"Catgut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the almost universal custom, in country churches in the summer time, of the bass-viol player removing his coat and playing "in his shirt sleeves." Others hated the noisy tuning of the bass-viol while the psalm was being read. Mr. Brown, of Westerly, sadly deplored that "now we have only catgut and resin religion." ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... way to the crooked, break-neck street my thoughts went racing through my head. On one side, perhaps, a tap on the shoulder in the middle of the night; half a yard of catgut in the hands of a Bashi-Bazouk; an appeal to our consul, with the consciousness of having meddled with something that did not concern me. On the other a pair of tear-stained, pleading eyes. Not my eyes—not the eyes of anybody that I knew—but the kind that raise the devil ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "Boston Gazette," Oct. 19, 1767, we learn that the young ladies of Boston had an opportunity to learn to paint on "gauze and catgut," which we suppose at that time ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... the instruments of which were somewhat curious. The most important was a drum, made of a section of the trunk of a tree, with the skin of a kid drawn over one end. Another was a bow, the string being of catgut, which was struck with a small cane. A third was the jaw-bone of an ass with the teeth loose in the socket, and which, when struck by the hand, made a capital rattle. If there was not much harmony in the music, there was plenty of noise, which was not ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... touched, scraped, beaten or blown into by hands or mouths long since crumbled to dust. What tales had been told! what songs sung, and in what languages; what laughs laughed, tears shed, vows spoken, kisses exchanged, over some of those silent pieces of wood, brass, ivory, and catgut! The feelings of all the histories that surrounded me had something ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... common family, I mean, Sir, the family of the Muses. I am a fiddler and a poet; and you, I am told, play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the belles lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming Scots air of your composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I was in raptures with the title you have given it, and, taking up the idea, I have spun it into the three stanzas inclosed. Will you allow me, Sir, to present you them, as the dearest ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... stomach, and then the operator should remove two-third [sic] of the contents of the rumen. This having been done, the edges of the wound should be sponged with a little carbolized warm water, and, the lips of the wound in the rumen being turned inward, they should be brought together with catgut stitches. The wound penetrating the muscle and the skin may then be brought together by silk stitches, which should pass through the entire thickness of the muscle and should be about 1 inch apart. The wound should afterwards be dressed once a day with a ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... was an ingenious little thing about six inches long, the bow of steel, the string of catgut, the stock and barrel of wood, and it projected marbles or spherical bullets with very considerable force. It would raise a bump on the head at twenty yards, and break a window at thirty. Griffiths also lived in Mr Cookson's house, so that Saurin ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... family of animals that has ministered more extensively to his necessities. I refer to the sheep,—that soft and harmless creature, that clothes civilized man everywhere in the colder latitudes with its fleece,—that feeds him with its flesh,—that gives its bowels to be spun into the catgut with which he refits his musical instruments,—whose horns he has learned to fashion into a thousand useful trinkets,—and whose skin, converted into parchment, served to convey to later times the thinking of the first full blow of the human intellect across ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... experiments with a catgut and rawhide backing, we have not found that they add materially to the cast of a bow, only insure it against fracture. On the other hand, sap wood and hickory backing materially add to the power ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... been from a play on the word catgut that so many of these ditties represent pussy in relation with the fiddle. True fiddler's magic belonged to the cat whose fiddling made the cow jump over the moon, the little dog laugh and the dish run away with the spoon. Rarely accomplished too was the cat ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... and yellow shawl with fringes and tassels. He was squatting cross-legged on the hideous carpet, holding in his large, pale hands, artificially marked with blue spots and tinted at the nails with the henna, a strange little instrument of sand-tortoise, goat-skin, wood, and catgut, with four strings from which he was drawing the plaintive and wavering tune. He wore a moustache and a small, blue-black beard. His eyes were half shut, his head drooped to one side, his mouth was partly open, and the expression upon his face was one of weak and sickly ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Like lightning flew, obsequious to the peg; The waxen wings by Daedalus designed, And China waggons wafted by the wind? A Spaniard reached the moon, upborn by geese; (Then first 'twas known that she was made of cheese.) A fidler on a fish through waves advanced, He twanged his catgut, and the Dolphin danced. Hags rode on broom-sticks, heathen-gods on clouds; Ladies, on rams and bulls, have dared the floods. Much famed the shoes Jack Giant-killer wore, And Fortunatus' hat is famed much more. Such vehicles were common once, no doubt; But modern versemen must even trudge ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... Chitterling. Originally the smaller intestines of beasts, as of the pig, but here used as equalling "catgut". ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... we shall not even attempt to convince these dull souls, that it is possible for elevated feeling, and repose and tenderness of mind, to be indebted for their origin to such insignificant and material sources as catgut and brass wire—and that they are not therefore to be undervalued; though by way of illustration of the influence of matter over spirit, we would remind them of their own humane and charitable feelings after dinner, compared with the fierce, nay, atrocious sentiments, which their consciences ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... used, is one recommended by Dr. Guard Knaggs. It is of triangular shape, the frame of it being formed by socketing two pieces of paragon wire into a metal Y piece, and connecting their diverging extremities by means of catgut, which, when pressed against a tree or other object, will adapt itself to the outline of it, as shown below by the dotted ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... stirring "shine;" A man of mark he might be singled, In whom the good and bad commingled, In equal balance in such way, That each in turn had its sway; He's gone! the grass grows o'er his head; The muse deals gently with the dead. James Devlin, where are you old man, Whose fingers o'er the catgut ran? Professor of the art to foil Both "treason, stratagem and spoil," In days which now are but a riddle, When William Murphy played the fiddle So merrily, long, long ago, To trip of "light fantastic toe." Fond were you of the rod and line When sport and profit did combine In other days, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... created in America by the visit of Henri Marteau, a young French violinist whose excellent playing and charming personality delighted all who heard him. Marteau was called "the Paderewski of the Catgut," and he met with a most ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... indeed, his ideal of protection and service, as chivalrously leaving her free to live her own life, rejoicing with an infinite generosity in every detail of her irresponsive being. She twanged the catgut under ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... gradually by catgut bougies, which by their compression will at the same time diminish the thickness of the membrane, or by bougies of elastic gum, or of horn boiled soft. The patient should gain the habit of making water slowly, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the prospectus with eager eyes, and Nevitt poured forth strange music as he read, music like the murmur of the stream of Pactolus. It was an inspiring strain; the violin seemed to possess the true Midas touch; gold flowed like water in liquid rills from its catgut. Guy finished, and rose, and dipped a pen in the ink-pot. "All right," he said low, half hesitating still. "I'll give you an order to sell out at once, and I'll fill up this application for three hundred shares—why not three hundred? ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... her, and took all possible pains in the teaching, and laughed at her, and told her plainly that she had no talent for music. He told her that in her hands the finest lute Laux Maler ever made, mellowed by three centuries, would be but wood and catgut. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... educated in a genteel manner, and pains taken to teach them in regard to their behaviour, on reasonable terms. They may be taught all sorts fine needlework, viz., working on catgut or flowering muslin, sattin stitch, quince stitch, tent stitch, cross-stitch, open work, tambour, embroidering curtains or chairs, writing and cyphering. Likewise waxwork in all its several branches, never as yet particularly taught here; also how to take profiles ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... to take their own cars, and willing to work, will find plenty to do in distributing such supplies over there. A request has come to me to find such Americans. Surgeons who can spare a scalpel, an artery clip or two, ligatures—catgut or silk—and forceps, may be certain of having them used at once. Bandages rolled by kindly American hands will not lie unclaimed on the quay at Havre ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and from its upper end a hempen cord is suspended. To this is fastened the "bow," an instrument made of oak, about five feet in length, two inches in circumference, and shaped like a ladle. A string of coarse catgut is tightly stretched from end to end of the bow, and this is beaten with a small mallet made of willow, bound at the end with a ring of iron or brass. The raw cotton, in its coarse state, is piled on the floor just underneath the string of the bow. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... furrow of a white cord waistcoat, with a low step collar, the vest reaching low down his figure, with large flap pockets and a nick out in front, like a coachman's. Instead of buttons, the waistcoat was secured with foxes' tusks and catgut loops, while a heavy curb chain, passing from one pocket to the other, raised the impression that there was a watch in one and a bunch of seals in the other. The waistcoat was broadly bound with white binding, and, like the coat, evinced great strength and powers of resistance. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... very evening which followed this there was a great ringing of bells in Casterbridge, and the combined brass, wood, catgut, and leather bands played round the town with more prodigality of percussion-notes than ever. Farfrae was Mayor—the two-hundredth odd of a series forming an elective dynasty dating back to the days of Charles I—and the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... were sinful to forego. With a word, I could lighten your hearts; but I prefer to quicken your heels, and send you forth on your ingenuous errand with happy faces and smiling thoughts, the physicians of your own recovery. Fiddlers, to your catgut! Up, Bertrand, and show them how one foots it in society; forward, girls, and choose me every one the lad she loves; Dumont, benign old man, lead forth our blushing Curate; and you, O bride, embrace the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... learned what comfort is, I tell you! A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow! The paw he holds up there's been frozen), Plenty of catgut for my fiddle (This out-door business is bad for strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... candle was lighted for this purpose. I then took occasion to observe that the guitar was turned round into the position noted in the margin, the end being near my left hand. On examining it I found a longish end of one of the catgut strings loose, and I found that by sweeping this end over the strings I could make quite as good twangs as we heard. I could have done this just as well with my mouth as with my hand—and I could have pulled the guitar about by the end of the catgut in my mouth and so have disturbed ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley |
