"Violin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which, together with other dens of a worse description, were now silent heaps of grass-grown timber. In those days the dancing rooms were crowded nightly, and I once attended a ball here in a low, stuffy apartment, festooned with flags, with a drinking bar at one end. The orchestra consisted of a violin and guitar, the music being almost drowned by a noisy crowd at the bar, where a wrangle took place on an average every five minutes. One dollar was charged by the saloon-keeper for the privilege of a dance with a gaily painted lady (of a class with which most mining camps are only ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... was hoisted up and secured, the hands were sent aloft to loose the canvas, the topsails were sheeted home and mast- headed, the jib run up, and, simultaneously with this, the capstan-bars were shipped, one of the ship's boys mounted the capstan-head violin in hand, and to a merry air upon that instrument out stepped the men, the anchor was quickly run up to the bows, and with the last drain of the flood-tide the "Juno," under topsails and jib, with a light north- easterly air of wind, glided with a slow and stately movement out of the harbour, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... heavy fellow of twenty-five or six, with big wrists, big, muscular hands, and a rather unpleasant, lowering face; and a little, middle-aged man with straightforward, friendly hazel eyes and a pointed beard. The pale, boyish one carried a violin made from a cigar box under his arm, just such a violin as the darkies make down South. This violin was very beautifully made, and decorated with a ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... the story of the national soul. For not all music can be played upon any instrument, and human nature for most of us is like a harp on which can be rendered the music written for the harp but nor that written for the violin. The harp strings quiver for the harp-player alone, and he who can utter his passion through the violin is silent before an unfamiliar instrument. That is why the Irish have rarely been deeply stirred by English literature, though it is one of the great literatures ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... took a good time, but when at length it drew to a close the company proceeded to the drawing room where they settled down for some good music. Mr. Vermont was the first to contribute to the entertainment. He played "Intermezzo" as a solo violin, and the beautiful melody only added to both Mulberry's and Gladys's happiness. Many others also played and sang, and at last by dint of great persuasion Gladys consented to sing. She had a magnificent clear soprano voice and as he listened Mulberry ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... the age of three, learnt the clavecin by watching his sister play; a year afterwards he composed admirably, at the age of seven he played the violin at first sight without having had any teacher, and proved himself a composer of genius before he ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... finally she had to reflect upon a great many pages from a cousin who found himself in financial difficulties, which forced him to the uncongenial occupation of teaching the young ladies of Bungay to play upon the violin. ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... Gianetta; but it wearies me. It is the old tale; he likes not my music—thinks it an excuse for idleness. Listen, little one. I make my plans now. I cannot bear this life. I must do as he wishes—learn a trade or somewhat, and give up my violin." ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... ingredients in Count Mattaei's noted remedy, "anti-scrofuloso." The Figwort is named in Somersetshire "crowdy-kit" (the word kit meaning a fiddle), "or fiddlewood," because if two of the stalks are rubbed together, they make a noise like the scraping of the bow on violin strings. In Devonshire, also, the plant ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... Vaermland. The guitar, with its mouldy, silken ribbon and its worn screws, and the dented horn, with faded tassels and cord were put away in the lumber-room in the attic, and the dust settled inches deep on the long, iron-bound violin boxes. Yet the less little Ruster had to do with flute and music-pen, so much the more must he turn to the brandy flask, and at last he became quite a drunkard. It ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... people were on board when they arrived, and now they appeared again, coming along the street and disappearing at the steep stairway opposite. The lighted windows were full of heads already, and there were now and then preliminary exercises upon a violin. Mr. Aldis had grown old enough to be obliged to sit and think it over about going to a ball; the day had passed when there would have been no question; but when he had finished his cigar he crossed the street, and only ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... placed there that which if the predicament is not outdistanced means that there is posthumous fame, this means that there was a violin and a widow and a melodrama, it means more than that it means that there was a friend and a closet and most of the coloring matter, it means more than that it means silence and it does mean a declaration that ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... a fearful thing. She could not face the thought—at least not yet. Perhaps she would feel more courageous to-morrow. On the ship she had slept little. Her nerves felt like violin strings stretched too tight—stretched to the point ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... simply his violin playing. They say he was a pupil of a master of the dark art in Germany, and can practise on us to make us think his commonest utterances extraordinarily acute and precious. Lord Fleetwood runs ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a night so fierce and foul What wonder such a day? The wind, which shrieked like a tortured soul Last night across the bay, Blew high and keen like a violin And dashed the ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... also told me between poses in the studio the other day of just such a "pauvre homme" she once knew. "When he was young," she said, "he won a second prize at the Conservatoire, and afterward played first violin at the Comique. Now he plays in front of the cafes, like the rest, and sometimes poses for the head of an ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... writes will not bear his own criticism next morning, although curiously enough it may seem to him excellent at the time of writing. The perception of the fingers, as well as the perception of the mind, seems blunted by the use of alcohol. Dr. Alfred Carpenter relates that a celebrated violin player, as he was about to go on the platform, was asked if he would take a glass of wine before he appeared, "Oh, no, thank you," he replied, "I shall have it when I come off." This answer excited Mr. Carpenter's curiosity, and he inquired of the violinist why he ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... asked, pointing to the violin, and speaking in a slow, deliberate tone, as if he did not feel at home in ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... suddenly diverted from this subject, which was evidently growing to be a painful one to one of the company, by the sound of a violin played with, singular skill and ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... said, is of my mother's playing. I see myself, sitting on a great black book, the family Bible. I must have been very small, and it was a large Bible, and lay on a table in the sitting-room. I see my mother standing before me, with her violin on her arm. She is light, young, and very graceful; beauty seems to flow from her face in a kind of dark brightness, if I may use such an expression; her eyes are soft and deep. I have seen no other eyes like my mother Marie's. She taps the violin with the bow; then she taps ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... human account of certain events in the life of the first violin of the Pinecliff ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,—his own, no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face, and the rise and fall of his bow. Then I seemed to be floated ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... under a group of live oaks near the patio they heard the resonant plunk-plunk-plunk of a harp making ready for the dance, and the shrill laughter of slim senoritas hovering there. Down the slope before the three the shadows stretched longer and longer. A violin twanged in the tuning, the harp-strings crooning ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... among the attendants. Round and round and round sped the horses. Goo-Goo cracked his whip. The trapezeist swung high in air like a glittering blue spider suspended by silver threads. Mr. Vernon Twomley's Bucephalus did every thing but talk. Somebody else on another horse played the violin and stood on his head meanwhile, all at full gallop! It was delightful. But the best of all was when Mignon came out again. Her cheeks were rosier, her eyes brighter than ever, and—yes—she recollected her promise, for during the very first round she turned to Alice, poised on one foot like a true ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... we had two different strings, say a piano string in the piano and a violin string on its proper mounting. Suppose we played both instruments and some musician told us they were in tune. What would he mean? He would mean that both strings vibrated with the same ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... Frenchman, was a fine performer on the violin and harpsichord. At the representation of Arsinoe and the other earliest operas, he played the harpsichord and Haym the violoncello. Dieupart, after the small success of the design set forth in this letter, taught ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... that there were so many flowers even in California. Her own coming-out party in the dark double parlors of the old house among the eucalyptus trees, whose moans and sighs could be heard above the thin music of piano and violin, had been so formal and dull that she had cried herself to sleep after the last depressed member of the old set had left on the stroke of midnight. Even Aileen's high mocking spirits had failed her, and she had barely been able to summon them for a moment as she kissed the friend, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... an analogy: It seems to me it would be as pertinent to argue that because the strings of a violin or harp waste in proportion to the quantity of music evolved through or by means of them, therefore the waste of the strings is the cause of the music, while in fact it is the hand of the player, and even the spirit behind the hand, which is the real and efficient cause of the ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... music warehouse, a miniature tobacco shop, or branch depot of foreign grammars and dictionaries were before you. Every kind of musical instrument seems to have met with a companion in this tiny apartment. Here are a violin, violoncello, horn, and cornopean; there an old Welsh harp and unstrung guitar. On this shelf are pipes of all sorts and sizes, forms, and nations—the straight English, the short German, and the long Turkish; on that are cigar-boxes, snuff-boxes, and tobacco-boxes ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... on the after-deck, the captain, much entreated, and in no wise unwilling, takes down his violin, and with pleasant touch gives us the dear old airs, "Home, Sweet Home," "Annie Laurie," and so on, and we accompany him with voices toned down by the quiet of the scene around. He plays, too, with a musing look, the merry tune to which his little daughter dances, in the English dancing-school, hundreds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... rich, and yet he came here. He was very pale, and had large and beautiful but sorrowful eyes. He took a violin with him to Mount Carmel; it was the greatest treasure he had on earth, and he played the most wonderful things on this violin that ever were heard, and everybody who heard it said that he was a great ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... gilded trinkets; while Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage, junior, was to commence his travels at home, in the character of a music-grinder. Modesty will not permit me to say all I might, in favour of my own skill in music in general; but I sang well for an amateur, and played, both on the violin and flute, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... sonatas of Haydn (every movement of each). The sonatas for pianoforte and violin of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Rubinstein, Grieg, ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... it too, and as for the fiddle, I tell thee I will sell it yet." Antone pulled his ragged cap down over his low heavy brow, and went out. The old man drew his stool up nearer the fire, and sat stroking his violin with trembling fingers and muttering, "Not while I live, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... one arm in the carrying of weights, the habit of resting on one leg more than the other, or the assumption of a faulty attitude in writing or in playing the piano or violin, doubtless, determine the seat and direction of the curvature, and, when it has once commenced, tend to aggravate ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... certainly not miss the appointment," said Castero, throwing back his head proudly. "If to-morrow is not as glorious to me as to-day has been, I will break my violin, and never touch a bow again as long as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... and Violin and Other Kentucky Tales and Romances. For artistic completeness, Allen wrote nothing superior to the story in this collection, entitled, King Solomon of Kentucky, a tale of an idle vagabond who proved capable of a heroism from which many heroes might have ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... the possession of a violin and the moment it is yours, may play upon it. It is yours. If you are in the mood to play, it must be ready for you. If it is not, then tune it, and it will be.[G] But a human being cannot be treated so in any human relationship. It needs mutual patience and mutual respect ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... red and brown were falling, and the wind that came up the valley played on the boughs like a bow on the strings of a violin. The mountain ridges piled against each other cut the blue sky like a saber's edge, and the forests on the slopes rising terrace above terrace burned in vivid colours painted by the brush of autumn. The despatch bearer's eye, sweeping peaks and slopes and valleys, saw ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... weird music that had drawn him to that place had been partially satisfied by the discovery of a violin on the floor beside the sick man's bed. Now, as he flung himself wearily down on the lounge for a bit of rest, he became conscious of the muffled b-r-r-r of a dynamo. That accounted in a measure for the electric lights, ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... lyre, or violin, Or kit of that gay Muse, Terpsichore, To sing the rage these nymphs were in, Their looks and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... largest was a superb view of the rugged harbor of Rio de Janeiro. Comfortable chairs were ranged along the walls, and the middle of the room was occupied by a massive square-cornered table on which lay a jumble of hand-written business papers, a number of books, a high-grade violin and bow. Beyond the table stood a swivel chair, evidently the usual seat of the coronel. Table and chair were so arranged that the master of this house sat always with his back to a wall and his face toward the door. And on a couple of hooks on that wall, ready for ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... Take it yourself or give it away. I care very little for most of the things, except daddy's violin and my guitar. Those you may keep until ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... thoughts heavenward; and just enough amateur piano music to keep him reminded of the other place. There are many venerable pianos in Hamilton, and they all play at twilight. Age enlarges and enriches the powers of some musical instruments—notably those of the violin—but it seems to set a piano's teeth on edge. Most of the music in vogue there is the same that those pianos prattled in their innocent infancy; and there is something very pathetic about it when they go over it now, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cups were warmed and the water was put in—and some muffins and Jane, who had apple cheeks and smiling red lips, came in the room and the business of pouring out began, which is almost as great and almost as lost a secret as the varnish of the violin makers of Cremona. And Isabel felt good all over because she knew that Mrs. Barraclough, and the room, and Jane, and the muffins, and the tea, and the evening were all the right temperature—warm—mellow—comforting. Outside the window was a thrush who sang. He was a soloist, ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... platform before the black tent, a voice came through a megaphone: "The Big Show. The BIG Show. See those enormous lions riding in baby carriages while La Gonizetti makes other lions dance the fandango to her violin. See those—" ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... hungry-looking, round-shouldered, sick-looking colored man in that same party, that was on the programme for a violin solo. When he came out the people looked at each other, as much as to say, "Now we will have some fun." The moke struck an attitude as near Ole Bull as he could with his number eleven feet and his hollow chest, and played some diabolical selection from a foreign ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... of a violin. Then after a sharp struggle with her beating heart, and bravely pushing the man aside, she went on rapid feet up the circular stairway, her head buzzing with the clamor of her nerves. India! Belus had once confessed that his youth had been spent in Eastern lands. What did it mean? ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... health of the king, enfeebled by age and gout, no longer allowed him to devote himself to the pleasures of the chase, he began playing on the violin more than ever before, in order, he said, to perfect himself in it. This was beginning rather late. As is well known, he had for his first violin teacher the celebrated Alexander Boucher, with whom he greatly enjoyed playing; but he had a mania for beginning first without paying any attention ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the first days of the Empire it occurred to him to approach his old adversary, now a marshal. This man, whom I knew, was something of an original character; he presented himself before Augereau with a little violin under his arm, and said that as he had nothing to give his eight children for dinner, he would make them dance a quadrille to cheer them up, unless the marshal could put him in the way of providing ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... to his lips with a tenderness which her whole appearance seemed to bespeak for her, a sort of practical consideration and carefulness of touch, as if she were an object precious and frail, an instrument for producing rare sounds, to be handled, like a legendary violin, with ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... time with a metrical fluency, he scraped a little jig on the violin, while Dummer led off a procession which solemnly capered round the room in sundry stages of conscious awkwardness. Mr. Bultitude shuffled along somehow after the rest, with rebellion at his heart and a deep sense of degradation. "If my clerks ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... musician," he admitted, "and I play on the violin for money whenever the occasion offers, something which you will yet congratulate yourselves upon if you wish to reach the root of this mysterious and dastardly crime. But that I am a nobody I deny, and I even dare to hope that you will agree with me in ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... but I give up the idea of ever seeing Portland," answered Dora, staring with all her blue eyes at the display of musical instruments about the room, and longing to stop her ears, for several of the children were playing on the violin, flute, horn or harp. They were street musicians, and even the baby seemed to be getting ready to take part in the concert, for he sat on the floor beside an immense bass horn taller than himself, with his rosy lips at ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... merely quixotic and egregiously selfish. However that may be, I am going to remain." She clutched once, more at his arm, her finger was upraised. They listened together. From somewhere behind them came the clear, low wailing of a violin. ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... April 24, 1469. The classic instrument of the minstrel was the vielle or viol, a sort of violin, which only true artists knew how to use well (one is reproduced in "English Wayfaring Life," p. 202). Therefore many minstrels early replaced this difficult instrument by the common tabor, which sufficed to mark the cadence of their chants. Many ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Alpinist did not awaken them, and he himself had dropped upon a divan, overcome by such icy discouragement, when the sound of vigorous, joyous chords burst from the vestibule; where three "musicos," harp, flute, and violin, ambulating minstrels with pitiful faces, and long overcoats flapping their legs, who infest the Swiss hostelries, had just ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... next and the next Holmes was in a mood which his friends would call taciturn, and others morose. He ran out and ran in, smoked incessantly, played snatches on his violin, sank into reveries, devoured sandwiches at irregular hours, and hardly answered the casual questions which I put to him. It was evident to me that things were not going well with him or his quest. He would say nothing of the case, and it was from ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Brower's admirable books on PIANO MASTERY has prompted the present volume of intimate Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers, in which a number of famous artists and instructors discuss esthetic and technical phases of the art of violin playing in detail, their concept of what Violin Mastery means, and how it may be acquired. Only limitation of space has prevented the inclusion of numerous other deserving artists and teachers, yet practically all of the greatest masters of the violin now in this country ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... somewhere for a moment, and presently emerged with an old violin, which he began to scrape vigorously. Even his tuning was irresistibly comical; and he had not been playing a lively jig for ten minutes, before two or three couples were on their feet performing the figure. Soon an admiring circle, four deep, collected about the dancers. The sorrows ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... exchange the noisy, wholesome family life of the Martels for the silent, somber grandeur of the Bartletts. His affections had taken root in the shabby little brown house that always seemed to be humming gaily to itself. When the piano was not being played, the violin or guitar was. There were bursts of laughter, snatches of song, and young people going and coming through ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... and even a smattering of Gaelic from the few Scotch Highlanders in the service. He could use the axe as well as forge it, and, in short, could turn his hand to almost anything. Among other things, he could play splendidly on the violin—an instrument which he styled a fiddle, and which MacSweenie called a "fuddle." His repertoire was neither extensive nor select. If you had asked for something of Beethoven or Mozart he would have opened ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... present conditions? "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der stille," says Goethe, and I think you will admit that there is precious little of "der stille" to be found either in ordinary domestic life, or that refuge of the desperate, a garret in Bloomsbury. Picture to yourself Orpheus executing frenzied violin obbligati to the family baby (teething)—or Apollo hastily descending the slopes of Olympus to argue with a tax collector, or irate landlady! Alas! few survive this sort of thing. What I would propose is a Grand National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was bricked up and plastered-the fireplace beside which in the far-off days he had lain on winter nights, to hear his uncles tell tales of hunting, or to hear them play the violin, great ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... civilized and in love with the things of the mind than the son of the slaveowner. Chekhov's father, Pavel Yegorovitch, had a passion for music and singing; while he was still a serf boy he learned to read music at sight and to play the violin. A few years after his freedom had been purchased he settled at Taganrog, a town on the Sea of Azov, where he afterwards opened ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... first hymn, "Carol, Brothers, Carol," is to be sung behind the curtains, just before they are drawn for the second picture. A harp, violin, and triangle would assist the piano in making an orchestral effect. A solo voice supplies the closing air, "My Ain Countree." The piano may be played very softly whenever the reader pauses and the tableaux ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... involved a long search in the stores to find the vast steel-blue tureen that bonnets him. Fouillade, the boatman from Cette, rolls his wicked eyes in the long, lean face of a musketeer, with sunken cheeks and his skin the color of a violin. In good sooth, my two neighbors are as unlike ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... were a musical family. Nancy always went to the piano and played for her father after dinner, sometimes Mrs. Nairn joined in with her violin, and to-night Tim appeared ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... the Camerons' villa and took their places in the salon, which had been temporarily cleared of some of its furniture. The Tarantella dancers, who were accustomed to give their small exhibition to visitors, brought their own orchestra with them, a thin youth who played the violin, a stout individual who plucked the mandolin, and an enthusiast who twanged the guitar. The performers were charmingly dressed in the old native costumes of the country, the men in soft white shirts, green sleeveless velvet coats, red plush knickers, silk stockings and shoes with scarlet bows, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... intellect of genius; just as the open chest notes of the human voice, however high, are essentially different from the falsetto notes. These, like the two upper octaves of the flute and the harmonics of the violin, are produced by the column of air dividing itself into two vibrating halves, with a node between them; while the open chest notes of the human voice and the lower octave of the flute are produced by the undivided column of air vibrating as a whole. This illustration may help ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... so that being done I down stairs, and there find Captain Cocke under the barber's hands, the barber that did heretofore trim Commissioner Pett, and with whom I have been. He offered to come this day after dinner with his violin to play me a set of Lyra-ayres upon it, which I was glad of, hoping to be merry thereby. Being ready we to church, where a company of fine people to church, and a fine Church, and very good sermon, Mr. Plume' being a very excellent scholler and preacher. Coming out of the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... found old Peter playing on his violin at the doorstep. Kitty had often planned an effective bringing back of Hugh to him, but she forgot it all, and creeping up put her hands about his neck. "Father! look ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... Asylum. On my first going there, in the evening the physician invited me into the dancing-hall, where some sixty of the patients were assembled. The two musicians were patients, one utterly demented, incapable of any reasonable act except playing a tune on his violin, which he did with accuracy. Except the doctor's children (as beautiful as cherubs, and ministering angels they are), there were no sane persons among the dancers. "There," said the physician, "is a homicide; there, a poor girl who went crazy the day after her brother drowned himself, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... out-of-door supper. The white June moon came up, and its bright light made the day longer; and when everybody had eaten a last piece of sponge-cake, and the heap of strawberries on a great round India dish had been leveled, what should be heard but sounds of a violin. Betty had discovered that Seth Pond,—the clumsy, good-natured Seth of all people!—had, as he said, "ears for music," and had ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... live very economically, and extravagance in dress is rather the exception. On gala days the young wear many ribbons and colours, though arranged with little of the taste characteristic of the French people. Both old and young are very sociable in their habits, and love music and dancing. The violin is constantly played in the smallest village, and the young people dance old-fashioned cotillons or danses rondos. The priests, however, do not encourage reckless gaieties or extravagance in dress. Now and then the bishop issues a Pastoral ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... Holland House for her father. He was not waiting, as Ruth had supposed he would be, but then she was five minutes too soon. She sent up her card, and then let her eyes fall upon a wretched beggar man who was trying to play a violin, but was unable by reason of hunger and cold. He looked as if he was dying, and she was moved with a great pity, and longed for her father to come and give some help. While she was anxiously watching, a young ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... conveying, by words, an idea adequate to this chef d'oeuvre, which must have been seen to have been duly admired. In three months it was far advanced; during which time our artist employed his leisure hours in practising jigs and minuets on the violin, and writing the first chapter of Genesis on a watchpaper, which he adorned with a miniature of Adam and Eve, so exquisitely finished, that every ligament in their fig-leaves was visible. This little jeu d'esprit he presented ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... well known that the barrel-organ, like the violin, gets a fuller and more sympathetic tone the older it is. The old artist had an excellent instrument, not of the modern noisy type which imitates a whole orchestra with flutes and bells and beats of drums, but a melancholy old-fashioned ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... struck by the thumb, the bow only being used on the other four, and a bridge placed, not at right angles to the sides of the instrument, but in an oblique direction), though in some important respects inferior to the violin, is in other respects superior to it. Heard among the peaks of Snowdon, as I heard them during our search for Winifred, the notes of the crwth have a wonderful wildness and pathos. It is supposed to have the power of drawing the spirits when a maiden sings to its accompaniment ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the Philosopher, "as though it were a known quantity. After all, to say that a man loves is like saying that he paints or plays the violin; it conveys no meaning until we have witnessed his performance. Yet to hear the subject discussed, one might imagine the love of a Dante or a society Johnny, of a Cleopatra or a Georges Sand, to be ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... offered a strong contrast to the dazzling succession of magnificent fetes and military episodes which had given variety and excitement to her life at the Tuileries. When she grew tired of her parrots, her dogs, her horses, her comedians and her violin, she found solace in literature, beginning the "Memoirs," which were finished thirty years later, and writing romances, after the manner of Mlle. de Scudery. The drift of the first one, "Les Nouvelles Francaises et les Divertissements de la Princesse Aurelie," is suggested by its title. It was woven ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... musical as well as valiant days) up rose that noble old favorite of good Queen Bess, from cornet and sackbut, fife and drum; while Parson Jack, who had taken his stand with the musicians on the poop, worked away lustily at his violin, and like ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... holding the Child to her breast. He has two cherries in His left hand; to His right are three saints —S. Francis with a cross, S. George, and S. Louis of Toulouse; to the left, S. Anthony, Santa Chiara, and S. Louis of France. At the feet of the Virgin are two angels with lute and violin on each side of a pot of lilies; a pillared hall, with a view of Pirano in the distance, forms the background. The chapel has pilasters with very beautiful arabesques. The design of the architecture and of the picture agrees perfectly, and it is evident ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... been considered proficient enough to take an active part in the monthly entertainment, but Flossie's name was one of the first on the list. She played the violin remarkably well, better than almost anybody else at Chessington; and as she was seldom nervous, her pieces were generally very successful. The day following Evelyn Fletcher's fright happened to be "Mutual Improvement Friday". The girls only ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... doctor in Heidelberg University, and was ninety years old. He was so wasted by hunger that his body weighed less than forty pounds, and was in a disgusting condition. His bed and clothes were reeking with filth. Over the head of the bed hung a violin of great value. So miserly was the old professor that fifteen years ago he drove his wife and all his children from home, saying that it cost too much to feed and clothe them. From that day until yesterday, when the end ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... to perform on the violin, my boy," he answered. "I learned the art for the reason I mention. I have never yet been called upon to gain a livelihood by it; but I do not know how soon I may be, if things don't mend ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... look the farewell, and began slowly to go round the room, laying his hand upon each in turn—his favourite books and pictures, his piano, the violin, the cornet, and the big 'cello in its case where it stood in the corner—all such dear old friends, and it ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... paying him three dollars for it. This I traded for another watch and received five dollars as a difference. From this I continued to make trades until I was the owner of ten head of fine sheep, three pigs, a shot-gun, violin, watch, and a few dollars in money, besides having paid my board at the hotel ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... last of the race of managers who had practical training in the art in which he dealt commercially. He was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in the violin class, and had played in the orchestra at the opera. He had also studied singing, and in his youth tried his luck as an operatic tenor. In this he was like Maurice Strakosch, who played the pianoforte prodigiously as a child, studied ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... wish of Donal's heart no one knew but himself. His soul was full of music, and he longed to have a violin. ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... him, I go again and again. So with Dickens, Mark Twain, and Shakespeare. The story goes that a second Uncle Remus was sitting on a stump in the depths of a forest sawing away on an old discordant violin. A man, who chanced to come upon him, asked what he was doing. With no interruption of his musical activities, he answered: "Boss, I'se serenadin' m' soul." Book or violin, 'tis all the same. Uncle Remus and I are serenading our souls and the ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... experience, a chicken seemed almost to outlive its usefulness in its various forms of reappearance, and the salads he devised were as wonderful as the omelets he superintended, or the gay dances he played on his beloved violin, as soon as he could sit up enough to manage it. Moreover,—I should say mostover, if the word were admissible,—Monsieur Leclerc lifted a great weight before long from Miss Lucinda's mind. He began by subduing Fun to his proper place by a mild determination that completely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... 