vibration passing through the water, which is usually pronounced to be a good medium. Lastly, there is the bodily movement of the substance of the water. When the bank is hard and dry this latter amounts only to a slight shaking, but it frequently happens that the side ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... bird, and listens, standing motionless, the effect on the nerves of hearing is very remarkable, considering the smallness of the sound, which, without being unpleasant, is somewhat similar to that produced by the vibration of the brake of a train; it is not powerful enough to jar the nerves, but appears to pervade the entire system. Lying still, with eyes closed, and three or four of these birds singing near, so that their strains overlap and leave no silent intervals, the listener can imagine ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... in a low voice, but with a strange and subtle vibration in it, as if the passion with which she was struggling threatened to burst forth, "you don't know what you ask; you don't know what love is—and you don't know what I am! I didn't know myself until the last few days; until a gradual light ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... clamped one wrist, and from it swung, at the end of the connecting chain, its unlocked mate; the marks of Dollops' fists were on his lips and cheeks, and at the foot of the case, where the hanging skeleton doddered and shook to the vibration of the floor, lay a ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... me to specify." His playing possessed an exquisite charm. "In his hands the flute," to quote from the tribute paid him by his director, "no longer remained a mere material instrument, but was transformed into a voice that set heavenly harmonies into vibration. Its tones developed colors, warmth, and a low sweetness of unspeakable poetry; they were not only true and pure, but poetic, allegoric as it were, suggestive of the depths and heights of being and of the delights which the earthly ear never ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... The vibration of such ladders of fancy, if ever we put our foot upon them, may render our brains dizzy for ever. Intending to scale Olympus, we reach Bedlam; any distinct feeling of actual desire would have terrified him. He entertained ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... proceeded to apply her eye to the main orifice to see if Peter had damaged it, handling the euphonium in the manner of a telescope. I was thinking of the reproaches in prospect, when I was startled by a loud shriek, to which the euphonium imparted a metallic vibration, and Mrs. Nagsby dropped the instrument on to the floor, the good lady herself following it with a thud. A wee mouse scuttled across her face, disappeared behind the easy chair, and doubtless rejoined his anxious family. Mrs. Nagsby recovered after her maid-of-all-work ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... him as he swam in the starlight a month before. It was this that was reality, and the rest illusion. Here was the end for which man was made, the direct praise of God; here were living souls eager and alert on the business of their existence, building up with vibration after vibration the eternal temple of glory in which God dwelt. Once he began to sing, and then stopped. He would be silent here until his voice had been authorized to join in ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... a deaf person's being roused easily. I know the case of a deaf chap who'd start up at a step or movement in the house when no one else could hear or feel it; keen sense of vibration, I reckon. Well, just at daybreak (to shorten the yarn) the banker woke suddenly, he said, and heard a crack like a shot in the house. There was a loose flooring-board in the passage that went off like a pistol-shot sometimes when you trod ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... voice had a long, profound and passionate vibration. He had not dreamed that such a tone could have been ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... seemed to promise a fair day, but the promise failed, for a mist was forming over the plains. The train was not in sight, and Whitey kneeled, and placed an ear to the track, knowing that he could detect the vibration caused by the ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... The increased vibration in human nature and in the human brain and heart that go with the motor-car habit, the increased speed of the human motor, the gearing up of the central power house in society everywhere is going to make men capable of ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... weariness of his pose and the vibration in his deep voice. She was stirred and interested as she had never been. This dear brother of hers was not wont to care very much. In the past it had always been the women who had sighed and longed and he who had been amused and pleased. ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... Marcus that morning was intensified as the ears rolled on. There is something in the monotonous vibration of the train, and the recurring click of the wheels against the end of the rails, that provokes melancholy. Marcus looked out of the window at the flying landscape, and the distant patches of wood which seemed to be slowly revolving about ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... participate in its inequalities; and surely the incubations of genius, in its delicate and shadowy combinations, are not less sensible in their operation than the composition of sonorous bodies, where, while the warm metal is settling in the mould, even an unusual vibration of the air during the moment of fusion will ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... longer the reaction of these feelings, and the internal vibration of such silence, I called up the women. On entering the room, they broke out into repeated exclamations of surprise at the sight of a resurrection which appeared to them a miracle. At the same moment the doctor made his appearance. He prescribed repose and an infusion ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... encephalograph are placed. When the brain is stimulated into thought, the brain waves are monitored and recorded, amplified, and then fed back to the same brain-spots. Not once, but multifold, like the vibration of a reed or violin string. The circuit that accepts signals, amplifies them, returns them to the same set of terminals, and causes them to be repeated several hundred times per millisecond without actually ringing or oscillating is the real research secret of the machine. My father's ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. What do you see, a harvest of clover? Or a meadow to walk through to the river? The wind's in the corn; you rub ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... the violent movement of the wings would recommence, and finally losing fear, as it were, the ant would let go his hold upon the blade of grass and rise slowly upwards. It could, in fact, scarcely be called flight. The steady vibration of the wings simply bore them upwards, ten, twenty or thirty feet, until they were caught by a breeze, or by the steadier wind that was moving at an elevation equal to the height of the surrounding pine and spruce trees. So far as we were able to discover, their wings were ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... and approach. She stopped a few feet from my chair, and her eyes were intent upon me. Then a light flashed blindingly in the reflecting disk, it went back and forth faster and faster, and I felt a strong vibration of energy pass in a beam through my head, throbbing, throbbing ... darkness engulfed me. It was a darkness that was a black whirlwind of emotion. The sense of the desertion by humankind, by God and mercy and rationality ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... the boat clove her way through the water she seemed to be gliding over a surface of gold, overlaid by some dark sand which was parted as she went by. When we got on board, we found that our shipmates had felt the shock, the vibration of which must have come up as they supposed by the chain cable. For a long time we walked the deck, expecting another shock, but the night passed off quietly, and when morning returned there was nothing to indicate that an earthquake had taken place. I ought to have said that the present ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... flowers and vegetables. The thistle. Its nutritious qualities. Why animals can eat it. The sorrel and the shamrock. Significance of the latter. Vanilla. Smell is vibration. Harmony and discord in odors. What essences are composed of. Preserving seeds for planting. Food elements in vegetables. Surprising increase in their herd of yaks. Investigation. The wild bull. Apollo, the bull of their herd. His absence. The wild bull charging George. Stampede of the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... his foot at last in the country, and as secretly as might be; and all at once his mere presence seemed to revive the buried secret, almost to awake the dead who partook of that secret and had acted it. There was a vibration from the other world, continued and prolonged into this, the instant that he stepped upon the mysterious ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... embittered to him, not only by the internal rebellion of his feelings against the violence which he exercised over them, but by many accidental circumstances, which, in the course of the banquet, and during the subsequent amusements of the evening, jarred upon that nerve, the least vibration ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... destroyer, a poor, fragile tyrant, whom arbitrary decrees protect, but a necessary note of an infinite harmony? To fancy that the law of life is the same in the immensity of space and irradiates worlds as it irradiates cities and as it irradiates ant-hills. To fancy that each vibration in ourselves is the echo of another vibration. To fancy a sole principle, a primordial axiom, to think the universe envelops us as a mother clasps her child in her two arms; and say to one's self, "I belong to it and it to me; it would cease to ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... Johnson, who had lost a child two years before, and who had to be led away, while her place in the set was taken by another. Yet the cotillon passed off; a Spanish dance succeeded; "Moneymusk," with the Virginia Reel, put a slight intoxicating vibration into the air, and healthy youth at last asserted itself in a score of freckled but buxom girls in white muslin, with romping figures and laughter, at the lower end of the room. Still a rigid decorum reigned among the elder dancers, and the figures were ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... purposes of poetry a thought is the representative of many feelings, and a word is the representative of many thoughts. A single word may thus set in motion in us the vibration of a feeling first consigned to letters 3000 years ago. For oratory words should be winged, that they may do their work of persuasion. For poetry words should be freighted, with associations of feeling, that they may awaken sympathy. It is the suggestive ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... be said to be durable, but it requires care. If not of the best, brickwork within the reach of the constant vibration caused by the traffic on a railway seems to be in danger of being shaken to pieces, judging from one or two instances that have come under my own observation. The mortar, and even in some cases the bricks themselves, will rapidly deteriorate if moisture be allowed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... had caved in the head of a tubular boiler with one stroke of his powerful "mawley" (which term is in strict accordance with the language of the ring) the tide of opinion changed again. These changes were frequent, and they kept the minds of the public in such a state of continual vibration that I fear the habit thus acquired is confirmed, and that they will never ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... the savages' action. They were fleeing from an enemy, but it was no human foe. Nature was at work once more. There was a peculiar vibration of the earth, a cracking, rending sound, and the earth opened in a jagged rift which ran on steadily toward the enemy, passing the edge of the forest where the friends lay, and starting the Papuans on again ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... could hear the measured tread of a squad overhead tramping away until the thump, thump, thumping sank into a faint indistinct vibration which was caught up by the beating of our hearts and the throbbing of our fascinated and incredulous ears.... 'Well!' ejaculated my amused 'prisoner'; 'It'll be exceedingly interesting to read the future accounts of my double execution. I am sure my family will read it with greater interest ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... will always be spring's dearest herald. When this soft, mellow sound floats from the nearest fence post, it seems to thaw something out of our ears; from this instant winter seems on the defensive; the crisis has come and gone in an instant, in a single vibration of the air. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... of all things—the "first form of Brahman." It is the measure of time and space; it lurks in the heart-beat and is blazoned upon the starred canopy of night. Substance, in a state of vibration, in other words conditioned by number, ceaselessly undergoes the myriad transmutations which produce phenomenal life. Elements separate and combine chemically according to numerical ratios: "Moon, plant, gas, crystal, are ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... increase the rapidity of wave vibration and decrease the wave length we pass from, sound waves to heat waves or what are known as the infra-red waves, those which lie below the red in the spectrum of light. Next we come to light, which is composed of the seven colors as you know from seeing them resolved in a prism. After that are ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... gnarled finger into the loop of the bell-pull and yanked upward viciously. A dull clang sounded far below. He pulled again and the vibration ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... whereby more of the energy is converted into heat instead of being spent in overcoming the inertia of the barrel to give recoil. Similarly when smokeless powder is fired in a gun, the displacement of the air is so sudden that the sound waves do not possess the same amplitude of recoil or vibration as is given ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... flight is almost exactly like that of a quail or partridge—flight, I must say; for, in spite of all that has been learnedly written to the contrary, it was too difficult as yet for the English sportsmen on board to believe that their motion was not a true flight, aided by the vibration of the wings, and not a mere impulse given (as in the leap of the salmon) by a rush under water. That they can change their course at will is plain to one who looks down on them from the lofty deck, and still more from the paddle- box. The length of the flight seems too great to be attributed ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... their welfare. The attraction of reason is at present for the other side of the water, but that of inclination will be for this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but this one vibration and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me, especially if we have a peace." Apparently the Americans owe a great debt of gratitude to Mrs. Franklin's fearfulness ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... exhibit their plumes. On one of these trees a dozen or twenty full-plumaged male birds assemble together, raise up their wings, stretch out their necks, and elevate their exquisite plumes, keeping them in a continual vibration. Between whiles they fly across from branch to branch in great excitement, so that the whole tree is filled with waving plumes in every variety of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... corresponded to a granule of starch in the crackers, he was able to figure that the ego which saw those parts of the crackers was about one thousandth of an inch large. "The fact of seeing in dreams is due to vital force, the peculiar low speed to the high vibration force of living albuminoids emitted from every tendril of bioplasm and perceived by the eye of the ego-bion during its visit." "Within the ego-bion is the ego itself, which is much simpler looking, about one hundredth of a micromillimeter." I do not want to go into details of ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... seat. So I accelerated the motor and raised very slightly our rear elevating plane. And then we felt we were off the ground! There was no longer any sensation of our contact with the earth—no jolting, no vibration. In a moment or so, it seemed, the monoplane was passing through the air at a height of about 30 feet. This, to our inexperienced eyes, appeared a very great altitude; and I made up my mind at once to descend. This manoeuvre, that of making contact with the ground after ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... genius with a Colt .45, he was well known along the border for his dare-devil exploits and reckless courage. The brainiest men in the Secret Service, Lewis, Thomas, Sayre, and even old Jim Lane, the local chief, whose fingers at El Paso felt every vibration along the Rio Grande, were not as well known—except to those who had seen the inside of Government penitentiaries—and they were quite satisfied to be so eclipsed. But the Service knew of the ghost, as it knew everything pertaining to the border, ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... two hundred yards to a metal door. They opened it, pushed Murphy inside, banged it shut. Murphy felt the vibration through his shoes, heard a gradually waxing hum. His gauge showed an outside pressure of 5, 10, 12, 14, 14.5. An inner door opened. Hands pulled Murphy in, unclamped ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... muscles, relieved of all fatigue, and with the extensors more relaxed than the flexors, are undergoing repair of structure, and recruiting their excitability; and the voluntary nervous system, dead for the time to the external vibration, or, as the older men called it, 'stimulus' from without, is also undergoing rest and repair, so that, when it comes again into work, it may receive better the impressions it may have to gather up, and influence more ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... succession exactly alike. They may sound very similar, but there is a difference quite perceptible to the highly trained ear. When a singer starts a phrase a certain amount of motive power is required to set the vocal apparatus in vibration. After the first note has been attacked with the full force of the breath, there is naturally not so much weight or pressure left for the following notes. It is, however, possible for the second note to be as loud, or even louder, than the first note. But in order to obtain the ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... with its celestial keys, Its chords of air, its frets of fire, The Samian's great Aeolian lyre, Rising through all its sevenfold bars, From earth unto the fixed stars. And through the dewy atmosphere, Not only could I see, but hear, Its wondrous and harmonious strings, In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, From Dian's circle light and near, Onward to vaster and wider rings, Where, chanting through his beard of snows, Majestic, mournful Saturn goes, And down the sunless realms of space Reverberates the thunder ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... gentle jolt, a faint grinding sound, a vibration increasing. Lighted lanterns, red and green, glided ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... vehicles were not permitted in the streets and highways on those days. Soldiers passing through the streets on service carried their guns with the muzzles pointing to the ground. The church bells were tolled with muffled hammers; hence, the vibration of the metal being checked, the peal sounded like the beating of so many tin cans. The shops were closed, and, so far as was practicable, every outward appearance of care for worldly concerns was extinguished, whilst it was customary for ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... whole heavens towards the south-east and west appeared to irradiate a soft grey-tinted light with a quivering motion. As the day was calm, the hum produced by the vibration of so many millions of wings was quite indescribable, and was more like what people call a ringing in one's ears than any other sound that ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... sound had died away, oddly satisfied in his memory. The clock had a peculiar chime, a rather elaborate one, ending inconclusively on the dominant and followed after an unusually long interval by the stroke of the hour itself. Not until its last vibration had become too subtle for his ear had Romarin resumed the occupation that the pealing of the hour ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Fresnel and Arago Conception of Wave-motion Interference of Waves Constitution of Sound-waves Analogies of Sound and Light Illustrations of Wave-motion Interference of Sound Waves Optical Illustrations Pitch and Colour Lengths of the Waves of Light and Rates of Vibration of the Ether-particles Interference of Light Phenomena which first suggested the Undulatory Theory Boyle and Hooke The Colours of thin Plates The Soap-bubble Newton's Rings Theory of 'Fits' Its Explanation of ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... transparent. Above me was the calm surface of the sea. We were walking on fine, even sand, not wrinkled, as on a flat shore, which retains the impression of the billows. This dazzling carpet, really a reflector, repelled the rays of the sun with wonderful intensity, which accounted for the vibration which penetrated every atom of liquid. Shall I be believed when I say that, at the depth of thirty feet, I could see as if I was in ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... the house or in the barn near by, I know by the slanting, up-and-down, toothed vibration, and the ringing concussion of blow upon blow, that he is sawing or hammering. If I am near enough, a certain vibration, travelling back and forth along a wooden surface, brings me the information that he is using ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... seemed that the monkeys did not offer their prayer, for no one heard them; and, meanwhile, their voice is loud, for it is produced by the rapid vibration of a kind of bony drum, formed by a swelling of the hyoides ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... air in the black surf of war. Gun after gun now joins the great chorus, swelling and falling in a hideous symphony of discordant sounds. The whole horizon is lit up and aflame. The sky quivers and reflects the flash of the great guns, as with the constant vibration of heat lightning. Flares and Verey lights of greenish yellow and white turn the night into ghastly day, and like the lurid flames of an inferno light up the battlefield, while the rifles crackle in the glare. Here a parachute-light like a great star ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... was stooping with his hand on the rope, felt the vibration cease, and as he leaned over he heard Dick ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... he was blind. Then he began to sort out one shade of grayish light from another. Finally, Ross became aware that he no longer rested on his back, but was slumped in a seat. The world about him was wrung with a vibration that beat in ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... Many of the finest passages were conceived and uttered in the rapid inspiration of speaking, and but for her admiring intelligence and care, the eloquence, wit, and wisdom, which are here preserved to us, would have faded into air with the last vibration of the preacher's voice. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... "I esteem you;" "I feel you in the pulsations of my blood," i.e. "I love you." Or perhaps the vibrations of the same harmony would be varied so as to be higher or lower, sharp or flat; and the player would convey that he felt the presence of his beloved in the appropriate vibration ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... the string hung dangling downwards. Mounting again upon my comrade's shoulders, I grasped the thong high up to test its hold. It was secure; and, cautioning Raoul to hold fast lest the hook might be detached by my vibration, I climbed up and seized hold of the beam. By this I was enabled to squeeze ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... there was yet a drearier prose. For these artistic materials had not only to be preached and prayed to,—they had to be in a measure lived with, listened to, personally studied, and individually considered. Each was an atom to be set in vibration, and each needed to be set or kept going in his own way. All this prose had to be made help in the poetry. How skilful you had to be to rouse the interest you needed and escape the many interests you did not need, to awaken the single gift without bringing upon you all the rest, to suffer the ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... mother had the two corner seats in the roomy tonneau, and I settled myself on the flap which lets down when the door is closed. In doing this, I was not unconscious of the fact that if the fastening of the door gave way owing to vibration or any other cause, I should indubitably go swinging out into space; also, that if this disagreeable accident did occur, it would be my luck to have it happen when the back of the car was hanging over a precipice. Nevertheless I kept a calm face. These things usually befall some one else ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... desire to retreat; he turned towards Enjolras, and his voice burst forth with a vibration which came from a ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Japanese brass); it is the Japanese brass that is sounding!" It is the monstrous gong of a monastery, situated in a suburb beneath us. Well, it is powerful indeed "the Japanese brass!" When the strokes are ended, when it is no longer heard, a vibration seems to linger among the suspended foliage, and an endless quiver ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... that if they pulsate synchronously they attract each other. If the pulsations are not simultaneous, the disks repel each other. From this and other results he has obtained, it may be argued that the ether plays the part of the water in Dr. Bjerkness' tank, and that when special forms of vibration are set up in bodies they become competent to attract or repel other bodies. This being so, it will be seen that the power of attraction or repulsion of an electrical body depends in the first instance on the motion set ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... pierced me at the vibration of her voice as she spoke. I thought to soothe her a little, and said, "Heaven can be no more than love, Jo, and we have a great deal of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... thirty feet high, why a pendulum appears from an opening in that ceiling. But we know when the dim light, purposely admitted from above, discloses the prisoner strapped immovably on his back, and reveals the giant pendulum, edged with the sharpest steel, slowly descending, its arc of vibration increasing as the terrible edge almost imperceptibly approaches the prisoner. We find ourselves bound with him, suffering from the slow torture. We would escape into the upper air if we could, but Poe's hypnotic power holds ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... beginning of words, and more liquid in the middle and ends, as in rarer, riper; and so in the Latin.' The rough r is formed by jarring the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth near the fore teeth: the smooth r is a vibration of the lower part of the tongue, near the root, against the inward region of the palate, near the entrance of the throat."—Walker's Principles, No. 419; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... delicacy could never be confounded with feebleness. Every dynamic nuance he exacted of fingers that fell with freedom and elasticity on the keys, and he knew how to augment the warmth and richness of tone-coloring by setting in vibration sympathetic harmonics of the principal notes through judicious ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... nothing in common with what may be called an oscillation, a shock, or a twirl: it was a passing sensation, similar to that which is felt when a man seizes another unexpectedly by the shoulder, and shakes him; or like the vibration felt on board a ship when the anchor is cast, at the moment it strikes the ground. I believe it is caused by short, rapid, irregular horizontal oscillations. The irregularity of the vibrations is attended by much danger, for very slight earthquakes of that kind tear away joists from their ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the quiver that agitated her; "you shall think of it as long as you will, and shall not be urged to anything from which you shrink. I love you—that fact remains unalterable, in spite of all that you have told me, and though your heart may not have one responsive vibration to mine, yet I feel that I would gladly devote all my future to the work of winning you to a more cheerful frame of mind—that I should be happier in doing that than in living without you. Let me take care of you. You have said you were tired of traveling—that you long for home and ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... sign to stand still, struck the bell with force, and leaned eagerly forward. The note rose clear and strong; it rang out clear and far into the night and over the deserted island; it died into the distance until there only lingered in the porches of the ear a vibration that was sound no longer. "Empty houses, empty sea, solitary beaches!" said Attwater. "And yet God hears the bell! And yet we sit in this verandah on a lighted stage with all heaven for spectators! And you call ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... build of Atlantic liners as factors in their comfort of motion: all those who had crossed many times were unanimous in saying the Titanic was the most comfortable boat they had been on, and they preferred the speed we were making to that of the faster boats, from the point of view of lessened vibration as well as because the faster boats would bore through the waves with a twisted, screw-like motion instead of the straight up-and-down swing of the Titanic. I then called the attention of our table to the way the Titanic listed to port (I had noticed this before), and we all ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... The first vibration of the great French earthquake was felt in the grand Duchy of Baden. The people, as one man, demanded liberty; the demand was too unanimously made to be resisted; the victory was won without a shot. On the 3rd of March the Rhenish ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to sit down and remain quite still while I make the exposure," he said to me and the inspector. "A very little vibration is enough to destroy the ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... one thing of importance is the production of the phenomenon, be this a bad smell or a perfume, an electric spark or the colors of Geissler's tubes, a resonance with Helmholtz's reverberators, or the geometrical arrangement of fine dust on a metallic plate in vibration; the shape of a leaf or the contraction of a frog's muscle; the study of the blind spot in the eye or the rhythm of cardiac pulsation; all is equal and all is included; the eager and absorbing quest is the quest of truth. It is this ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... years of living. Art works not by information but by evocation. Appreciation is not reception but response. The artist must compel us to feel what he has felt,—not something else. But the scope of his message, with its overtones and subtler implications, is limited by the rate of vibration ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... crag, which, having formed a portion of the cliff, has been undermined by the breaking away of lower rocks, and, overhanging the perpendicular, may be secure during dry weather, but may become dislodged in heavy rain, when the cement-like surroundings are dissolved: the serious vibration caused by thunder might in such conditions produce an avalanche. We dug a deep trench round the tents, as the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... powers of locomotion. Motion is produced by means of fine thread-like processes of protoplasm known as cilia (sing. cilium) that are developed on the outer surface of the cell. By means of the rapid vibration of these organs, the cell is propelled through the medium. Nearly all cocci are immotile, while the bacilli may or may not be. These cilia are so delicate that it requires special treatment to ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... a strange vibration, a marvelous tone. The queen paused. The king smiled. The angels went on with their sewing. (According to Rabbi ABARBANEL, they were knitting. This created a schism between the schools of Cracow and Cordova, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had more of her father's sturdy build, and she had developed her shoulders at hockey and tennis. The firelight brought out the gracious reposeful lines of a body that ripened in adolescence. And though there was a vibration of resolution in her voice she spoke like one who is under her ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... or any of the burdens that usually depress and trouble men. If such things were felt in his experience their force was spent long before they had contrived to mar his unruffled countenance. Though the house had tumbled before his eyes, by not a single vibration would his complacent voice have been intensified. He never suffered his feelings to escape his control. Occasionally, to be sure, he might curl his lip, or lift his eyebrows, or depress the corners of his mouth. When deeply moved he might go so far as to diffuse a nipping frost around him, ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... owing to the proximity of the Magnetic Pole the pull on the needle is chiefly downwards. It is forced into a horizontal position by a balancing weight on the N. side, so it is obvious that its direction power is greatly reduced. On the ship, owing to the vibration of the engines and the motors, we were absolutely unable to steer by the compass at all when off the region of ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... her face to look down through the treetops at the complaining stream. Presently she said: "That is better than an estimate; it is a tribute. I wish I might hope to live up to it, but sooner or later," and the vibration played softly in her voice, "I ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... had already begun to churn in the water, and the vessel to move slowly, but with a swift vibration in every plank of her which promised speed when once she had gathered way. I was suspicious enough already, though in so vague a fashion that I hardly guessed what I suspected, and I recall the fact that I was not in the least ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... managed to set up our machine gun. One of the legs of the tripod was resting on the chest of a half-buried body. When the gun was firing, it gave the impression that the body was breathing, this was caused by the excessive vibration. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... had often seemed to herself in a sort of wild, chaotic state. The coming in of a strange new spiritual life was something so inexplicable to her that it agitated and distressed her; and sometimes, when she appeared more petulant and fretful than usual, it was only the stir and vibration on her weak nerves of new feelings, which she wanted the power to express. These emotions at first were painful to her. She felt weak, miserable, and good for nothing. It seemed to her that her whole life had been a wretched cheat, and that ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe |
