"Sounding-board" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Phinuit's narrative the black disks of night framed by the polished brass circles of the stern ports had faded out into dusky violet, then into a lighter lilac, finally into a warm yet tender blue. Now the main deck overhead was a sounding-board for thumps and rustle of ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... thunder came from both sides, and Martin knew they were entering the haven. The voices of Ruth and Little Billy brought echoes from the giant sounding-board ahead. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... in this connection, that, as the voice ascends in pitch, there is a tendency to blend the various vowel-sounds into one sound. As the tones grow higher the sound-waves are focused at higher points upon the hard-palate, the sounding-board of the resonance cavities, and more difficulty is experienced in moulding these sound-waves into the forms characteristic of the different vowel-elements. As the parts concerned in tone-formation gain in flexibility, ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... favourite subjects. In 1603 the churchwardens were ordered to provide in every church "a comely and decent pulpit." Hence most of our pulpits date from this period. The sides were panelled and carved with scrollwork; and at the same time a sounding-board was introduced. Occasionally the hour-glass which regulated the length of the preacher's discourse remains, with ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... witchcraft came to a blaze, and was stamped out of existence.... The only relic on the place of its tragedy is the well of the Burroughs' house, which is still in the hay-field, and over which is the resting-place of the sounding-board of the pulpit in the church where ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... the sharp-billed weathercock at its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flapping seats, and a gallery running round three sides of the building. On the fourth side the pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hanging over it. Here preached the Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., successor, after a number of generations, to the office and the parsonage of the Reverend Didymus Bean, before mentioned, but not suspected of any of his alleged heresies. He held to the old faith ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that both Mabel and Lucy overrated Francis Lingen's attentions. I don't think that they amounted to much more than providing himself with a sounding-board, and occasional looking-glass. He loved to talk, and to know himself listened to; he loved to look and to know himself looked at. You learned a lot about yourself that way. You saw how your things were taken. A poet—for he called himself poet, and had once so described himself in a hotel ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Thirty spare rowers rested impatiently on the centre deck, ready to leap wherever needed. On the forecastle commanded the proreus, Ameinias's lieutenant, and with him the keleustes, the oar master who must give time on his sounding-board for the rowing, and never fail,—not though the ships around reeled down to watery grave. And finally on the poop by the captain stood the "governor,"—knotted, grizzled, and keen,—the man whose touch upon the heavy steering oars might give the Nausicaae life ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the head waters of the Delaware is a chosen haunt of the winter wren. His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some marvelous sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy and plaintiveness. I think of a tremulous, vibrating tongue of silver. You may know it is the song of a wren from its gushing, lyrical character; but you must needs look sharp to see the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... ceiling and rafters were so open and reverberating, it was generally thought imperative to hang above the pulpit a great sounding-board, which threatened the minister like a giant extinguisher, and was really as devoid of utility as it was curious in ornamentation, "reflecting most part an empty ineffectual sound." This great sound-killer was decorated with carved and painted ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... posthorn^; sackbut, euphonium, bombardon tuba^. [Vibrating surfaces] cymbal, bell, gong; tambour^, tambourine, tamborine^; drum, tom-tom; tabor, tabret^, tabourine^, taborin^; side drum, kettle drum; timpani, tympani^; tymbal^, timbrel^, castanet, bones; musical glasses, musical stones; harmonica, sounding-board, rattle; tam-tam, zambomba^. [Vibrating bars] reed, tuning fork, triangle, Jew's harp, musical box, harmonicon^, xylophone. sordine^, sordet^; sourdine^, sourdet^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... reading it. So there wasn't any noise to show anybody outside that there was some one in the room. And then I heard Burgess and Spence jawing on the steps. They thought the place was empty, of course. I couldn't help hearing what they said. The pav.'s like a sounding-board. I heard every word. Spence said, 'Well, it's about as difficult a problem as any captain of cricket at Wrykyn has ever had to tackle.' I had a sort of idea that old Billy liked to boss things all on his own, but apparently he does ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... greater artist than a thinker. His philosophy is of the beautiful, as was Keats', and while he lingers by the river's edge to catch the song of the reeds, his gaze is oftener fixed on the quiring planets. He is nature's most exquisite sounding-board and vibrates to her with intensity, color and vivacity that have no parallel. Stained with melancholy, his joy is never that of the strong man rejoicing in his muscles. Yet his very tenderness is tonic and his cry is ever restrained by an Attic sense of proportion. Like ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... ready, godths, with all your thunderbolths,—dath him in pietheth!"—bringing his right fist down into his left palm with all his strength, and his lifted foot upon the platform, which was built like a sounding-board, so that the master himself, who had suggested the action and obliged the poor boy to rehearse it over and over again, appeared to be utterly carried away by the magnificent demonstration; while to me—so deficient was I in rhetorical ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... when he dropped his oar all the section of the ship on his side seemed aglow. He heard nothing of what was said; enough that the chain hung idly from its staple in the bench, and that the chief, going to his seat, began to beat the sounding-board. The notes of the gavel were never so like music. With his breast against the leaded handle, he pushed with all his might—pushed until the shaft bent as if ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... rather dismayed to find herself mounting the gallery stairs, and to emerge into a well-cushioned abode, with the shield-bearing angel of the corbel of an arch all to herself, and a very good view of the cobwebs over Mr. Dusautoy's sounding-board. It seemed to suit all parties, however, for Lucy and Sophia took possession of the forefront, and their father had the inmost corner, where certainly ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... picturesque scene. The sun, rising over the slopes of Olivet, would fall on the gathered crowd, if the water-gate was, as is probable, on the east or south-east side of the city. Beneath the fresh fortifications probably, which would act as a sounding-board for the reader, was set up a scaffold high above the crowd, large enough to hold Ezra and thirteen supporters—principal men, no doubt—seven on one side of him and six on the other. Probably a name has dropped out, and the numbers were equal. There, in the morning light, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... goes up to her). The blood money of my daughter? To Beelzebub with thee, thou infamous bawd! Sooner will I vagabondize with my violin and fiddle for a bit of bread—sooner will I break to pieces my instrument and carry dung on the sounding-board than taste a mouthful earned by my only child at the price of her soul and future happiness. Give up your cursed coffee and snuff-taking, and there will be no need to carry your daughter's face to market. I have always had my bellyful and a good shirt to my back before this ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sold by the thousands and given universal satisfaction. It is considered the best 50-cent outfit ever produced, and, although we have made several improvements lately, the price is the same as before. In connection with a peculiar oscillating electro-magnet and a queer anvil, the sounding-board aids in giving out a loud, clear click that is found elsewhere only in noisy railroad sounders. This outfit is best adapted for a learner's set of one instrument and a battery to be used on the table for practising, either with or without the ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John |
