"Tenor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the propriety of the Grant, and if Government had anything to answer for on this point, it was for having so long delayed bringing it before the House. There could not be a greater compliment to Her Royal Highness than to state the quiet unobtrusive tenor of her life, and that she had never made herself the object of public gaze, but had devoted herself to the education of her child, whom the House was now called ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... interlude over, Mary's days reverted to their monotonous tenor. As November drew to a close, she began to think of Christmas, remembering how happy her last had been, and wondering if she could summon enough courage for an attempt to engage Stefan's interest in some kind of celebration. She now admitted to herself ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... received was to be "esteemed the deviser of a new and pernicious paradox." He does not, indeed, name the Assembly while intimating this, but only refers to the clergy generally and dispersedly. That he had the Assembly distinctly in view, however, appears not only from the tenor of the whole, but also from a passage in the Postscript, where he hints that such action was at work against him that he might be stopped any day by the official censorship and prevented from printing. If, therefore, this new tract should ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... and Washington would have benefited by conforming to it more closely than he did. The prevailing tenor of the advice which he received is probably reflected in the communication from Adams, who was in favor of making the government impressive through grand ceremonial. "Chamberlains, aides-de-camp, secretaries, masters of ceremonies, etc., will become necessary.... Neither dignity ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... not so. They believe for the most part, as I hear, with Probus and Piso, that on no account should we provoke the gentiles, or give them cause of complaint against us; they think that to do so would greatly harm us; that our duty is to go on the even tenor of our way, worshipping God after our own doctrine, and in our own manner, and claiming and exercising all our rights as citizens, but abstaining from every act that might rouse their anger, or needlessly irritate them—irritated, necessarily, almost beyond bearing, by the wide and increasing ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... studious period of my life, when I had few events to break the uniform tenor of my days, I must mention letters which I frequently received from Mr. Devereux and Lady Geraldine, who still continued in India. Mr. Devereux was acquainted with almost all the men of eminence at the Irish bar; men who are not mere lawyers, but persons of literature, of agreeable manners, and gentlemanlike ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... of a contrary tenor come to light, we may say with some approach to certainty that the responsibility for the war of 1877-78 rests with the Sultan of Turkey and with those who indirectly encouraged him to set at naught the counsels of the Powers. Lord ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... tenor of prophecy it appears that infidelity will have overspread the world when the Son of man shall come to reign upon it: And as this agrees to no other coming of his foretold by the prophets, there can ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... drabness and restraint, best typified, perhaps, by the change from our tender, springy country turf, to the dry, blistered planks of Mrs. Handsomebody's back yard. Angel, fiery, candid, inconstant; the careless possessor of a beautiful boys' treble, which was to develop into the incomparable tenor of today—next, myself, a year younger, but equally tall and courageous, in a more dogged way—then, The Seraph, three years my junior, he was just five, following where we led with a blind loyalty, "Stubborn, strong and ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... tutelage both from his father and the members of his tribe, this boy was taught the war spirit and in manhood he exemplified it. The principles of peace taught him in one short hour at Washington changed the whole tenor of his life: a pathetic commentary on what civilization might ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... stared fixedly at the inside of the sheet above me I found that I could see her as clearly as I had done an hour ago could talk to her in my thoughts, and, though it was a conversation of irrational tenor, I derived the greatest delight from it, seeing that "THOU" and "THINE" and "for THEE" and "to THEE" occurred in it incessantly. These fancies were so vivid that I could not sleep for the sweetness of my emotion, and felt as though I must communicate my superabundant ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... would be a most unpardonable breach of his duty if he did not summon a Protestant panel. I can easily believe that the Protestant panel may conduct themselves very conscientiously in hanging the gentlemen of the crucifix; but I blame the law which does not guard the Catholic against the probable tenor of those feelings which must unconsciously influence the judgments of mankind. I detest that state of society which extends unequal degrees of protection to different creeds and persuasions; and ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... passing from feeling to understanding, it is remarkable how, when a man is possessed with any strong belief, he will find, as he reads the Bible, not only many things which appear to him expressly to confirm his view, but something in the entire tenor of what he reads that appears to harmonize with it. I doubt not the author of Man and his Dwelling-Place can hardly open the Bible at random without chancing upon some passage which he regards as confirmatory of his opinions. I am quite sure that to ordinary men his opinions ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... beautiful music he felt the same. And that got me thinking of grand opera, and of that Romeo and Juliet night at La Scala, in Milan, when I first met Theobald Gustav. Then I stopped to tell Dinky-Dunk that I'd been hopelessly in love with a tenor at thirteen and had written in my journal: "I shall die and turn to dust still adoring him." Then I told him about my first opera, Rigoletto, and hummed "La Donna E Mobile," which of course he remembered himself. It took me back to Florence, and to a box at the Pagliano, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... remark would suggest that since their first meeting a lively intercourse and close friendship had sprung up between Mr. Brown and the second Tenor. ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel
... the first three, which contain a complete story. The entire vocal score embraces no less than sixty-four numbers,—which in itself constitutes a sufficient reason for abridgment. In the first three parts the connecting narratives, recited by the evangelist, are assigned to tenor and bass, and declare the events associated with the birth of our Lord,—the journey to Bethlehem, the birth in the manger, the joy of Mary, and the thanksgiving over the advent of the Lord,—the choral parts being sung by the shepherds. The fourth part, that for New Year's Day, relates ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... strange changes never come. They pursue the even tenor of their way in humdrum monotony, content to tread the broad safe path of routine. For them the fascination of the mountain peaks of giddy chance has no allurement, the swift turbulent waters of intrigue no charm. There are others with whom Dame Fortune plays many an exciting ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... after an interval of over six years, with appendages so extravagant, whether we regard their tenor or their length, and with an indifference so sublime to the popular desire that he should get along with his personal narrative, was hardly calculated to conciliate critical opinion; but it had one capital effect. It drew from Whitwell Elwin, himself a ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... made me leave the inn, and got me two pleasant rooms in the house of a retired artiste, the widow of the tenor Carlani. He also made arrangements with a pastrycook to send me my dinner and supper. All this, plus a servant, only cost me ten sequins ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... fact, save Dreadnoughts, which, in the absence of these accessories, had to belie their name and rush from one unprotected anchorage to another in fear of the German mosquito-craft. Only the courage of the officers and men saved us, and up to the present—that was the tenor of many of the speeches—they have reaped but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... so, for it was to fight with sin that Christ came into the world, and left His Church there; and St. Paul prophesied that evil men and seducers should wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Daniel too, foresaw that the little horn should spring up, and do very wickedly; and all the tenor of prophecy in the Epistles declares that times of trouble and temptation must ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... by their conduct, to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their country, as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public, that they will not abuse those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper use of power, that a man has shown by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his fellow citizens, have been among the principal objects of his life; and that he has owed none of the degradations of his power or fortune to ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... was called "Fallen Leaves," the singer being a son of Peter Shott, the local preacher—a young man of dissipated appearance, with a white face and an excellent tenor voice. This song, of course, was a disquisition on the evanescence of all things here below. Each verse began "I saw," and ended ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... tenor of the epistle which had caused these feelings within the bosom of Lady Rosamond. Sir Thomas Seymour was a man not to be thwarted in his designs. He loved his child with deep tenderness, and, as he said in the letter, this was the reason of his solicitude. It had always been the secret pride ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... been, at that early period of her life! In those days, she had trembled with pleasure at the singing of a famous Italian tenor; she had flown into a passion when a new dress proved to be a misfit, on the evening of a ball; she had given money to beggars in the street; she had fallen in love with a poor young man, and had terrified her weak-minded hysterical mother, by threatening to commit suicide when the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... Cavendishes stay away. Because another mushroom millionaire bought books for his library by the foot, had gold mangers and silver stalls for his horses, and adorned himself with diamonds like an Indian Rajah, were no incentives to the Cavendishes to do likewise. They pursued the even tenor of ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... of the living, in the context, has any reference to changing them into immortal beings, I cannot admit without further evidence. It is contrary to the whole tenor of revelation—it is contrary to our text, which declares that all, who are made alive in Christ first die in Adam. As the change of the living is an important point in our present investigation, we will give it further attention. That the Christians were to experience a ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... tenor of Marian's oft-repeated musings. The practical result was a resolution to consult Edmund when she should go to Fern Torr to his wedding, early in August. She could not write her pros and cons, but to Edmund she could ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... body were an eye, where the hearing?' The monotony of a church in which uniformity was the ideal would be intolerable. The chorus has its parts, and the soprano cannot say to the bass, 'I have no need of you,' nor the bass to the tenor, 'I have ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... accompanied with some broken music; and the ditty fitted to the device. Acting in song, especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace; I say acting, not dancing (for that is a mean and vulgar thing); and the voices of the dialogue would be strong and manly (a base and a tenor; no treble); and the ditty high and tragical; not nice or dainty. Several quires, placed one over against another, and taking the voice by catches, anthem-wise, give great pleasure. Turning dances ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... lines be considered with their context or without it, the tenor of their thought and language positively refutes the commentators' notion that the 'will' admitted to the lady's soul is a rival lover named Will. The succeeding ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... seeming contradictions; I do therefore once for all desire whoever shall think it worth his while to understand what I have written concerning vision, that he would not stick in this or that phrase, or manner of expression, but candidly collect my meaning from the whole sum and tenor of my discourse, and laying aside the words as much as possible, consider the bare notions themselves, and then judge whether they are agreeable to truth and his own ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... converse with old and young. Occasionally, as in a letter which he wrote to his friend Pearce of Birmingham, at a time when he did not know whether his distant correspondent was alive or dead, he burst forth into an unrestrained enthusiasm of affection and service. But his was rather the even tenor of domestic devotion and friendly duty, unbroken by passion or coldness, and ever lighted up by a steady geniality. The colleagues who were associated with him for the third of a century worshipped him in the old English sense of the word. The younger committee-men and missionaries who ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... day and night, was not pursuing the even tenor of his way in that state of complacent self-approval which was the usual attitude of his mind. It was not that he mourned the child; his affections were at all times of a microscopic character, and the ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... are questions of more concern to England, and should she be able to come to an understanding with Russia with regard to them, she would not wage war for the sake of Rumania.' Indeed, an understanding came about, and an indiscretion enabled the Globe to make its tenor public early in June 1878. 'The Government of her Britannic Majesty', it said, 'considers that it will feel itself bound to express its deep regret should Russia persist in demanding the retrocession of Bessarabia.... England's interest in this question is not such, however, as to justify her ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... not forgotten the tenor of our talk. And suddenly, in the height of his fury, the old soldier found a warning look directed on his face; the absurdity of his behaviour was brought home to him in a flash; and the storm came to an abrupt end, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no longer visible. But the pensive dusk of the dining-room, which blackened the claret in the decanters, leaving only the faintest ruby glow in the glass which Hubert raised to his lips, suited the tenor of the conversation, which had wandered from the dramatic to the social side of the question. What did he think of divorce? She sighed, and he wondered ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of his life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner and words, there must lie for it ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... up by the congregation are sung in a three-part harmony, the women singing the soprano and a transposed tenor, the men with high voices singing the melody, and those with low voices a thundering bass. In a few of these songs, however, the leading part is sung in unison by the whole congregation, down to the last line, which is ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... The spirit and tenor of our remarks on tobacco will apply to the use of ardent spirits. The fumes of gin, whisky, and rum are, if possible, worse than the scent of tobacco. They must on no account be brought into company. If a man ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... apostle, who designed to run from place to place, and propagate the faith through all the East. These arguments made no impression on the saint; he had fortified his resolution with more potent reasons, and answered the merchants in the same tenor in which he had written to Father Francis Perez, that he could not distrust the Divine Goodness, and that his distrust would be so much the more criminal, because the powerful inspiration of the Holy Spirit pushed him forward to teach the Chinese the gospel of the living God. "I ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... Then the tenor sang, and after the applause had given way to another rustle of talk, the gray-haired man continued as if there ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... had disapproved of it on the grounds that in diplomacy threatening language should not be addressed to a small State which prudence would have moderated in dealing with a powerful one, and that the whole tenor of the dispatch was calculated to ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... held. You have heard of the Secret Gang of Horse Thieves, I suppose. Well, I overheard this immaculate Duffel of yours, without any intention on my part, conversing with a 'hale fellow well met,'—no other than the stranger you yourself suspected of being a villain—and from the tenor of their remarks, they belong to some clique of rascals. I could not gather a very distinct idea as to what the organization was formed to accomplish, for I could not hear all that was said; but I learned enough to satisfy myself that all was not ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... the tenor took up the theme, all talking ceased—Ella's husky whisper, Clara's smoother syllables, and the flat, slow, variable voice of Kerr—the whole house seemed to sink into stiller repose; the high chords floated above the heads of the black pit like ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... public, but even when he would encroach on the other parts of the constitution, and extend his power beyond the legal bounds, it is allowable to resist and dethrone him; though such resistance and violence may, in the general tenor of the laws, be deemed unlawful and rebellious. For besides that nothing is more essential to public interest, than the preservation of public liberty; it is evident, that if such a mixed government be once supposed to be established, every ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... have got together on such short notice. First, you see, we have the Duke and Duchess of Bayswater. I have engaged them for the first three days of your stay here to give eclat to your hospitality, at the price of a diva and her accompanying tenor, I must admit. It is their very first appearance professionally, and I think that I have ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... presumably enjoying the Terra addio, for which Caruso had, as usual, been saving himself. Without, in the corridor, a figure furtively peering at the names on the doors. Then the voice of the soprano blending with that of the tenor and, during the divine duo, the door of the box opening, letting in a thread of light; Paliser turning to look and beholding that figure and a hand which, instantly descending, deepened ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Feb. 6. Rachmaninov's third symphony, "The Bells," for soprano, tenor, bass and chorus, with orchestra, given by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra with Florence Hinkle, Arthur Hackett, F. Patten, and a chorus trained by ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... curiosity and reserve by his more cultivated neighbours, he soon acquired a great popularity among the villagers, subscribing handsomely to all local objects, and attending their smoking concerts and other functions, where, having a remarkably rich tenor voice, he was always ready to oblige with an excellent song. He appeared to have plenty of money, which was said to have been gained in the California gold fields, and it was clear from his own talk and that of his wife that he had spent a part ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... therefore, incensed on his side, deserted her company, and sought the society of those ever ready to entertain him. And as the greater number of his courtiers were fully as licentious as himself, they had no desire he should become subject to his wife, or alter the evil tenor of his ways. ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... magnificent seaboard and England's maritime and naval power in the Mediterranean, would prove the most powerful alliance. But meanwhile Italy has only to be patient, develop her industries, mature her strength, and pursue the upright tenor of her way. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... must we hide ourselves: on Christ's lee-side can we only ride safe, and be free of the hazard of the storm. To him therefore must our recourse be daily, by new and fresh acts of faith in and through him and his influences, communicated according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, through faith eyeing the promiser, the promise, with the price purchasing, and so drawing and sucking light, direction, strength, stability, and what our present exigent calleth for, must we think to stand. And happy ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... infinitely beseeching tenderness of Fray Antonio's voice: for most wonderfully did his voice rise and fall in its cadenced sweetness and entreaty, and there was a strangely vibrant quality in his tones that matched the tenor of his words, and so held all that ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... the approbation of all the members, who cried out from all corners of the House that this was the meaning of the House. The gentlemen of the Court of Inquests did not spare the Presidents. M. Martineau said publicly that the tenor of this decree was that the envoy of Spain should be made much of till they received an answer from Saint Germain, which would prove to be another taunt of the Cardinal's. Pontcarre said he was not so much afraid of a Spaniard as of a Mazarin. In short, the generals had ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... served more faithfully, and the gospel law and the said faith be spread and exalted the more, on this account. After mature deliberation with our brethren on these points, with their advice, arid at the humble solicitation of the aforesaid King Philip, by our apostolic authority, by perpetual tenor of these presents, to the praise and glory of the same Almighty God, as well as to the honor of His most glorious Mother and ever Virgin Mary and of all the heavenly court, and to the exaltation of the aforesaid faith, ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... William M'Naughtan well knew, and himself avowed his knowledge, that no man or party existed amongst the enemy who could pretend to have authority sufficient for ratifying, or for executing, any treat of whatsoever tenor. The Cabool forces perished eventually by the dissension of the two first in command. This is notorious. And yet, to mark the dread fatality which pursued them, the concord of these two officers was even more destructive to their victims than the worst of their disputes. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... note which its vibration produces. The vocal cords of women are about one-third shorter than those of men, hence the higher pitch of the notes they produce. In children the vocal cords are shorter than in adults.[50] The cords of tenor singers are also shorter than those of basses and baritones. The muscles within the larynx, of course, play a very important part in altering the tension of the vocal cords. Those qualities of the voice which we speak ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... feet, and the delicate curve of the hawk's beak outlining every Yankee nose, queer, humourous, restless glances sweeping Gotham streets and windows where Gotham crowded to gaze back at the halted youngsters in blue; then a far tenor cry, nasal commands, thin voices penetrating from out of the crowded distance; a sudden steadying of ranks; the level flash of shouldered steel; a thousand men marking time; and at last the drums' quick outbreak; and the 1st Vermont Infantry passed ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... had made up his mind to land at Adramiti. But now he waives all preconceived ideas and is keen to throw himself heart and soul into Lord K.'s ideas and mine. He would rather I did not even refer to his former views as he sees they are expressly barred by the tenor of my instructions. The French are working to time in getting ship-shape. The 29th Division are arriving up to date and about one-third of them have landed. We are fixing up our gear for floating and other piers and are trying to improvise ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... and that had no connection whatever with barking or yelping. When we wanted to make him go on, all we had to do was to say, "Sing a little more," and he would repeat the cadence. Although he was fed with the utmost care, as was proper in the case of a tenor singer and so distinguished a gentleman, Kobold had one eccentric taste: he would eat earth just like a South American savage. We never succeeded in curing him of the habit, which proved the cause of his ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... made out of a hollowed section of the trunk of a cocoanut tree and covered over one end with sharkskin. It was generally used in pairs, one larger than the other, somewhat after the idea of the bass and tenor drums of civilized nations. One of these drums was placed on either side of the performer, and the drumming was performed with both hands by tapping with the fingers. By peculiar variations of the drumming, known only to the initiated, the performer ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... in a kind of befuddled astonishment. "You mean she really is a—" He stopped and brought his tenor voice to a squeaking halt, regained his professional poise, and began again. "I'd rather not discuss the patient in her presence, Mr. Malone," he said. "If you'll just come into ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... gentlemen lodgers could be obtained, was not a person whose acquaintance it was desirable to cultivate. Moreover, the words opera singer raised ecstatic visions of a possible future introduction to some "ravishing tenor," the remote idea of which caused her to be so visibly preoccupied, that Miss Kling took her leave with angry sniffles, and returned home to ponder over ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... his horse's legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to develop an exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to escape, leaving behind some kisses and coin. And then, advancing deeper into the woods, where all signs of habitation failed, he began to sing—uplifting a tenor so singularly sweet, and shaded by a pathos so subduing and tender, that I wot the robins and linnets stopped to listen. Mr. Hamlin's voice was not cultivated; the subject of his song was some sentimental lunacy borrowed from the Negro minstrels; ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... a great variety of inquiries at a considerable number of offices, where he seemed always to be kindly received; but as he invariably spoke in a low tone of voice, and was answered in the same, I did not exactly comprehend the tenor of the information he obtained. I only know that he exhibited a great deal of patience and perseverance in going about from office to office, in waiting till some one was at leisure to speak to him, and in asking questions. I made some remark to ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... opera-house is usually supposed to tax human powers more urgently than any position save that of a general in the very heat and stress of battle. The orchestra, the chorus, the subscribers, the first tenor, a pair of rival prima donnas, the newspapers, the box-agents in Bond Street, the army of hangers-on in the flies—all combine to demand such gifts of tact, resolution, patience, foresight, tenacity, flexibility, as are only expected from the great ruler or the great soldier. The editor of a periodical ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... interrupted a singer before the end of a phrase, they exclaim: "The singers are detestable! The orchestra has no firmness; the violins have disfigured the principal design; everybody has been wanting in vigor and animation; the tenor was quite out, he did not know his part; the harmony is confused; the author is no accompanist; the ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... the tenor of Calmar's life was markedly uneven. At times the lust to write, the spirit of inspiration, as he would have explained to himself in the privacy of his own study, would come upon him strong, and for hours or days life would be ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... guard against this undefined marplot to the accomplishment of his wishes, is the object of his religion. Its primitive forms are therefore defensive and conciliatory. The hopes of the savage extend little beyond the reach of his own arm, and the tenor of his prayers is that the gods be neuter. If they do not interfere he can take care of himself. His religion is a sort ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... gehts ber Ziel und Schnur, Das Herz mcht sich zerspalten, Sie sucht es in B Moll, B Dur, Auf allerhand Gestalten, Thut hundertfalt 75 Den Bss und Alt, Tenor und Cant durchstreichen; Doch Stimm doch Kunst Ist gar umbsonst, Der Schall thuts ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed bamboo Jacob's pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour's face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... never be so much injured as by resting its defence upon passages liable to so much suspicion; and because he knows, that the doctrine of the Trinity by no means depends upon that particular passage, but may be satisfactorily deduced from various other expressions, and from the general tenor of holy writ. Indeed, if we were not prevented from harbouring any such suspicion by Mr. Smith's flaming profession of the iotal accuracy of his creed; and if we could doubt the orthodoxy of the divine, without impugning the honesty of the man, we should ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... not come from Vaniman. It was made in his behalf by a duet of voices, bass and nasal tenor, speaking loudly and confidently behind the two men who were ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... your Grace are of a piece, as waters keep the tenor of their fountains: your compassion is general, and has the same effect as well on enemies as friends. It is so much in your nature to do good, that your life is but one continued act of placing benefits ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... belief he seems to have taken as a rule of conduct the remark above written, and left them to the care of professional experts, for very few of his recorded opinions throw any light upon his views of the dogmas and doctrines of the Church. Whatever the tenor of these opinions may have been, he never proclaimed them definitely. Probably they interested him little, for he was not the man to keep silent over a subject which he had greatly at heart. He gave a general ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... returned that opera troupe whose manager is never in despair, whose tenor never sulks, whose prima donna never fails, and in the orchard bona fide matinees were held, to which buttercups and clovers crowded in their prettiest spring hats, and verdant young blades twinkled their dewy lorgnettes, as they bowed and made ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... between the instantaneous burning of a barrel of gunpowder and the slower burning of a barrel of sulphur, and insurance fire-loss is not to be interpreted legally by thermo-dynamics nor thermo chemistry. While the legal principles are as yet unsettled, the tenor of current decisions may be summed up as follows: If explosion cause fire, and fire cause loss, it is a loss by fire as proximate cause; and if fire cause explosion, and explosion cause loss, it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... in any way whatever. Vanity is generally the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by the women; a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your language and deportment has that meaning; you know that your meaning is so understood; and if you have not such meaning; if you be fixed by some previous engagement with, or greater liking for another; if you know you are here sowing ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... In the process of time he came so far to trust his experience of me, that he formed the habit of giving me an annual supper. Some days before this event, he would appear in my study, and with divers delicate and tentative approaches, nearly always of the same tenor, he would say that he should like to ask my family to an oyster supper with him. "But you know," he would explain, "I haven't a house of my own to ask you to, and I should like to give you the supper here." When I had agreed to this suggestion with due gravity, he would inquire our engagements, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... tenor of the shouts; and as he dropped his tool Maurice swooped up the Marlin, which was standing against an adjoining tree, and jumped for the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... ingenious construction, the Novel of humanitarian meaning, the Novel of thesis and problem and the Novel that foretells the future like an astrologer, all these types and yet others have been practised; but Meredith has kept tranquilly on the tenor of his large way, uninfluenced, except as he has expressed all these complexities in his own work. He is in literary evolution, a sport. Critics who have tried to show how his predecessors and contemporaries have influenced him, have come out lamely from the attempt. He has been ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... greatly scorne To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes, But joyed in theyr praise; And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne, Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did rayse, Your string could soone to sadder tenor turne, And teach the woods and waters to lament Your dolefull dreriment: Now lay those sorrowfull complaints aside; And, having all your heads with girlands crownd, Helpe me mine owne loves prayses to resound; Ne let the same of any be envide: So Orpheus did for his ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... his sense of sin and his longing for forgiveness, his consciousness of littleness and unworthiness when contrasted with the majesty of Jehovah. Let not our eyes be fixed upon his defects, but upon the general tenor of his life. It is true he is in war merciless and cruel; he hurls anathemas on his enemies. His wrath is as supernal as his love; he is inspired with the fiercest resentments; he exhibits the mighty anger of Homer's heroes; he never could forgive ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... the yearning desire for retirement, the habit of sober reflection, the trait of gentle sadness, and the passionate love for home and country. The years of his childhood passed unattended by a single sorrow. Time, however, brought a change, which broke rudely in upon the even tenor of his happy life. The pretty homestead on the banks of the Shannon was to be broken up, old poetic haunts had to be forsaken, and the sheep of the little fold ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... ceremony of plighting troth was over, the beadle spread before the lectern in the middle of the church a piece of pink silken stuff, the choir sang a complicated and elaborate psalm, in which the bass and tenor sang responses to one another, and the priest turning round pointed the bridal pair to the pink silk rug. Though both had often heard a great deal about the saying that the one who steps first on the rug will be the head of the house, neither Levin nor Kitty were capable ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... and there was that transparent stillness in the air which it seems almost unholy to disturb. Legree was a little distance from the quarters, when he heard the voice of some one singing. It was not a usual sound there, and he paused to listen. A musical tenor voice sang, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... woman's heart, involved him in an erratic course of blowing hot and cold that defeated his own ends. When he blew cold the chill was such that he blew hotter than ever to disperse it. He could see for himself that this seeming capriciousness made it difficult for Lois to preserve the equal tenor of her bearing, though she did ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... promised a good-sized audience; and the chorus was actually to be put into newly designed costumes. But the singers had considered, long ago, that plans for the winter were finished. Therefore this was a preposterous time to begin rehearsals for a work entirely new. The prima-donna and the first tenor simply scouted the idea of applying themselves to learn new roles—and in a Russian opera! Merelli must be out of his head to set about such a thing!—Ivan, it is true, might have been encouraged had he ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... to the Crown-Prince during that final Custrin period,—when Carzig and Himmelstadt were going on, and there was such progress in Economics, are all of hopeful ruggedly affectionate tenor; and there are a good few of them: style curiously rugged, intricate, headlong; and a strong substance of sense and worth tortuously visible everywhere. Letters so delightful to the poor retrieved ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared the undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and justice which seemed to direct the general tenor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and proposed music, herself going after Rich. Johnson to come and sing tenor, and bidding him bring a friend to sing bass. Then such music as they had that evening, was certainly never heard at a party ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... man was pacing the floor nervously. On a table was some food, untouched. As the door opened I thought he started as if in fear, and I am sure his dark face blanched, if only for an instant. Imagine our surprise at seeing Gennaro, the great tenor, with whom merely to have a speaking acquaintance was to argue ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... admonition to the people left in Palestine, and wrote two letters of the same tenor to the exiles, one to the nine tribes and a half, the other to the two tribes and a half. The letter to the nine tribes and a half of the captivity was carried to them by an ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... educated, but not strictly studious, persons, and which forms the reservoir of conversation for society above the sphere of turf and west-endism. Thus, for instance, though she could not undertake the volumes of Herbert Spencer, she was intelligently acquainted with the tenor of their contents; and though she had never opened one of Darwin's books, her knowledge of his main theories and illustrations was respectable. She was becoming a typical woman of the new time, the woman who has developed concurrently ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... and here again Ezekiel, as God's messenger, has power to bring about what he announces; for, at his command, the breath, or wind, or spirit, comes, and the stiff corpses spring to their feet, a mighty army. The explanation in the last verses of the text somewhat departs from the tenor of the vision by speaking of Israel as buried, but keeps to its substance, and point the despairing exiles to God as the source of national resurrection. But we must not force deeper meaning on Ezekiel's words than they properly bear. The spirit promised in them is simply the source of life,—literally, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... possess his soul in patience for an indeterminable wait, he was casting about for a place to secrete himself, when a change in the tenor of the talk between mistress and maid was conveyed by a sudden lift of half an octave in the latter's voice, sounding a sharp note of protest, to be answered by Liane ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... slight eminence and back from the Avenue des Champs Elysees by some hundred yards. For many years after I had left school, on my repeated visits to Paris, the old stone house bore on its gray front the large "Institution de jeunes Demoiselles," which betokened the unchanged tenor of its existence. But the rising tide of improvement has at length swept it away, and modern Paris has rolled over it, and its place remembers it no more. It was a fine old house, roomy, airy, bright, sunny, cheerful, with large apartments and a capital ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... hour before tea time. Across the big hall could be heard Earl Queen's mellow tenor as he softly intoned: "Swing low, sweet chariot," while laying the table for the evening meal, the little clink of silver and ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of the reforms ordered by His Majesty, Kuang Hsum in 1898, and which led to his dethronement and imprisonment, substantially adopted less than three years later by the Empress Dowager and her advisers. . . . The bare notation of the tenor of these far-reaching edicts gives to the Occidental reader but a vague notion of the tremendous intellectual revolution which they connote. Never before was there such an order from any government involving the reconstruction ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... to be quiet," he said—and then he glanced at her childish little face, and he hesitated. "It seems so rude of me," he added. He was the soul of courtesy, although he was an amateur tenor singer. ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... do not know,— either a sister or the brother's wife. Anon, too, came in the apple-toddy, a very rich and spicy compound; after which we had some glees and negro melodies, in which Mr. Thaxter sang a noble bass, and Mrs. Thaxter sang like a bird, and Mr. Weiss sang, I suppose, tenor, and the brother took some other part, and all were very mirthful and jolly. At about ten o'clock Mr. Titcomb and myself took leave, and emerging into the open air, out of that room of song, and pretty youthfulness of woman, and gay young men, there was the sky, and the ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... however, the greatest improbability in the story that Coligny advanced such claims in his own behalf as his admirers made for him. We may reject as apocryphal—for they stand in palpable contradiction with the whole tenor of his utterances—the words ascribed by Lord Macaulay to the great Huguenot hero (History of England, New York, 1879, iv. 488): "'In one respect,' said the Admiral Coligni, 'I may claim superiority ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... cry rose and fell, while all below stood still, frozen into silence by the utter horror of the sound. It was as the voice of a lost soul in the most dreadful torment. As suddenly as it had arisen it ceased, and it was now noticed that the tenor bell was no longer clanging its deep mellow voice above them in ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... confess, but to vindicate. I know the source of your opinions. Wieland has informed me on what your suspicions are built. These suspicions are fostered by you as certainties; the tenor of my life, of all my conversations and letters, affords me no security; every sentiment that my tongue and my pen have uttered, bear testimony to the rectitude of my mind; but this testimony is rejected. I am condemned ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... d'Anguillara, who bestowed the laurel on Petrarch,) "for us and our College, declare FRANCIS PETRARCH great poet and historian, and for a special mark of his quality of poet we have placed with our hands on his head a crown of laurel, granting to him, by the tenor of these presents, and by the authority of King Robert, of the senate and the people of Rome, in the poetic, as well as in the historic art, and generally in whatever relates to the said arts, as well in this holy city as elsewhere, the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... without promptly interfering for the captive. To suppose, then, that he really intended to permit general Harrison, or those who fought with him on the Wabash, to be burned, would have been at variance with the whole tenor of his life; and particularly with his manly and magnanimous conduct at the close of the assault upon ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... 4d. It is fair to add that they were alive to their responsibilities as they understood them, e.g., on 3rd March, 1571, they gave the clerk warning, and appointed another in his place who was "a good bass and tenor," at a salary of L1 6s. 8d., "that the choir might ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... just this little simple trick of getting the thing started requires not only a peculiar skill or gift, but also lungs of brass and a throat of iron. A transport rider without a voice is as a tenor in the same fix. He may—and does—get so hoarse that it is a pain to hear him; but as long as he can croak in good volume he is all right. Mere shouting will not do. He must shriek, until to the sympathetic bystander it seems that his throat must split wide open. Furthermore, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... gifted individuals, who, notwithstanding their diversities, and the progressiveness observable in their representations of the nature of God, are wonderfully consistent in the main tenor of their writings, and serve, in general, for mutual confirmation and illustration. In some cases, this may be due to the revision of earlier productions by later writers, which has thus brought more primitive conceptions ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... talk about your music, and your operatic airs, And your phonographic record that Caruso's tenor bears; But there isn't any music that such wondrous joy can bring Like the concert when the kiddies and their mother start ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... him to helpe and aid the said Austine and his companie in all what so euer his neede required. Also other letters he directed by the foresaid Austine vnto his fellowes, exhorting them to go forward boldlie in the Lords woorke, as by the tenor of the said epistle ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shown among them?" (Numbers xiv. 11.) It would be easy, but it would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the Deity from the whole tenor of the Mosaic history. Note: Among a rude and barbarous people, religious impressions are easily made, and are as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies imaginary wonders, would weaken and destroy the effect of real miracle. At the period of the Jewish history, referred ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... my adored one standing in the middle of the room, up to her elbows in soap-suds, washing out the very dress in which she was to appear on the morrow.... Good taste defend us! Could anything be more cruelly calculated to disturb the tender tenor of a lover's dreams? Fancy what Leander would have felt, if, after swimming across the Hellespont, he had surprised Hero at the washing-tub! Imagine Romeo's feelings, if he had scaled the orchard-walls only to find Juliet helping to hang out ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... desperate dogs. Sometimes, when they had money, they went into public houses and had drinks. Then they would become more desperate than ever, and walk along the pavement under the gas lamps arm in arm singing. Platt had a good tenor voice, and had been in a church choir, and so he led the singing; Parsons had a serviceable bellow, which roared and faded and roared again very wonderfully; Mr. Polly's share was an extraordinary lowing noise, a sort of flat recitative which he called "singing seconds." ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... surprising to note how comparatively individual and distinctive the expression of voice and manner becomes, after a short time. The child instinctively emphasises the points which appeal to him, and the element of fun in it all helps to bring forgetfulness of self. The main inflections and the general tenor of the language, however, remain imitative, as is natural with children. But this is a gain rather than otherwise, for it is useful in forming good habit. In no other part of her work, probably, has a teacher ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... was positively deafening in volume, and my voice is one which in moments of declamation is inclined to verge on the tenor. In addition to this, the complete freedom of my movements was considerably impaired by a burly whiskered creature, in a long blouse such as is worn in these parts by butchers and other tradespeople, who, coming on me from ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... cheeks, and Aunt Olivia's full-blown beauty. Two voices ring out for me above all others in the music that echoes through the halls of recollection. Cecily's sweet and silvery, and Uncle Alec's fine tenor. "If you're a King, you sing," was a Carlisle proverb in those days. Aunt Julia had been the flower of the flock in that respect and had become a noted concert singer. The world had never heard of the rest. Their music echoed only along the hidden ways of life, and ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pitched the tune a little too high, and it seemed for a moment that he with his rich high tenor voice would have to sing the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... turned back and walked steadily homeward; for I had fully determined never to encounter his mother again; and regardless of the shrill voice in my ear, calling upon me to 'wait a moment,' I pursued the even tenor of my way; and he soon relinquished the pursuit as hopeless, or was called away by his mother. At all events, when I looked back, five minutes after, not a trace of either ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte |
