"Monotone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the high terrace are rich meadows, vocal with frogs rejoicing in the rain, and expressing their joy, not in the sober monotone of our English frogs, but each according to his kind; one bellowing, the next barking, the next cawing, and the next (probably the little green Hylas, who has come down out of the trees to breed) quacking in treble like ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... a trace of surprise now in the general monotone Then she added, as if to leave no doubt in my mind, ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "double quick" that summoned the laggards to scurry into the silently forming ranks, and finally, with one emphatic rataplan, the morning concert abruptly closed and the gruff voices of the first sergeants, in swift-running monotone, were heard calling the roll of their shadowy companies, and, thoroughly roused, the garrison "broke ranks" for the ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... quail when she entered the battle in pursuit of any object of ambition or fancy. "I never saw the man yet," said she, "whom I could not bring to my feet if I willed it! The Chevalier Bigot would be no exception—that is, he would be no exception"—the voice of Angelique fell into a low, hard monotone as she finished the sentence—"were he free from the influence of that mysterious woman at Beaumanoir, who, they say, claims the title of wife by a token which even Bigot may not disregard! Her pleading eyes may draw his compassion where they ought to excite his scorn. But men are ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... now, with only the dreary monotone of the wintry rain on the roof, and the occasional sob that fell from the black-robed figure walking to ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... ran the colour of an olive, there rose pink, and here again a brilliant green; above their heads the stars were coming out, in the east it was already dusk; and behind them in the town, drums were beginning to beat with their barbaric monotone. Both men walked with their chins sunk upon their breasts, their eyes upon the ground. They had come to the end of hope, they were possessed with a lethargy of despair. Feversham thought not at all of the pine trees on the Surrey hills, nor did Trench have any dread that something in his head ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... and offices, illustrating the difference between a state of society in which apparel is regarded as an incident in life, and one rising to the height of realizing its true significance as a religion. Mr. Barr-Smith bowed not the knee to the Baal of western clothes-monotone, but daily sent out his sartorial orisons, keeping his windows open toward the Jerusalem of his London tailor, in a manner which would ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... not take me a week," she went on with no change in her monotone; "I can give you an answer in a day or two. To-morrow ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... kicking her in the stomach," she said in a monotone. "He must have damaged her insides. Mon Dieu! She was in agony for three days with her stomach all swelled up. Plenty of scoundrels have been sent to the galleys for less than that, but the courts won't concern themselves with a wife-beater. Especially since the woman said she had hurt herself ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... you to live little better than wild beasts. Your food is poor, your clothing is in rags, your children are without shoes, your homes are desolate, there are no schools and no social life. Year follows year in dreary monotone, and you finally die, and your neighbors thrust you underground and have an end of you. Misery and wretchedness fill the measure of your days, and you ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... and cast it into Beauvais's lap. "Do you recognize that face? Is it not a mute accusation to your warped conscience?" The voice, changing from the monotone of narrative, grew strong and contemptuous. "I know you. I recognized you the moment I laid eyes on you, only I could not place you. Perhaps it was because it did not seem possible that you would dare show your face to civilized ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... bloodshed, had won a peaceful haven. The harbour might be treacherous; the prince might turn to the tyrant; far away on the wide Roman marches might be heard, as it were, the endless, ceaseless monotone of beating horses' hoofs and marching feet of men. They were coming, they were nearing, like footsteps heard on wool; there was a sound of multitudes and millions of barbarians, all the North, officina gentium, mustering and ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... snore; London has become a great, broody giant taking rest that is troubled by snatches of wakefulness; London's grimy, lined face shows new wrinkles of shadow; and new and unexpected clumping of colors in monotone and halftone appear. From the massed-up bulk of things small detached bits stand vividly out: a flower girl whose flowers and whose girlhood are alike in the sere and yellow leaf; a soldier swaggering by, his red coat lighting up the grayish mass ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... and extremely sentimental conversation as to whether Anthony did not consider Gloria change enough. Though he assured her that he did, she insisted upon doubting him.... Eventually the conversation assumed its eternal monotone: "What then? ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... The slender thread of sound from the gas-burners seemed to be changed to low, mournful cries, as of a woman over the dead. He turned the gas down a little; then the shadows of the cannel-coal fire danced like spectres on the ceiling. He jumped up and raised the lights again; again the low, dismal monotone sang in his ears. He stopped them with his fingers; again the persistent voice asked, "Why didn't you come down?" Flakes fell off the coal in the grate in shapes like coffins; the flames seemed to dart at him with their fiery tongues. He rang once more, and when the servant came he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... the priest was chanting the service and requiem for the dead in the little chapel or chantry of St Michael, which was built within the walls of Clyderhow or Clitheroe Castle. The Dies irae from the surrounding worshippers rose in a simple monotone, like the sound of some distant river, now caught on the wing of the tempest, and flung far away into the dim and distant void, now rushing on the ear in one deep gush of harmony—the voice of Nature, as if her thousand tongues were blended in one universal peal of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Colville, who seemed elated. "There may well be. For that man has been saying things in that placid monotone which would have taken your breath away had you been able to understand them. A hundred times I rejoiced that you understood no English, for your impatience, Marquis, might have silenced him as some rare-voiced bird is silenced by a sudden movement. Yes, Marquis, there is a locket containing ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... listening again to the quiet lifeless words of Jasper, the factor over at Fond du Lac, as he described the day when he and his young wife first came up through the wonderland of the North. "No country is God's Country without a woman!" He found the words running in an unpleasant monotone through his brain. He had made up his mind that he would strike Fond du Lac on his way down, for Jasper's words and the hopeless picture he had made that day beside the little cross under the spruce had made them brothers in ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... over; and the more careful men were back in the shed sharpening their shears by two o'clock. Punctually at that hour the bell repeated its summons DE CAPO. The warm afternoon gradually lengthened its shadows; the shears clicked in tireless monotone; the pens filled and became empty. The wool-presses yawned for the mountain of fleeces which filled the bins in front of them, divided into various grades of excellence, and continuously disgorged them, neatly and cubically ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... this tumult of oaths and drunken cries, men became conscious of a quiet monotone which underlay all other sounds and obtruded itself at every pause in the uproar. Gradually first one man and then another paused to listen, until there was a general cessation of the hubbub, and every eye was turned in the direction whence this quiet stream of words ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of some description was taking place, lesser priests and other acolytes performing their various parts, the incantations rising now loudly, now sinking to a hollow monotone, the whole affair being none the less absorbing when Bruno remembered that, perhaps, it might have some connection with the vile plots against the Sun Children, ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... low, dun-colored ridges or sharply outlined crests of remote mountain range, in lifeless desolation the landscape lay outspread to the view. Southward, streaked with white fringe of alkali, the flat monotone of sand and ashes blended with the flatter, flawless surface of a wide-spreading, ash-colored inland lake, its shores dotted at intervals with the bleaching bones of cattle and ridged with ancient wagon-tracks ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... citizens of Fredericksburg left no hope of such a support. As the only substitute in my reach, I sat on the edge of the pew door and its panel, drew his arm across my knee, raised his head to my shoulder, and held it there by laying mine against it. In this way I could talk in a low monotone to him, and the hopes to which the soul turns when about to leave the tenement of clay. He gasped acquiescence in these hopes, and his words led several men near to draw their sleeves across their eyes; but they all knew he was dying, and a little ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... the old sanctity envelop him with a reproach in its forgotten familiarity. Old incense, old litanies, old rites rushed back to him with the smell of the stagnant fragrance. He heard again from the farther depths of the dark interior the musical monotone of a rabbi reciting a ritual. The voice was young and low. Presently he heard the responses spoken in a woman's voice, so tender, so soft and so sad that he sensed instantly the meaning of the sympathy in the young priest's voice. Out of the incense-laden ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... a gulp or two at their fountains of culture. Some day, naturally, we'll be more alike, and have more in common. The stronger colors will fade out of the newer fabric and we'll merge into a more inoffensive monotone of respectability. Our Navajo-blanket audacities will tone down to wall-tapestry sedateness—but not too, too soon, I ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... so sure of that," she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes and speaking almost in a monotone. He started. For ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... never raised his eyes, or gave the least sign that these words of his were unexpected. He knew that Fred was watching him from the first, and so, before the words were more than fairly out of his mouth, Deerfoot began reading in a low, impressive monotone, as though he had merely resumed, after turning over ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... covert, our ears made acquaintance with a new and ominous sound. From an infinite distance the morning breeze from the north carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now regular as the muffled rolling of drums, now softly irregular with intervals of stillness. It was the dominating monotone of cannonading. No need to tell the boys what ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... Each admirer seemed to be treated with indifference alike, though there were some who, for reasons best known to themselves, evidently felt that they stood more securely than the rest. She moved through game and dance with a slow yet free grace; she spoke seldom, and in a low, bell-like monotone, containing no hint of any possible emotional development, and for the rest, her shadow of a disdainful smile seemed to stand her in good stead. Clearly as she stood out from among her companions from the first, at the close of the evening ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... countenance sensitive, spiritual, with 'mind and music breathing' from it; the general demeanor composed and gracious; her utterance fluent and finished, but somewhat measured; her voice clear and melodious, moving evenly, as it were in a monotone, though now and then rising, with a sort of quiet eagerness, into a higher note." The same writer speaks of the close-fitting flow of her robe, and the luxuriant mass of light-brown hair hanging low on both sides of her head, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... The land of mystic splendor. Region of bubbling caldron and boiling pool with fretted rims, rivaling the coral in delicacy of texture and the rainbow in variety of color; of steaming funnels exhaling into the etherine atmosphere in calm, unruffled monotone and paroxysmal ejection, vast clouds of fleecy vapor from the underground furnaces of the God of Nature; sylvan parkland, where amidst the unsullied freshness of flower-strewn valley and bountiful woodland, the native fauna of the land browse in fearless joy and wander wild and free, unfretted ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... they sang in a soft monotone, while they pulled hard for the mouth of the bay. The priest and I were fairly comfortable in the stern, the steersman perched behind us on the very edge of the combing, balancing himself to the rise and fall of the boat as an acrobat on a rope. I laid my head on my bag and fell asleep before ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the next five minutes. He was slumped down in his chair, which he had wheeled about so that he could rest his feet comfortably on the window-sill, and beneath his wandering thoughts he was only dreamily conscious of cinders clinking in the lamp funnels and the low monotone of the rushing train. The woman, therefore, had run past him and had reached the end of the car almost before he was aware that he ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... embankment of a railway, and the eye began to look instinctively for the telegraph-posts, and the ear to expect the coming of a train. Here and there, but rarely, faint tree-tops broke the level. And the sound of the surf accompanied us, now in a drowsy monotone, now with a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wordy, and he tarried but a moment, yet he explained his paralysis. In the dreary monotone of a chronic sour temper he related that some Confederates, about a year before, had come here impressing horses, and their officer, on being called by him "no gentleman," had struck him behind the ear with the butt of a carbine. I asked what punishment ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... sitting," watching, in forlorn, but hopeful loneliness, the paralyzed tongue of the Atlantic Cable, to catch the utterances that never came for all his patient coaxing; and ever and anon he iterated, feebly and more feebly, as if all his sinking soul he did outpour into the words, that melancholy monotone which was his only stock and store,—"All right! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... on springless, unbreakable ox-carts, hastening up to the encampment; while inside he listened to a quiet Scotchman, resignedly yet clearly explaining everything in a voice—— there was the puzzle. Where in the world had the reviewer heard that voice before, with its patient monotone, as well known as his oldest friend's, its constant digressions and "reflections," its sentences so familiar, yet so new, sentences which, as each topic came up, he could write before they were ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... negro carriers may be heard at all hours, in couples, engaged in the transportation of clove-bags, boxes of merchandise, &c., from store to "godown" and from "go-down" to the beach, singing a kind of monotone chant for the encouragement of each other, and for the guiding of their pace as they shuffle through the streets with bare feet. You may recognise these men readily, before long, as old acquaintances, by the consistency with which they sing the tunes they have adopted. Several ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... don't know who it's for! But mother doesn't like any of my gentlemen friends. She's right down timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I DO introduce them—almost always. If I didn't introduce my gentlemen friends to Mother," the young girl added in her little soft, flat monotone, "I shouldn't think ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... from her lips in a frozen monotone as her eyes grew fixed upon the faces before her and her hand went groping ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... earth like a goblin elf; Why should he labour to help his neighbour Who feels too reckless to help himself? The wail of the breeze in the bending trees Is something between a laugh and a groan; And the hollow roar of the surf on the shore Is a dull, discordant monotone; I wish I could guess what sense they express, There's a meaning, doubtless, in every sound, Yet no one can tell, and it may be as well— Whom would ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... of hearing you read," she said, at last. "You do read abominably. First you go along in staccato jerks, then you drone in a monotone. Philip is a fine reader. I love to hear Philip read. I wish he'd come in to-day. I wonder why he doesn't? Probably because you're here. He must have taken a violent dislike to you, ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... a trance as usual, and after a short interval, announced in her low monotone that the spirit of ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people—ah, the people— They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone! They are neither man nor woman,— They are neither brute nor human,— They are Ghouls; And their king it is who tolls,— And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls a paean from the bells! ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... say. The others listen and assent by such expressions as correspond to our "yes indeed," "true," etc., whether they are in accord with the speaker's opinions or not. These lengthy talks are, at least to an outsider, most wearisome, given, as they are, in a dreary monotone, but they explain the inordinate length of arbitrations that may last ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... in a capacious armchair in Mrs. Peters' door-way. Across her knees lay a small white bundle, and she was swaying softly back and forth, while she crooned in a low, loving monotone ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... The interminable monotone of the ocean intensified the silence. I sat motionless, holding my breath as one who listens to the first low rumor of an organ. All at once the pure whistle of a nightingale cut the silence, and the first moonbeam silvered the wastes of ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... 11th century the even tone was divided into upper and lower, and a little later the entering tone finally disappeared from Pekingese. The following monosyllabic dialogue gives a very fair idea of the quality of the four Pekingese tones—1st tone: Dead (spoken in a raised monotone, with slightly plaintive inflection); 2nd tone: Dead? (simple query); 3rd tone: Dead? (an incredulous query long drawn out); 4th tone: Dead! (a sharp and decisive answer). The native learns the tones unconsciously and by ear alone. For ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... Nature meets our whims with such little fitnesses. The words which build these delicate structures of Petrarch's are as soft and fine and close-textured as the sands upon this tiny beach, and their monotone, if such it be, is the monotone of the neighboring ocean. Is it not possible, by bringing such a book into the open air, to separate it from the grimness of commentators, and bring it back to life and light ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... find clear spaces where we could gallop; a trot became impossible. We were hemmed in. A rank animal odor mingled with the taint of smoke. Gradually the muffled beat of hoofs grew more pronounced, a shuffling monotone that filled the night. We were mere atoms in a vast wave of horn and bone and flesh that bore us onward as the tide ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to its power, but indifferent in the already drenched condition of their clothing, to the rain. The saw-dust street was saturated like a sponge. They could feel the quick water rise about the pressure at their feet. From the invisible houses they heard a steady monotone of flowing from the roofs. Far ahead, dim in the mist, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... excitement, and in the same deliberate monotone, Deerfoot still looking him straight in ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... for a response, but stood up. Her voice which had been shot through with emotion these last few minutes was now that flat, mechanical monotone to which the habitants of her little street ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... the throng, and up to the hostess— Mrs. Burke, stout, honest, with sympathy in her eyes and humor in the lines round her sweet mouth. "Well, Josh," she said in a slow, pleasant monotone, "you HAVE done a lot of growing since I saw you. I always knew you'd come to some bad end. And here you are— in ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... his right," she replied, once more in her passionless monotone. "Everybody can call themselves whatever they please. It's no affair of mine. You and your sister spell your father's name in a way to suit yourselves: I never interfered, did I? You have your own ideas and your own tastes. They are quite beyond me—but they're all right ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... These bare, gray shrub masses are not wholly bare or gray and have other and most pleasingly visible advantages over unplanted, pallid vacancy, others besides the mere lace-work of their twigs and the occasional tenderness of a last summer's bird's nest. Here and there, breaking the cold monotone, a bush of moose maple shows the white-streaked green of its bare stems and sprays, or cornus or willow gives a soft glow of red, purple or yellow. Only here and there, insists my dream, lest when winter at length gives way to the "rosy ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... the murmur of the sea,— A monotone of sadness, But not a whisper of the crowd, Or echo ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... mighty moss-hung branches of the ancient grove. The groups around the grave, the dark faces, the red garments, the scattered lights, the misty boughs, were weird and strange. The men sang one of their own wild chants. Two crickets sang also, one on either side, and did not cease their little monotone, even when the three volleys were fired above the graves. Just before the coffins were lowered, an old man whispered to me that I must have their position altered,—the heads must be towards the west; so it was done,—though they are in a place ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... dense over the plateau. The girl crouched beside the sleeper, her eyes peering out into the blackness, the drawn pistol ready in her hand. She could see only a few feet in the dim starlight. But her ears, accustomed to the dull monotone of the booming canyon, heard every sound—the click of the horses' hoofs, even the munching of the nearest one, the hoot of the owls that flitted overhead, the distant yelps and ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... to the window and stood there with her back to him, gazing down upon the quiet river. Its pearly stillness was like a dream. The rush and roar of London's many wheels had died to a monotone. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... we grow older," he said, "One grows less difficult to please." His tone was that of a man excusing himself to himself. "The old standards, the old models, pass away and—and failures, failures come and dull the energy." His voice dropped into a monotone; he seemed to ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... was but natural in the circumstances, there followed an application to local politics. They were there, he informed his hearers (as the old lattices, shaken by the gale, rattled their accompaniment to his monotone) in the character of Englishmen; but he had to notice that to the existing rulers of England they owed no obedience. The so-called Parliament which had judged and murdered the late lamented Monarch, and which now claimed the right of ruling in his stead, was no divinely appointed ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... mystery murmur through the leaves,— Passion and mystery touched by deathless pain, Whose monotone of long, low anguish grieves For something lost that shall ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... hands and turbaned head, With a nameless burden upon her heart, And the light of youth forever fled. And she sits a swaying to and fro, Like the billowy pine with plume and cone, While a minor strain subdued and slow, She sings in a plaintive monotone: ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... least hesitation Kate placed herself beside him. Without giving her a chance to speak and in the same monotone, he added: "Who told you ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... and spoke of cheery things in cheery tones; but the sick man refused to be comforted. He wished himself back, a participator in the conflicts of civilisation, and was fain to cover his face—there was no wall to which to turn—and fancy that the most dismal sound in the universe was the surly monotone the north-easter harped on the beach. We reposed that night among the camp equipment, the sick man caring for naught in his physical ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... find two bits of fresco by Giotto, the Meeting of S. Joachim and S. Anna at the Golden Gate, and the Birth of the Virgin. On your left you pass into the Chiostro Verde, where Paolo Uccello has painted scenes from the Old Testament in a sort of green monotone, for once without enthusiasm. Above you and around you rises the old convent and the great tower; there, in the far corner, perhaps a friar plays with a little cat, here a pigeon flutters under the arches about ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... he murmured, in a strange absent monotone, as if repeating words he was actually hearing. 'You have broken my laws. Go now to your doom, you and all your brothers. Such priests Kali will not have. Thuggee is no more. I ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... central dome of snow. Between the bases of the lowest, the streams which drain the gorges of the mountain issue forth, cutting their way through the foundation terrace, and widening their beds downwards to the plain, like the throats of bugles, where, in winter rains, they pour forth the hoarse, grand monotone of their Olympian music. These broad beds are now dry and stony tracts, dotted all over with clumps of dwarfed sycamores and threaded by the summer streams, shrunken in bulk, but still swift, cold, and clear ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... de leurs lits, l'ombre qui les couronne, M'enchanent tout le jour sur les bords des ruisseaux; Comme un enfant berc par un chant monotone, Mon me s'assoupit ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... assembled guests. This, Lady Tallant did with quite enchanting courtesy, making an apt apology for having kept them waiting, which almost mollified the irate Premier. Bridget came with a swift gliding movement to the side of her friend, squeezed her hand and held it, while she talked in a soft rapid monotone. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... canvas embodies more absolutely than any other, save perhaps the final Pieta, the ideal of tone-harmony towards which the master in his late time had been steadily tending. Richness and brilliancy of local colour are subordinated, and this time up to the point of effacement, to this luminous monotone, so mysteriously effective in the hands of a master such as Titian. In the solemn twilight which descends from the heavens, just faintly flushed with rose, an amorous shepherd, flower-crowned, pipes to a nude nymph, who, half-won by the appealing ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... many lives that I have known, None I remember more serene and sweet, More rounded in itself and more complete, Than his, who lies beneath this funeral stone. These pines, that murmur in low monotone, These walks frequented by scholastic feet, Were all his world; but in this calm retreat For him the Teacher's chair became a throne. With fond affection memory loves to dwell On the old days, when his example made A pastime of the toil ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... on a September day, so that the atmosphere was well-brewed to a visible haze. There was deep stillness, broken only by a light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an occasional monotone in French, such as might be expected to issue from an ingeniously constructed automaton. Round two long tables were gathered two serried crowds of human beings, all save one having their faces and attention bent on the tables. The one exception was a melancholy little ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... wielding a fan over Ruth's ungrateful face. It consisted in spending of her scant supply of money for medicines, in constant attendance and patient, faithful nursing—accompanied by sharp scoldings and recriminations uttered in a monotone guaranteed not to disturb the sick girl. Perhaps she really fancied she was being hard and unsympathetic and calloused. She talked as if she were, but no single act was in tune with her words.... She grumbled—and served. She complained—and hovered over Ruth with clumsy, gentle ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... copious hemlocks, many of them large, some old and hoary. Such a sentiment to them, secretive, shaggy, what I call weather-beaten, and let-alone—a rich underlay of ferns, yew sprouts and mosses, beginning to be spotted with the early summer wild flowers. Enveloping all, the monotone and liquid gurgle from the hoarse, impetuous, copious fall—the greenish-tawny, darkly transparent waters plunging with velocity down the rocks, with patches of milk-white foam—a stream of hurrying amber, thirty feet wide, risen far ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... breath of a sleeping child, and then, as they lisped from the soft, tender leaves of beeches and maples, like the half-articulate whisper of the mother hushing all the intrusive sounds that might awaken it. Then came the pulsating monotone of the frogs from a far-off pool, the harsh cry of an owl from an old tree that overhung it, the splash of a mink or musquash, and nearer by, the light step of a woodchuck, as he cantered off in his quiet way to his hole in the nearest bank. The laurels were ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... caused every man of our half-dozen "gentlemen adventurers" to rise to a sitting posture and lay his hand upon a weapon—an act signifying, in that time and place, a policy of expectation. The stranger gave the matter no attention and began again to speak in the same deliberate, uninflected monotone in which he had delivered his ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... Morhange, showing him the seven pale stars, while Eg-Anteouen took up his mournful song in the same monotone: ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... However, he was true to himself at least in this, that through the whole piece he dragged along just half a beat behind the rest. The others showed a most decided penchant for the ancient Greek music, which, as is well known, having nothing to do with harmony, ran on in unison or monotone. They all sang treble, with slight variations, caused by accidental rising and falling of the voice, say some quarter ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a low monotone; "how narrow and limited is all that you know compared to what there is surely up there. Yes, if I did not answer you it was because I was thinking of you, and I was filled with grief. You must not think ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... talk in a husky monotone, as if to himself. "They's nobody else jes' like her," he declared; "that's a cinch! She's shore the kind that comes one in a box! Whenever I'd look at her, I'd allus think o' a angel, 'r a bird, 'r a little, bobbin' rose." He sighed, uncrossed his shaggy knees, crossed them the other way, shifted ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... she looked at him, with a kind of solemn yet eager scrutiny. "I was afraid," she said, after some hesitation, speaking still in a dull monotone, whose strangely sorrowful accents were marked and impressive, and in a voice whose tone was constrained and stiff, but yet had something in it which deepened the General's perplexity—"I was afraid that perhaps you might have witnessed some marks of agitation in me. Pardon ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the same freedom as I would talk to that wife whom I had hoped to possess. She maintained an obstinate silence when I urged her to give me at least some tangible reason as to why she would not marry me. She contented herself and maddened me by reflecting in a kind of monotone: "I love you, Karl! and am yours, ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... his husky monotone in a querulous entreaty. "I need a little whiskey to keep me going. Tell her, won't you?—to let me have a little drink. My regular allowance was a pint a day, and I haven't had a drop for four weeks. Your Chicago whiskey is rotten bad, though, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... tobacco which he had left in his hut over winter. He had thought often of it; that and the Cat seemed something to come home to in the spring. But the tobacco was gone; not a dust left. The man swore a little in a grim monotone, which made the profanity lose its customary effect. He had been, and was, a hard drinker; he had knocked about the world until the marks of its sharp corners were on his very soul, which was thereby calloused, until ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... the chickens caw-cawed feebly. The colts whinnied, and a couple of dogs rolled and tumbled in wild frolic, while the voice of the preacher sounded dolefully or in humming monotone. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... house. The white-ruffed fennel reached up its dusty yellow heads to touch her skirts as she passed, and then drooped, satisfied, against the purple iron-weed at the roadside. In the noonday silence no cricket chirped nor locust raised its lorn monotone; the tree shadows mottled the road with blue, and the level fields seemed to pant out a dazzling breath, the transparent "heat-waves" that danced above the low ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... not tell, if you would only give them time enough. We have only one chime, for musical purposes, in the town. But, without attempting tunes, only give the bells the Morse alphabet, and every bell in Boston might chant in monotone the words of "Hail Columbia" at length, every Fourth of July. Indeed, if Mr. Barnard should report any day that a discouraged 'prentice-boy had left town for his country home, all the bells could instantly be set to work to speak articulately, in language regarding which the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... oak is grown Which all winds visit on the lea, While that which lists the monotone Of the long blast that sweeps the sea, And answers ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... grown strange and fixed, began to detail to us what was passing in this scene, in a curious monotone such as a person might use who was repeating something learned by heart. This was the substance ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... eucalyptus across the street. In the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came and went, rattling over ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... as sky or sea. But there hath he that woke the sleepless Love Slept through these fifty years, There is the grave that has been wept above With more than mortal tears. And far below I hear the Channel sweep And all his waves complain, As Hallam's dirge through all the years must keep Its monotone of pain. ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... unpacked his meager outfit, Turned the horses loose to graze, Baked his varicolored dough-bread, On a fire of cattle chips; Coffee made of green-scummed water, Nectar to his thirsty lips. On the ground he spread his blanket And reclining there alone, Heard the swiftly sweeping breezes Sing in dreary monotone Strange wild anthems, weird and lonesome, Like lost spirits floating by, While afar in broken measure ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... of candles on the mantelshelf. Then Coira O'Hara went back to the man who lay outstretched on the low couch, and knelt beside him, looking into his face. The man stirred, and moved his head slowly. Half-articulate words came from his lips, and she made out that he was saying her name in a dull monotone—only her name, over and over again. She gave a little cry of grief and gladness, and hid her face against him as she had done once before, out ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... stairs by the paper-makers, Mr. Thompson making use of language that was decidedly bespattered with "winged words," while Mr. MacHewlett detailed his own thoughts in a plaintive monotone. Lord Ferriby got rather hastily into a hansom ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... to bear—up here," she spoke in an odd, weary monotone, as if she were thinking aloud. "This morning ... I think, if Norah had left anything in the bottle ... ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... three boars and five stags," repeated the Queen in an even monotone, and turning to Madame de Montal, who stood behind her chair, she said bitterly: "Why does not somebody cry, ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... her voice to a low, even monotone. "You are the child of disaster if ever woman was. Your father was a poor, weak fool, a big, handsome, good-hearted fool whom Nature had endowed with nothing more than a perfect exterior. He was a Wall Street man, of a sort. One of those gamblers who live ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... a low monotone and with no tinge of resentment, but her words had an immediate and perturbing effect on Popova, who stared at her wide-eyed and seemed unable to ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... seemed to say: "The king—the king." Rodolph could hardly believe his ears. How had the cricket learned to chirp these words? It was beyond all understanding. But still the cricket chirped, and still his musical monotone seemed to say, "The king—the king," until, with an angry frown, Rodolph strode from his house, leaving the child to ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... smiled as she shook hands, and then perceived that she had not been intended to show amusement. Cartoner had merely made a rather naive statement in his low monotone. She thought him a little odd, and glanced at him again. She changed color slightly as she turned towards a chair. He was ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulae preliminary to an impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,—signs that his mind was wandering somewhat ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... a little ajar behind me, we heard Dun Juste's measured mouthing monotone go on from phrase to phrase, like a sort ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... up free," said Virginia not daring to raise her voice above a low monotone. "Free, on our yacht, that has brought us from France to take ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... such it was—entirely to the dawn and growth of her reason. To this I can add a curious scrap of evidence. I was walking along the cliff track, one afternoon, between Porthlooe and Lanihale church-town, when, a few yards ahead, I heard a man's voice declaiming in monotone some sentences which I could not catch; and rounding the corner, came upon Laquedem and July. She was seated on a rock; and he, on a patch of turf at her feet, held open a small volume which he laid face downwards as ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... men looked at him, sardonic-eyed; and both of them seemed to understand fully what he meant. They seemed to catch more from the slow tones, so full of lust and frenzy that they seemed to drop from his lips in an ugly monotone, than they did from the words themselves. They took a certain grim amusement in these quirks of abnormal depravity that had begun to manifest themselves in Ray. The man's fingers were wide spread as he spoke, and his lip twitched twice, sharply, ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... rites of the Bororos were singular. On the death of a man, a chorus of moans began and tears were shed in profusion, while some one sang for several days the praises of the defunct in a melancholy monotone. The body was covered for two entire days, during which all articles that belonged to the deceased, such as bow and arrows, pots, and musical instruments, were smashed or destroyed. The debris was stored ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Lumley repeated in a dreary monotone which seemed strangely out of keeping with the half-concealed kindliness which was revealed in her homely countenance. She was a working matron, a sort of upper servant, and had been three years in the place, which, I gradually gleaned from her, had been started as a home for destitute children ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... falling in weird octaves, whining pityingly, diabolically, sobbing in a fascinating monotone and slobbering in ragged chords, calling as they swept over the plain, always calling and exhorting, they mingled in barbaric discord with the defiant barks of the six-shooters and the inquiring cracks of the Winchesters. High up in the air several specks sailed and drifted, more ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... bluebird, straining its little throat in exultant melody, flew from branch to branch of the big chestnut-tree, and the hum of insects made soft monotone to the shrill cry of the locust, which promised greater heat next day. In the distance the Calverton road stretched white and dusty south to town, north to the unknown land, the land of dreams to Peggy and to Peggy's mother, who had never been beyond it, and as she looked ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... read as rapidly as possible, so as to be done with the task, and he began in a high-pitched monotone, reading with a blind mind and no sense of the significance ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... vivacity and sense of humor, Jim: she's all for a dull monotone. Old Fuller is dead: his mantle descended on me, but they don't appreciate that style nowadays. To return to our topic, and deal with the duty that lies nearest. In an humble and pottering way, we are a happy family, James. We envy not the rich and great: seek ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... there are no words," said Fairley, in that curious monotone which the recital of verse may give, or which constant singing may leave in a minstrel's ordinary speech. "I cannot tell, but my fiddle might play her to you in a rhapsody that should set the music in ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... twelve feet. It is due, in all likelihood, to the rapid radiation of surface heat. When the cold air has robbed sand and rock of the temperature acquired from the broiling sun, the atmosphere clears, and the desert reveals itself again in the gloomy monotone of night. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... of a special prosecuting attorney, David," he said in a harsh monotone. "Who will ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... a pleasant impression may raise it somewhat, ennui may depress it slightly; but the average tone of our "commonplace" talk, if I may call it that, will be about F. But let some sudden emotion come, and we find monotone speech abandoned for impassioned speech, as it has been called. Instead of keeping the voice evenly on one or two notes, we speak much higher or lower ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... could no longer keep her attention on the stitches. She paced nervously up and down the little apartment. In the room beneath she could hear the dull muffled sound of men's voices in a long continuous monotone, broken only by the interposition now and again of one voice which was so deep and loud that it reminded her of the growl of a beast of prey. This must belong to the red-bearded stranger. Kate wondered what it could be ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by, chatting with the jailer and as Brotherton came up to bid Grant good-night, Brotherton felt a piece of paper slip into his hands, when he shook hands with Grant. "Don't let it leave your pocket until you see me again," said Grant in a monotone, that no one noticed. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... ought to enjoy it in the same way, and a very clear knowledge that she did no such thing. She regarded it as a sort of penance, imposed by Honor, not altogether unfairly. She had just conscience enough to recognise that. And as the hushed monotone of nights and days dragged by, with little relief from the dead weight of anxiety, it did indeed seem as if Honor had succeeded in willing a portion of her brave spirit into her friend. What had passed ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... murmured in the passive monotone of a despairing Indian girl: "Just like I have to stop and think before I do it. If I drown the blue dress and the black shoes and stockings and the red dress and the brown shoes and stockings, I can write to Hannah Straight Tree, for she will not let me speak to her: 'Now you see I truly ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... her, her voice was heard chanting in the crooning monotone of Indian death dirge: "Jesu—have pity on us! Jesu—have pity on us!" The next moment the child was thrown into the flames, repeating the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... but capable, as we at Norton Bury sometimes knew to our cost, of being roused into fierceness and foam. Now it slipped on quietly enough, contenting itself with turning a flour-mill hard by, the lazy whirr of which made a sleepy, incessant monotone which I ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... least to myself it so appeared—that even the little breaks and turns of lighter thought or livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to vary now and then the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and jar upon its sombre monotone. On the other hand, by omitting these, and departing from her homely style, I might do more of harm than good through failing to convey impressions, or even facts, so accurately. Whereas the gist and ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... death's grim reapers stood Waiting the signal with impatient steel; And morning passed, and mid-day. Here and there The crack of rifles on the picket-line, Or boom of solitary cannon broke The myriad-voiced and dreadful monotone. So fled the anxious hours until the hills Sent forth their silent shadows to the east— And then their batteries opened on our left Advanced into the valley. All along The rolling crest of Seminary Ridge Rolled up the smoke of cannon. Answered then The grim artillery ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... in a dull monotone, while her breast heaved with irrepressible emotion. Her heart within her. This indeed looked like a desertion of her on the part of her only friend. But after a moment's despondency she rallied once more, as the thought came to her that this was all a ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... man listened, and looked at Constans indifferently. Then he spoke in the inflectionless monotone of extreme ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... country seemed flowing forward in steady streams. Sandy River awoke, restlessly listening; lights glimmered behind darkened windows; a heavier, vaguer rumor grew, hanging along the hills. It increased to a shaking, throbbing monotone, like the far dissonance of ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... have striven would have been to have spent herself in vain; but her resignation was only of the body, and this dejected body moved mechanically through the tasks and recreations that go to make up the grey monotone of conventual existence; in which one day is as another day, one hour as another hour; in which the seasons of the year lose their significance; in which time has no purpose save for its subdivision into ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... anthems and hymns and chants of all kinds; never had she heard anything of this kind before. It was not congregational, or Gregorian; nor was it repeated by the choir from side to side; nor was it a monotone with a drop at the end; nor was it a florid, tuneful chant such as one may hear in some Anglican services. This Reader, with a rich, strong voice, a baritone of great power, took nearly the whole of the service—it must have been extremely fatiguing—upon himself, chanting it from beginning to end. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... wise in a sick room than Mrs. Bundle herself. He contrived to quieten instead of exciting me, and to the sound of his melodious voice reading in soothing monotone from my favourite book of the Bible—the Revelation of St. John ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... do not remember, dear," said Camilla, whose past had been for years a peaceful monotone as to her own emotions, and had so established ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... hard upon the young man. Looking down straight into the severe iron-grey eyes of his aunt Leonora, he could not of course so much as modify a single sentence of the discourse he was uttering, no more than he could permit himself to slur over a single monotone of the service; but that sudden bewildering perception that he could have done so much better—that the loftiest High-Churchism of all might have been consistent enough with Skelmersdale, had he but gone into the heart of the matter—gave ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... floor, swearing in a steady monotone. He had been efficiently bound with his own blouse and trousers, which revealed his predilection for maroon shorts with zebra stripes. There was a lump on the back of his head, and a hammer lay close by. Ellen must have stolen the tool and come in here with the thing behind her back. The operator ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... strangest diagnostics of madness—what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania. Robert ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... animal, and, gaining ever in degree through the various stages of life, is the divine attribute, the will, the idea. Genius manifest in the greatest and best of humanity, shown indeed, as the Word of God, or as he who holds the mirror up to nature, or by the great power which in colour or monotone can display the love and agony of a dying Christ; by the loving poet, who can soar beyond his age to uphold an unselfish aim of perfection to the world; by all those who, throwing off their mortal attributes ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... in approaching from his present position the entrance of the structure. Upon hands and knees he slowly crawls toward the main entrance, when a wailing voice is heard in the east which sounds like the word h[-a][n], prolonged in a monotone. This is ge-gi-si-bi-ga-ne-dt manid[-o]. His bones are heard rattling as he approaches; he wields his bow and arrow; his long hair streaming in the air, and his body, covered with m[-i]gis shells from the salt sea, from which he has emerged to aid in the expulsion of the opposing ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... Aldama to Laredo, to Torreon, and Albuquerque. From there across the Uncompahgre plateau into the Uintah country; then at last due west through Nevada to California and to the valley of the San Joaquin." His voice lapsed to a monotone, his eyes becoming fixed; he continued to speak as though half awake, his thoughts elsewhere, seeing again in the eye of his mind the reach of desert and red hill, the purple mountain, the level stretch of alkali, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris |
