"Flute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vocal inflexions: he is evidently repeating a lesson). Take notice of this all of you. I am the firstborn son of Auletes the Flute Blower who was your King. My sister Berenice drove him from his throne and reigned in his stead but—but ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... her woollen shawl. As the shadows of twilight darkened on the silent river, a spirit of sadness was with the party, that vague and painful melancholy that weighs upon the heart when happy ties are about to be sundered, and loved ones are about to part. Arthur had brought his flute, and with an effort to throw off the feeling of gloom, he essayed a lively air; but it seemed like discord by association with their thoughts. He ceased abruptly, and, at Oriana's request, chose a more mournful theme. When the last notes of the plaintive melody had been lost in the stillness ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... of Smyrna the Messiah walked on the afternoon of the abolished fast, and a vast concourse seethed around him, dancing and singing, with flute and timbrel, harp and drum. Melisselda's voice led the psalm of praise. Suddenly a whisper ran through the mob that there were unbelievers in the city, that some were actually fasting and praying in the synagogue. And at once there was a wild rush. They found the doors shut, but the voice ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M. Vaucanson; it is reported to have uttered its natural voice, moved its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat a tabor; and a flute-player who performed twelve tunes. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... home of school-boy life, With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, And, scarred by many a truant knife, Our old initials on the wall; Here rest—their keen vibrations mute— The shout of voices known so well, The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, The chiding of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... their half-brother a pleasant playmate. Every one was pleased to greet him, and there was already a winning coquetry in his manners, which amused people, and made them like to play with him. We need not allude to his studies in detail, but on musical instruments, such as the flute and the koto,[16] he ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the frogs all day and night Dream without thought of pain or heed of ill, Watching the long warm silent hours take flight, And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill, From the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill, Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering One to another glorying ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... sound rhetoric to speak of the statue as existing in the block of marble before the sculptor touches it. How easy to fall into such false analogies! Can we say that the music existed in the flute or in the violin before the musician touches them? The statue in the form of an idea or a conception exists in the mind of the sculptor, and he fashions the marble accordingly. Does the book exist in the pot of printer's ink? ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... the rest only saved themselves by an ignominious flight. On his return to Rome, Duilius celebrated a magnificent triumph. Public honors were conferred upon him; he was to be escorted home in the evening from banquets by the light of torches and the sound of the flute, and a column adorned with the beaks of the conquered ships, and thence called the Columna Rostrata, was set up ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... a nobler doom had planned; Song was his favourite and first pursuit. The wild harp rang to his adventurous hand, And languished to his breath the plaintive flute. His infant muse, though artless, was not mute: Of elegance, as yet, he took no care; For this of time and culture is the fruit; And Edwin gained, at last, this fruit so rare: As in some future verse ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... we passed in music (he was musical, and played on more than one instrument, flute and violoncello), in which I was audience; and I think that our chief beverage was soda-water. In the day we rode, bathed, and lounged, reading occasionally. I remember our buying, with vast alacrity, Moore's new ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... able to get on the key." And this was apparent when he started in and wandered up and down the tonal till he managed to strike the tonic. Then he asked me whether I would rather hear "Qui sdegno," from Mozart's "Magic Flute," or "Love Me and the World is Mine." Upon the latter being chosen he asked the accompanist to transpose it, and upon this gentleman's suggesting a third lower, he said: "No, put it down an octave." And that's where he sang it, too. I gently but firmly advised the young man to seek other ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego? do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... kindness. The sentimental denouement reads somewhat smug and strained after all three men have been represented as equally kind-hearted. The shooting-contest with arrows to decide the question, however, may be reminiscent of the "1001 Nights" version. For the resuscitating flute in droll stories, see Bolte-Polivka's notes to Grimm, No. 61 (episode G1). The book of knowledge suggests the magic book in ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... and form literature may be a hard-headed essay of Bacon or an impassioned lyric of Shelley; its sound may be the majestic organ-peal of Milton or the sumptuous flute music of Keats; its mood may be the scathing fervour of Carlyle or the genial humour of Lamb; its manner may be the rugged strength of Browning or the fastidious grace of Arnold; but, whatever it be, it everywhere contains ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... were successively devoted to the public and private pleasures of the Byzantine people: and Theodora, after following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a stool on her head, was at length permitted to exercise her independent talents. She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone and gesture of the blows that were inflicted, the whole theatre ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... it may be faced, of religion, of man's excellent virtues, of friendship and childhood, of passion, grief, and comfort. But there is no arbitrary isolation of one theme from another; they mingle and inter-penetrate throughout, to the music of Pan's flute, and of Love's viol, and the bugle-call of Endeavour, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... by all that's sacred! did not Socrates cause his associates to despise the established laws when he dwelt on the folly of appointing state officers by ballot? (3) a principle which, he said, no one would care to apply in selecting a pilot or a flute-player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established constitution, rendering ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... desirable that the master should add instrumental to vocal music. He should be able to play on the violin, flute, or clarionet, but, as he must speak much, the former is to be preferred. Such is the influence of the weather, that children are almost always dull on dull days, and then a little music is of great advantage. On wet days, when they cannot go into the play-ground, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... bends her mirror on the moon, But trembling on the mirror dark The sad moon only could remark. List! the snow crunches—he draws nigh! The girl on tiptoe forward bounds And her voice sweeter than the sounds Of clarinet or flute doth cry: "What is your name?" The boor looked dazed, And ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... time she had heard the music of Africa, except a distant beating of tobols coming from a black tent across desert spaces, while she had lain at night in the house of Maieddine's friends; or the faint, pure note of a henna-dyed flute in the hand of some boy keeper of goats—a note pure as the monotonous purling of water, heard in ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... offered me his arm, which I gladly accepted, happy to be relieved from the impertinence of my female companion. We returned to tea; after which the ladies sung, and played by turns on the piano forte; while some of the gentlemen accompanied with the flute, the clarinet, and the violin, forming in the whole a very decent concert. An elegant supper, and half an hour's conversation after it, closed the evening; when we returned home, delighted with our entertainment, and pleased with ourselves and each other. ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... Shinto belief: the good man became a beneficent divinity, the bad man an evil deity,—but all alike became Kami. "And since there are bad as well as good gods," wrote Motowori, "it is necessary to propitiate them with offerings of agreeable food, playing the harp, blowing the flute, singing and dancing and whatever is likely to put them in a good humour." The Latins called the maleficent ghosts of the dead, Larvae, and called the beneficent or harmless ghosts, Lares, or Manes, or Genii, according to Apuleius. But all alike were gods,—dii-manes; ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... the rhythmic and harmonious character of his action. If an athlete showed ugly form, they would hiss him, as they would an incompetent actor. Most of their exercises were done to the accompaniment of the flute. In all the statues of athletes which have come down to us, not one shows an inharmonious development, powerful chest and weak legs, or muscular legs and poor arms. It is more than probable that as the features of Alexander the Great influenced the portraits ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... cheap and meaningless strumming. He could rattle through a lot of popular tunes and stumble through a few short simple school-girl salon pieces. The Buchers were a real orchestra. With the ladies at the piano, the old Herr at the flute, Ernst at the violin and Rudi at the 'cello, they could play a dozen programmes and furnish enjoyment ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... ten City Commissioners (Astynomi), of whom five hold office in Piraeus and five in the city. Their duty is to see that female flute- and harp- and lute-players are not hired at more than two drachmas, and if more than one person is anxious to hire the same girl, they cast lots and hire her out to the person to whom the lot falls. They also provide that no collector of sewage shall shoot any of his sewage within ten stradia ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... Then, with my unguent finger tips, Touch twice and once on cheeks and lips. When this sweet influence comes to naught, Vexed she shall be, but not distraught. And now let music winnow thought: Bucolic sound of horn and flute, In distant echo nearly mute. Then louder borne, and swelling near, Make ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... along the road we heard, just after sundown, the song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd without a word, and listen'd long. The delicious notes—a sweet, artless, voluntary, simple anthem, as from the flute-stops of some organ, wafted through the twilight—echoing well to us from the perpendicular high rock, where, in some thick young trees' recesses at the base, sat the bird —fill'd our senses, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... ride on a handsomely caparisoned horse through the streets, and is still always attended by a troop of slaves, as if by a new and curious fashion he were desirous to attract particular observation, just as Duilius in ancient times after his glorious naval victory became so arrogant as to cause a flute-player to precede him with soft airs when he returned to ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... (V12): the advanced scholars in school, and members of the drum and fife band. Accordingly, on Saturdays during the dinner-hour the boatswain's mate would pipe: "Leave for badge-boy, advanced class, and drum and fife band;" As I was a badge boy, and an advanced scholar, and a flute-player, I nestled under the wing of this threefold privilege, and used to think in my boyish pride, Who indeed has more right to go ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... name?" I whispered, but she shed The music faster, and I grew with it, Became a part of it, while Life and I Clung lip to lip, and I from her wrung song As she from me, one song, one ecstasy, In indistinguishable union blent, Till she became the flute and I the player. And lo! the song I played on her was more Than any she had drawn from me; it held The stars, the peaks, the cities, and the sea, The faun's catch, the nymph's tremor, and the heart Of dreaming girls, of toilers ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... cooled and made receptive to music by the joyous quarter of an hour in the buffet, we heard Mme. Gautier sing "Le Cid," by Massenet, and the Princess Tekau accompany her effectively on the piano. A solo de piston, a violin, a flute, all played by Tahitians, entertained us, and then came the fun. M. X—— was down for a monologue. Who could it be? He bounced on the stage in a Prince-Albert coat and a Derby hat, rollicking, truculent, plainly exhilarated. Why, it was M. Lontane in disguise, the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... laugh till he hunted it out; they would tie his coat-tails to the back of his seat, and scream with delight when he rose to his feet; they would send him at Christmas a box full of bricks, and play on his temper all manner of tricks. One evening they pressed him to play on the flute, and he blew in his eyes a rare scatter of soot! He took it so calmly, and laughed while he spoke, that they hugged him to pardon their nasty "black joke." One really appeared so sincere in her sorrow, that he vowed to himself he would ASK her tomorrow,—and not one of the girls but would envy her ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... his warlike companion he tapped the lid of his case, opened it, and revealed three joints of a flute lying snugly in purple-velvet fittings, and, taking them out, he proceeded to lick the ends all round in a tomcat sort of way, and screwed them together, evidently with a great deal of satisfaction to himself, ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... are sewn with silver pomegranates and the steps that are of silver are strewn with saffron and with myrrh. My lovers hang garlands round the pillars of my house. At night time they come with the flute players and the players of the harp. They woo me with apples and on the pavement of my courtyard they write my ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... gymnasia and schools, and the attendance and lodging of the boys and girls—the other having to do with contests of music and gymnastic. In musical contests there shall be one kind of judges of solo singing or playing, who will judge of rhapsodists, flute-players, harp-players and the like, and another of choruses. There shall be choruses of men and boys and maidens—one director will be enough to introduce them all, and he should not be less than forty years of age; ...
— Laws • Plato
... and busy with the hum of men. In the one were weddings and wedding-feasts, and they were going about the city with brides whom they were escorting by torchlight from their chambers. Loud rose the cry of Hymen, and the youths danced to the music of flute and lyre, while the women stood each at her house door ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... He painted the frames himself; and, being afraid of too much sunlight, he smeared over all the bell-glasses with chalk. He took care to cut off the tops of the leaves for slips. Next he devoted attention to the layers. He attempted many sorts of grafting—flute-graft, crown-graft, shield-graft, herbaceous grafting, and whip-grafting. With what care he adjusted the two libers! how he tightened the ligatures! and what a heap of ointment it took to cover ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... some attention such of the Lacedaemonian poems as are still extant, and get into those airs which were played upon the flute when they marched to battle, we must agree that Terpander and Pindar have very fitly joined valour and music together. The former thus speaks ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... was saying—he had never heard those notes in her voice before: they were gold, gold flute notes to melt rock-hard self-control and touch the timbre of unknown chords within—"I don't suppose anything ever was accomplished without somebody being willing to fight a losing battle. Do you?" Wayland stretched out on the ground at ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... prettily, and laughed a laugh that Wentworth thought was like a little ripple of music from a mellow flute. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... to me one day (he always spoak in that kind way), "who is this person that has taken the opsit chambers, and plays the flute so industrusly?" ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her always as much as he was loved by her, and in virtue of the permission formally given by the Pope, he went every week to pass an hour or two with her in the parlour. He regularly took there his singing and flute lessons; these were two amiable talents in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... powers. But when—instead of beginning with the sonorous "Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations and languages"—when she wholly omitted any reference to "the sound of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick"—and essayed to tell the story in broad Gloucestershire and her own bald words, the disappointed children fell upon her and thumped her rudely upon the back; declaring her story to ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... four—he fell asleep, and his portly presence, converting itself into a sort of blacksmith's bellows, started to vent, through open mouth and distended nostrils, such sounds as can have greeted the reader's ear but seldom—sounds as of a drum being beaten in combination with the whistling of a flute and the strident howling ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... fun, one afternoon, for George hired a medium, who made the chairs, a flute, a bell, and candlestick, and fiery points jump about in my brother's diningroom, in a manner that astounded every one, and took away all their breaths. It was in the dark, but George and Hensleigh Wedgwood held the medium's hands and feet on both ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... new plan, he left the pilot without so much as a "thank you," running down the steps, two at a time, unobserved by Mr. Lazelle, who was playing the flute. He wanted to see how the "rigging" was made, and stopped to ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... herself, with a bitter purse of her lips in the dark. That merry whistler, passing her poor cast-out son in his lonely, half-furnished house, whose dark, shadowy walls she could see across the field, smote her as sorely as he smote him. It seemed to her that she could hear that flute-like melody even as far as Charlotte's door. In spite of her stern resolution to be just, a great gust of wrath shook her. "Lettin' of him come courtin' her when it ain't six weeks since Barney went," she said, quite out loud, ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... must be premised, is a city man, who travels in drugs for a couple of the best London houses, blows the flute, has an album, drives his own gig, and is considered, both on the road and in the metropolis, a remarkably nice, intelligent, thriving young man. Pogson's only fault is too great an attachment to the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... breath as the blue-penciled passage drew near. The voice quavered and broke; singer and orchestra stopped dead. The house roared. "Go on!" cried encouraging voices from gallery and pit. "Go on! Go on!" And the singer thus emboldened, and accompanied by one small piping flute, a ridiculous starveling of sound after all the blare that had preceded it, sang with a modest and deprecating air a line which fell very flat indeed—a mere nothing tagged from a nursery rhyme—obviously ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... week after supper we would all set round the doors outside and sing or play music. The only musical instruments we had was a jug or big bottle, a skillet lid or frying pan that they'd hit with a stick or a bone. We had a flute too, made out of reed cane and it'd make good music. Sometimes we'd sing and dance so long and loud old Master'd have to make us stop ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... in interesting King Frederick of Prussia in his new instrument to the extent of persuading him to purchase outright all he had finished. There were some fifteen of these, which were placed in the rooms at the palace. This demonstrates the King's love for music. He was a flute player of considerable ability. One of the court musicians was Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, son of the great master, and King Frederick had expressed a desire to hear the elder Bach play upon the new invention. For some time old Sebastian was obstinate and tartly declined all invitations. ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... especially if it be anecdotage. Let me reveal the working of the musical fiction mill. Here, for example, is something in the historical vein. Of necessity it must be pointless and colorless; that lends the touch of reality. Let us call it—"Bach and the Boehm Flute." ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... them in matters of their own improvement, and established schools for the reading and writing of Spanish among the boys. They taught them to serve in the church, to sing the plain-song, and to the accompaniment of the organ; to play the flute, to dance, and to sing; and to play the harp, guitar, and other instruments. In this they show very great adaptability, especially about Manila; where there are many fine choirs of chanters and musicians composed of natives, who are ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... are not perceptible. If he stayed too close to the microphone, however, that drawing in of breath, or some other little peculiarity of his delivery, would be so plainly heard that it would interfere with the effect of his performance. So, with certain instruments. A flute, for instance, has no mechanical stops, so a flute player can stand comparatively near the microphone. The player of a cornet, however, must stand some distance back or else the clicking of the stops of his instrument will interfere with his music. These are only a few ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whisper'd by the ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... Her father Monsieur Salvatore Urso played the flute in the orchestra at the theatre, or opera house, and on Sundays played the organ at the Church of the Holy Cross that stood facing a little square ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... the road just where the track to the Crow's Nest turned off stood a man with a wonderful-looking machine; he blew, to draw attention—on a flute or clarionet, whatever it might be—and looked towards the house. When no-one appeared in answer to his call, he began moving towards the house, pushing the machine in front of him. The little ones rushed indoors. The man left ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... unawares, and surprised her in the very act. She gave herself no affected airs, but when I requested it, not only concluded the song she was singing, but sang many others, in which I was able to accompany her. The old Captain has insisted upon my bringing my flute over, that I may accompany his Juliet upon the piano. He could not have done me a greater kindness, and I have no doubt that we shall get ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... seaport, with a larger sum of money than he had ever before possessed. He took passage for London, where he landed a few days after, in total ignorance of the place and the language. His brother welcomed him with German warmth, and assisted him to procure employment,—probably in the flute and piano manufactory of Astor ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... by the most fastidious taste. The gentleman of a vocal turn was head mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest took anything they could get. The youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into a flute. He didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better. If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... out of practice and all that," explained Lanse, distributing scores, and helping to prop up Celia so that she might try to play, "but since you insist we'll give you all you'll want in a very few minutes. Here's your flute, Uncle Ray. If you'll play along with ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... the maine mast or after-quarter of the shippe, and a Gunner standing by, with a lint-stocke in his hand, about foureteene or fifteene foot long, being (as we thought) ready to giue fire. Our whole noise of trumpets were sounding on the poope with drumme and flute, and a Minion of brasse on the summer decke, with two or three other pieces, alwayes by our Gunners trauersed mouth to mouth with theirs on land, still looking when they on land should shoot, for to answere them againe. The Pilot standing on the poope, seeing this readinesse, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise joy: life done— Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfilment? none. 'But the soul is not the body': and the breath is not the flute; Both together make the music: either ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Shekhar began his song. It was of that day when the pipings of love's flute startled for the first time the hushed air of the Vrinda forest. The shepherd women did not know who was the player or whence came the music. Sometimes it seemed to come from the heart of the south wind, and ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... weavers in saffron and haze and Tyrian purple, Tell yet what range in color wakes the eye; Sorcerer, release the dreams born here when Drowsy, shifting palm-shade enspells the brain; And sound! ye with harp and flute ne'er essay Before these star-noted birds escaped from paradise awhile to Stir all dark, and dear, and passionate desire, till mine Arms go out to be mocked by the softly kissing body of the wind— Slave, ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... of aloofness, of being peculiar, was first fostered in the lad's mind by the old man. It wasn't exactly a healthy condition. The old man taught the boy to play the flute, and together they constructed a set of pipes—the pipes o' Pan—and out along the river they would play, when they grew tired of reading, and listen for the echo that came ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... to please. There was, moreover, rankling in Mary's heart the impression that Mark was being harshly judged by her mother; this helped to draw her closer to him. He was, besides, an excellent performer on the flute, and would sometimes come over on lesson mornings and accompany her, much to the annoyance ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... sanctuary one afternoon I heard the landlord's comic song, of which I have spoken above. It was about the musical instruments in a band: the trumpet did this, the clarinet did that, the flute went tootle, tootle, tootle, and there was an appropriate motion of the hand for every instrument. I was a little disappointed with it, but the landlord said I was too serious and the only thing that would cure me was to learn the song myself. He said the butcher ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... his whole attitude, a rather curious, embittering change. It was when he realized that he was spending the golden years of his life gibbering round a stage with a lot of black men. His act was good of its kind—three trombones, three saxaphones, and Carlyle's flute—and it was his own peculiar sense of rhythm that made all the difference; but he began to grow strangely sensitive about it, began to hate the thought of appearing, dreaded it from day ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... farcical standard. The good PINERO has nodded over this. The Cabinet Minister is an excellent title thrown away. The Cabinet Minister himself, Mr. ARTHUR CECIL, in his official costume, playing the flute, is as burlesque as the General in full uniform, in Mr. GILBERT'S "Wedding March," sitting with his feet in hot-water. The married boy and girl, with their doll baby and irritatingly unreal quarrels, reminded me of the boy-and-girl lovers in Brantingham Hall. The mother of The Macphail—the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... not the soft sounds of the flute or the hautboy that I hear, but the sweeter notes of nature's own music. The mellowness of the song, the varied modulations and gradations, the extent of its compass, the great brilliancy of execution are unrivaled. There is probably no bird in the world that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... day after day, seated on the doorsill of his study, facing a bit of terrace to the South. It was in the pages of this magazine that I made my first acquaintance with the poetry of Viharilal Chakravarti. His poems appealed to me the most of all that I read at the time. The artless flute-strains of his lyrics awoke within me the music of ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... lifts on high The wings of the weak melody, Till some new strain of feeling bear The song, and all the woods are mute; 35 When there is heard through the dim air The rush of wings, and rising there Like many a lake-surrounded flute, Sounds overflow the listener's brain So sweet, that joy is ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... music?" asked his mistress, knitting as she spoke. "He came from Germany; there's where you get the best singers. Some canaries won't sing before company and some won't sing alone; they are fussy,—I call it pernickitty. Why, I had one with a voice like a flute; but I happened to buy some new wall-paper, and she didn't like the looks of it, and after that she never would sing ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... of whom Iligliuk was one, could catch the tune as pitched by an instrument, which made it difficult with most of them to complete the writing of the notes; for if they once left off they were sure to recommence in some other key, though a flute or violin was playing at ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... dinner, an' I will admit, Mrs. Lathrop, as I see now as I misjudged him in one way, for he come an' asked me while I was washin' up if I knowed any way to open a locked box without a key, for he could n't find the key to his flute box nowhere, an' when he was a little nervous nights he always wore it off practisin' on his flute. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you can maybe imagine as learnin' as there was a flute in that box an' the key lost, an' him in the habit of playin' that flute nights, altered ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... had a great store of songs we were deficient to the last degree in musical instruments, the one solitary example being an humble mouth-organ which in a moment of weakness I had thrown in with my outfit. We just escaped having a flute. Frank, who left us on the 10th of June, possessed one, and when he was preparing to go Steward negotiated for this instrument. He gave Cap. his revolver to trade for it, considering the flute more desirable property for the expedition. Cap., being an old soldier, concluded to ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... notes, heavy and dolorous, filling the church like a thunder-cloud, then suddenly left off, and opening the flute-stop, burst into ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... managed to secure some good musical talent, for the performance was of excellent quality. Perhaps summer air and moonbeams helped the effect. At any rate, the first performance, a duet between a flute and a violin, was undoubtedly listened to; and that is saying much. The performers were out of sight. Then a fine soprano voice followed, ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... quite in accordance with my present disposition, though sometimes, tempted by my natural inclination for society, I allowed myself to be beguiled into it. But what humiliation when any one beside me heard a flute in the far distance, while I heard nothing, or when others heard a shepherd singing, and I still heard nothing! Such things brought me to the verge of desperation, and well-nigh caused me to put an end to my life. Art! art alone, deterred me. Ah! how could I possibly quit the world ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... antheming a lonely grief. Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find Many a fallen old Divinity Wandering in vain about bewildered shores. Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 10 And not a wind of heaven but will breathe In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse. Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue, Let the rose glow intense and warm the air, And let the clouds of even and of morn Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills; Let the red wine within the goblet boil, Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp'd ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... probable that anything so ridiculous as the "Magic Flute" story was ever before written. It might have been the concerted effort of Artemus Ward, Theodore Hook, Bill Nye, and Mark Twain. But an effort at coherence must be made in the putting together of this story, because the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... improper, since he did it. And because his speaking was characterized by great condensation of thought and forcefulness of words and he consequently was unable to restrain himself easily but was often led to say what he did not wish, he used to bring in a flute-player, and from him, playing a low accompaniment, he would take his rhythm and time, or if even so he in some way fell out of measure, he would stop. This was the sort of man that attacked the government, and, ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... the gracious living curves that the chisel has freed from the roughness of the marble? Or have you listened while the diviner spell of music has lifted you, step by step, till you seem to hear the Gandharvas singing and almost the divine flute is being played and echoing in the lower world? Or have you stood on the mountain peak with the snows around you, and felt the grandeur of the unmoving nature that shows out God as well as the human spirit? Ah, if you have known any of these peaceful spots in life's ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... Giorgione. He raised the flute to his lips, breathing into it a gay, gentle air. The lute and cithara, from the opposite side, took it up. Presently the tenor voice joined in, carrying the air with sweet, high notes. They ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... very whispers of the Wind have there A flute-like harmony, that seems to bear Greeting from some bright shore, Where none have said Farewell!—where no decay Lends the faint crimson to the dying day; Where ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... but rather a sort of moaning melody, half music and half bewailment. This wailing song is far from disagreeable, though it has a cadence which is expressive of dreariness and melancholy. It might be performed on a small flute, by commencing with D octave and running down by semitones to a fifth below, and frequently repeating the notes, for the space of a minute, with occasional pauses and slight variations, sometimes ascending as well as descending the scale. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... floated up to us the tinkling of the samisens in the tea-houses; the high, sweet voice of a dancing girl as she sang the story of an old, old love; the sad notes of the blind masseur as he sought for trade by the pathos of his bamboo flute; the night-taps from the far-away barracks. Off to the west we could see the fast-disappearing lights of a ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... will go with them, next day, to continue the observations. They shall be paid for their trouble, of course. These latter day Corydons have not the manners of antiquity: they reck little of the seven holed flute cemented with wax, or of the beechen bowl, preferring the coppers that will take them to the village inn on Sunday. A reward in ready money is promised for each nest that fulfils the desired conditions; and the bargain ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... thus sings should be beautiful, after the Hindoo type;—that is, she should have the complexion of chocolate and cream; "her face should be as the full moon, her nose smooth as a flute; she should have eyes like unto lotuses, and a neck like a pigeon's; her voice should be soft as the cuckoo's, and her step as the gait of a young elephant of pure blood." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the waving grass, the silvery tinkling of the grazing sheep, the mighty beat and rhythm of the earth sang through the dreaming boy unconscious of his divine destiny. Drowsing, his voice and the notes of his flute joined the harmonious silence: and his song was so calmly, so limpidly joyous, that, hearing it, there could be no thought of joy or sorrow, only the feeling that it must be so and could not be otherwise.—Suddenly ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... nesting-time making an unusual clamor about the house, the chances are you will get a glimpse of this brilliant marauder, sneaking away with a troop of them in pursuit. His usual voice is a harsh scream, but he has some low flute-like notes not without melody. The presence of a hawk, or more particularly an owl in the woods, is often made known by the screaming of the jays, who flock together about him with ever-increasing noise, like a troop of jackals about a lion, pressing in upon him closer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... particularly in Suse, among the Mograffra Arabs, the Woled Abbusebah, and Woled Deleim, the whole country is in a blaze of light of a summer's evening; music, dancing, and rejoicing, is heard in every direction. Their music consists of a kettle-drum, a flute or reed, similar to what Homer describes as the instrument of the ancient shepherds, a rhabeb or two-stringed fiddle, played with a semicircular bow, a tamboureen, and brass castanets. They play in precise ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... a deputation of the village elders, who requested, in the name of the community, to be allowed to kiss the feet of his mysterious son—that little, rainbow-coloured bird, which had a horn upon its head and played the flute. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... brought in; by a trick the son makes his father acquit instead of condemn. He then dresses him up decently and instructs him in the etiquette of a dinner-party, whither they proceed. But the old man behaves himself disgracefully, beating everyone in his cups. He appears with a flute-girl and is summoned for assault by a vegetable-woman, whose goods he has spoiled, and by a professional accuser. His insolence to his victims is checked by his son who thrusts him into the house before ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... Almost every season we had a dancing-school. Singing-schools, too, there were every winter. There was also a small band of music in the village, and serenades were not uncommon. We, boys used to give them on the flute to our favorites. But when the band came to serenade us, I shall never forget the commotion it made in the house, and the delight we had in it. We children were immediately up in a wild hurry of pleasure, and my father always went out to welcome the performers, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... five-holed flute was heard behind the trees in the island, playing several airs in a minor key. Another flute answered. This interchange of musical phrases lasted for two or three minutes, ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... breath of all ages it is, From Teos, and Lesbos, and Ind; Through the years, like a shuttle of gold, Runs the wonder of song on the wind— The wonder of flute and of lyre, A music made mellow and meet For Sappho, the princess of song. Oh, the South wind, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... of about seventy performers began playing in front of the Tuileries. They formed an immense circle, the leader in the centre. He played the octave flute, which also served as a baton for marking time. The music was characterized by delicacy, precision, suppression, and ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... could not but laugh, though without any malice, at all the bitter earnestness of mankind. Even the wicked were only absurd to him; they were naughty children whom, if one had the spell, one could enchant into goodness. And in The Magic Flute the spell works. It works in the flute itself and in Papageno's lyre when the wicked negro Monostatos threatens him and Tamino with his ugly attendants. Papageno has only to play a beautiful childish tune on his lyre and the attendants all march backwards ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... player. In examining this result, you cannot help remarking the order and unity established by nature in harmonical bodies, which places music in the rank of exact sciences. The Jew's harp has three different tones; the bass tones of the first octave bear some resemblance to those of the flute and clarionet; those of the middle and high, to the vox humana of some organs; lastly, the harmonical sounds are exactly like those of the harmonica. It is conceived, that this diversity of tones ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... drew forth a little flute hollowed from a small reed, and began to play a mournful air. Nymphalin listened with delight; it was one he ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... horse will trace the long way back! Fiddling for ocean liners, while the dance Sweeps through the decks, your brown tribes all will go! Those east-bound ships will hear your long farewell On fiddle, piccolo, and flute and timbrel. I know all this, when gipsy ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... will tell you how I occupy my spare time in reading, writing, and playing the flute. We are forming a band here. I shall play either the flute or hautboy. I enjoy myself pretty well. In Latin I am studying Sallust. As to ease, all I have to do is study straight ahead. It comes pretty easy. My Greek is rather hard. I am as yet studying ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... though her mind never deviated from the subject. The trio had ceased to sit in the large reception hall, for its gun-rack and rods and reels, its fur rugs, its trophies of sport, its mandolin and flute and piano, were now pathetically reminiscent of the vanished presence of its joyous and genial owner. They used instead the small library which opened from it, where a spacious bay-window gave ample light in the dreary days, and the big wood fire sent its flash and fragrance to the remotest ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the flute-player one day to his teacher, 'tell me how I may win distinction in my art. What can I do to make myself known all over Greece? Everything but this you have taught me. I have a correct ear, thanks to you, and a smooth, even delivery, and have acquired the light touch ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... fall of Syracuse, wholly under the influence of the Etruscans.... Etruria gave them kings, augurs, doctors, mimes, musicians, boxers, runners; the royal purple, the royal sceptre, the fasces, the curule chair, the Lydian flute, the straight trumpet, and the curved trumpet. The education of a Roman youth received its finishing touches in Etruria: Tuscan engineers had girt Rome with walls; Tuscan engineers had built the great conduit through which the swamp, which was one day to be the Forum, was drained into the Tiber. ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... towered up from the central Agora and Campus Martius of the Village, like its Sacred Tree; and how the old men sat talking under its shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the wearied laborers reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the young men and maidens often danced to flute-music. "Glorious summer twilights," cries Teufelsdrockh, "when the Sun, like a proud Conqueror and Imperial Taskmaster, turned his back, with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his fireclad bodyguard (of Prismatic Colors); and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... obtaining thus a substitute for tobacco; so that what with Yram, the language, visitors, fives in the garden, smoking, and bed, my time slipped by more rapidly and pleasantly than might have been expected. I also made myself a small flute; and being a tolerable player, amused myself at times with playing snatches from operas, and airs such as "O where and oh where," and "Home, sweet home." This was of great advantage to me, for the people ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... flights of stairs, promised (as I felt, without exactly seeing why) a dreadful exaggeration to whatever incivility might, at any rate, attach to the question; and some did attach, that was clear, even if warbled through an air of Cherubini's and accompanied on the flute. Perhaps they were not idiots, and only seemed to be such from the slowness of apprehension naturally connected with deafness. That I saw them but seldom, arose from their peculiar position in the family. Their father had no private fortune; his income from the church was very slender; and, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and there were great festivities at the Court. The Emperor threw himself into the enjoyment of the season, and commanded that Princess Hase should perform before him on the koto, and that her mother Princess Terute should accompany her on the flute. ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... expressed in twining vines and flying birds and butterflies, again it is the kneeling Psalmist listening in rapt attention to some heavenly harpist, or it may be that the crafty fox beguiles the unsuspecting fowls with music from a stolen flute. Thus through almost endless variety of subjects stray the artist's ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... wonder at what followed. Caesar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when suddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a flute. This phantom was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human, so far as its lineaments could be traced in the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the story, on any hypothesis which would explain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... wall, and he saw a rabbit sitting up by the wall with a sort of flute in its mouth, and it playing on it with its ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... last more than a quarter of an hour, and then a big bell rings, and the working men and women tramp gaily by, chatting noisily and in excellent spirits. Now comes the milkman's turn. He, like the chimney-sweep, has his own howl, softer, more flute-like in quality than that of the sweep, but still capable of waking any one who is not a domestic servant in hard training. The milkman also cries "woa" to his horse at every house, and accompanies himself on his great tin cans, making a noise most tolerable, and not to be endured. Is it necessary, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... quartered at Ghent, where, amidst the din of garrison riot and murderous brawls, we hear the gentle sound of Wolfe's flute, and where he studies the fortifications, already anxious to prepare himself for the higher walks of his profession. From Ghent the army moved to the actual scene of war in Germany, suffering of course on the march from the badness of the commissariat. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... ladies; his heart was large and soft; he regarded the sofa-cushion as a bed-rook necessary of existence. Though about the size of a sheep, he loved to sit in ladies' laps; he never said a bad word in all his blameless days; and if he had seen a flute, I am sure he could have played upon it by nature. It may seem hard to say it of a dog, but Chuchu was ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... King Loc as he took her hand in his, "why do you weep, and what is it you desire?" And as she had been grieving these many days, the dwarfs at her feet tried to cheer her with simple airs on the flute, the flageolet, the rebeck, and the cymbals. And other dwarfs, to amuse her, turned such somersaults one after the other that they pricked the grass with the points of their hoods with their cockades of leaves, and nothing ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... actors nimbly springing, And the cows and warblers gay With their bell and flute-notes ringing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... afterwards learned, were in Greek. Then he had all sorts of drawing-materials—papers, and pencils, and sketch-books, and a colour-box, and mathematical instruments, and even a chronometer. He had a writing-case, and a tool-box, and a flute and violin, and some music-books. I asked him if he could ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Roman law. That it would stretch to the fixed stars is plain, but to which of them,—don't now, dear persecuting reader, unsettle our brains by asking. Enough it is that both in Roman and English law the rights of neighborhood are past measuring. Has a man a right to play the German flute, where the partitions are slender, all day long in the house adjoining to yours? Or, supposing a beneficent jury (beneficent to him) finds this to be no legal nuisance, has he a right to play it ill? Or, because juries, when tipsy, will wink at anything, does the privilege extend ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... currency, in marble and plaster and in bronze, in photographs of original portraits, paintings, and stereoscopic views. We have seen him on horseback and on foot, on the war-path and on skates, playing the flute, cussing his troops for their shiftlessness, and then, in the solitude of the forest, with his snorting war-horse tied to a tree, ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... slowly, watching him with interest. She wondered what he would find it necessary to do. She heard him begin a low, flute-like whistling, and then saw the antlered head turn towards him. The woodland creature moved, but it was in his direction. It had without doubt answered his call before and knew its meaning to be friendly. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that cry Dalgard heard a close resemblance to the flute tone of the night moth birds. Up the scale the notes ran with mournful persistence. When the answer came, the scout at first thought that the imitation had lured a moth bird, for the reply seemed to ripple right ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... of the canoes sat the Arion of Tilly, Jean de La Marche; a flute or two accompanied his violin, and a guitar tinkled sweetly under the fingers of Heloise de Lotbiniere. They played an old air, while Jean led the chorus in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Empress had asked me to sing in the chapel of the Tuileries, offered to compose a Benedictus for me. The orchestra of the Conservatoire was to accompany me, and Jules Cohen was to play the organ. I had several rehearsals with Auber and one on the preceding Saturday with the orchestra. The flute and I have a little ramble together which is very pretty. The loft where the organ is, and where I stood, was so high up that I could only see the people by straining my neck over the edge of it, and even ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... words, Pattering like hail, Like hail falling without aim... Egos rampant, Screaming each other down. One motions perpetually, Waving arms like overgrowths. He has burning eyes and a cough And a thin voice piping Like a flute among trombones. ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... Love, "Although ye serve no more Mine images of ivory and bronze With flute-led dances of the days of yore, But leave them to barbarian orisons Of dull hearth-loving hearts, mistaking me: Yet from mine incense ye shall not divorce Remembrance. Fools, these recantations be Ardours that prove you still idolators; ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... dat ain't whut I want. I wuz er cuttin' some wood dis mawnin' ober at de Peters' place, an' I yere some talk dat don't soun' like er flute. 'Pear like dat white man has got some trouble ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... it? A music ride? Nell has an acquaintance who always rides to music, and asserts that it is as easy as dancing; that the music "fairly lifts you out of the saddle," and that the pleasure of equestrian exercise is doubled when it is done to the sound of the flute, violin, and bassoon, or whatever may ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... in his flute is the music of the smell of wild flowers, of the glistening leaves and gleaming water, of shadows ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... leaves together sing Like those birds in clouds that choir. Aching-sweet from silver string, Purling flute and golden wire Music flows no mortal knows Even in April thronged with voices. Deeper glory throbs and glows ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... is Ascension Day in a village of the West. In the low panelled hall-sittingroom of the BURLACOMBE'S farmhouse on the village green, MICHAEL STRANGWAY, a clerical collar round his throat and a dark Norfolk jacket on his back, is playing the flute before a very large framed photograph of a woman, which is the only picture on the walls. His age is about thirty-five his figure thin and very upright and his clean-shorn face thin, upright, narrow, with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... known use; you might as well treat her with Viols and Flute-doux, which were enough to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... the size of my pile. And right in my line of canvassing, too! In ten minutes it was on the way to New York and I had secured a provisional customer in the cook at the restaurant for an iron that would perform what this one promised, iron the skirt and flute the flounce too. In three days the iron came and proved good. I started in canvassing Jamestown with it, and in a week had secured orders for one hundred and twenty, upon which my profit would be over $80. Something of business ways must have stuck to me, ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... not thwart his genius. Rejected as a candidate for the ministry, he devoted three years to the nominal study of medicine at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leyden (in Holland). Next he spent a year on a tramping trip through Europe, making his way by playing the flute and begging. Then, gravitating naturally to London, he earned his living by working successively for a druggist, for the novelist-printer Samuel Richardson, as a teacher in a boys' school, and as ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... go unserenaded, though a visitor was not indeed needed to excuse a serenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window—or, it might be, her father's, or that of an ailing maiden aunt—and flute, harp, fiddle, 'cello, cornet, and bass viol would presently release to the dulcet stars such melodies as sing through "You'll Remember Me," "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls," "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Kathleen ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... dumb to learn anything else, the teacher got money out of her parents by teaching her to swing her arms around her hear and say, 'Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night.' Now they all want to write poetry, or play the flute, or go on the stage, or some other fool thing ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... was out of the question; stealth was utterly impractical; as for cajolery, apparently the sole remaining means of winning back the Princess—why, one might as well try the persuasion of a penny flute upon a hungry eagle as seek to rouse Ar-hap's sympathies for bereaved Hath in that way. Surely to go forward would mean my own certain destruction, with no advantage, no help to Heru; and if I was ever to turn back ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Durdlebury, Doggie Trevor began to feel appreciated. He could play the piano, the harp, the viola, the flute, and the clarionette, and sing a mild tenor. Besides music, Doggie had other accomplishments. He could choose the exact shade of silk for a drawing-room sofa cushion, and he had an excellent gift for the selection of wedding-presents. All in all, Marmaduke Trevor was ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... struggling and writhing in feverish excitement, whilst others, in exhaustion and despair, lay motionless, except that, from time to time, they heaped fresh dust upon their heads. The mellow notes of a Kandyan flute, which was played at a distance, had a striking effect upon one or more of them; they turned their heads in the direction from which the music came, expanded their broad ears, and were evidently soothed with the plaintive sound. The two young ones alone still roared for freedom; they stamped ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... on 'em do, I've knowed three or four as went and done it, and it's generally hunger as is to blame for it. There's Mr. Bimby, now, a nice little gent, but doleful like 'is flute, 'e's always 'ungry 'e is, I'll take my oath—shouldn't wonder if 'e don't come to it one o' these days. And talking of 'im I must be going, sir, and thank you kindly, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... sweet on awaking in the early morn to listen to the small bird singing on the tree. No sound of voice or flute is like to the bird's song; there is something in it distinct and separate from all other notes. The throat of woman gives forth a more perfect music, and the organ is the glory of man's soul. The bird upon the tree utters the meaning of the wind—a voice of the grass and wild flower, words of ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... like a bourgeois of the old school in a gold-laced cocked hat, a plum-coloured coat and blue waistcoat embroidered in silver. He looked well-meaning enough, and was something of a musician to judge by a flute, one end of which peeped from his pocket. Never for a moment did his eyes wander from the supposed stripling, on whom he bestowed continual smiles, and when he saw him leave his seat, he would get up himself and follow ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... learned the language that he might read and enjoy something profitable and thoroughly Roman in spirit.—Greek artists flocked to Rome; and doubtless the more fifth-rate they were the better a thing they made of it: but it was risky for good men to rely on Roman appreciations. Two flute-players are contending at a concert; Greek and perhaps rather good. Their music is soon drowned in catcalls: What the dickens do we Romans want with such footling tootlings? Then the presiding magistrate has an idea. He calls ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... therefore set up no statues in their temples, nor even in their cities, refusing this homage both to their own kings and to the Roman emperors. However, the fact that their priests intoned to the flute and cymbals and wore wreaths of ivy, and that a golden vine was found in their temple[486] has led some people to think that they worship Bacchus,[487] who has so enthralled the East. But their cult would be most inappropriate. Bacchus instituted gay and cheerful rites, but the Jewish ritual ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... around the room in a circle. The leader assigns to each some imaginary musical instrument—horn, fife, drum, trombone, violin, harp, flute, banjo, etc. Some well known, but lively air is given out and the band begins to play, each player imitating as nearly as possible the instrument he has been assigned. All goes well until the leader suddenly drops ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... of the fifteenth, the belated Chinook wind began to flute through the canyon, and towards dawn the guests at Scenic Hot Springs were wakened by the near thunder of an avalanche. After a while, word was brought that the Great Northern track was buried under ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... with it; and then they empty 'em into red jars till they are full; and then they pack it in buckskin sacks of one arroba each—an arroba is twenty-five pounds—and store it in a stone house, with an engraving of a idol with marcelled hair, playing a flute, over the door.' ...
— Options • O. Henry
... I was alone in my chamber," relates an American gentleman, "I took up my flute and commenced playing. In a few minutes my attention was directed to a mouse that I saw creeping from a hole, and advancing to the chair in which I was sitting. I ceased playing, and it ran precipitately back to its hole; I began again shortly afterwards, and was much surprised ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... twenty-five, have an iron constitution, and a determination to do all in my power to make an honest living; but I can do nothing. I have not cultivated any one talent in a manner to make use of it now. I can play on the flute, but only as an amateur. I only know my own language, and I have no taste for literature. So what can you make of me? I must add that I have not a single expectation, least of all from my father, for to save the honour of the family he will be obliged to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to one idea, possessed by it, seeing nothing else, treating it in a hundred forms, exaggerating it, and so dazzling and overpowering his readers with it that escape is impossible. This he maintains to be equally the effect as Mr. Mell the usher plays the flute, as Tom Pinch enjoys or exposes his Pecksniff, as the guard blows his bugle while Tom rides to London, as Ruth Pinch crosses Fountain Court or makes the beefsteak pudding, as Jonas Chuzzlewit commits and returns from the murder, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... full swing when I approached. Only six of the men were dancers. Of the others, one was the 'minstrel,' the other the 'dysard.' The minstrel was playing a flute; and the dysard I knew by the wand and leathern bladder which he brandished as he walked around, keeping a space for the dancers, and chasing and buffeting merrily any man or child who ventured too near. He, like the others, wore a white smock decked with sundry ribands, and a ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... sheep. And every day Glaucon had to lead the sheep up to pasture on Mount Pelion, and watch them while they ate. There was nothing else to do, and he would have found the time very long, if he had not been able to play on a flute. So he played very often and very beautifully, as he sat under the trees and watched the wonderful blue sea afar off, and thought ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... I am getting so tired of the name of Gideon Vetch!" laughed Corinna. And she thought, "If only I didn't have to play on the flute all my life. If I could only stop playing dance music for a little while, and break ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... the Batta country in Sumatra (of which Zamara is one of the ancient names), "when not engaged in war, lead an idle, inactive life, passing the day in playing on a kind of flute, crowned with garlands of flowers, among which the globe-amaranthus, a native of the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done, To have advanced true friends and beat down baffling foes? The sports of the country people, A flute note from the woods, Sunset over the sea; Seed-time and harvest, The reapers in the corn, The vinedresser in his vineyard, The village girl at her wheel. . ."] The true lover of beauty will not need to seek forever-new scenes and objects to admire. He will find that which can feed his heart in ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... The movement is so easy that, with your eyes shut, you do not know you move. The route is so direct, that when you are once shielded from the sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read, you write, or you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on your flute or your guitar, without one hint of inconvenience. At a "low bridge" you duck your head lest you lose your hat,—and that reminder teaches you that you are human. You are glad to know this, and you laugh at the memento. For the rest of the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... would 'spread our fame.' Accordingly a day was selected to present the board to us, and we prepared tea and cakes for those who would come. On the day appointed at 2 P.M., we heard a lot of fire-crackers, rockets, and guns, and a band playing the flute and bugle at the same time. The 'merit board,' consisting of a black board with four big carved and gilded characters in the centre, and with red cloth over it, was carried into our guest hall by four men, and set on the centre table. The characters complimented us by a comparison ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... was then new, and very much the fashion; it represented a quadrille of priests and vestals who entered to the sound of delicious music on the flute and harp, and in addition to this there were magicians, a Swiss marriage, Tyrolian betrothals, etc. All the costumes were wonderfully handsome and true to nature; and there had been arranged in the apartments at the palace a supply of costumes which enabled the dancers to change ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton |
