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More "Acoustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with astonishment; our eyes met for a moment. The expression of my face put the final touch to her confusion, and I heard a few dim notes without force or expression. I was quite sure now she would fail. Never had the piano, with its lack of continuity, its sound smothered by the acoustic properties of the room, seemed to me a more miserable instrument. At times it seemed as if I heard the sharp, staccato sounds of a harp. Presently Clara recovered her self-possession, but upon the whole ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a busy day with me in receiving calls and in visiting the chamber of commerce and the two clubs where speeches were made and hand shaking done. Still, I knew what I was to say at the meeting, and the composition of the audience I was to address. The hall is large, with good acoustic qualities, and in it I had spoken frequently. It is situated in the midst of a dense population of workingmen, and was so crowded that night in every part that many of the audience were compelled to stand in the aisles and around the walls. On entering ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... have only done my duty. Those women were always annoying me. Even in the night, they would come tapping at my window and calling me [acoustic hallucinations] and they insulted me because they wanted me ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... the baggage-room at the Gare du Nord may be crude, but its acoustic properties are superb. The noise which accompanied the arrival of the cortege was simply ear-splitting. I was in the very act of wondering whether, if I decided to retire, my legs would carry me, when, with a crash, my uniform-case ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... that he forced his way out until he could see the Princess of Sant' Ilario's beautiful profile dark against the bright light of the street. She was still speaking, but he could no longer hear her voice, some acoustic peculiarity of the columns had in all probability been the means of conveying to him the fragment of conversation he had overheard. Avoiding recognition, he slipped away through an opening in the throng and just succeeded in reaching ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... an affair depending much on processions, proclamations, on delusions optical, acoustic; on palaverings, manoeuvrings, holdings back, then hasty pushings forward; and indeed is mainly, in more senses than one, under guidance of the Prince of the Power of the Air. Unbeautiful, like a World-Parliament of Nightmares (if the reader ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... The Acoustic Telephone. Sound Waves. Hearing Electricity. The Diaphragm in a Magnetic Field. A Simple Telephone Circuit. How to Make a Telephone. Telephone Connections. Complete Installation. The Microphone. Light Contact Points. How to Make a Microphone. Microphone, ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... there are natural phenomena to which some one has given the name "acoustic shadows." If you stand in an acoustic shadow there is one direction from which you will hear nothing. At the battle of Gaines's Mill, one of the fiercest conflicts of the Civil War, with a hundred guns in play, ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... those wonderful silences through which his slightest tones carry clearly and sweetly. I have played not only solos, but chamber music in this hall, and was always sorry to stop playing. In most halls the acoustic conditions ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... lies in their finer and fuller aesthetic faculty. The sense of hearing and that of seeing stand in polar opposition, and thus a natural scale offers itself by which we may rank and arrange our artists. At the one end of the scale is the acoustic artist, i.e., the musician. At the other end of the scale is the optic artist, the painter and sculptor. Between these, and comprising both these activities in his own, is the poet, who is both acoustic and optic artist. He translates the sounds ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... stature. Vitruvius speaks also of vehicles of sound, distributed throughout the building; but commentators are much at variance with respect to their nature. In general it may be assumed, that the theatres of the ancients were constructed on excellent acoustic principles. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... of its technical construction and acoustic properties, was the ancestor of both trumpet and trombone; the connexion is further established by the derivation of the words Sackbut and Posaune (the German for trombone) from buccina. The relation was fully recognized in Germany during the 15th and 16th centuries, as two translations ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... as at present known to the comparative physiologist are grouped as the acoustic and the non-acoustic. The cochlea is supposed on very good grounds to have to do with the acoustic functions, and the organs of the semicircular canals on equally good evidence are thought to have to do with such of the non-acoustic functions as equilibration and orientation. ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... Hill, '65e, of Saginaw upon his death in 1909, forms one of the unique features of the University's equipment. Despite its seating capacity, with the stage, of over 5,000, it has almost perfect acoustic properties, so that a whisper from the stage can be heard in any portion of this great hall. Its completion in 1913 enabled the University at last to bring the great part of the students together under one roof upon such occasions ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... a speaker should test beforehand the acoustic properties of the auditorium in which he is to speak for the first time. A helpful plan is to have a friend seat himself at the back of the hall or church, and give his opinion of the quality and projecting power of the speaker's ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... heard of a woman who went to a hotel unaccompanied and discovered that the acoustic properties of her room were such that every time she spoke aloud there was an echo. She then made a bold attempt to get in a last word, and in so doing talked herself ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... as he turned to depart from me. I had only to glance at his rapt and noble countenance to perceive the high acoustic laws which separated his sensibility to the vesper from my own. To him it was religious expression. To me ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... the advantage of you at Memmert, in spite of acoustic obstacles. Your friends made an appointment behind your back, and I, in my misplaced zeal, have taken some trouble to attend it; so that I've had a working demonstration on another matter, the invasion of England ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... distinctly to me, but it seemed to come from a different point. I turned my ear to the wind, and in the succeeding moments I was more and more baffled. One bay sounded from below and next from far to the right; another from the left. I could not distinguish voice from echo. The acoustic properties of the amphitheater beneath me were too ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... perform, and yet he executed it in a way which showed what fruit our mutual interchange of ideas had borne. I also took care that, by means of the complete reconstruction of the hall, I should obtain good acoustic conditions for the orchestra, which I had arranged according to quite a new system of my own. As may be imagined, it was only with the greatest difficulty that the money for this could be found; however, I ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... me, but it seemed to come from a different point. I turned my ear to the wind, and in the succeeding moments I was more and more baffled. One bay sounded from below and next from far to the right; another from the left. I could not distinguish voice from echo. The acoustic properties of the amphitheater beneath me were too ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... possible by a bequest of $200,000 left by Regent Arthur Hill, '65e, of Saginaw upon his death in 1909, forms one of the unique features of the University's equipment. Despite its seating capacity, with the stage, of over 5,000, it has almost perfect acoustic properties, so that a whisper from the stage can be heard in any portion of this great hall. Its completion in 1913 enabled the University at last to bring the great part of the students together under one roof upon such occasions as the annual convocation, the official opening ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... used by the Supreme Court, was admirably adapted for the deliberations of the forty-eight gentlemen who composed the upper house of the Nineteenth Congress. Modeled after the theatres of ancient Greece, it possessed excellent acoustic properties, and there was ample accommodation in the galleries for the few strangers who then visited Washington. The Senate used to meet at noon and generally conclude its day's work by three o'clock, while adjournments over from ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... really "frozen music." And when adorned with tropical plants and lit up with electric lights and pretty faces, it must indeed be a superb sight. Very imposing, too, is the vast Banqueting Hall, from whose platform, to test the acoustic effect of the rows of wires stretched six inches apart under the ceiling to break the sound, I addressed vacancy. The panels of this hall still await their artists. 'T is a rare opportunity for Glasgow to emulate the Parisian Pantheon; and, indeed, there is so much art-work to be done ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Metropolitan Opera House was built in 1883, and the vigor of the social opposition, coupled with popular appreciation of the new spirit, which came in with the German rgime, gave the deathblow to the Academy, whose loss to fashion was long deplored by the admirers of its fine acoustic qualities and its effective architectural arrangements for the purposes ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... attend their practices in their barracks. There I also met the whole staff of officers, and was treated by them with great respect. These bands played on alternate evenings amid brilliant illuminations in the middle of the Piazza San Marco, whose acoustic properties for this class of production were really excellent. I was often suddenly startled towards the end of my meal by the sound of my own overtures; then as I sat at the restaurant window giving myself up to impressions of the music, I did not ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... the ear as at present known to the comparative physiologist are grouped as the acoustic and the non-acoustic. The cochlea is supposed on very good grounds to have to do with the acoustic functions, and the organs of the semicircular canals on equally good evidence are thought to have to do with such ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... called, indicates a state of unnecessary throat tension as the cause, or at any rate the accompaniment, of every faulty tone. Further, an outline is given of all scientific knowledge of the voice. The anatomy of the vocal organs, and the acoustic and mechanical principles of the vocal action, are briefly described. Finally, the psychological laws of tone-production are considered. It is seen that under normal conditions the voice instinctively obeys the ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... rest of the school, at Aberystwith. It was the second of two given in support of the new church at Borth, to the debt on which the proceeds were devoted. The first was held in the Assembly Room of the Queen's Hotel, a beautiful room, with fine acoustic properties. We cannot say as much for the Temperance Hall, in which the second was given. It is a structure of the very severest Georgian architecture. "Why," asks a reporter, "should water-drinkers allow it to be supposed that ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... have revealed further suggestive facts with regard to sound, and more particularly with regard to the varying acoustic properties of the air. It is a familiar experience how distant sounds will come and go, rising and falling, often being wafted over extraordinary distances, and again failing altogether, or sometimes being lost at near range, but appearing in strength further away. A free balloon, moving ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... reminding one of the open space between the slats of a Venetian blind. Below it was a pine table filled with papers and surrounded by stools. When occupying one of these seats, one's eyes could sweep the entire plain. On the walls were electric apparatus, acoustic tubes ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... know, the dining-hall of the Utinam Club is of a circular shape, and it happens to possess certain peculiar acoustic properties. In other words, it is a whispering-gallery, and it so chanced that Senator Morrison sat at one of the definite points—they call them vocal foci, I think—and I at the other. That is the ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... falsetto voice by "acting in the same way as a hazel-nut can be made to act as a whistle, when the kernel has been extracted through a small hole in the shell," &c. I think, however, that the reader will, from the description given above, agree with me that the acoustic properties of the pockets of the voicebox cannot be very great, and that, at all events, there is a vast difference between their construction and that of a hazel-nut, either with or without the kernel. Then there is this additional difficulty, that even if one could whistle upon ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... was audible at one spot only. The acoustic properties of the veranda condensed and concentrated it within a narrow area, beyond which was silence. Chance had selected this aerial whirlpool ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... The acoustic effect is due to the resonances generated by hollow spaces of the resonator, and Dr. Aikin, in his work on "The Voice," points out that we can study the resonances yielded by these hollow spaces by whispering the vocal sounds; but it is necessary to put ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... Tuning.—Electric resonance and electric tuning are very like those of acoustic resonance and acoustic tuning which I have just described. Just as acoustic resonance may be simple or sympathetic so electric resonance may be simple or sympathetic. Simple acoustic resonance is the direct reinforcement of a simple vibration and this condition is had when ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... and the two clubs where speeches were made and hand shaking done. Still, I knew what I was to say at the meeting, and the composition of the audience I was to address. The hall is large, with good acoustic qualities, and in it I had spoken frequently. It is situated in the midst of a dense population of workingmen, and was so crowded that night in every part that many of the audience were compelled to stand in the aisles and around the walls. On entering I mentally ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... arch, unsupported by pillar or post, and is said to have but one counterpart on the globe. The walls are 12 feet thick, and there are 20 huge double doors for entrance and exit. The Tabernacle seats 13,462 people, and its acoustic properties are so marvelously perfect that a whisper or the dropping of a pin can be heard all over it. The organ is one of the largest and grandest toned in existence, and was built of native woods, by Mormon workmen and artists, at a cost of $100,000. It is 58 feet high, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... he answered with a smile. "A case of mistaken identity. My name is Jones." Then, continuing his speech to Patsy Doyle, he said: "There is no need to consider the acoustic properties of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... what he was about," Lorimer remarked to Beatrix, as they took their seats. "Thayer can't complain of the acoustic effects of ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... can suppose the rest. If I have a criticism for Mrs. LOWNDES' otherwise admirable handling of the affair it is that she depends too much on the involuntary eavesdropper; before long, indeed, I was forced to conclude either that Lily possessed a miraculous sense of overhearing, or that the acoustic properties of the lonely house rendered it conspicuously unsuited for the maturing of felonious little plans. But this is a trifle compared with the delights of such a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... which it was built up. The words astonished him so much that he forced his way out until he could see the Princess of Sant' Ilario's beautiful profile dark against the bright light of the street. She was still speaking, but he could no longer hear her voice, some acoustic peculiarity of the columns had in all probability been the means of conveying to him the fragment of conversation he had overheard. Avoiding recognition, he slipped away through an opening in the throng and just succeeded in reaching the gate as the first of the Montevarchi ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... at the Gare du Nord may be crude, but its acoustic properties are superb. The noise which accompanied the arrival of the cortege was simply ear-splitting. I was in the very act of wondering whether, if I decided to retire, my legs would carry me, when, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the sensation of sound (q.v.). The term "acoustics'' might, however, with advantage be reserved for the aspect of the subject more immediately connected with hearing. Thus we may speak appropriately of the acoustic quality of a room or hall, describing it as good or bad acoustically, according as speaking is heard in it easily or with difficulty. When a room has bad acoustic quality we can almost always assign the fault to large smooth surfaces on the walls, floor or ceiling, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... but it seemed to come from a different point. I turned my ear to the wind, and in the succeeding moments I was more and more baffled. One bay sounded from below and next from far to the right; another from the left. I could not distinguish voice from echo. The acoustic properties of the amphitheater beneath me were ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... towards him, and, by the air of an acoustic instrument, enabled Beethoven to hear a few words ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... cerebro-spinal fluid may pass down the Eustachian tube into the pharynx. The escape of brain matter from the ear is exceedingly rare. Emphysema of the scalp sometimes results when the fracture passes through the mastoid cells. The facial and acoustic nerves and the maxillary and mandibular divisions of the trigeminal are frequently implicated. Deafness is a serious and not uncommon accompaniment of fracture of the middle fossa, as the fracture involves the labyrinth and ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... had a curious rumble in the dim stone room. Matthews wondered whether it were because the acoustic properties of a serdab in Dizful differ from those of a galley on the Karun, or whether there really ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of minutes before replying, while the Lord of Rimini temporarily monopolised the acoustic possibilities ...
— Reginald • Saki
... Dome was almost everything; the four short arms being so constructed as to afford picturesque and varied vistas. Probably the acoustic properties would have been superior, and for the ordinary purposes of congregational worship there would have been less unused space. Hence it need take no one by surprise that some, although they recognise the superiority ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... stands just west of the Temple, is elliptical in shape, and, with its broad gallery running around the entire interior, except the end occupied by the organ loft and pulpit, it can seat about 9000 persons. Its acoustic properties are remarkable, and one of the duties of any guide who exhibits the auditorium to visitors is to station them at the end of the gallery opposite the pulpit, and to drop a pin on the floor to show them how distinctly ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... to answer "Yes" or "No" as he thought fit. This child of grace and persuasion was a wonderful musician. The Duke of Milan sent for him to play upon his lute and improvise Italian canzoni. The lute he carried was of silver, fashioned like a horse's head, and tuned according to acoustic laws discovered by himself. Of the songs he sang to its accompaniment none have been preserved. Only one sonnet remains to show of what sort was the poetry of Lionardo, prized so highly by the men of his own generation. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... rock five hundred feet above, and climbed for a mile. It was a dead, flat place, without sound, for the footsteps of the burros and the man fell dully on the soft and sliding floor, and it seemed to have no acoustic properties. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
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