"Fiddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... second fiddle for the rest of your life after playing first for a quarter of a century is a ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... and Peace Seem'd to smile at the sound of the fiddle, Proud to fill up each tall shining space Round the lanthorn[1] that stood in the middle. And GEORGE'S head too; Heav'n screen him! May he finish in peace his long reign! And what did we when we had seen him? Why—went round and ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... to their winged sweethearts from the middle of the circle. And the voice grew, not so much in loudness as in sweetness (though it grew louder, too), till it was so sweet that you wanted to cry with pleasure just at the sound of it. It was like nightingales, and the sea, and the fiddle, and the voice of your mother when you have been a long time away, and she meets you at the door ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... me all, and more than all. I was still fiddle-faddling with the girth strap, the better to impose upon my Indian horse-guards, when suddenly there arose a yelling hubbub of laughter in the camp behind. I turned to look and beheld a thing laughable enough, no doubt, and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... any trivial symptom. Being a tough, open-air fellow, who was always as hard as a nail, it was seldom that there was anything amiss with him; but at last the drink began to tell, and he woke one morning with his hands shaking and all his nerves tingling like over-stretched fiddle-strings. He had been dining at some very wet house the night before, and the wine had, perhaps, been more plentiful than choice; at any rate, there he was, with a tongue like a bath towel and a head that ticked like an eight-day clock. He was very alarmed at his own condition, and he sent for ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... than mine. Mine would have whinnied for the camp and watched for short cuts to it. Another advantage was the moon, and the hour was hardly beyond midnight when I saw a light in a window and heard the scraping of a fiddle. At the edge of a clearing enclosed by a worm fence I came to a row of slave-cabins. Mongrel dogs barked through the fence, and in one angle of it a young white man with long straight hair showed himself so abruptly as to startle my horse. Only the one cabin ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... creature is stirring," said Adrian, "not even a mouse. Sellers—oh, what men daily do, not knowing what they do!—is shut up in the scullery, I suppose, torturing his poor defenceless fiddle. That 's what it is to be a musical boot-and-knife boy. And Wickersmith will be at his devotions. He tells me he never gets leisure for his morning meditation till luncheon 's cleared away. And that's what it is to be a pious butler. I 'm doubting whether there ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... preserve their place, While softer sounds delight thee; The fiddle shall our wedding grace, But horns shall never fright thee. Come, come away, Love chides thy stay, Oh! prithee come ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Trimble, a very merry fellow, the fiddle of the society, who called him 'Mad Trimble.' M. Stokes of 1531 wrote ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 30. Saturday, May 25, 1850 • Various
... sufficiently accurate idea, both of the sizes and the use of viols, if he will consider the treble viol to have corresponded closely with our modern violin, the tenor viol to the modern viola [which is also called Alto, Tenor, or Bratsche—i.e., braccio, 'arm' fiddle], and the bass-viol, or viol-da-gamba [so called because held between the knees], to the ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... day or two at Derby, and then went on in Mrs. —— carriage to see the beauties of Matlock. Here I stayed from Tuesday to Saturday, which time was completely filled up with seeing the country, eating, concerts, &c. I was the first fiddle, not in the concerts, but everywhere else, and the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I dedicated to the drawing up my sketch of education, which I meant to publish, to try to ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... riglar way, instead o' doin' as we do, tumblin' in a drop powder, spittin' a ball out your mouth down the muzzle, and hittin' the stock on the pommel of the saddle to send it home. And he had them miserable things—the somethin' 'cussion-caps, and used to fiddle away with them while we were knockin' over the cattle in all directions. Moreover, he had a notion that it was altogether wrong to let go his reins even for a moment, and so, what between the ramrod and the 'cussion-caps and the reins, he was worse ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... to be back looking for another job," he regretfully observed to Allison, "but I like it here, and besides, I want to hear you play on your fiddle before I go." ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... they were going to supper, an old man, with a fiddle in his hand, tottered into the garden, and down the lawn. He was a very queer-looking old man. He had long white hair, and ...
— The Birthday Party - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... and to fence, by the masters of those noble sciences. He becomes a compleat connoisseur in dressing hair, and in adorning his own person, under the hands and instructions of his barber and valet de chambre. If he learns to play upon the flute or the fiddle, he is altogether irresistible. But he piques himself upon being polished above the natives of any other country by his conversation with the fair sex. In the course of this communication, with which he is indulged from his tender ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... enough to melt the belly out of my fiddle," said Johnny Mears to his wife, who sat on a three-legged stool by the rough table in the little whitewashed "end-room", putting a patch of patches over the seat of a pair of moleskin knickerbockers. He lit his pipe, moved a stool to the side of the great empty fireplace, ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... upon the profound truth conveyed by this finale, at the instant when the composer delivers his last note and the author his last line, when the orchestra gives the last pull at the fiddle-bow and the last puff at the bassoon, when the principal singers say "Let's go to supper!" and the chorus people exclaim "How lucky, it doesn't rain!" Well, in every condition in life, as in an Italian opera, there ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... nothing but ancient history; who projected twenty great poems, and finished only one or two; who spent his life in commenting upon Plato and studying botany, and in writing letters to his friend Mason; and who with a real touch of Pindar in his nature, was content to fiddle-faddle away his life. He died at last of a most unpoetical gout in the stomach, leaving behind him a cartload of memoranda, and fifty fragments of fine things; and yet I, a stranger from a far distant shore, was about to make a little pilgrimage ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... Johnny Whitelamb looked, with a face as long as a fiddle. The comment was quiet, but the note of scorn in it could not be mistaken. Molly in revolt! Molly, of all persons! Molly sat trembling. She knew that among them all Johnny was her one ally—and a hopelessly distressed and ineffective one. He ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... everything—the exclamation which you explained deceitfully, and all! Forgive the harsh word, Elfride—forgive it.' He smiled a surface smile as he continued: 'What a poor mortal I am to play second fiddle in everything and to be deluded ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... awkwardly on his chair. "I ain't got around to getting another pianny since I moved in here. Maybe we can, some day, after the hay gets turned. I used to play the fiddle some, but I ain't got no fiddle now, neither. Some play the fiddle better'n what I do. A mouth harp's a good thing when you're alone a good deal. Most any one can play a mouth harp some. Lots of fellers do out here, nights, ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... for the dance the shepherd dressed, In ribbons, wreath, and gayest vest Himself with care arraying: Around the linden lass and lad Already footed it like mad: Hurrah! hurrah! Hurrah—tarara-la! The fiddle-bow was playing. ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... genius. I have only to add a word of advice to the Painters,—that, however excellent they may be in painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves very much upon it; and to the Connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, it looks as if you could take it up, they would not for that reason immediately compare the Painter to Raffaelle ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... him as clost as he can; that act, that a woman would resent as a deadly insult and her incensed relatives avenge with the sword, if it occurred in any other place than the ball-room and at the sound of the fiddle. The utter inconsistency of her meetin' it with smiles, and making frantic efforts to get more such affronts than any other woman present — her male relatives ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... resourceful in ideas and brisk in movement stands in front of and facing the other players and rapidly repeats this verse, performing some action that the other players immediately imitate—such as beating a drum, playing a fiddle, sawing wood. Without pausing he varies his actions, the others continuing to follow his movements. Rapidity of time and vivacity determine the success ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... she had a sort o' queer, say-little way about her that caught my eye. I was a gawky boy, as green as a gourd, and never had been about with women. Dick was just the opposite: he was a reckless, splurging chap that dressed as fine as a fiddle, wasn't afraid to talk, joke, and carry on, and he could dance to a queen's taste; so he naturally had all the gals after him. I was afraid he was going to cut me out, and I was fool enough to—well, I used to hope, when ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... grunted, as he gave the wheel a quick, savage turn to the right. "Say, I nearly ran through that salmon net. It's too fer out, blamed if it isn't. Yes, I know Eben's fond of drawin', an' that's the trouble. He'd fiddle around all day with a paper an' pencil if I'd let him, an' not do a ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... Gaston brought his fiddle along, and those were wonderful tunes he drew from the strings. Sometimes he explained what they meant, his words running along in monotone that yet kept time ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... hiding-place, dim-lit by flickering lanthorn, I passed many weary hours, while all about me was a stir and bustle, a confused sound made up of many, as the never-ending tread of feet, the sound of hoarse voices now faint and far and anon clear and loud, the scrape of a fiddle, snatches of rough song, the ceaseless ring and tap of hammers—a very babel that, telling of life and action, made my gloomy prison the harder to endure. And here (mindful of what is to follow) I do ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... there, but we readily admit the imitation of familiar objects. But to think by the help of painted trees and caverns, which we know to be painted, to transport our minds to Prospero, and his island and his lonely cell;[1] or by the aid of a fiddle dexterously thrown in, in an interval of speaking, to make us believe that we hear those supernatural noises of which the isle was full: the Orrery Lecturer at the Haymarket might as well hope, by his musical glasses cleverly stationed out ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... and a funny little piano," said Norah. "They had quite an exciting time getting the piano up into the loft with the block and pulley. But the music sounds very well up there. The only trouble is old Andy Ferguson, the fencer—he's always been accustomed to fiddle for them, and he's very crushed because we've got out these men. Dad says he'd never have got them if he'd dreamed how ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... attested stories of some Negroes flinging themselves at the feet of an European playing on a fiddle, entreating him to desist, unless he had a mind to tire them to death; it being impossible for them to cease dancing, while he continued playing. Such is the irresistible passion for ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... miserable drinking-booth half buried in the snow where we halted for the refreshment of man and beast. Here, I remember, I discovered a very definite connection between the characteristic run of the tsimbol, the peculiar bite of the Zigeuner's bow on his fiddle-string, and some distinctive points of Turanian tongues. In other countries, in Spain, for instance, your gypsy speaks differently on his instrument. But, oddly enough, when I later attempted to put this observation on paper I could find no ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... play for you a little tune on the fiddle. I imagine there is nothing better and finer in the world than to be able to play on the fiddle. What? Perhaps it is not so? I don't know how it is with you. But I know that since I first reached the age of understanding, my heart longed for a fiddle. I loved as my life any musician whatever—no ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... hornpipes? And, besides this, there was a grand band hired from Rosseter, who, with their wonderful wind-instruments and puffed-out cheeks, were themselves a delightful show to the small boys and girls. To say nothing of Joshua Rann's fiddle, which, by an act of generous forethought, he had provided himself with, in case any one should be of sufficiently pure taste to prefer dancing to ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... dozen musicians, who played upon tom-toms, instruments like a fiddle, and one that was very nearly a hurdy-gurdy, with lutes and flutes. They gave the preliminary strains, and the dancers formed the semicircle. The performance was similar to that the party had seen at the hotel, though it was more finished, and the attitudes and posturing ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... laughed his friend. "But she's a right smart filly; she looks much the best of the lot. Dixon's got her as fit as a fiddle string. When you're done with that man you might turn him over ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... long, black Norman sea-boat bows on, over chocks through the low surf to the grey swell beyond. The little vessel had been beached by the stern, with a slack chain hooked to her sides at the water-line, and a long hawser rove through a rough fiddle-block of enormous size, and leading to a capstan set far above high-water mark and made fast by the bight of a chain to an anchor buried in the sand up to the heavy wooden stock. And now a big old man with streaming grey ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... strings of the old fiddle will tighten up a good deal, if I abstain from attempting to play upon the instrument at present—but that a few jigs now will ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... amusements; they were far too much absorbed in the dancing which was going on busily—I can't say gaily—in the two hollow squares. In one of these an elderly, pinched little man who looked almost half-witted, was monotonously scraping a battered fiddle, for two solemn couples to dance round and round, always on the same axis. But the other "dancing salon" was more lively. There a man dressed like a buffoon, with a tall hat, a lobster claw for a nose, a uniform with ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... and yellow and green they are melting away in the white; Hey! but the wise old world was wrong and my idiot heart was right; Yes; and the merry-go-round of the stars rolls to my cracked old tune, Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... forgotten that in prouder days he had personated Alexander—the specious form of John Palmer, with the special effrontery of Bobby—Bensley, with the trumpet-tongue, and little Quick (the retired Dioclesian of Islington) with his squeak like a Bart'lemew fiddle. There are fixed, cold as in life, the immovable features of Moody, who, afraid of o'erstepping nature, sometimes stopped short of her—and the restless fidgetiness of Lewis, who, with no such fears, not seldom leaped o' the other side. There hang ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when we get you through sa. Old 'ooman at home sa:' chuckling very much. 'Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home sa,' ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the fiddle, a nice little one, just the right size for a monkey to play. The hand-organ sounded very slowly while the little monkey played his fiddle. For fear that his master would feel badly because he was so far behind, Mr. Monkey put away his instrument, and bowed ...
— Pages for Laughing Eyes • Unknown
... that fine thing; but it can't evidently charm a landlord, as at present constructed, into the faith that the notes of a fiddle, a clarionet, a bugle, or a trombone are negotiable at the corner grocery, or ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... looking-glass as if I'd been a girl. I could make myself as smart as any one when I was going to a dance, or to a party where I was likely to meet pretty girls; but I should have laughed myself to scorn if I'd stood fiddle-faddling at a glass, smirking at my own likeness, all for my ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... say, and he would then be attended to, he did not seem satisfied, but continued to demand the calling of the officers together. Colonel Earle told him to go on with his duty. Captain Carmichael still took no notice of these orders; but said his feelings were "worked up to a fiddle-string." Still disobeying Colonel Earle's commands, he was told "to go home if he could not do his duty." He was then heard to say that the officers, or some of the officers, were "a set of blacklegs." For this offence Captain Carmichael ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... nibblers. But the allurements of pecan growing in the South are spread before us with our bread and butter and morning coffee. The orange and pomelo properties have been banished from the stage, or made to play second fiddle, and now we see in the limelight the pecan plantation, with a vista of provision for old age and insurance for our children. And there shall be no work nor care nor trouble about it at all. Only something down and about ten dollars a month for ninety-six months. And the intercropping ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... ancestors, in their antiquated dresses, and slender, tarnished, antiquated frames. In his drawing-room you will find none of your new grand pianos and fashionable couches and ottomans; but an old spinet and a fiddle, another set of those long-legged, tall-backed chairs, two or three little settees, a good massy table, and a fine large carved mantle-piece, with bright steel dogs instead of a modern stove, and logs ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... to me having overprimed his musket, with the consequence that when he fired, my face being so close, the powder flew up and caught my wound, which though only originally a slight one soon made me dance for a time without a fiddle. ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... good-natur'd Modesty: so that the wildest of his Flights are thought rather diverting than troublesome. He is an hourly Foundation for Laughter, from the Top of the House to the Parlours: and, to borrow an Attribute from the Reverend Mr. Peters, (tho' without any Note of his Musick) plays a very good FIDDLE in the Family. I have told you the History of this Tom-tit of a Prater, because, ever since my first reading of PAMELA, he puts in for a Right to be one of her Hearers; and, having got half her Sayings by heart, talks in no other Language but hers: and, what really surprises, and has charm'd ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... his face in his hands. "That was ignorance, an' I'm payin' for it by havin' you turn away an' snap my future like a fiddle string! Oh, how could my hand a-struck yoh people—even ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... big fiddle," was the prompt reply. "Doesn't he look like a grasshopper with that long-tailed coat and all that shirt front? If he just had feelers on his head, he'd be perfect. Don't you ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... do so hang about ye, So whimper, and so hug, I know it Gentlemen, And so intice ye, now ye are i'th' bud; And that sweet tilting war, with eyes and kisses, Th' alarms of soft vows, and sighs, and fiddle faddles, Spoils all our trade: you must forget these knick knacks, A woman at some time of year, I grant ye She is necessarie; but make no business ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... great masters; because they sometimes put in some of those round characters of clouds, they must do the same; but if you look at any of their skies, they either assist in the composition or make some figure in the picture—nay, sometimes play the first fiddle.... ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... Goody Muse! on thee I call, Pro more, (as do poets all,) To string thy fiddle, wax thy bow, And scrape a ditty, jig, or so. Now don't wax wrathy, but excuse My calling you old Goody Muse; Because "Old Goody" is a name Applied to every college dame. Aloft in pendent dignity, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... would a-wooing go Gave a party, you must know; And his bride, dressed all in green, Looked as fine as any queen. Their reception numbered some Of the best in Froggiedom. Four gay froggies played the fiddle,— Hands all round, ...
— The Nursery, February 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... you to play second fiddle, and no mistake," laughed George Ramsey, "for I did think I would make Miss Edgham a little call. But, after all, the second fiddle is an indispensable thing, and you and I are ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... my heart is a fiddle; the strings are rozend with ioy that my other young Mr. is come home, & my tongue the sticke that makes the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... to facilitate the sluicing, more men were added to the force shovelling in the creeks, and this made our work heavier. An exceedingly cranky foreigner, as head cook, presided over the big coal range in the mess-house, and we women "played second fiddle," so to speak. However, we all had enough hard work, as a midnight supper for the second force had to be prepared and regularly served, and at this we ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... unfloored abysses, while we trespassed and pried and pervaded, snatching a scant impression from sorry material enough, clearly, the sacred edifice enjoyed a credit beyond that of the profane; but when both were finished and opened we flocked to the sound of the fiddle more freely, it need scarce be said, than to that of the psalm. "Freely" indeed, in our particular case, scarce expresses the latter relation; since our young liberty in respect to church-going was absolute and we might range at will, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... with the horror. And whiles we crawled thus round and round within this narrow space, ever and anon above the stealthy rustle of his movements, above his stertorous breathing and evil muttering, above the wild throbbing of my heart rose the wail of the fiddle and the singing: ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... had taken to pieces and put together again, strengthened, soldered, tinkered, mended, and braced every accordion, guitar, melodeon, dulcimer, and fiddle in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the neighboring villages. There was a little money to be earned in this way, but very little, as people in general regarded this "tinkering" as a pleasing diversion in which they could indulge him without danger. As an example ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fifteen decayed baronets, eight yellow admirals, forty-seven major-generals on half pay (who narrate the whole Peninsular War), twenty-seven dowagers, one hundred and eighty-seven old maids on small annuities, and several unbeneficed clergymen, who play a little on the fiddle. All the above play at cards, and usually with success if partners. No objection to cards on Sunday evenings or rainy mornings. The country gentleman to allow the guests four feeds a day, and to produce claret if a Scotch or Irish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... kitchen, where supper was served. When all had enough, including the dogs and Maisie's pussies, the older folk moved to the front room. In a jiffy dishes and temporary tables disappeared in that big back kitchen, and the youngsters began their games. By-and-by a fiddle was heard, and I am afraid there was dancing. We had a happy evening. Two-handed cracks, stories, jokes, songs, made the time pass too quickly. It was a novelty to me that all the guests were either Irish or ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... dodging it, and so were the smaller children. Without any fear of it they were all sitting on the hearth at the old woman's feet,—Ben and Melissa popping corn in the ashes, and Tom and Andy watching Barney's deft fingers as he made a cornstalk fiddle for them. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Scot, a Highlander of the Isles, sat upon a barrel-head sawing at a fiddle, and the shrill scream of it filled the barn. Tone he did not aspire to, but he played with Caledonian verve and swing, and kept the snapping time. It was mad, harsh music of the kind that sets the blood ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... branches and luxuriant foliage, composed a very pleasing image. The manner in which the sod was partially worn under most of them, explained their nightly purpose; or if there could yet be any doubt, the flute and fiddle, pendant in almost every house, spoke a still more ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... one of the crew. The prospect of another year after the Alert should sail was rather "too much of the monkey.'' About seven o'clock the mate came down into the steerage in fine trim for fun, roused the boys out of the berth, turned up the carpenter with his fiddle, sent the steward with lights to put in the between-decks, and set all hands to dancing. The between-decks were high enough to allow of jumping, and being clear, and white, from holystoning, made a good dancing-hall. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... of a hearse. There was a stand in one corner, and a large extension table in the middle of the room, with chairs placed about it. In the corner across from the stand was a spiritualist medium's cabinet; and hanging on the walls were a guitar, a banjo and a fiddle. A bell stood in the middle of the table, and there were writing materials, slates, and other things scattered about, which theatrical people call "properties," I am told. I tore the black draperies down, and searched for a place where my mother might be—in ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... got the dancers out upon the lawn, and then they managed to go through one quadrille. But it was found that it did not answer. The music of the single fiddle which Crosbie had hired from Guestwick was not sufficient for the purpose; and then the grass, though it was perfect for purposes of croquet, was not pleasant ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... slipping along this moving thoroughfare in my fiddle-case of a canoe, I also was beginning to grow aweary for my ocean. To the civilized man, there must come, sooner or later, a desire for civilization. I was weary of dipping the paddle; I was weary of living on the skirts of life; I wished to be in the thick ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Van Olden Barnavelt Mawmets ( puppets) Mawmett ( Mahomet) Meath (A curious corruption of Mentz. Old printers distorted foreign names in an extraordinary manner.) Mechall Mention ( dimension) Mew Middleton, quotation from his Family of Love Minikin ( fiddle) Mistris Moe Monthes mind Mooncalf More hayre than wit Morglay Mosch Mother Motion ( suggestion, proposal) Mouse Much (ironical) Mumchance Muscadine Muschatoes ( moustaches) Mushrumps ( mushrooms) Music played between the acts Muskadine with an ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The authorities have sent them away. But we've Jews that play the cymbals and the fiddle in the village, so one might send for them. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... large fiddle-shaped instrument held between the legs. It was very fashionable in the eighteenth century, and was generally to be found in the sitting-rooms of the upper classes for the use of any guests who could perform on it. It ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... snow-white Hair, as it waved in the wind; and the jolly face of the fiddler Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the embers. Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle, Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de Dunkerque, And anon with his wooden, shoes beat time to the music. Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances Under the orchard-trees and down the path to ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... go back to fiddle over the ruins. But who knows? At all events, I'll go back and carry with me all that your country had done for three generations of my ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... a profound silence in the small room. The runners of a sleigh scraped the icy street below, its horses' hoofs cracked noisily. The music of a fiddle sounded in the distance. Babe's voice humming a waltz tune rose from the ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... possibilities of plaintive Negro melodies, which they of course capitalized. In New York late in 1842 four men—"Dan" Emmett, Frank Brower, "Billy" Whitlock, and "Dick" Pelham—practiced together with fiddle and banjo, "bones" and tambourine, and thus was born the first company, the "Virginia Minstrels," which made its formal debut in New York February 17, 1843. Its members produced in connection with their work all sorts of popular songs, one of Emmett's being "Dixie," ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... given his name because he always smiled over a crust of bread, even when he was a baby. Now that he was a little lad of ten with a great flock of ewes and lambs to tend and drive through sun and storm, he had smiles and kind words for all, and he played his fiddle all day long until its sweet tunes filled ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... his strange advent momentarily silenced the quarrel; but soon it leaped up again, under the shelter of the noisy music,—the common, tedious, tippler's quarrel. It rose higher and higher. The fiddler looked askance at it over his fiddle. Chirac cautiously observed it. Instead of attending to the music, the festal company attended to the quarrel. Three waiters in a group watched it with an impartial sporting interest. The English voices grew ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Nerves gone to fiddle-strings. What a day we're having! (Tenderly putting his hand on G.'s shoulder.) My David, how long have you known this Jonathan? Would I come up here to make a fool of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... horses, with new saddles and bridles, all English too, with a good deal of ammunition and baggage. The consternation of the tories was so great that they never dreamt of carrying off anything. Even their fiddles and fiddle bows, and playing cards, were all left strewed around their fires. One of the gamblers, (it is a serious truth) though shot dead, still held the cards hard gripped in his hands. Led by curiosity to inspect this strange sight, a dead gambler, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... a difference. Anyways, he didn't at first ketch on to her being about the freshest-made widow he'd ever tumbled to in a dancing-party. But he got there all right when the square dance was over, and Jose flourished his fiddle and sung out for the Senores and Senoritas to take partners for a valsa, and the Hen brought up Kerosene to foot it with him—telling him she was the organist who was going to play the melodeon when they got it, and he'd find her ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... tormented him a lot," admitted her husband. "He's a great hand at the fiddle and likes company. He goes to the harbour a good deal. But they say he takes sulky spells when he hasn't a word to throw to a dog. 'Twouldn't be any wonder, living with the Gordons. They're all as queer ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... produced. Their Mother tells them, that such an one commanded in such a Sea Engagement, that their Great Grandfather had a Horse shot under him at Edge-hill, that their Uncle was at the Siege of Buda, and that her Mother danced in a Ball at Court with the Duke of Monmouth; with abundance of Fiddle-faddle of the same Nature. I was, the other Day, a little out of Countenance at a Question of my little Daughter Harriot, who asked me, with a great deal of Innocence, why I never told them of the Generals and Admirals that had been in my Family. As for my Eldest Son Oddly, he ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... on the balcony hang over the railings. The figures on the floor go reeling off in a mixture of dancing and by-play as fantastic as the music. The pianist seems to get excited and to want to prove himself a Hans von Bulow of rapid execution. The fiddler weaves excitedly over his fiddle. The cornetist toots in a screech like a car-engine whistle. The movements of the dancers grow licentious and more and more rapid. They have begun the Cancan. Feet go up. Legs are exhibited in wild abandon. Hats fly off. There are occasional exhibitions of nature ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... a man named Mord whose surname was Fiddle; he was the son of Sigvat the Red, and he dwelt at the "Vale" in the Rangrivervales. He was a mighty chief, and a great taker up of suits, and so great a lawyer that no judgments were thought lawful unless he had a hand ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... to the smells of the earth. They learned the ways of birds and bugs, why birds have wings, why bugs have legs, why the gladdywhingers have spotted eggs in a basket nest in a booblow tree, and why the chizzywhizzies scrape off little fiddle songs all summer long ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg
... three girls went out walking, she was always in the middle, with Esther and Mellicent hanging on an arm at either side. Robert was her sworn vassal, and Max and Oswald her respectful and, on the whole, obedient servants. Altogether, the prospect of playing second fiddle to this strange girl was by no means pleasant. Peggy tilted her chin, and spoke in a ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... he exclaimed as I ended. "Why, you might have blown each other to pieces. Powder wants using only by an experienced man, and young Chowne, who seems to have played first fiddle, seems to know more about his father's powders than that out of a keg. Humph! So you blew down one of ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... executed; and he thus coolly expressed his intention in another of his letters:—"You write me word, that I'm out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that could fiddle, or a singing owl. If he falls on me at the blunt, which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if you please; and leave the repartee to ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... shops, and the market. I bought all sorts of common curiosities, little articles of everyday life, some of which will be sure to amuse and interest my English friends. Among my purchases were a wooden pillow, some joss candles, a two-stringed fiddle, and a few preserved eggs, which they say are over a hundred years old. The eggs are certainly nasty enough for anything; still it seems strange that so thrifty a people as the Chinese should allow so much capital to lie dormant—literally buried ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... in chess, women, poetry, eloquence, music, and all such fiddle-faddle. What is the use of mediocrity ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... realized that if he knew what was good for him he had better give Giraffe a wide berth while he was strumming away with his "old fiddle," as some of the boys sneeringly described the fire outfit that continually refused to "fire" even ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... weave their own clothes, make rugs, tan leather, grow straw for hats,—all of which they do to this day, so that you may enter a habitant house and not find a single article except saints' images, a holy book, and perhaps a fiddle, which the habitant has not himself made. "The Jesuits assume too much authority," wrote the King. Talon lessened their power by inviting the Recollets to come back to Canada and by encouraging the Sulpicians. Instead of outlawing young Frenchmen ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... sawed away at the kite line, which was as taut as a string on a bass fiddle. Suddenly there was a loud snap and the cord parted. Sam and Dick fell back from the edge of the cliff, while the entangled kites soared away for ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... adorn a boudoir. He does every thing with a flourish. If he has never painted Nero performing that celebrated violin-solo over Rome, it is because he despaired of conveying an idea of the tremulous flourish of the fiddle-bow. He reads nature, and translates her, without understanding her. He will prove to you that the cattle of Rosa Bonheur are those of the fields, while he will object to Landseer that his beasts are those of the guinea cattle-show. He blows up grand facts in the science of art with gunpowder, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... G1 A flute (fiddle, staff, knife) which apparently brings to life again the dead woman. G2 The dead mother killed a second time, and paid for by the ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... No stranger has a right to all the doctor. (rises and stands by table R., making notes in book) All right, Master Robjohns, you shall play the fiddle to-morrow night. ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... small fiddle; to crowd v. to grate as the two ends of a broken bone, to make a flat creaking; Crowder s. ...
— A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire • Wadham Pigott Williams
... looks of you, I should say it was wearing your nerves to fiddle-strings. Ever take anything ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... the road opened, there was a rush of hurdy-gurdy girls for dance-halls; but that did not modify the rough chivalry of an unwritten law. These hurdy-gurdy girls, who tiptoed to the concertina, the fiddle, and the hand-organ, were German; and if we may believe the poet of Cariboo, they were something like the Glasgow girls described by Wolfe as 'cold to everything but a bagpipe—I wrong them—there is not one that does not melt away ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... fiddle-string," replied Bokes. "We done got out all right, I reckon;" and it was plain that he had not taken notice that the schooner was no longer in tow of ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... both sides, in order to avoid the expense of a regular wedding. The principal amusement on Sundays and holidays is the choro ([Greek: choros]), which is danced on the village green to the strains of the gaida or bagpipe, and the gusla, a rudimentary fiddle. The Bulgarians are religious in a simple way, but not fanatical, and the influence of the priesthood is limited. Many ancient superstitions linger among the peasantry, such as the belief in the vampire and the evil eye; witches and necromancers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood and ivory anvils—don't talk to me, I know the difference between a bullfrog and a ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... early experience: scores of things that an ordinary educated Englishman learns with considerable surprise were to him the merest matters of course. When an English composer resolves to write an opera, in the spirit in which a sculptor may decide to paint a picture or a flute-player to play the fiddle, he has to learn all, or as much as he can, about the requirements of the stage, and even then if his work comes to rehearsal he has to accept corrections and make alterations at the instance of those who have been through the proper early training. No one had anything to teach ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... University by the scholarships and prizes which he had won. One beautiful little dark-eyed daughter of seven was playing in a West End Theatre as the dormouse in "Alice in Wonderland." She was second fiddle to Alice herself, also, and could sing all her songs. Her pay was some five pounds a week, poor enough for the attraction she proved, but more than all the rest of the family put together earned. At that time I never went ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... had been shot off in battles with the Indians. After it healed he moved to this place, and lived on the vegetables he could raise in a little garden, besides what people gave him. Every night he came out and sat on the log by the door, playing on an old fiddle. Then the school children would collect around him, and give him pennies, or fruit, and such things. Sometimes he told them stories; for he had travelled in many lands, and knew a great deal about them. In the summer nights, father says, ...
— The Summer Holidays - A Story for Children • Amerel
... the King of the rath, "I thought it was no harm. He said he was tired of being by himself, and you know how handy he is with the fiddle or the pipes. If he'd been a fir darrig, that's always playing tricks and making trouble everywhere, why, then, of course—but he was only a ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... I'll put this photograph of the Hermes in here in place of this fiddle-de-dee Art Calendar. She'll like ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... that love for vengeance, he could not tell. The embers of a man's passions will suddenly burst into flame, and he will fiddle madly while the fire burns his soul. He had avenged her as well as himself; but had he avenged her, now that he held Isaac Worthington in his power? By crushing him, had he not added to her trouble and her sorrow? She had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... golden days of her youth when Love had come to her to bless and to abide with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle and we danced." ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... "Fiddle!" cried Noreen derisively. "No chance of that. Whether you like it or no, my dear, this day has settled your fate. You can never be a mere acquaintance any more. You've done us a service which will bind us together as long as ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Redd eache moment) how was y^e Action? y^e Tone? how manie Stopps? Wh^at She growinge gretelie Confus'd, I led Her into y^e Churche, & show'd Her y^t there was no Organ, y^e Choire beinge indeede a Band, of i Tuninge-Forke, i Kitt, & i Horse-Fiddle.—At this She fell to Smilinge & Blushinge att one Tyme.—She perceiv'd our Errandes were y^e Same, & crav'd Pardon for Her Fibb.—I tolde Her, If She came Thither to be Witness at her Frend's Weddinge, 'twas no ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... pulled for all they were worth. But no power of man could make such a creature stir unless it wanted to. It braced its fore legs and stood immovable, then shook its mighty head till the lasso twanged like a fiddle-string, but did not give an inch. Finally the steer caught sight of its tormentors outside the yard, and rushed. At once the rope became slack and the watchful men pulled it tight again, and soon the great beast was jammed up against ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... employment to turn his hand to. That very night, I remember, he dined with me. We went to the play together, and afterwards looked in at Lady ALICIA PARBOIL's dance. Dear Lady ALICIA, how plump she was, and how good-natured, and how well she married her fiddle-headed daughters. Her husband too, that clumsy, heavy-witted oaf, how cunningly and how successfully withal she schemed for his advancement. Quid plura? you knew her well, she was devoted to you. I only speak of her to remind you that it was in her hospitable rooms that GERVASE BLENKINSOP ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my cheek, though their dampness never penetrated; but in between these hammer blows their little pats were wonderfully friendly. Every now and then I could see ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... we had a dance, and here I became useful, being able to play Scotch reels and Irish jigs on the fiddle. Then we had songs and yarns again. Some could tell of furious fights with whales that made our blood boil; others could talk of the green fields at home, until we almost fancied we were boys again; and some could not tell stories at all. ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... after a certain miracle on May-day. The Major had taken Chad to the festival where the dance was on sawdust in the woodland—in the bottom of a little hollow, around which the seats ran as in an amphitheatre. Ready to fiddle for them stood none other than John Morgan himself, his gray eyes dancing and an arch smile on his handsome face; and, taking a place among the dancers, were Richard Hunt and—Margaret. The poised bow fell, a merry tune rang ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this freshness of Madame Merle's she obtained a considerable insight; she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or blanketed and bridled like the "favourite" of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had remained after ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... out av doors till I get rid av this cough," he answered. "And ye know I can do a stunt in the band. Don't take giants to fiddle and fife. Little runts can do that. Who do you reckon come to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... too, for a little un!" he added, with another glance aloft, where the sails could be seen distended to their utmost extent and tugging at the bolt-ropes, while the topgallant-masts were bent almost into a curve with the strain upon them and the stays aft were stretched as tight as fiddle-strings. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... I have. I have noticed nothing else. Why, she is dressed as fine as a fiddle. She is 'taking notice.' She 'll be giving Old Caesar a successor. Then what will you do? I thought that fat darky I have seen going in at the back gate with a silk hat and a long-tailed coat looked like a preacher. You 'd better look out for him. You ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... signs of the strange, long-past agitation. In dimensions it was similar to the dining-room, running from front to back of the house. Here, too, was another elaborate candelabrum, somewhat smaller than the first, queer, spindle-legged, fiddle-backed chairs, beautiful cabinets and tables, and an old, square piano, still open. The chairs stood in irregular groups of twos and threes, chumming cozily together as their occupants had doubtless done, ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... reverence for the fine arts; and the sordid spirit of a money-amassing philosophy would meet any proposition for the fostering of art, in a genial and extended sense, with the commercial maxim,—Laissez faire. Paganini, indeed, will make a fortune, because he can actually sell the tones of his fiddle at so much a scrape; but Mozart himself might have languished in a garret for any thing that would have been done for ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... supper?' Heigho, &c. 'A roasted potato and a roll o' butter.' Terry heigho, &c. Supper was laid down to dine, Heigho, &c. Changed a farthing and brought up wine, Terry heigho, &c. First come in was a nimble bee, Heigho, &c. With his fiddle upon his knee, Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a creeping snail, Heigho, &c. With his bagpipes under his tail, Terry heigho, &c. Next came in was a neighbour's pig, Heigho, &c. 'Pray, good people, will ye play us a jig?' Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a neighbour's hen, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... who either from choice or ill-health lingered on into the winter, made a speech. There were declamations, debates, the interminable, singsong ballads of the frontier, usually accompanied by French harp or fiddle. Families were few, bachelors much in the majority; I remember that at one of the community affairs there were eighteen bachelors out of a total attendance of thirty persons! But as the region settled up, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... handsome black fellow, with white teeth and bright eyes, and he could play the fiddle and pick the banjo, and knock the bones and cut the pigeon-wing, and, besides all that, he was the best hoe-hand, and could pick more cotton than any other negro on the plantation. He had amused himself by courting and flirting with all of the ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... their voices be gladly blent With a watery jingle of pans and spoons, And a motherly chirrup of sweet content, And neighborly gossip and merriment, And old-time fiddle-tunes! ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... "Uh-huh—fiddle and er banjer, and the feller that plays the banjer kin tear more music out o' it and stomp on the floor harder'n any other perfesser in the mountains. Better come if Paw ain't run you-all ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... over, we eat pudding, baked beans, mince, apple, and pumpkin pie, and top off with pop-corn, apples, and cider. After supper the girls clear away the dishes; then we push the table into one corner of the kitchen, Julius Caesar mounts it with his fiddle, and we dance jigs and quicksteps. The girl who first found a red ear while husking, and was kissed before she could throw it into the basket, is ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... as a fiddle. Am I to receive the hospitality of your limousine also, dear lady? Look at the state I'm in ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... numerous parasites who minister to his vanity or pleasure. The foreign element (which Hogarth in his heart detested) is here to the front in the figure of the French dancing-master, trying a new step, with the fiddle in his hand; behind him the maitre d'armes, Dubois, is making a lunge with his epee de combat, while Figg, a noted English prize-fighter, watches his movements with an expression of contempt. Another portrait is Bridgman, a well-known landscape ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... dinner, once when I was dining with the Mitfords, when he knew that his time had come, to turn to Mrs. Bourke, who was famous only as shining in his reflected light, and say: "Mrs. Bourke, won't you play us something, and I will just come in with my fiddle?" Rubinstein's playing I never liked. To me he seemed only the most violent of all the piano-bangers of the world; but he was literally worshipped by his admirers, and was grand to look at—as fine as Beethoven ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... early hour by Don Severiano's live stock, who hold their musical matinee in the big yard exactly under my open window. The bloated and presumptuous turkey-cock, 'guanajo,' is leading tenor in the poultry programme. First fiddle is the 'gallo Ingles,' or English rooster. Then come the double-bass pigs, who have free access to the balcony and parlour. A chorus of hens, chickens, and guinea-fowls, varies the entertainment; while the majestic 'perjuil,' or peacock, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... comes the Times and eleven strikes (it does) already, and I have to go to Town, and I have no alternative but that this story of the Critic and Poet, 'the Bear and the Fiddle,' should 'begin but break off in the middle'; yet I doubt—nor will you henceforth, I know, say, 'I vex you, I am sure, by this lengthy writing.' Mind that spring is coming, for all this snow; and know me for ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... degree. Is it the body brings it on the mind, or the mind that inflicts it upon the body? I cannot tell; but it is a severe price to pay for the Fata Morgana with which Fancy sometimes amuses men of warm imaginations. As to body and mind, I fancy I might as well inquire whether the fiddle or fiddlestick makes the tune. In youth this complaint used to throw me into involuntary passions of causeless tears. But I will drive it away in the country by exercise. I wish I had been a mechanic: a turning-lathe or a chest of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... artist and musician. Music, tone, sound, colour, vibrate in every page of your romances. Had your parents taught you harmony, the piano, and the fiddle, your music would have burst forth along its normal lines. As they merely taught you the alphabet and grammar, your creative faculty turned to literature; you wrote romances full of music, instead of composing music full of romance. It is a distinction without a difference. But, now that you ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... the town. If the town is to keep the money (as it has) the Mayor must once in every five years form a procession and march up to this monument. There ten girls, natives of the town, and two widows must dance around the monument to the playing of a fiddle and a drum, the girls dressed in white. This ceremony has gone on, once in five years, all this time and the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... and hubbub was Carlisle city that day; yet, as the two entered the courtyard of the castle, James was aware of another sound, rising clear above the tumult of the town—strains of music, surely, that came from a fiddle. As they stepped under the inner gateway and approached the Norman Keep, the fiddler himself came in sight playing with might and main, under a barred window about six feet from the ground. By the fiddler's side, urging him on, was a huge, burly ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... it. He's not even told one of his fine friends what his brother does; he says it's for the sake of his school. He's living a lie for his own pride. He's got himself made master of a college, fine as a fiddle, and he cares more about that than about his brother. With all his prayers and his sermons in church every Sunday, he'd let me go to the dogs rather than live out the truth. He thinks I've gone to the devil now, because I left him in a rage, and I told him I'd go and learn ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... that the grotesque humour of the Reader would play upon the risible nerves of his hearers, as, according to Mr. Disraeli's phrase, Sir Robert Peel used to play upon the House of Commons, "like an old fiddle." Determined to Go Into Society in style, with his twelve thousand odd hundred, Mr. Chops, we are told, "sent for a young man he knowed, as had a very genteel appearance, and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth. Most respectable brought up," adds Mr. Magsman—"father having been imminent in the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... difficult to imagine. Only one street lamp in three is lighted, and the cafes, which close at 10.30, are put on half-allowance of gas. To mend matters, everyone who likes is allowed to put up a shed on the side walk to sell his goods, or to collect a crowd by playing a dirge on a fiddle. The consequence is that the circulation is rendered almost impossible. I suggested to a high authority that the police ought at least to interfere to make these peripatetic musicians "move on," but he told me that, were they to do so, they would be accused of being "Corsicans ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... my story for you, the life-story of old Rosin the Beau, your friend and true lover. Some day, not far distant now, my fiddle and I shall be laid away, in the quiet spot you know and love; and then (for you will miss me, Melody, well I know that!) this writing will be read to you, and you will hear my voice still, and will learn to know me better even ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... family. Across the street was a movie between two lurid posters, and there was a dance hall overhead. The windows were all open, and faintly above the roar of the street he could hear the piano, drum, fiddle and horn. The thoroughfare each moment grew more tumultuous to his ears, with trolley cars and taxis, motor busses, trucks and drays. A small red motor dashed uptown with piles of evening papers; a great black motor hearse ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... ungovernable, impenitent, or self-sufficient, especially Taberner, Phipps, and Church, who, as I am informed, have, in violation of my sub-dean's and chapter's order in December last, at the instance of some obscure persons unknown, presumed to sing and fiddle ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... Macora provided a varied entertainment for his guests. It included a grand feast, with songs and dancing, the latter done to the sounds of the tom-tom drum, and one-stringed African fiddle. ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... one thing easily and others another, and every fellow has to work hard to learn those things which belong, as it were, to the other fellows. There are chaps, I suppose, like the Admirable Crichton, who are born good all round, and can play the fiddle, polish off Euclid, ride, shoot, lick anyone at any game, all without the slightest trouble, but one does not come across them often, thank goodness. I say, do ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... "Fiddle-de-dee!" cried Keawe. "An old rogue, I tell you, and an old ass to boot. For the bottle was hard enough to sell at four centimes; and at three it will be quite impossible. The margin is not broad enough, the thing begins to smell of scorching—brrr!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... row-boat up Loch Katrine, though both on that and Loch Lomond you may go in a hateful little steamer with a squeaking fiddle to play Rob Roy MacGregor O. I walked almost all the way through the pass from Loch Katrine to Loch Lomond; it was a distance of six miles; but you feel as if you could walk sixty in that pure, exhilarating air. At Inversnaid we took boat ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... quaint child had gravely informed her that she looked like Connie and immediately taken her into his confidence regarding his aspirations toward some day playing in "a big band." He had also obligingly favored her with a solo of marvelous shrieks and squawks on his much tortured "fiddle." Mary loved children, and this, perhaps, went far toward stilling the jealousy, which, so far, only faintly stirring, bade fair to one day burst ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... is the pride O' chaps an' maidens vur an' wide; They can't keep up a merry tide, But Bob is in the middle. If merry Bob do come avore ye, He'll zing a zong, or tell a story; But if you'd zee en in his glory, Jist let en have a fiddle. ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... is a catgut in a fiddle. No fiddle without catgut—no music without cats. Don't talk to me about soul or musical ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... throng that steps to the tune of a fiddle, that hangs on the moods of a caterer, whose inspiration is a good dinner, whose aspiration is a new dance,— that crowd is never missed by any one who really delights in the manifold attractions ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... slang. One is a good hand at construing, another at climbing. Some boys are peculiarly skilled at casting accounts, others in casting stones. Here we have a boy of a small appetite and many words, there one of a large appetite and few words. Sometimes precocious talent is evinced for playing the fiddle, sometimes for playing a stick; sometimes, again, a strong propensity is discovered for playing the fool. This boy makes verses, as it were, by inspiration; that boy shows an equal capacity in making mouths. The most peculiar talent, however, ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... there. Another blow! Managing to dodge Willie, he hurried home to meet the second morning delivery. Nothing again! . . . His mother's anxious questions as to his health irritated him, and he so far lost his temper as to ask his sister why she was wearing a face like a fiddle. Poor Jeannie! For half the night she had been weeping for her hero and wishing the most awful things for ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... reverie. "I have her!" he said to himself; "I have her in a vice! She cannot escape me; she cannot let the old man die! Those curs have served my purpose well; they are as easy to play on as a fiddle, and I am a good player. Yes, and now we are getting to the end ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... infancy, and, disdaining a subordinate existence, boldly seceded from the society of harlequin and the tumblers, and met the world as an independent institution. Singers organized themselves into quartet bands; added a fiddle and tambourine to their instruments—perhaps we should say implements—of music; introduced the hoe-down and the conundrum to fill up the intervals of performance; rented halls, and, peregrinating from city to city and from town to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... making sleds after the manner of the country. They are made of a single plank turned up at one end like a fiddle head, and the baggage is lashed on in bags and sacks. Two other Indians arrived from the woods. Engaged ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... said. "But—they're far from silent. That waistcoat—" He stopped and gave me another nervous, timid look. He found it hard to believe a man of my sort, so self-assured, would stand the truth from a man of his second-fiddle sort. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... don't teach you that direct appeal in Paris," he thought. "It's British. Come, I am going to sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher—aim higher," cried the little artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at liberty than he hastened with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in him till being persuaded to play the fiddle he sat in the "social room," and sawed away on "Honest John," "The Devil's Dream," "Haste to the Wedding," and "The Fisher's Hornpipe." He lost all sense of being a millionnaire, and returned to his simple, unsophisticated ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland |
