"Flute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the old fisherman, and all were glad that they had found each other again, and they hung the bird in its cage on the wall. But the second son could not settle at home, and took his cross-bow and went a-hunting. When he was tired he took his flute and played on it. The king happened to be also hunting, and hearing the music went up to the youth and said, "Who has given thee leave to hunt here?" "O. no one." "To whom dost thou belong, then?" "I am the fisherman's son." "But he has no children." "If thou wilt ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... which greeted him with the sad smile and tearful glance. No one was there. He was quite alone. Only the feeble echo of far-distant days repeated the device of his youth—of his life: "Soffri e taci! Resignation alone has remained true to me. But no—there is still another friend, my flute. Come, you faithful companion of my life! You have witnessed my sorrows, and from you I have nothing to conceal!" He tenderly regarded it, for it was long since he had taken it from its case. The sorrows and cares of life, the suffering from the gout ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... I went. I chose a room looking out upon the Hudson and the noble Palisades. I took with me a flute, a copy of the Bucolics of Virgil, and numerous linen garments. A great calm came over me. I was no longer haunted, goaded, oppressed. With peace nestling in my bosom, I went down to my first supper in the new boarding-house. A goodly meal smoked on the ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... the married ladies very frequently joining in their husbands' post-prandial promenade on the poop until the latter hour, when, the air getting cool, the whole party would adjourn to the saloon, and, Dr and Mrs Henderson producing their violins and Mr Gaunt his flute, Mrs Gaunt or Miss Stanhope would open the piano which formed part of the saloon furniture, and the sounds of a very capital chamber concert would float out upon the evening air, to the great delectation of Captain Blyth, the officer of the watch, ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... 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
... patriotic prestige, and his personal lionizing, in a remarkable degree. He played on the piano, and sang with taste, though in a style resembling recitative, and not with any great power of voice: in speaking, his voice had a certain tendency to hoarseness, but its quality became flute-like in singing. In 1811 he made another essay in the musical province; writing, at the request of the manager of the Lyceum Theatre, an operetta named M.P., or the Bluestocking. It was the reverse of a stage-success; and Moore, in collecting ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... scarcely swayed its dense and plumy branches. It merely turned up the silvery sides of the five-fingered clusters of needles which responded with a low melancholy voice like an aeolian harp, or those minor chords composed under its shade by my friend the Flute Player of Bellingham. In the woods when the pines sing it is not these I hear but the lone tree by the Barber mansion. It was the only tree in my reach I had never climbed. I was afraid of its dark mysterious recesses—also ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... flute! Now 'tis mute; Birds delight Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky— Merrily, Merrily, merrily ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... hide it, and 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
... Satyr! I have taken here Roots like an olive tree, And with my flute deep-sounding, I make the breezes languish. I play and lo, all things are mated, Love giving, love receiving. I play and lo, all things are dancing, All: Men and beasts ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... naught, and of known use; you might as well treat her with Viols and Flute-doux, which were enough to disoblige her ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... not so by the Macedonian law. He took the name of Neus Dionysus, or the young Osiris, as we find it written in the hieroglyphics, though he is usually called Auletes, the piper; a name afterwards given him because he was more proud of his skill in playing on the flute than of his very slender knowledge of the art ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... concert, all in treble. A little higher, and I passed a pair of men in a tree with pruning-hooks, and one of them was singing the music of a bourree. Still further, and when I was already threading the birches, the crowing of cocks came cheerfully up to my ears, and along with that the voice of a flute discoursing a deliberate and plaintive air from one of the upland villages. I pictured to myself some grizzled, apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster fluting in his bit of a garden in the clear autumn sunshine. All these beautiful and interesting sounds filled my heart with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... second opened his eyes, and shook his head up and down two or three times, gravely, with a little flute-like whistle. But they had reached the inn, and a stout maid-servant in a night-cap was at the door with a lantern, to take Newman's traveling-bag from the porter who trudged behind him. Valentin was ...
— The American • Henry James
... but I play the German flute," said the apologetic gentleman; and so might we say. We don't engage ladies in diplomacy, but we employ all the old women of our own sex! Wherever we find a well-mannered, soft-spoken, fussy old soul, with a taste for fine clothes and fine dinners, fond of court festivities, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... first calumet of peace which was ever smoked between a European and an Indian. Among other musical instruments, I noticed the lyre of Orpheus and those of Homer and Sappho, Dr. Franklin's famous whistle, the trumpet of Anthony Van Corlear, and the flute which Goldsmith played upon in his rambles through the French provinces. The staff of Peter the Hermit stood in a corner with that of good old Bishop Jewel, and one of ivory, which had belonged to Papirius, the Roman senator. The ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mr Bang, "I delight in good music, but"—He was cut short by the whole bunch, the clerks and their master, closing their ledgers, and journals, and day—books, and cashbooks with a bang, while one hooked up a fiddle, another a clarionet, another a flute, &c, while Mr S——offered, with a smile, his own clarionet to Massa Aaron, and holding out at the same time, with the true good—breeding of a Frenchman, a span—new reed. To my unutterable surprise he took it sucked in his lips—wet the reed in his mouth; then passing ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Herrings and, since early Jacobean days, of the Williams family. Then comes Monkton, close to Maiden Castle. The church is Norman, much restored. St. Martin follows; a picturesque hamlet with a fine church, the last in the west of England to dispense with clarionet, flute and bass-viol in the village choir. On sign-posts as well as colloquially this hamlet is known as "Martinstown." Steepleton boasts a stone spire, rare for Dorset, and a curious and very ancient figure of an angel on the outside wall declared by most authorities to ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... the Grand Hotel, to which half the town was invited. There arrived at the festal scene about five hundred men and just thirty-two women. It was funny enough. The thirty-two women besported themselves with thirty-two partners in the centre of the hall to the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of musical instruments, whilst the rest of the men stood round the hall five deep, like a deep dark fringe on a Turkish carpet. Madame Rattazzi, however, achieved a great triumph against all odds. By dint ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... blue heavens as though they ne'er had frowned, Through leafless oak-boughs; limes of kindlier grace And swifter to believe Spring's "tidings good" Took the sweet lights upon a breast bud-swoll'n, And crimson as the redbreast's; while, as when Clear rings a flute-note through sea-murmurs harsh, At intervals ran out a streak of green Across ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... and, last, the principal actors in the shameful ceremony, Kurt, surrounded by his retainers, and the Lord of Rheinstein with the luckless Gerda. The mellow tones of the bell of St. Clement mingled sweetly with the sound of the flute and the pipe and the merry voices of the wedding throng. Gerda, mounted upon her spirited Limousin steed, the gift of Kuno, shuddered as she felt Kurt's eyes resting upon her, and she cast a despairing glance at the tower of Kuno's castle, where, disconsolate and heavy ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... During the interval between the morning and the evening tides, the artificers were variously employed in fishing and reading; others were busy in drying and adjusting their wet clothes, and one or two amused their companions with the violin and German flute. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saw the Spanish flag floating over the roof of the alcalde's office, while the hollow beating of a drum, the bucolic quavering of a flute, and the snapping ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to my mind The time when my youth from me wasted and dwined, And A mistress, whose charms and whose grace I adored, Seductive and fair over all of her kind; Whose voice, from the twigs of the sandhill upraised, Left the strains of the flute, to my thought, far behind. A snare set the fowler and caught me, who cried, "Would he d leave me to range at my will on the wind!" I had hoped he was clement or seeing that I Was a lover, would pity my lot and be kind; But no, (may God smite him!) he tore me away From my dear and apart from her ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... brave squadrons. Right wing, charge the enemy! charge! At them now you piercing violins! Fire away you kettle-drums now! In the town here there are many Skilful players—though among them Is a want of sense artistic, And of connoisseurship, only Their good will doth hide their failings. Violin, flute, also viol, All these parts are well supported And the contrabass is perfect. But one player still is wanting; And, my friend, what is a general Without orderlies, without a Fugleman the line of battle, And a ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... had 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, in a favourite ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... inspires the poet; who makes the flute, guitar, and violin eloquent under the fingers of the wandering and homeless artist: it is she who bears him upon her light wing from the source of the Moldau to that of the Danube; it is she who crowns his dark locks with the glittering ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... instruments of music. Well, let us consider our organs as so many musical instruments. You have, probably, sometimes been at a concert. Each of the instruments in the orchestra performs its own part, does it not? The little flute pipes through all its holes; the double-bass pours thunder from its chords: the violin sighs with his; the cymbals clash; the Chinese bells dance to their own tinkling; all go at it in their own fashion, each independently of the other. And yet, when the orchestra is in good ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... heaps and then dried, 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 of the country were ignorant of the ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... to that, daddy; but I s' get a hand o' Mr Graham's flute music, and maybe that'll help me a bit.—Wadna ye be takin' hame Meg Partan's blackin' ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... not, of course, get on very fast in this way. In the second column of the very first page he met with A as a note in music. This led him to the study of music. He bought a flute, and took some lessons, and attempted to accompany Elizabeth Eliza on the piano. This, of course, distracted him from his work on the Encyclopaedia. But he did not wish to return to A until he felt perfect in music. This ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... hears the words, "Listen, Socrates, to us who have brought you up"; and in reply he refuses to go away, in these final sentences: "This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is murmuring in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you may say will ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the 'cellos' pleading, passionate strain The yearning theme, and let the flute reply In placid melody, while violins complain, And sob, and sigh, With muted string; Then let the oboe half-reluctant sing Of bliss that trembles on the verge of pain, While 'cellos plead and plead again, With throbbing notes delayed, that would impart To every urgent tone the beating ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... golden radiance, a sort of angelic atmosphere hovering about her! Who could have passionate thoughts or wild desires in the presence of that swaying, white-clothed girl with the seraphic head? She played a thing of Schumann's called "Warum?" Then Halliday brought out a flute, and the spell was broken. After this they made Ashurst sing, Stella playing him accompaniments from a book of Schumann songs, till, in the middle of "Ich grolle nicht," two small figures clad in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his composure to be put out by it: he drilled us in the positions and steps in a manner the most precise; and, when he had brought us far enough to dance a minuet, he played for us something easily intelligible in three-four time, on a /flute-douce/, and we moved to it as well as we could. On the French theatre, likewise, I had seen from my youth upwards, if not ballets, yet /pas seuls/ and /pas de deux/, and had noticed in them various strange motions of the feet, and all sorts of springs. When we had had enough of ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Nothing more dismal could have been desired 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 have been impossible to surpass the unutterable despair expressed in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the beasts of prey are creeping forth for their night's hunting. The porters' tents are ranged in a wide semicircle, and their camp-fires show little groups of men squatting about them. Somewhere one is playing a tin flute, another is playing a French harp, and some are singing. It is a picture never to be forgotten, and rich with a charm that will surely always send forth its call to the restless soul of the man who goes ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... they would needs hear me play upon my German flute. To have told my honest natural visitants, Really gentlemen I play very ill, and put on such airs as we do in our genteel companies, would have been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their request. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our beautiful old ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... fit of despondency, and produced her again at musical parties. She was passionately fond of music; the Miss Falconers played on the piano-forte and sung, their brother John accompanied exquisitely on the flute, and the Marquis of Twickenham, who was dull as "the fat weed that grows on Lethe's brink," stood by—admiring. His proposal was made in form—and in form the young lady evaded it—in form her uncle, Lord Oldborough, told her that the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... know a butcher paints, 165 A baker rhymes for his pursuit, Candlestick-maker much acquaints His soul with song, or, haply mute, Blows out his brains upon the flute! ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the end of the Dead Sea in one direction, to the Lake of Tiberias in another; to the Mediterranean in the west, and in the east to the wilds unknown beyond the road of the Hhaj pilgrimage. "From the other end of the world," quoth he, the companion of a shepherd boy with his flute, at a mountain spring, pitching pebbles at the sheep of his flock to keep them from wandering away over their ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... complaining flute In dying notes discovers[7] The woes of hopeless lovers, 35 Whose dirge is whispered ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... and brilliant with a multi-colored chaos of uniforms. Gleaming pearl-white, translucent in the mass, were the bare shoulders of women; and from far off came the plaintive whine of an orchestra, a pulsing sense rather than a living sound, of music, pointed here and there by the staccato cry of a flute. A zephyr, perfumed with the clean, fresh odor of lilacs, stirred the draperies of the archway which led into the conservatory and rustled the bending ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... colours—brown, purple, yellow, red, and black. Their baskets, made of the same material as their mats, were very beautiful. They had different kinds of musical instruments: one of these was a sort of flute, which was made resonant by the breath of the nostril; another was similar to Pandean pipes, and composed of reeds; and a third was a drum made out of a heavy log. Their mode of saluting was like ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... artiste in distressed circumstances, and such he really was. At a word and a sign from the host he laid aside his bone and drew from under his green silk khalat a small wind-instrument resembling a flute or flageolet. On this he played a number of native airs. The first melodies which he played reminded me of a Highland pibroch—at one moment low, solemn, and plaintive, then gradually rising into a soul-stirring, martial strain, and again descending ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... "That's you, Lucy. You've been talking to him about that flute. I suppose you told him you would love to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... third clerk in line of promotion. It was a bright spot in those hard days with Brown to have Henry along. The boys spent a good deal of their leisure with the other pilot, George Ealer, who "was as kindhearted as Brown wasn't," and quoted Shakespeare and Goldsmith, and played the flute to his fascinated and inspiring audience. These were things worth while. The young steersman could not guess that the shadow of a long sorrow was even then stretching ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... flower recollect thee: Ye 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
... 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 not far from ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... she was crossing a lonely sheep-field she saw the god Pan: he was sitting at the foot of a tall rock, making music on a shepherd's flute. He too had horns on his brow, and hairy ears, and goat's feet. He knew Mother Ceres and answered her questions kindly, and he gave her some milk and honey to drink out of a wooden bowl. But he knew ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... ringing through the night, chanting in a tone of singular sweetness words of which each syllable comes through my open window like a wavelet of flute-sound. My Japanese servant, who speaks a little English. has told me ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... beach, And with a joyful heart he hastened to His house which all deserted seemed; inside With falt'ring steps he went, and on the walls Of the big hall were hanging pictures of His sire, of Krishna playing on the flute, Of Rama, Siva, and the other gods Whom in his childhood days his house adored, And seemed as they were drawn but yesterday; A thousand other old familiar scenes In quick succession passed before his eyes, Then quickly passed into a room, where lo! There slept a youth and she for ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... Carlsen, we may mention two copper cooking-pans, some goblets, gun-barrels, augers and chisels, a pair of boots, nineteen cartridge-cases, of which some were still filled with powder, the clock, a flute, some locks and padlocks, twenty-six pewter candlesticks, some fragments of engravings, and three books in Dutch, one of which, the last edition of Mendoza's "History of China" shows the goal which Barentz sought in this ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... mines, with agriculture, including pears, plums, peaches, almonds, grapes, pomegranates, rice, and wheat. The inhabitants were dressed in silk and woollen materials. There were musicians in the chief cities who played on the flute and the guitar. Buddhism was the prevailing religion, but there were traces of an earlier worship, the Bactrian fire-worship. The country was everywhere studded with halls, monasteries, monuments, and statues. Samarkand formed ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... through the heat of the early afternoon. It was very silent up there. Now and then, a brilliant blue-jay would lilt from a stunted oak with the flute-like love-notes of spring; or a lonely little brown fellow would hop with a low chirp from one bush to another as though he had been lost up there for years and had grown quite hopeless about seeing his kind again. When ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... he is lyrical. His wit flies out on clear-cut, swallow-like wings; in speaking of Paul Alexis' book "Le Besoin d'aimer," he said: "Vous avez trouvé un titre assez laid pour faire reculer les divines étoiles." I know not what instrument to compare with his verse. I suppose I should say a flute; but it seems to me more like a marvellously toned piano. His hands pass over the keys ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... fervor in their work for the souls of the plain farming-people given into their charge. And both Mr. Allan and Mrs. Allan had caught sight of Little Bel's face on their first Sunday in church, and Mrs. Allan had traced to her a flute-like voice she had detected in the Sunday-school singing; and before long, to Isabella's great but unspoken pride, the child had been "bidden to the manse for the minister's wife to hear her sing;" and from that day there was a new ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Grouse came there, And the Pobble who has no toes, And the small Olympian bear, And the Dong with a luminous nose. And the Blue Baboon who played the flute, And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute, And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat,— All came and built on the lovely Hat Of ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... 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 hack writer. At last at the age of thirty-two he achieved success with a series of periodical essays ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... 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 fair:—"the sex," as he says often "will be his ruin:" the fact is, that Pog never ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... requested, sent me a letter of introduction to a friend of hers, a Monsieur Gironac, who lived in Leicester Square. He was a married man, without family. He obtained his livelihood by giving lessons on the flute, on the guitar, and in teaching French during the day, and at night was engaged as second violin in the orchestra of the Opera House; so that he had many strings to his bow, besides those of his fiddle. His wife, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... hear, from many a little throat, A warble interrupted long; I hear the robin's flute-like note, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... swallowed up one stanza out of two, and under the seditious pretext that the length of the Office of incensing was too long to be filled up entirely by singing, M. Widor, seated at his desk, rolled forth stale fragments of music splashed about above, imitating the human voice and the flute, the bagpipe and the bassoon, or indeed, tired of affectations, he blew furiously on the keys, ending by imitating the roll of locomotives over iron bridges, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... remember its exact position; and she took the road to the left instead of taking the road to the right, and had to retrace her steps. The gate had fallen from its hinge, and she had some difficulty in opening it. The lodge where the blind gatekeeper used to play the flute was closed; the park paling had not been kept in repair; wandering sheep and cattle had worn away the great holly hedge; and Esther noticed that in falling an elm had ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... music, of which he knew something, having learned it, as he learned his drawing, without a master; but he preferred the naive songs of the country, or the melody of a flute; to the most scholarly concert-music. (15/16.) In the intimacy of the modest chamber which serves as the family salon, with its few shabby and old-fashioned pieces of furniture, he plays on an indifferent harmonium little ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... sore-backed government steed, would produce his portable lamp, and proceed to melt on his needle the wax-like contents of a small, black box. When of the proper consistency, the paste was rolled on a metal plate to point it for the aperture in the flute-shaped pipe. Half the night would be given to this process, and a considerable portion of the remaining half would be devoted to smoking small pinches of tobacco in the peculiar Chinese water-pipe. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... yet rhythmical, and finely-modulated vigour; specimens of the most copious and varied choral harmony; specimens of the most quiet, simple, and pure-flowing melody; now a full burst of the many-voiced lordly organ, now the softest and mellowest notes of the flute. Not only these, but all the intermediate, and ever so many surrounding varieties of structure are met with in his omniformity of sentence-building. In short, the leaves of a forest are hardly more varied in figure and make than Shakespeare's ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... sing them his best songs, now that he had his voice back again. He had watched them the day before, as they trotted hand-in-hand along the home-meadow where the snowdrops and crocuses grew. They had pulled some of the white and yellow blossoms, and had then stood still to listen to the flute-like voice of an unseen minstrel. Hand-in-hand they listened; the little boy with his large brown eyes fixed on the tree from whence came the song, the little girl with her baby-face uplifted, and one pink finger held up as much as to say ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... hand simultaneously, we produce a body of tones, which—if they are so chosen that they blend harmoniously—is called a Chord; and a series of such chords is an illustration of what is known as Harmony. If, however, we play with one finger only, we produce a melody. The human voice, the flute, horn,—all instruments capable of emitting but one ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... feelings up to such a degree of apparent sorrow, that their conduct has every symptom of insanity. This scene of revelry is not a little heightened by the profuse use of ardent spirits, which has so powerful an attraction, that drummers, flute-players, bards, and singing men come from great distances to partake of the libations; and as the savage uproar lasts often for a week, it leads to every kind of dissolute practice in both sexes. Another custom, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... spare my hearing as much as possible, which was 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 before ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... la Vestale 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Legs.] Why, madam, I can perform as much as any man, in a fair lady's service. I can play upon the flute, and sing; I can carry your umbrella, and fan your ladyship, and cool you when you are too hot; in fine, no service, either by day or by night, shall come amiss to me; and, besides I am of so quick an ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... your trumpets then, from London's stately towres, To beate the stormie windes a back and calme the raging showres, Set too the Cornet and the flute, The Orpharyon and the Lute, And tune the Taber and the Pipe, to the sweet violons, And moue the thunder in the ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... fact, are wealth or not wealth, according as a man knows or does not know the use to make of them? To take an instance, a flute may be wealth to him who is sufficiently skilled to play upon it, but the same instrument is no better than the stones we tread under our feet to him who is not so skilled... unless indeed ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... men and women in vehicles and on horseback, and in expectation of great fun, were wending their way to Yabtree—nearly every trap containing a fiddle, concertina, flute, or accordion ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... cabin with Skipper Harry an' me in expectation of a cup o' tea or the like o' that. By that time I had my shelves all put t' rights an' was stretched out on my counter, with my head on a roll o' factory-cotton, dawdlin' along with my friendly ol' flute. I tooted a ballad or two—Larboard Watch an' Dublin Bay; an' my fingers bein' limber an' able, then, I played the weird, sad songs o' little Toby Farr, o' Ha-ha Harbor, which is more t' my taste, mark you, than any o' ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... gentlemen, were encamped in the same place, and for the same purpose; and we had a very agreeable party. The band of our friend Major Godby's regiment played sometimes in the evening upon the terrace of the Taj; but, of all the complicated music ever heard upon earth, that of a flute blown gently in the vault below, where the remains of the Emperor and his consort repose, as the sound rises to the dome amidst a hundred arched alcoves around, and descends in heavenly reverberations upon those who ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... time is not derived from a particular impression mixed up with others, and plainly distinguishable from them; but arises altogether from the manner, in which impressions appear to the mind, without making one of the number. Five notes played on a flute give us the impression and idea of time; though time be not a sixth impression, which presents itself to the hearing or any other of the senses. Nor is it a sixth impression, which the mind by reflection finds in itself. These five sounds making their appearance in this particular manner, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... in the romance of "The Monastery," they seemed utterly unable to change their tune. "Cherry ripe!" "Cherry ripe!" was the universal cry of all the idle in the town. Every unmelodious voice gave utterance to it; every crazy fiddle, every cracked flute, every wheezy pipe, every street organ was heard in the same strain, until studious and quiet men stopped their ears in desperation, or fled miles away into the fields or woodlands, to be at peace. This plague ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... calmly in her small flute-like voice; "of course I love you, but you are so rough. You mustn't kiss me hard like that; ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... whom he desires for a wife, he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her home, playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a sign she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to his home. No marriage ceremony is performed."[33] ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a strange singer. It generally begins by screeching harshly; then follow three or four flute-like notes, which seem to indicate that the bird could be a musician if it would only persevere. But it will not take the trouble. It goes on repeating its 'Lor-e-oh!' just as its tree-top companions, the cicadas, keep up ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... me, Bertha, why does not the electric bell ring? I must always sing first, must always squander all my flute notes first ere I can entice you to come. What do you suppose that costs? With that I can immediately arrange another charity matinee. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... of delight when the funny old clown, who had been forcibly deprived of three tin flutes in rapid succession, now produced yet a fourth from the seemingly inexhaustible depths of his baggy white pants—a flute with a string and a bent pin attached to it—and, secretly affixing the pin in the tail of the cross ringmaster's coat, was thereafter enabled to toot sharp shrill blasts at frequent intervals, much to the chagrin of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... cistus, anemone, and starry asphodel. Below them lay a stretch of rugged rocks and turquoise bay, with no sound to break the silence but the tinkling of goat-bells, or the piping of a little dark-eyed boy who practiced a rustic flute as he minded his flock. To poor Mr. Carson, wearied with the noise and clamor of Naples, it was a veritable Paradise, a haven of refuge, a breathing space in the dreary pilgrimage of his sad life. On the top of this sunlit, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... minister behind him, Peter's singing was a pillar of faith. Mr. Cameron had travelled widely in his younger days and had heard grand music in the cathedrals of the old world, magnificent harmonies of trained voices with flute and violin and organ helping to interpret the divine meaning of the old masters. It had all been very grand and he often longed to hear such music again; but he sometimes wondered, as he sat in the shadow of his pulpit desk on a Sabbath morning, ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... scale, through the whole range of cymbal and spinet, "flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music," stand literally before me, and a strange revelation it is. Is it the same faculty which produces that grand piano of Bechstein's, and that clarion organ of Silbermann's, and that African ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... they find? Listen. First: stratum number one, the top floor; that's Cyril's, you know. They'd note the bare floors, the sparse but heavy furniture, the piano, the violin, the flute, the book-lined walls, and the absence of every sort of curtain, cushion, or knickknack. 'Here lived a plain man,' they'd say; 'a scholar, a musician, stern, unloved ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... of an evening to play the flute; and he was playing it faithfully, with the score propped up against a pile of books on his table, when the noises from the street reached him, and interrupted his music. With the silver-dotted flute in his hand he moved ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... Mrs. Mildini to be an actress. But they were constantly interrupted by Mr. Mildini, who was a funny darky, all blacked up. And then it appeared that Mr. Mildini could play on many instruments; one of them a long spoon, which he used as a flute. There was no end to that man's talents. And to think he had been so friendly and chatty ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... did not suit me, but I was obliged to content myself for the present. We were joined early in winter by some of the gentlemen in charge of posts, when we managed to pass the time very agreeably. Mr. D——, superintendent of the district, played remarkably well on the violin and flute, some of us "wee bodies" could also do something in that way, and our musical soirees, if not in melody, could at least compete in noise, numbers taken into account, with any association of the kind in the British dominions. Chess, backgammon, and whist, completed the ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... Deuceace 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 ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 at the desk, Apollo's ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... 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, after ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... a shepherd boy discovered, in a miraculous way, a statue of the Virgin. There was a far-off sound of music at night, when he was out in search of strayed sheep, and being young he forgot his errand in curiosity to learn whence came the mysterious chanting, accompanied by the silver notes of a flute. The boy wandered in the direction of the delicate sounds, and to his amazement found all the lost flock grazing round a statue which appeared to have risen from the earth. On that spot was built the basilica ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... trivial ills to quote, The freshly-furnished house that shines, The coxcomb's fashionable coat, Both brushed and polished "to the nines," Both yielding to some fatal flaw; A crack; a fiend who plays the flute; Both, both examples of the law Of Rift within ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... as the prelate had hoped, he was quite alone, for the Cotillon had attracted almost everybody to the picture gallery. And the silence in the little salon was nearly perfect, for at that distance the blare of the orchestra subsided into a faint, flute-like murmur. The young priest at once apologised to the prelate for having ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... roads are good and the weather's grand, So I'm off to play in the Hobo Band; With a gaspipe flute and a cowhide drum I'm going to make the music come. With a toot, toot, toot, and a dum, dum, dum, Just hear ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... Child of the Sun. Filled with a humor truly divine, he strolled unconstrainedly through a multitude of cares like Prince Tamino through his fantastic trials. Music was his talisman, his magic flute with which he could exorcise all the petty terrors that beset him. Has such a man and artist—one who was completely resolved in his works, and therefore still stands bodily before us with all his glorious qualities after the lapse of a century—has Mozart still something ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... with a hard note in her flute-like voice. "If I pity not myself, why shouldst thou pity? Am I not loved, and have I not loved greatly? Have I not riches ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... geranium on an improved plan; and above all, that he was remarkably particular in his attentions to Aunt Sally—a stroke of policy which showed that James had a natural genius for this sort of matters. Even when emerging from the meeting house in full glory, with flute and psalm book under his arm, he would stop to ask her how she did; and if it was cold weather, he would carry her foot stove all the way home from meeting, discoursing upon the sermon, and other serious matters, as Aunt ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... known to eat a whole ox and drink the fourth of a hogshead of wine in one day, etc. Gentle as a marriageable girl, Socquard, who was a stout, short man, with a placid face, broad shoulders, and a deep chest, where his lungs played like the bellows of a forge, possessed a flute-like voice, the limpid tones of which surprised all those who heard ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... dark, there was a dance on the lawn by torchlight, the torches being held by the servants; the music consisted of a flute, cornet, and violin, but the cornet proved of no use, as some urchin had bunged it up with a cork before the dance commenced. No particular dances were called for; the musicians played just what they chose, the dancers danced whatever they knew best. Some, and these ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... most charming dress. Red and black all over, something like Mephistopheles, you know, and a peaked hat with a bell at the top. Then he had a flute, of course, and a thin wire from his waist with a stuffed rat at ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... sitting in an armchair comfortably, "a man can have twelve gold chains, or sixty beautiful milch cows, or ten slaves for labor, or one slave to play on the flute or paint, and maybe even to cure. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... flax, and cotton, and do no leave their seclusion till they are old enough to be married. The Indian children attend the same school as the children of the white colonists. A certain number of them, chosen from those who exhibit most intelligence, are taught music—plain-chant, violin, flute, horn, violincello, and other instruments. Those who distinguish themselves in the carpenter's shop, at the forge, or in the field, are termed alcaldes, or chiefs, and given charge of a band of workmen. The management of each mission is composed of two monks; the elder looks after internal ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... soul away as on a rushing river, the violin notes falling like ripples, the flute tones all aflow among the rocks; and when it sweeps adagio on the sandy bed, then the gypsy player is at heart equal to a lord, then he feels a gentleman. The only true republic is art. There all earthly distinctions pass away; there he is best ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... the camp, we heard from a distance the frantic beating of drums, the mournful sounds of the flute and shrill, mad shouting. Our Mongol went forward to investigate for us and reported that several Mongolian families had come here to the monastery to seek aid from the Hutuktu Jahansti who was famed for his ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... before poets were either known or received among us; though we find in Cato de Originibus that the guests used, at their entertainments, to sing the praises of famous men to the sound of the flute; but a speech of Cato's shows this kind of poetry to have been in no great esteem, as he censures Marcus Nobilior for carrying poets with him into his province; for that consul, as we know, carried Ennius with him into AEtolia. Therefore the less esteem poets were in, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... virgins who endeavoured to fill Emma's place found the door of Newcombe's heart fast and barred, and assailed it in vain. Miss Billing sat down before it with her piano, and, as the Colonel was a practitioner on the flute, hoped to make all life one harmonious duet with him; but she played her most brilliant sonatas and variations in vain; and, as everybody knows, subsequently carried her grand piano to Lieutenant and Adjutant Hodgkin's ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on whistling till that flute bursts itself before I get a halfpenny," he remarked to himself in a tone of intense injury, eyeing the "flute" (which was really a penny whistle) anxiously as he rubbed it on his wet sleeve with a view to improving the notes. "All this day and ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... gone; Gone is the flute-like note, the yearning strain, And all the air forlorn Is breathless till it hear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... from ancient days, With thoughtless reverence we praise; The rites that taught us to combine The joys of musick and of wine, And bade the feast, and song, and bowl O'erfill the saturated soul: But ne'er the flute or lyre applied To cheer despair, or soften pride; Nor call'd them to the gloomy cells Where want repines and vengeance swells; Where hate sits musing to betray, And murder meditates his prey. To dens of guilt and shades of care, Ye sons of melody repair, Nor deign the festive dome to ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... descent, son of Alfieri's secretary, a man of some talent but indiscreet. A question arises as to the source from which he obtained the means for these and subsequent luxuries, in striking contrast with Goldsmith's walking-stick, knapsack, and flute. Byron's financial affairs are almost inextricably confused. We can, for instance, nowhere find a clear statement of the result of the suit regarding the Rochdale Estates, save that he lost it before the Court of Exchequer, and that his appeal to the House of Lords was still unsettled ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... imposing. The Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented. The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and alternate fillets, and the fillet is about a quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is flatter than of the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great distinction of the Ionic column is a base, and a capital formed with volutes, with a more slender shaft. Vitruvius, the greatest authority among the ancients in architecture, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... leading vocalists; Symmes, the ship's cook, plays an excellent violin; and the commodore's steward is not to be surpassed upon the tambourine. A little black fellow, whose sobriquet is Othello, manages the castanets, and there is a tolerable flute played by one of the afterguard. The concerts usually commence with sentimental songs, such as "Home, sweet Home," and the Canadian Boat Song: but the comic always carries off the palm; "Jim along Josey," "Lucy Long," "Old Dan Tucker," and a hundred others of the same character, are listened to delightedly ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm! Detached wafts and swirls were coming through the woods, with music from the leaves and branches and furrowed boles, and even from the splintered rocks and ice-crags overhead, many of the tones soft and low and flute-like, as if each leaf and tree, crag and spire were a tuned reed. A broad torrent, draining the side of the glacier, now swollen by scores of new streams from the mountains, was rolling boulders along its rocky channel, with thudding, bumping, muffled sounds, rushing towards ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... 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 ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... of the fiddle was the accompaniment to all my games. From noon until seven in the evening I played amid the squeak of the fiddle, the chant of the 'cello, the solemn throb of the double bass, and the querulous wail of flute and piccolo; and always the music was the music of Italy, for these elders worked in operatic orchestras. So I learned to love it, and especially do I still love the moderns—Leoncavallo, Wolf-Ferrari, Mascagni, Puccini—for it was in "La ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... that, sir," said Bassett, more and more perplexed. "It's not in my book, but I remember once reading, when I was at school, that spiders are sometimes attracted by the sound of a flute." ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... interrupted Sharp, "the gambler produces skill; and there can be no doubt that hundreds of men derive as much pleasure from an exhibition of skill with the billiard-cue as others derive from an exhibition of skill with the flute or violin." ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... stories. In another,[261] the same three beings assist the Wallachian Psyche when she is wandering in quest of her lost husband. Mother Sunday rules the animal world, and can collect her subjects by playing on a magic flute. She is represented as exercising authority over both birds and beasts, and in a Slovak story she bestows on the hero a magic horse. He has been sent by an unnatural mother in search of various things hard to be obtained, but he is ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... cast is that from the panel of the tomb door, upon which Talas is represented standing: the second represents a group of females; and the third an ancient entertainment with figures reclining on couches with children; a figure playing the double flute, and to the right a nude figure called Hecatomnas. Six casts from tombs hereabouts (153-6), exhibit inscriptions, two of which are in two languages—the Lycian and the Greek, declaring that the owners have built the tombs for themselves ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... alway in guard, Where on many a sacred shrine Young bulls' thigh-bones burn and shine As the god that is fire overtakes them, and fast The smoke of Arabia to heavenward is cast, Scattering wide its balm: and shrill Now with nimble notes that thrill The flute strikes up for the song, and the harp of gold Strikes up to the song sweet answer: and all behold, All, aswarm as bees, give ear, Who ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... be a full house to-night—six parties in the boxes, already; four little boys and a woman in the pit; and two fiddles and a flute in the orchestra, who have got through five overtures since seven o'clock (the hour fixed for the commencement of the performances), and have just begun the sixth. There will be plenty of it, though, when ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... to argue with him still," the Little Russian rejoined. "You keep on playing your flute; whoever has gay feet, if they haven't grown into the ground, will dance to your tune. Rybin would probably have said that we don't feel the ground under us, and need not, either. Therefore it's our business to shake ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... We all sat down on the verandah, which was of solid concrete, and the Jadoo-wallah took off his "dhoti" or loin cloth, and squatted in front of us. He produced a mango stone and put it under some loose earth, which he had gathered up from our own garden. He played on his flute, and as he did so the stone began to sprout until the little shrub was about two inches high. He then watered it a little and again began playing the most beautiful music to it. The little plant grew higher and higher as he did so, ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of their demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a large Newfoundland ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... purpose, having famous wide sleeves—they came back in less than no time, asking the liberty, before finally concluding with me, of carrying them home to their lodgings for ten minutes to see how they would fit; and, in that case, offering me thirty-five shillings and an old flute. The old flute was for next to no use at all, except for wee Benjie, poor thing, too-tooing on, to keep him good, and I told them so, myself being no musicianer; but would take their offer not to quarrel. It would not do unless some of us were timber-tuned; ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... his face and the stars winking in silver beneficence overhead, to lie awake and think until the dawn came. He slept soundly, dreaming of thistledown and a little old woman in a green cloak who came out of a hill and played a tune upon a sort of lantern-flute. The notes had winged off in bars of music written in fire against the darkness. He had not finished the dream when he was awakened by someone knocking ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... their hair and garments the straw and chaff amid which they had slept. Above them, under the open gable of the barn, Daniel Nothafft was lying in the straw. With an absorbed and devout expression he was seeking to elicit a melody from a flute which one of the musicians ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... played upon several instruments, so that he was glad to be freed from the fantastic humors of Furibon. One day as he was walking in the garden, finding the heat increase, he retired into a shady grove and began to play upon the flute to amuse himself. As he played, he felt something wind about his leg, and looking down saw a great adder: he took his handkerchief, and catching it by the head was going to kill it. But the adder, looking steadfastly in his face, seemed to beg his pardon. ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... and is literally harmless. He grew up through school and college, innocently avoiding all those evils which proved the ruin of many who were deemed far wiser than himself. He warbled feebly on the flute, and was adored as a curate, not only for his tootle-tooings, but for his diligent presence at mothers' meetings, and conscientious labours among the poor. A preacher Kidds never pretended to be; but he had the singular merit of brevity, and crowded more harmless ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... not personally acquainted; but he had ascertained privately, from a musical frequenter of the house, who invariably brought his flute with him, and who was understood to be the oldest friend of the family, that Mr. Slapman owned a large property in wild land in Pennsylvania, not a hundred miles from New York; that he was improving it, and ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... He is, in my opinion, the most elegant, the most correct poet; and, at the same time, the most harmonious (a circumstance which redounds very much to the honour of this muse) that England ever gave birth to. He has mellowed the harsh sounds of the English trumpet to the soft accents of the flute. His compositions may be easily translated, because they are vastly clear and perspicuous; besides, most of his subjects are general, and relative ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... portentous on a distant sight; and how the good in a man's spirit will not suffer itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in the hour of need. But we are all for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature; and not a man among us will go to the head of the march to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Goldsmith, who in his Chinese letters speaks of him kindly as 'the little sculptor.' He was fond of music, and Goldsmith would play the flute to him. As Sir John Hawkins records, the sculptor once tricked the poet by pretending to set down the notes on paper as Goldsmith played them. Goldsmith looked over the paper afterwards with seeming great attention, said it was quite correct, and that if he had not seen him do it he never ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook |
