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Vocal   Listen
adjective
Vocal  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to the voice or speech; having voice; endowed with utterance; full of voice, or voices. "To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade, Made vocal by my song."
2.
Uttered or modulated by the voice; oral; as, vocal melody; vocal prayer. "Vocal worship."
3.
Of or pertaining to a vowel or voice sound; also, spoken with tone, intonation, and resonance; sonant; sonorous; said of certain articulate sounds.
4.
(Phon.)
(a)
Consisting of, or characterized by, voice, or tone produced in the larynx, which may be modified, either by resonance, as in the case of the vowels, or by obstructive action, as in certain consonants, such as v, l, etc., or by both, as in the nasals m, n, ng; sonant; intonated; voiced. See Voice, and Vowel.
(b)
Of or pertaining to a vowel; having the character of a vowel; vowel.
Vocal cords or Vocal chords. n. pl. (Anat.) The two pairs of mucous membranes that project into the larynx, and which produce the sounds of speech by vibrating under the influence of air exhaled from the lungs. See Larynx, and the Note under Voice, n., 1.
Vocal fremitus (Med.), the perceptible vibration of the chest wall, produced by the transmission of the sonorous vibrations during the act of using the voice.
Vocal music, music made by the voice, in distinction from instrumental music; hence, music or tunes set to words, to be performed by the human voice.
Vocal tube (Anat.), the part of the air passages above the inferior ligaments of the larynx, including the passages through the nose and mouth.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vocal" Quotes from Famous Books



... the fun began. For an hour that seemed only a minute in length all listened to a concert of exquisite music both vocal and instrumental, a concert given by some of the world's great artists and plucked from the ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... four-footed Virginians. Bears rolled their bulk through these forests; deer went whither they would. The explorers might meet foxes and catamounts, otter, beaver and marten, raccoon and opossum, wolf and Indian dog. Winged Virginians made the forests vocal. The owl hooted at night, and the whippoorwill called in the twilight. The streams were filled with fish. Coming to the mouth of the Rappahannock, the travelers' boat grounded upon sand, with the tide at ebb. Awaiting the water that should lift them off, the fifteen began with their swords ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... cried the first speaker, bursting out with a very good imitation of Punch in one of his vocal efforts, and supplementing it with a touch of the terpsichorean, tripping along in step with a suggestion of a ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... interpretation of instrumental music exist. Some of them, by acknowledged and competent authorities, have thrown valuable light on a most important element of musical art. Had I not believed that a similar need existed in connection with singing, this addition to vocal literature would not ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... the fire and made a few impressive gestures. She was garbed in the wide, gathered calico skirt, the velvet basque trimmed with silver buttons, and the high brown moccasins so dear to feminine Navajos. The orchestra was vocal, the bucks again furnishing the music. After circling around the spectators a few times the squaw decided on the man she wanted and with one hand took a firm grasp of his shirt just above the belt. Then she galloped backward around him while ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith

... Here silence, vocal, mutual vows conveys, And whispering eloquent, their love betrays: Though chained by fear, their voices dare not pass, Their souls, transmitted ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Dr. Bird," said the major. "The paralysis of the vocal cords may be physical, in which case the victim will still be unable to speak, regardless of the brain stimulation. If, however, the evident paralysis is due to some obscure influence on the brain, it ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... was practicing too long, he set her limits of half-hour periods beyond which she must not go. But she was young and strong and only once had he noted the slightest symptom of wear and tear on her vocal chords, when he had closed the piano and prohibited the home ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... not appear obvious at first sight how a vowel should be employed, not to represent a vocal sound, but to modify an articulation. Yet examples are to be found in modern languages. Thus, in the English words, George, sergeant, the e has no other effect than to give g its soft sound; and in guest, guide, the ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... the occupant of this little song-mansion has suddenly stepped out—is no longer present to direct their tasks. The icy hand of decay and death will soon be upon them—these poor bioplastic weavers of tissue—but the vocal spark, the "bright gem instinct with music," is beyond the reach of these dusky messengers. Where it is, not man, but the Giver of all life knows. We only know, when our faith is uplifted ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... house that had cast its shadow of fear upon me now seemed to become vocal with protest against this intrusion, and to send warning through the halls. At last the step halted before my door and a loud ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... summer castle on the Starnberg See to live in his dingy palace; since the opera has got into good working order, and the regular indoor concerts at the cafes have begun. There is no lack of amusements, with balls, theaters, and the cheap concerts, vocal and instrumental. I stepped into the West Ende Halle the other night, having first surrendered twelve kreuzers to the money-changer at the entrance,—double the usual fee, by the way. It was large and well lighted, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... channels of grace: one will scarcely persevere in living in the state of grace, to say nothing of securing a close union with God, who receives Holy Communion only once or twice a year. Second, practise prayer, above all that highest form of prayer, assisting at Holy Mass; then mental and vocal prayer, the public offices of the Church, and particular devotions according to one's attrait. Third, read spiritual books daily—the Bible, Lives of the Saints, Following of Christ, Spiritual Combat, etc. But in all this bear ever in mind, that the steady impelling ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... of bofen-yed? I once heard a farmer, shouting from the garden fence, with the vocal powers of a Boanerges, to a labourer at work about a quarter of a mile away, "Yer gret bofen-yed, can ter ear noat?" (Anglice, "You ox-headed lout, are you stone deaf?"); and more frequently the terms, pudding-yed and noggen-yed have been ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... be pleasant neighbours. They are exceedingly fond of vocal music, and their clear melodious voices fill the new settlement with harmony. In that terrible snow-storm which occurred in the middle of April, I often saw a sparrow alight on a bough of a tree near the house, and send up to heaven such a strain of full, gushing melody, as melted my heart with ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... countenance, and developed the dimples that lurked in her cheek and underlip. Her features were regular, her gait exceedingly graceful, and her voice musical in the highest degree. Seldom, indeed, would she indulge in the pleasure of vocal music, but when she did, as was sometimes the case to please the Countess of Smatterton, her ladyship, who was a most excellent judge, used invariably to pronounce Miss Primrose as the finest and purest singer that she ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various

... their gates, not speaking their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at all, but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... speech to vindicate. But this costs little to true Franks, who'd rather Combat than listen, were it to their father. What is the simple standing of a shot, To listening long, and interrupting not? Though this was not the method of old Rome, When Tully fulmined o'er each vocal dome, Demosthenes has sanctioned the transaction, 500 In saying eloquence meant ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... of literature, especially of poetry, and with a memory that enabled him to recite long passages from Homer and Virgil; above all, an ardent lover of music, making a practice, so far as possible, of hearing some, whether vocal or instrumental, every afternoon. His ears were eyes to him; and when he heard a lady sing finely he would say: "Now will I swear this lady is handsome." All kinds of music, and not only the severer, were delightful to ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... bad singers with miserable voices (who volunteered their songs) did really good service by impressing upon the audience very forcibly the immense differences between good and bad music, and thus kindly acted as shadows to the vocal lights of the evening—as useful touches of discord in the general harmony which by contrast rendered ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... maitre as well as a singing master; always attired in the height of the fashion, and in manner and appearance much more of a Frenchman than an Italian. He was mercilessly satirical on the failures of his pupils, to whom (having reduced them, by the most ridiculous imitation of their unfortunate vocal attempts, to an almost inaudible utterance of pianissimo pipings) he would exclaim, "Ma per carita! aprite la bocca! che cantate come ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... of furniture overturned were plainly discernible, but the darkness was far too dense below to permit the eye perceiving what was taking place. Yet I could picture the scene, the leaderless mob surging blindly forward, each man vocal in his own tongue, swaying with rage, many smarting with wounds, uncertain where we had disappeared, yet all alike crazed with a desire to attain the open deck. The rattle of steel, the curses, told me some among them had reached ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... passing the door of the village school, momentarily opened for the admission of one, creeping along somewhat tardily with satchel on back, and "shining morning face." What a sudden burst of sound was emitted—what harmonious discord—what a commixture of all the tones in the vocal gamut, from the shrill treble to the deep under-hum! A chord was touched which vibrated in unison; boyish days and school recollections crowded upon me; pleasures long vanished; feelings long stifled; and friendships—aye, everlasting friendships—cut asunder by the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... reach The sacred organ's praise? Notes inspiring holy love, Notes that wing their heavenly ways To mend the choirs above. Orpheus could lead the savage race, And trees uprooted left their place Sequacious of the lyre: But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher: When to her Organ vocal breath was given An angel heard, and straight appear'd— ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... hearing, or "false voices," added to my torture. Within my range of hearing, but beyond the reach of my understanding, there was a hellish vocal hum. Now and then I would recognize the subdued voice of a friend; now and then I would hear the voices of some I believed were not friends. All these referred to me and uttered what I could not clearly distinguish, ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... actor, reader, or impersonator, not only is there required, to begin with, a certain histrionic instinct or dramatic aptitude, but a combination—very rarely to be met with, indeed—of personal gifts, of physical peculiarities, of vocal and facial, nay, of subtly and yet instantly appreciable characteristics. Referring merely to those who are skilled as conversationalists, Sir Richard Steele remarks, very justly, in the Spectator (No. 521), that, "In relations, the force of the expression lies very often more in the look, the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... Thomas Tyers, son of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the founder of that excellent place of publick amusement, Vauxhall Gardens, which must ever be an estate to its proprietor, as it is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show,—gay exhibition,—musick, vocal and instrumental, not too refined for the general ear;—for all which only a shilling is paid[906]; and, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale[907]. Mr. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... teaching of drawing went) in the practice of an art. An attempt was made to cultivate aesthetic appreciation by lessons which imparted knowledge but did not attempt to train the power of artistic production—an aim which was regarded as unrealizable, except in vocal music, and of course through literary composition, in a secondary school. Thus Humboldt's original purpose has been almost wholly unachieved. The schools, admirably organized on the intellectual side and, within certain limits, increasingly efficient in their physical training, ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze

... [Ernest has left the door open. The harmonium breaks forth again, together with vocal accompaniment as before.] What's on ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome

... mornings raise Voices of gold in the Almighty's praise; The sunsets soar In choral crimson from far shore to shore: Each is a blast, Reverberant, of color,—seen as vast Concussions,—that the vocal firmament In worship sounds ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... help us through with our analysis of her frame of mind. His was a court which, if not identical at all points with the analogous exponents of things Divine in her youth, was fraught with the same jurisdiction; was vocal with resonances that proclaimed the same consequences to the unredeemed that the mumblings of a pastor of her early days, remembered with little gratitude, had been inarticulate with. Her babyhood had received the idea that liars would be sent unequivocally ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... assembly. Palmer Billy was the musician and vocalist of Boulder Creek, without a rival, equal, or superior, albeit his musical prowess was limited to the five chords which the key arrangement of the accordion automatically provided for, and his vocal repertoire to one song, sung to the American melody of "Marching through Georgia," and celebrating the glories of the great Palmer Goldfield—whence came Palmer Billy's pseudonym. His voice was neither cultivated nor melodious—from a musical point of view; but it was loud, and ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... light, The echo, feeble child of sound, The heavy thunder's girding might, The herald lightning's starry bound, The vocal spring of bursting bloom, The naked summer's glowing birth, The troublous autumn's sallow gloom, The hoarhead winter paving earth With sheeny white, are full of strange ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... And so the little warblers can pipe it all day, if they like, and when they grow tired and hungry, they are welcome to refresh their small systems at the strawberry beds. There is one feature of the regulation in question, however, that does pain us. While vocal and fly-gobbling talents are tenderly fostered, dignified Wisdom is not only neglected, but persecuted. Our old friend the Owl is reputed by the people of Iowa to be rather particular in his diet, (as all wise creatures are,) and to prefer a nice young ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... cessation of the fetes and games. A dance was executed to the sound of two drums, or rather of two hollow trunks, by a hundred and five performers, supported by a vocal choir. Cook reciprocated these demonstrations by putting his soldiers through their artillery exercises, and letting off fireworks, which produced indescribable astonishment in the minds ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... we mean the relative position of a vocal tone—as, high, medium, low, or any variation between. In public speech we apply it not only to a single utterance, as an exclamation or a monosyllable (Oh! or the) but to any group of syllables, words, and even sentences that may be spoken in a single tone. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... tempted him with a cigar; then, as his first smoke produced the strange effects common in these cases, they had induced him to take a little strong punch as a remedy. He was now leaning against the table in answer to the call of "Mr. Gig-lamps for a song." Having decided upon one of those vocal efforts which in the bosom of his family met with great applause, he began to sing in low and plaintive tones, "'I dre-eamt that I dwelt in Mar-ar-ble Halls, with'"—and then, alarmed by hearing the sound of his own ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... its compass, by which the chest-register is made to interfere with the head-tones, this coquetting with the deep chest-tones, this affected, offensive, and almost inaudible nasal pianissimo, the aimless jerking out of single tones, and, in general, this whole false mode of vocal execution, must continually shock the natural sentiment of a cultivated, unprejudiced hearer, as well as of the composer and singing-teacher? What must be the effect on a voice in the middle register, when its ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... Philip, too, "he took the word music in its widest sense, and made use of both vocal and instrumental music, and of their blended harmony."[56] While we believe that he would have been the first to admit the beauty of large portions of the old chant, its incomparable hymns in the liturgy, the familiar accentus dear to every Catholic ear, for the Preface, ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis

... think, of an opera (let us adhere, for convenience, to an accommodating if inaccurate term) written for the voices, from beginning to end, in a kind of recitative which is virtually a chant; an opera in which there is no vocal melody whatsoever, and comparatively little symphonie development of themes in the orchestra; in which an enigmatic and wholly eccentric system of harmony is exploited; in which there are scarcely more than a dozen fortissimo passages ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman

... he said, suddenly, and, seating himself at the piano, played the opening bars of a vocal adaptation of Handel's Largo with a just, though ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... crowded; and a great number of the better sort of both sexes sat upon stone seats at their doors, conversing with great mirth and familiarity. These conversations lasted the greatest part of the night; and many of them were improved with musick both vocal and instrumental: next day we were visited by the English residing in the place, who always pay this mark of respect to new comers. They consist of four or five families, among whom I could pass the winter very agreeably, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... peculiarity—that they were absolutely free from unkindness of thought or words, though sometimes their author allowed herself the license of a mitigated satire. Such things, with notes of domestic and parish matters, and of the progress made in her arduous and continual study of vocal and instrumental music, made up the sum of these years of the diary. Then at length, at the beginning of the last volume, came ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... of the hymn, on the entering Hosanna! and Hallelujah! we catch the sacred symbol (of seven tones) in the path of the two vocal parts, the lower descending, the higher ascending as on heavenly scale. In the second, optional ending the figure is completed, as the bass descends through the seven whole tones and the treble (of voices and instruments) rises as before to end in ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... monastic fane, that none would have deemed its midnight rest had been broken by the impious rites of a foul troop. The choir, where the unearthly scream and the demon laughter had resounded, was now vocal with the melodies of the blackbird, the thrush, and other songsters of the grove. Bells of dew glittered upon the bushes rooted in the walls, and upon the ivy-grown pillars; and gemming the countless ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... word in the CHART forcibly, and with the falling inflection, several times in succession; then drop the subvocal or aspirate sounds which precede or follow the vocal, and repeat the ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... and used both as a means of throttling George. This led George, now permanently underneath, to grasp Ashe's ears firmly and twist them, relieving the pressure on his throat and causing Ashe to utter the first vocal sound of the evening, other than the explosive Ugh! that both had emitted ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... should be some philosophic or eugenic professor arise and explain why she made such a grievous error in the personal appearance, vocal qualities, and general gestures of the learned judge, astute politician and hopeful statesman, Hon. J. Woodworth-Granger and Mr. James Gollop, perigrinating drummer for a chocolate house. Either the Honorable Judge should have been a commercial traveler, or the ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... writers were pouring out their most glorious and living stuff, in the first lame, crude fugues the medium was being prepared for the triumphs of Handel and Bach; and in the same way, while Bach was writing the G minor and A minor fugues (I am not speaking of vocal music) some smaller men were working at what was destined to grow into the symphony, sonata and quartet. These terms are used here in their present-day signification. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such words ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman

... of the United States and Canada offer an inviting field for study in linguistic atavism and barbaric vocal expression. The New York World Almanac for 1895 contains a list of the "yells" of some three hundred colleges and universities in the United States. Out of this great number, in which there is a plenitude of "Rah! rah! rah!" ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... will, which she had spoken of with so much composure, left three hundred pounds to Stella and me. She wished a portion of it to be devoted to our instruction in music, vocal and instrumental, at any German conservatorium we might select. She preferred that of L——. Until we were of age, our parents or guardians saw to the dispensing of the money, after that it was our own—half belonging to each of us; we might either ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... increasingly vocal on human rights. African leaders have spoken out on the issue of political prisoners, and the OAU is drafting its own Charter on Human Rights. Three countries in Africa— Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda—have returned to civilian rule during the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... very rapidly, and the gentleman who had befriended them soon took them from the Italian's cottage, and sent them to the best schools in America. Both became distinguished scholars. Silvio is now a celebrated artist, and Francesco a musician whose vocal and instrumental acquirements have charmed the largest audiences, and received the highest praise of the world. Both have visited their native country, and have pursued their studies among their own ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... should be very glad to have him do so, and he sang, I remember, all the rest of the way home. At the gate, I thanked him for the ride and its cheerful vocal accompaniment, and Lovell said; "Do you like to hear me sing, now? Do you—do you, really, now, Miss Hungerford?" and turned away with a smile on his face to seek ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... although psycho-physiology seems still at a loss for the precise adjustments of the inner ear corresponding to the minute adjustments of the eye, it is generally recognised that auditive attention is accompanied by adjustments of the vocal parts, or preparations for such adjustments, which account for the impression of following a sequence of notes as we follow the appearance of colours and light, but as we do not follow, in the sense of connecting by our activity, consecutive sensations of taste or smell. Besides ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... church machinery. It is our intention to be able to supply angelettes, (for that is the name by which this invention will be known) of any size, and with apparel suitable for any special or ordinary occasion of church worship. The angelette is to be so perfected that it will render vocal music without a break. That will be a happy day when people can worship God without aging themselves hoarse or without being annoyed by the discords so prevalent in congregational and choir ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris

... similarities are not supposed to furnish evidence of cognation, but to be phenomena, in part relating to stage of culture and in part adventitious. It must be remembered that extreme peculiarities of grammar, like the vocal mutations of the Hebrew or the monosyllabic separation of the Chinese, have not been discovered among Indian tongues. It therefore becomes necessary in the classification of Indian languages into families ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... was a perfect day of warm spring sunshine. He looked up into a blue unflecked sky. The tireless hum of insects made murmurous music all about him. The air was vocal with the notes of nesting birds. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... ancestors; but, what is less to its credit, it has apparently found a scapegoat, to which it would ever appear anxious to call our attention, as it stammers forth, in accents of warning, "c, c, cow, cow, cow! cowow, cowow!" It never gets any further than this; but doubtless in due process of vocal evolution we shall yet hear the "bunting," or "black-bird," which is evidently what ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... answer be, it is certain that when we beat the big drum of patriotism and set the guns firing, the thrill which it arouses in the vocal populace is different from the thrill in a people accustomed to violence and blood. We say the "vocal" populace, remembering that there is a portion of the population, very important to the community and growing in power, which is not facile in the art of ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... opinion which, in the end, determines political events. "I still live," was Webster's declaration on his death-bed, when the friends gathered around it imagined he had breathed his last; and the same words might be uttered by the Speech of the 7th of March, could it possess the vocal organ which announces personal existence. Between the time it was originally delivered and the present year there runs a great and broad stream of blood, shed from the veins of Northern and Southern men alike; ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... made slides of every different kind of tissue I could find. The anatomy is perfectly clear cut, no objections there. These people are very similar to Earth-type monkeys in structure, with heart and lungs and vocal cords and all. But I can't find any reason why they should be dying. ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse

... often assured by a curious observer of nature, who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive notes; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox humana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males: they use also a quick call and an horrible scream; and can snore and hiss when they mean ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... serious vocal defects, such as stammering, lisping, etc., they can be relieved by some good teacher of voice-culture. Indeed, some attention to the culture of voices ought to become a necessary part of education. A low, sweet voice is like a lark's song in heart and home, and ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... the unknowable, and its relation toward the visible universe which conditions it—which is the real subject of the "Journal Intime." There are few elements of our present life which, in a greater or less degree, are not made vocal in these pages. Amiel's intellectual interest is untiring. Philosophy, science, letters, art—he has penetrated the spirit of them all; there is nothing, or almost nothing, within the wide range of modern ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a series of earsplitting, heart-appalling whoops that shattered the still night air and made a vocal pandemonium of that portion of the fair Rhine valley. The colour left the cheeks of the Lady of Bernstein as she listened in palpable terror to the fiendish outcry which seemed to scream for blood and that instantly, looking down she saw the Knight of Hochstaden still there at the foot ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... think you would," mocked Ursula. "But if you had tried to say the words your lungs would have collapsed, your vocal chords snapped and ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... to paint, we should not have had many Polycleti and Parrbasii. Honour nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to studies; while those studies are always neglected in every nation, which are looked upon disparagingly. The Greeks held skill in vocal and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man amongst the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and Themistocles ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... understated it. The fact was that he hugely enjoyed the walk. He was rested from his long carry, and with nothing to weight him down, his feet felt light as feathers. He trudged briskly along the smooth highway, every sense alive to the delights of the forest. All about him the woods were vocal with the calls of birds. The wind whispered and sighed in the pine tops. And sometimes, when the air in the bottom was still as sluggish water, Charley could hear the wind roaring among the trees far up on the hillsides. The scent of spring was in the air—that ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... place, thot does not express the true pronunciation of thought. The word, thus written, tends to acquire the vocal quality of shot or blot, as distinguished from taught or brought. Secondly, in this place it is out of accord with wrought, which is correctly spelled. If Messrs. Plummer and Mosely would be logical, let them write wrought as wrot—or perhaps plain rot would ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... behind GOSCHEN and HICKS-BEACH, so that they should miss nothing of his counsel, and started off. Instantly arose stormy cries for Division. GEDGE, wherever he has been, seems to have been well-fed, and kept generally in good fettle. Cheerfully accepted challenge to vocal contest. Every time he commenced sentence the boisterous chorus, "'vide! 'vide! 'vide!" rang though House. Opposition, who didn't want Bill, started it; Ministerialists, anxious to see Bill pass, took it up; a roaring, excited crowd; amid them GEDGE, grey-faced, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various

... "Chopin" is the narrative of an evening in the Chaussee d'Antin, for it demonstrates the Hungarian's literary gifts and feeling for the right phrase. This description of Chopin's apartment "invaded by surprise" has a hypnotizing effect on me. The very furnishings of the chamber seem vocal under Liszt's fanciful pen. In more doubtful taste is his statement that "the glace which covers the grace of the elite, as it does the fruit of their desserts,...could not have been satisfactory to Chopin"! Liszt, despite his tendency to idealize Chopin after ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... hours before its time. Nothing stirred, not a vocal chord of hungry, puzzled, frightened chicken or cow. The whole region seemed to have caught its breath, to be smothered under a pall of stillness, unbroken except for some occasional distant earthquake ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... insistently as darkness fell, and Siena grew vocal with that shrill diversity of sounds that breaks, on summer nights, from every cleft of the masonry in old Italian towns. Then the moon rose, unfolding depth by depth the lines of the antique land; and Ralph, leaning ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... joined in with an obligato on the organ. So, in a very delightful way, to me at least, the evening was passed until four bells chimed out, when we closed the concert by rendering "Hail, Columbia!" with all the vocal and instrumental ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... there—and one given by the "Sisters of Charity," for the benefit of the orphans and poor of this town. Daood Pasha most generously gave up the large hall in his mansion for the occasion, as well as honoring it by his attendance. The Concert in our Institution was entirely musical, vocal and instrumental. All the Missionaries came. We had nearly three hundred tickets sold at five francs apiece, so that there was a nice little sum added to ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... priests by their plentiful votives of bright philippi; heard a hundred time-honoured tales that they knew not whether to believe or laugh at; speculated among themselves as to the sources of the Nile, the cause of the vocal Memnon, and fifty more darkened wonders, and resolved to solve every mystery during a second ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... For in these languages the relations of ideas are expressed exclusively by terminations or suffixes—inflections, prefixes and prepositions, as expressive of relations, being completely unknown to them. Other peculiarities characteristic of the Altaic languages are the vocal harmony occurring in many of them, the inability to have more than one consonant in the beginning of a word, and the expression of the plural by a peculiar affix, the case terminations being the same in the plural as ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... LIBRARY.—Subscribers are liberally supplied, on loan, with every description of New Vocal and Instrumental Music, and have also at their disposal upwards of 3,000 volumes, including the Standard Operas, Italian, German, French, and English Songs, and all kinds of Instrumental Music. During the Term of Subscription, each Subscriber ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various

... of expressing everything, from the soft chatter of going to bed in the pine tops to the loud derision with which he detects all ordinary attempts to surprise him. Certain crows, however, have unusual vocal abilities, and at times they seem to use them for the entertainment of the others. Yet I suspect that these vocal gifts are seldom used, or even discovered, until lack of amusement throws them upon their own resources. Certain it is that, whenever a crow makes any unusual sounds, there are ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... interest in art nor understand why you should. Their attitude to you is if not contempt only one remove from it. But one of the officials in the Doges' Palace who is sometimes to be found in this Great Hall is both enthusiastic and vocal. He has English too, a little. His weakness for the "Paradiso" is chiefly due to the circumstance that it is the "largest oil painting in the world." I dare say this is true; but the same claim, I recall, was once made for an original poster in the Strand. The "Paradiso" was one of Tintoretto's last ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... thing. The Jubilees sang a lot of pieces. Arduous and painstaking cultivation has not diminished or artificialized their music, but on the contrary—to my surprise—has mightily reinforced its eloquence and beauty. Away back in the beginning—to my mind—their music made all other vocal music cheap; and that early notion is emphasized now. It is utterly beautiful, to me; and it moves me infinitely more than any other music can. I think that in the Jubilees and their songs America has produced the perfectest flower of the ages; and I wish ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Bachelor and Doctor of Music, on which occasion he presided at the performance of his exercise for these degrees. This consisted of an anthem, with an overture, solos, recitatives and choruses, accompanied by instruments, besides a vocal anthem in eight parts, which was not performed. In 1769 he published An Essay towards a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... departure: the class found itself in a large circle, standing, and sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Ordinarily, on such an open-air and out-of-school occasion, Ramsey would have joined the chorus uproariously with the utmost blatancy of which his vocal apparatus was capable; and most of the other boys expressed their humour by drowning out the serious efforts of the girls; but he sang feebly, not much more than humming through his teeth. Standing beside Milla, he was incapable of his ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... from chronic laryngitis. We have therefore the best grounds for believing that a similar cause operated in the case of the Austrian defenders of Wszlmysl. They fled because they were unable to cope with the vocal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... enough to hurt anything they hit. Later on he drifts into his native tongue, raises his voice a couple of octaves, and streaks the atmosphere with multi-coloured oaths, until you imagine you are listening to a vocal rainbow. But take away the sunshine, give him a wet hide and a wet floor to camp on, and he straightway becomes all penitence and prayer. His face, peering out dismally between the upturned collar ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... World-God, give me beauty!" cried the Greek. His prayer was granted. All the earth became Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak, Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame, Peopled the world with imaged grace and light. The lyre was his, and his the breathing might Of the immortal marble, his the play Of diamond-pointed thought ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... the wild and uncultivated scenes of nature? It is plainness and artless simplicity. What is it that renders lovely and amiable her most favourite productions in the animal creation: the tender lamb, the cooing dove, and the vocal nightingale? It is simplicity; it is, that all their gestures wear the guise, and their voice speaks the artless, and unaffected language of nature. What is is that renders venerable the characters of mankind; that ennobles the song of the bards; that gives lustre and ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... you driving at?" I asked in a passion. I put my hat on my head (he never offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I turned my back on him and marched out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the other expenses consequent upon the delays arising from ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... this parable?" the Master said. "How then shall ye know all parables?" Verily, they lie about us by the wayside, and the whole earth is vocal with ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... everybody turned suddenly and looked at the Lay Reader. His mouth was twisted very slightly to one side. It gave him a rather unpleasant snarling expression. If this expression had been vocal instead of muscular it would have ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... They sat down at the table opposite to each other, the magician's back towards the beaufet. The princess presented him with the best at the table, and said to him, "If you please, I will entertain you with a concert of vocal and instrumental music; but as we are only two, I think conversation may be more agreeable." This the magician took as a ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... special mention of young Wilberforce, which he did in a handsome manner. This was not all; the Missionary Society wanted to send Wilberforce to Africa in September of that year, and as he went along they had him at other studies. He had become an excellent musician, both vocal and instrumental. He had been studying theology and read Hebrew well. He had also taken a course of reading in medicine, so that he might be of service to the bodies as well as the souls of his brethren. Marvellous as it may seem, all of this was done in so short a time, and from a state ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... she needed to cry, the deceased count would be the pretext. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health would be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the pretext would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise, which was usually toward seven o'clock when she had had an after-dinner rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same stories over and over again ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... because he thinks. He speaks because the mouth and larynx communicate with the third frontal convolution of the brain. This material connection is the immediate cause of articulate speech."[252] This is true in the sense that speech is not possible until the vocal organs are present, and are duly connected with the brain. "The specific cry, somewhat modified by the vocal resources of man, may have been sufficient for the humble vocabulary of the earliest ages, and there exists no gulf, no ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... the Butcher's Row, where in a minute they could scarcely hear each other speak. The whole air seemed vocal with grunts, lowing, and bleating, and, the poulterers' booths lying close behind, crowing ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... and varied talents than for his warm and affectionate heart, rich imagination, great love of humour, and deep and earnest piety. He was a facile versifier, an elegant prose writer, an able botanist and physiologist. Possessing a fine ear, rich voice, and great musical taste, he not only took his vocal share in part-song, but wrote several melodies, which have been published. In one species of rapid mental calculation, or rather combination of figures—giving in an instant the sum of a double column of twenty figures in each row, or a square of six figures—he far excelled Bidder, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... the words are not so many trumpet-calls to action. All great languages invariably utter great things, and command them; they cannot be mimicked but by obedience; the breath of them is inspiration because it is not only vocal, but vital; and you can only learn to speak as these men spoke, by becoming what ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... of the vocal entertainment to which she was subjected, was that Eleanor herself was not called upon for many words. She listened, and tasted sweetmeats; that was enough, and the Pinchbecks were satisfied. When the time of durance was over, for she was nervously impatient, and the hour of the ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... humming noises produced by winged insects are not, as might be supposed, vocal sounds. They result from sonorous undulations imparted to the air by the flapping of their wings. This may be rendered evident by observing, that the noise always ceases when the insect alights on any object. The sirene has been ingeniously applied for the purpose ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... to learn, when he knew perfectly well Euclid was the very thing not one of them could learn by heart? And if he did want to detain them, why ever should he fix on the identical week in which the grand "Vocal, Instrumental, and Dramatic Entertainment" of the Fourth Junior was ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and—not to forget the library—on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six months ago—pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hold converse with Him, more with the heart than the lips, in the early morning's meditation, ejaculatory prayer, vocal prayer, and ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.

... quiet enough up to a certain time of night, but as the tide serves, the whole port awakes, all the fishing vessels get ready to start. The quays become vocal with shouts, yells, calls, whistles, and the most stupid din and hubbub confounds the night, utterly destructive of sleep. This chorus was in full cry about two o'clock A.M. Soon great luggers came splashing along with shrieks from the crews, and sails ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... was driven at first into the loft of the inn, of which the cottage was a dependency. Here the vocal music of the inhabitants was somewhat muffled, but the opportunities for studying natural history were rather excessive. A swarm of bees had established themselves in a corner where they could not be dislodged, and they had a way of crawling over the floor that kept my expectations constantly ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... could safely rely. He had been chosen director of a flourishing musical society in a large town some miles distant from Sandy's home, and on those days when he was present to direct rehearsals, he also tried the voices of those who asked permission to join the vocal club. Sandy had one day asked if he might bring little ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... the incomparable melody of the mock-bird—the full, charming notes of the blue song-thrush—the sweet warbling voices of the silvias, finches, and tanagers, that not only adorn the American woods with their gorgeous colours, but make them vocal with never-ending song? ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... them apart; and that is at any rate to occupy a post, though it contributes nothing to entertainment. At home the Esquarts had sung duets; Diana had assisted Redworth's manly chest-notes at the piano. Each of them declined to be vocal. Diana sang alone for the credit of the country, Italian and French songs, Irish also. She was in her mood of Planxty Kelly and Garryowen all the way. 'Madame est Irlandaise?' Redworth heard the Frenchman say, and he owned to what was implied in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... thought that such local and homely renown would have been more to our simple hero's taste than the laurel and the throne. I groaned in spirit over the monstrous playhouse, with its pretentious Teutonic air; I walked through the churchyard, vocal with building rooks, and came to the noble church, full of the evidences of wealth and worship and honour. I do not like to confess the breathless awe with which I drew near to the chancel and gazed on the stone that, nameless, with ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... entered the crossroads general store to order some groceries. He was seventeen years old and was passing through that stage of adolescence during which a boy seems all hands and feet, and his vocal organs, rapidly developing, are wont to cause his voice to undergo sudden and involuntary changes from high treble to ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... was one of deep-blue sky and bright sunshine, the soft spring air vocal with the song of birds. As soon as early drill ended I had left the fort-enclosure, and sought a lonely perch on the great rock above the mouth of the cave. It was a spot I loved. Below, extended a magnificent vista of the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... instrument which some melodist of the mind created and set vibrating with music, as a flower shakes out its perfume or a star shakes out its light. Only listen, and they soothe all care, as though the silken-soft leaves of poppies had been made vocal and ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen

... rambles. At dinner he usually asked in what portion of the forest I should be painting late the next afternoon, and I got in the habit of expecting him to join me toward sunset. We located each other through a code of yodeling that we arranged; his part of these vocal gymnastics being very pleasant to hear, for he had a flexible, rich voice. I shudder to recall how largely my own performances partook of the grotesque. But in the forest where were no musical persons (I supposed) to take hurt from whatever ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... innumerable who, like her, could "suffer a sea change," while the river deities had each independent power, according to the preciousness of their streams to the cities fed by them,—the "fountain Arethuse, and thou, honoured flood, smooth sliding Mincius, crowned with vocal reeds." And, spiritually, this king of the waters is lord of the strength and daily flow of human life—he gives it material force and victory; which as the meaning of the dedication of the hair, as the sign of the strength of life, to the river ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... the jealous many-fingered tide. Flanked by the multi-colored sweeping marshes, Among the little hummocks choked with thorn, I saw the first, small, dauntless row of buildings Give back the rose and orange of the dawn. Above them swayed the shining green palmettoes Vocal and plaintive at the winds' caress; While, at the edge of sight, the fluent silver Of sea and bay framed ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... had grown more confident, more skilled, until at length he found that he could throw a singularly articulate voice into the jaws of the old plow-horse, while his brothers, accustomed to his queer vocal tricks, were convulsed with laughter at the bizarre quadrupedal views of life thus elicited. This development of proficiency, however, was recent, and until the incident at the bran dance it had not been exercised beyond the limits of their secluded home. It had revealed new ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... spoke to this young heart. The silence was vocal; the darkness, bright; the tumult, order—and all was the revelation of a present God. It is told of one of our great writers that, when a child, he was found lying on a hill-side during a thunderstorm, and at each flash clapping his hands ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... true,—was one of the purest and most sympathetic ever possessed by woman, and its freshness was unspoilt by any of the varied "systems" of torture invented by singing-masters for the ingenious destruction of the delicate vocal organ. She sang a Norwegian love-song in the original tongue, which might be roughly ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... necessity as a chain wherewith to bind her to him, she was a little doubtful, a little afraid of him, although she had always liked him. Now, however, by living with him, by knowing him better, by watching his moods, she had come to love him. He was so big, so vocal, so handsome. His point of view and opinions of anything and everything were so positive. His pet motto, "Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may," had clung in her brain as something immensely characteristic. Apparently ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... making mistakes,—that headlong, energetic spirit which blunders all too easily. But the writer knows how much those mistakes hurt and how much energy might be saved for a life that, with just a pinch less of blunder, might be none the less savoury. School and college are no place for vocal soloists, and after some of us have sung so sweetly and so long at home, with every one saying, "Just hear Mary sing, isn't it wonderful!" it is rather trying, you know, to go to a place where vocal solos are not popular. And we wish some one—at ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks

... more highly is the department of musical training esteemed by those who understand the work. All receive training in vocal music as a part of their daily school work, and would there were more with ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various

... 1: Hilary is speaking of vocal prayer, which was not necessary to Him for His own sake, but only for ours. Whence he says pointedly that "His word of beseeching did not benefit Himself." For if "the Lord hears the desire of the poor," ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... claimed Rousseau, a young commonwealth must by a similar device consult Nature's first law of self-preservation. The dictator saves liberty by temporarily abrogating it: by momentary gagging of the legislative power he renders it truly vocal. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... house. Under the late king it was a prison—oh, yes, I grant that, but under the gentle reign of Philippe d'Orleans, it is a house of pleasure. Besides, at this moment, there is an excellent company there. There are fetes, balls, vocal concerts; they drink champagne to the health of the Duc de Maine and the king of Spain. It is you who pay, but they wish aloud that you may die, and your race become extinct. Pardieu! Monsieur de Chanlay will find some acquaintances there, and be as comfortable as a fish in the water. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... birds is attracted by any unusual sound or commotion among them. In May or June, when other birds are most vocal, the jay is a silent bird; he goes sneaking about the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is robbing birds'-nests, and he is very anxious that nothing should be said about it, but in the fall none ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... day three supplementary strokes sound from the church bell of the convent. At this signal prioress, vocal mothers, professed nuns, lay-sisters, novices, postulants, interrupt what they are saying, what they are doing, or what they are thinking, and all say in unison if it is five o'clock, for instance, "At five o'clock and at all hours praised and adored ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... evening several of the brothers, sisters, and brothers and sisters-in-law of the family collected, and the guitar and violin, which were suspended from a beam in the house, were taken down, and we were entertained by a concert of instrumental and vocal music. Most of the tunes were such as are performed at fandangos. Some plaintive airs were played and sung with much pathos and expression, the whole party joining in the choruses. Although invited to occupy the only room in the house, we declined ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant

... and the next instant the door was thrown open, and the best friend that I possessed in the world was shaking my hand and patting me on the back, as though I was an infant strangling with lacteal fluid, while Rover circled around us, and made the air vocal with his joyous barks, until anxious to distinguish himself, and perhaps thinking that Mr. Brown was not getting his share of the reception, he suddenly welcomed that gentleman with a slight nip on the seat of his pantaloons, that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... what this belief involves. Bring your imaginations once more into play, and figure a series of sound-waves passing through air. Follow them up to their origin, and what do you there find? A definite, tangible, vibrating body. It may be the vocal chords of a human being, it may be an organ-pipe, or it may be a stretched string. Follow in the same manner a train of aether-waves to their source; remembering at the same time that your aether is matter, dense, elastic, and capable of motions subject ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... and T are called the mutes, Because they interrupt All voice or sound; while B and D Can only intercept; Hence these are partial mutes, my child; And H is aspirate; And th, too, in think and throne, But vocal ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... and mused again, running over in his mind such gulls as he knew, and coming to the conclusion that unless it was some unusual specimen, of great vocal powers, it could not be the black-backed nor the lesser black-backed, nor the black-headed herring ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... the snow. Jan drew back, and with his violin hugged under one arm, watched the wild revelers as, with bared knives flashing in the firelight, they crowded to the feast. Williams, the factor, who was puffing from his vocal ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... should pity one another, and how we should pray! In how many lives should we behold a spirit "bound together," who "could in no wise lift herself up!" Wills like crushed reeds, consciences like broken vocal chords, hopes like birds with injured wings, and hearts ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... visionary wight, Hard by your hill-side mansion sparkling white, His thoughts all hovering round the Muses' home, Long hath it been your Poet's wont to roam, 20 And many a morn, on his becharmd sense So rich a stream of music issued thence, He deem'd himself, as it flowed warbling on, Beside the vocal fount of Helicon! But when, as if to settle the concern, 25 A Nymph too he beheld, in many a turn, Guiding the sweet rill from its fontal urn,— Say, can you blame?—No! none that saw and heard Could blame a bard, that he thus inly stirr'd; A muse beholding in each fervent trait, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... this and then shook his big head up and down in a vigorous nod. Boyd laughed and Kirby offered vocal encouragement. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... it as you like, and as there is to be little vocal music but yours and the children's, I'll see that you have everything as ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... are native-born, and on any ship may be heard the Southern drawl, the picturesque vernacular of the lower East or West side of New York City, the twang of New England, the rising intonation of the Western Pennsylvanian, and that indescribable vocal cadence that comes only ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... injury to body and mind from the continuance of solitude for life. The digestive and vocal organs, and the reason would inevitable suffer. In proof she quoted the notorious imbecility of the aged monks of La Trappe: "We are credibly informed of the fact (in addition to what we have known at home) that amongst the monks of La Trappe few attain ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... reasonably be blamed for not taking it upon themselves to alter the established procedure of the Court in which they sat. Their position was always difficult, and it did not become easier as time went on. They had good reason to know that a vocal group of influential persons in Salamanca confidently expected them to condemn Luis de Leon; yet some of them, at least, were uncomfortably aware that the evidence before them would not warrant a conviction on the ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... be! For women and children, as I say, it strikes one as very rough; and moreover, they don't speak it well, their own though it be. My little nephews, when I first came home, had not gone back to school, and it distressed me to see that, though they are charming children, they had the vocal inflections of little news-boys. My niece is sixteen years old; she has the sweetest nature possible; she is extremely well-bred, and is dressed to perfection. She chatters from morning till night; but it isn't a pleasant sound! These little persons ...
— The Point of View • Henry James

... the vocal systems among the animals form a subject well worthy of the deepest study, not only as another character by which to classify the animal kingdom correctly, but as bearing indirectly also on the question of the origin of animals. Can we suppose that characteristics ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... implied the ability to hear, the ear, hitherto dead to all sounds, must be impressed. For this purpose, sound was communicated by speaking trumpets or other instruments, which should force and fix the attention. The lips and vocal organs were then moulded to imitate these sounds. The process was long and wearisome, often occupying months, and even years; but in the end it was successful. The eye was trained by the attraction of bright and varied colors, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... thing," observed one of the women, and despite her vocal rancour there was an admiring expression in her eyes as they ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... we were traveling, we struck up and sang 'Jubilee.' It put me in mind of the time when we used to ride along the rough North Guilford roads and make the air vocal as we went along. Pleasant times those. Those were blue skies, and that was a beautiful lake and noble pine-trees and rocks they were that hung over it. But those we shall ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs—they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... pitch, yet differ in quality. The sounds produced on the clarinet and flute may agree in pitch and quantity, yet be unlike in quality. The same is true in regard to the tones of the voice of two individuals. This difference is occasioned mainly by the different positions of the vocal organs. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... in difficulty, partly because voices are assimilated, partly because the faculty of voice-discrimination is a plebeian virtue not much developed among the Aristocracy. And wherever there is any danger of imposture we cannot trust to this method. Amongst our lowest orders, the vocal organs are developed to a degree more than correspondent with those of hearing, so that an Isosceles can easily feign the voice of a Polygon, and, with some training, that of a Circle himself. A second method is ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... be held by the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and that he would himself assume the archbishopric on the following day. The frenzied delight of the entire Liberal Party on hearing this momentous announcement beggars description. The cheering lasted fifteen minutes, and when the vocal chords of the Members were exhausted by the strain they rolled about on the floor of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... the joyous, vocal wood The song of warblers came: The cuckoo, in a merry mood, Told and re-told ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson

... what you've seen, Lieutenant," I laughed. "But you can make me hear. I've always wondered what kind of a noise a disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... in full eruption and heavy showers of Reub lava rose from his vocal organs and fell all over the place, while he thrashed around the calaboose ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh

... black depth in his nature, of which he had spoken to her—which he had married to forget—was, none the less, all ruffled and vocal. For the first time since Letty had consented to marry him he did not think or say to himself, as he looked at her, that he was a lucky man, and had done ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... stayed at home to criticize More vocal proved; he, on a falling rental, In furthering the cause of the Allies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various

... flitting about from twig to twig of his relatives, the kinglets, but unhappily he lacks their social, friendly instincts, and therefore is rarely seen. Formerly classed among the warblers, then among the flycatchers, while still as much a lover of flies, gnats, and mosquitoes as ever, his vocal powers have now won for him recognition among the singing birds. Some one has likened his voice to the squeak of a mouse, and Nuttall says it is "scarcely louder," which is all too true, for at a little distance it is quite inaudible. But in addition to the mouse-like call-note, the tiny bird ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... boats," says Washington, in his private journal, "which attended and joined on this occasion, some with vocal and others with instrumental music, on board, the decorations of the ships, the roar of cannon, and the loud acclamations of the people, which rent the sky as I passed along the wharves, filled my mind with sensations as ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing



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