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 his instrument and begins playing on that of another of the band. ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... forehead was high; his lips were thin; his nose inclined toward the Roman pattern; his black moustache was carefully curled and twisted at the extremities. Moreover, he was musical; for he held in one hand the bow of a violin, having just laid down the instrument itself on the sofa after a plaintive duet ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... moved away, one by one, giving place to all sorts of business enterprises. Milliners and dressmakers took the first floors, and rented the upper rooms; one window said "Mme. Claire, Palmist," and another "Violin Lessons"; one basement was occupied by a dealer in plaster statuary, and another by a little restaurant. Most interesting of all to the stageloving Emeline was the second floor, obliquely opposite her own, which bore an immense sign, "Gottoli, Wigs ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... ahead of you" says the policeman. Ah, but where are you going if instead of brushing past the old man with the white beard, the silver medal, and the cheap violin, you let him go on with his story, which ends in an invitation to step somewhere, to his room, presumably, off Queen's Square, and there he shows you a collection of birds' eggs and a letter from the Prince of Wales's secretary, and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... had once compared her to a violin, and there was a good deal of truth in his idea. She was very sensitive, responding at once to the merest touch, and easily moved to admiration and devoted love, or to strong indignation. Naturally high-spirited, she was subject, too, to fits of depression, and was always either in the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... duet on the flute and trombone between Clarence Smith and Lancelot Diffenberger, with a violin obligate on the side by ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... Bruces' to-night," Hal ran on, "with Llaney to play the violin, and Lascelles to sing - quite an elaborate affair : so it is sure to be very boring ; but I suppose Alymer will be there, looking adorably beautiful, and all the women gazing at him. It will be entertaining to chaff ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... is not much that I can do, For I've no money that's quite my own!" Spoke up the pitying child - A little boy with a violin At the station before the train came in, - "But I can play my fiddle to you, And a nice one ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... salon type of compositions that the composer himself abhorred. Even the pretty Clair de Lune is shallow stuff, although it has attained some popularity as a melodious solo, both in its original version and in its arrangement for violin and pianoforte. ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... composing vocal and operatic music (to which he himself admitted, notwithstanding a few vocal works like the opera "Fidelio" and the song "Adelaide,"), Beethoven had complete mastery of the artform. He left his stamp in 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 10 violin sonatas, 32 piano sonatas, numerous string quartets and dozens of other key works. Many of his works are ingeniously imaginative and innovative, such as his 3rd symphony (the "Eroica"), his 9th Violin Sonata (the "Kreutzer"), his "Waldstein" piano sonata, his 4th and 5th piano ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... distance; but to expect on that account that it will do any more execution in the hands of one who is not familiar with it than a smooth-bored musket is as idle as it would be to hope that a person unacquainted with the violin could give us better music from a Cremona than he could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... the arguments which I used in those days. I did not realise that it was not the spirit that was changed in such cases, but the body through which the spirit worked, just as it would be no argument against the existence of a musician if you tampered with his violin so that only ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she heard the scraping of Nathan's violin, the noise of shuffling feet and unconstrained laughter. These festive sounds came from the back veranda. She entered the dining-room, and from its obscurity looked out on a curious scene. The veranda was lighted by a lamp suspended from one of its pillars. In a corner sat Nathan; ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... faintly at first, almost like a wind soughing through distant tree tops and coming ever nearer, nearer, and more distinct—there came to him from beyond the closed door the gently subdued music of a violin. ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... by an Exception, the Music of Valencia, where alone I experienced the use of the Violin; which tho' I cannot, in respect to other Countries, call good; yet in respect to the other parts of Spain, I must acknowledge it much the best. In my Account of that City, I omitted to speak of it; therefore now to supply that Defect, I will speak of the best I heard, which ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... that night," the young man went on. "Did you know that she could sing, too. She sang several verses by an astonishing little Jew violin-cellist that is come ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... across a wooden table, thrumming a zither, which set the groups in motion. The zither is a melancholy little instrument; in range of expression it is to the harp what the winchat is to the thrush; or to the violin, what that bird is to the nightingale; yet few instruments are so exciting: here and there along these mountain valleys you may hear a Tyrolese maid set her voice to its plaintive thin tones; but when the strings are swept ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... vote. Now Flora, who seemed to impose it as a rule upon herself never to countenance any proposal which might seem to encourage Waverley, had voted for music, providing the Baron would take his violin to accompany Fergus. 'I wish you joy of your taste, Miss Mac-Ivor,' thought Edward, as they sought for his book. 'I thought it better when we were at Glennaquoich; but certainly the Baron is no great performer, and Shakespeare is worth ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... came in sight of the little grove of cypresses and yews, we could discern a crowd of women, in their snow-white caps, and of men and boys, in blue blouses. The hollow beat of a drum reached our ears afar off, and after it the shrill notes of a violin and fife playing a merry tune. Monsieur Laurentie appeared in the foreground of the multitude, bareheaded, long ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... Bead Chain—A violin string makes an excellent chain for stringing beads. It will stand a great amount of wear and tear and will practically ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... String" has a strong and clearly defined plot which shows in its treatment the author's artistically sensitive temperament and his tremendous dramatic power. It is a story of a marvelous violin, of a wonderful love and of a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... time, where he dallied with architecture and painting in turn, took up the violin, and wrote some ghastly Italian sonnets, supposedly the ruminations of a thirteenth-century monk on the joys of the contemplative life. It became established among his Harvard intimates that he was in Rome, and those of them who were abroad that ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... restaurant, upon a stand, Roumanians in red frocks were playing; all swarthy, white-toothed, with the faces of whiskered, pomaded apes, with their hair licked down. The director of the orchestra, bending forward and affectedly swaying, was playing upon a violin and making unseemly sweet eyes at the public—the eyes of a man-prostitute. And everything together—this abundance of tiresome electric lights, the exaggeratedly bright toilettes of the ladies, the odours of modish, spicy perfumes, this ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that, far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people propose a dance, I seldom answer in the ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... oft beneath his roof I've been On eves of wintry blight, And heard his magic violin ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... Wilhelm Jordan, in "Sigfridsage." Henrietta Sontag and the coming Paganini. Wagner's Volker-Wilhelmj at Bayreuth. Magic fiddles and wonderworking fiddlers. Grimm's Fairy Tales. Norse folk-lore. English nursery rhymes. Crickets as fiddlers. Progenitors of violin. The violin of Queen Elizabeth and her age. Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. Household of Charles II. Butler, in Hudibras. Viola d'amore in Milwaukee, Wis. Brescian and Cremonese violin-makers. Early violinists. Value and history ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... very prosperous circumstances. She kept an Italian Warehouse by the Sign of The two Olive Posts, in the broad part of the Strand, almost opposite to Exeter Change, and sold all sorts of Italian Silks, Lustrings, Satins, Paduasoys, Velvets, Damasks, Fans, Leghorn Hats, Flowers, Violin Strings, Books of Essences, Venice Treacle, Balsams, Florence Cordials, Oil, Olives, Anchovies, Capers, Vermicelli, Bologna Sausages, Parmesan Cheese, Naples Soap, and similar delicate cates from ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... plush, all of which gave it a snug, shut-in look. A large table with a constant litter of maps, charts, sextants, log-books, pipes, and tobacco jars, occupied the center, and comfortable chairs were placed around in careless order. There were a few books in some wall-shelves, a violin case in one corner—which instrument the captain loved to practise on, though he was no proficient—and one or two pretty India cabinets of lacquered work, containing odd specimens, and fine ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... ones that are sick, those whose souls sing neither compassion for others nor their own anger. All those numerous people are sick who, like a violin without strings, merely echo every sound. Or would you say that the man whose memory is like a photographic plate on which the light has fallen and which cannot record any more impressions, is the healthy man? Is not memory the ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... a.m., and again at 5.30 p.m. The choir has considerably improved; one of our new men plays the violin very well, and frequently accompanies the children and the nurse in their songs. On a clear calm night, beneath a tropical sky, when the members of this little group assemble on deck, and, by the light of a lantern, sing some of ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... a harp we love to hear; Latin is a trumpet clear; Spanish like an organ swells; Italian rings its bridal bells; France, with many a frolic mien, Tunes her sprightly violin; Loud the German rolls his drum When Russia's clashing cymbals come; But British sons may well rejoice, For English ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... to see how little musical talent is exhibited by these little ones, whose natures are drawn from the land of music. We have repeatedly seen them sawing away patiently at a violin, or jerking the strings of a harp, but could detect no semblance of melody in the noise they made. Not a few of the little ones endeavor to make up in dancing what they lack in musical skill. Their parents or ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... taking this exercise there should be no consciousness of effort in the throat, and no shade of sharpness should be heard in the tone. One must try for the pure, pervasive resonance which seems to float on the air like the soft note of a violin. The right condition for the expression of this radiant vitality in the voice is a complete alertness and responsive vivacity of the whole person. This animation should be vital and ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... unconsciously lured her into the church the evening before by the power of his playing. No; she was conscious of nothing but her singing and the sweet, long notes she was drawing with her bow from the strings of her beloved violin. ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... but not with your voice—at least not so that I could hear. And—well, it is not easy to look calm and only friendly when every nerve in one's body is vibrating like a violin string under the bow. Yes, let us talk of something else. I've never been acutely conscious of the presence of others when I've been with you. To-night I'm in great ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... of Bengal; also a pistol which he vouched for as being the one with which Hatfield fired at George the Third; the hammer with which Crawley (of Hessian-boot memory) murdered his landlady; the string which was on Viotti's violin when he played before Queen Charlotte; the horn which was supposed to be in the lantern of Guy Fawkes; a small piece of the coat worn by the Prince of Orange on his landing in England; and other such relics. But far above these, the Major prized the skeleton ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... chin (Not a toot!), While the leading violin And the flute Wail and plead in low duet Till, it may be, eyes are wet. She her trombone doth forget— She ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... already insisting on Gerald's coming to a party of hers and bringing his violin, and only interrupted her persuasions to ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair—just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... making life more complex and subtle. We have the piano, the violin, the orchestra. Yet we also have rag-time, which is a reaction from the nervous tension of American commercial life, a swinging back to the old days when man, though a brute, was free. There is release and exhilaration in the barbaric, syncopated songs and in the animal-like motions ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... again, squaring around on the Angel, "I've spent twenty thousand dollars on that apartment of mine, trying to make it sound-proof so that I could make ten thousand by writing! I rented the apartment below me—had to, in order to get a fellow out whose son was learning the violin. I've bribed, threatened, enjoined, and at the last a subway explosion of dynamite broke all the double windows and mirrors, knocked down my Italian chandeliers, and—people tell me I have no redress! Now they have started ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... marvelous what continuous application will effect in the commonest of things. It may seem a simple affair to play upon a violin; yet what a long and laborious practice it requires! Giardini said to a youth who asked him how long it would take to learn it, "Twelve hours a day for ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... to make a man. It is said that the violin-makers in distant lands, by breaking and mending with skilful hands, at last produce instruments having a more wonderful capacity than ever was possible to them when new, unbroken and whole. Whether this be true or not of violins, it certainly is true of human lives. ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... speaking of the Spanish Gitanos, we shall have subsequently more to say: thus they live in filth, in rags, in nakedness, and in merriness of heart, for nowhere is there more of song and dance than in an Hungarian Gypsy village. They are very fond of music, and some of them are heard to touch the violin in a manner wild, but of peculiar excellence. Parties of them have been known to exhibit ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... The gong Flutes The pandag flute The to-li flute The lntui The s-bai flute Guitars The vine-string guitar The bamboo-string guitar The takmbo The violin The jew's-harp The stamper and the horn of bamboo Sounders Vocal music The language of song The subject matter of songs The music and the method of singing Ceremonial songs Dancing The ordinary social dance The religious dance Mimetic dances The bathing dance The dagger or sword dance ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... the guitar, the violin, the flute, the cymbals, the trumpet, and the conch-shell. There is the luptima also, another very curious instrument, formed of a dozen long perforated reeds joined with bands and cemented at the joints with ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... street musician. You may have seen him often about the city. He plays the violin and carries some trained ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... illustrations of old Sunday newspapers and county-fair posters. To its side was fastened an improvised lever, made from a broken cart-wheel. Under this barrel, concealed so that no one could see within, were placed three most prominent musicians of the village, Ivan with his violin, Semen with his concertina and Nicholas with his drum. As soon as the conductor outside pulled a string, the lever began to turn around and the musicians in the barrel had to start to play. In the corner of the house this strange instrument looked like a mysterious engine, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... the young man should come and each one of the four would show off her particular talent. One would play and one would sing (rather like the song in the children's book, "one could dance and one could sing, and one could play the violin"), and the third, the polyglot of the family, could speak several languages. We were rather puzzled as to what my eldest sister could do, as she was not very sociable and never spoke to strangers if she could help it, so we decided she must be very well dressed and preside at the tea-table behind ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... general name of beauty are various and complicated. Our joy may be in the sheer delight of the senses, as in the hearing of a singularly lucid and sustained note of a clarinet, a flute, a voice, or a violin. It may be in the appreciation of form, as in the case of the symmetry of a temple, an arch, or an altar. It may be in the simultaneous stirring of the senses, the imagination, and the intellect, by the presentation of an idea suffused with ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... crowd, mostly composed of children, gathered round somebody. On going to see who it was, he discovered a battered-looking old man with an intellectual face, and the remnants of a gentlemanlike appearance, playing on the violin. A very few touches of his bow told Arthur, who knew something of music, that he was in the presence of a performer of no mean merit. Seeing the quality of his two auditors, and that they appreciated his performance, the player changed his music, and from ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... against the conquering Turks, which, however little they may have conduced to bar the progress of the invaders, sound remarkably well in verse. Sometimes, as in the present case, the voice is accompanied by the guesla, a kind of violin with one ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... gathered around a huge bonfire, amusing themselves with a variety of games; and, at a little distance, a few females, their wives and daughters, were collected on a plat of grass, and dancing with the young men, to the sound of a violin. The shrill fife, the deep-toned drum, and noisy bag-pipe, occasionally swelled the concert; though the monotonous strains of the latter instrument, by which a few sturdy Scots performed their national dance, were not always in perfect unison with the gay strains of ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... last century many a foolish fellow was 'put up' at ten paces, because he refused to lay down an ophicleide; even as late as George IV.'s time death has followed from an inordinate addiction to the violin; and it was but the other day that the introduction of a piano into a house in Carey Street led to the destruction of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... close upon daybreak. The great wall of pines and hemlocks that keep off the west wind from Stillwater stretches black and indeterminate against the sky. At intervals a dull, metallic sound, like the guttural twang of a violin string, rises form the frog-invested swamp skirting the highway. Suddenly the birds stir in their nests over there in the woodland, and break into that wild jargoning chorus with which they herald the advent of a new day. In the apple-orchards and among the plum-trees of ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Decision is always soothing after doubt, and he fell into a pleasant dreamy state. A gentle wind was blowing, the forest was dry and the leaves rustled with the low note that is like the softest chord of a violin. It became penetrating, thrillingly sweet, and hark! it spoke to him in a voice that he knew. It was the same voice that he had heard on the Ohio, mystic, but telling him to be of heart and courage. ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Patrick Henry came along. Patrick played the violin, and so did Thomas. These two young men had first met on a musical basis. Some otherwise sensible people hold that musicians are shallow and impractical; and I know one man who declares that truth and honesty and uprightness ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... looking questioningly at her violin box and two trunks standing on their ends farther down the platform, and she smiled vaguely without glancing ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... indulge in the luxury of a bath, which seemed to be the only recreation that he permitted himself to take; and in the evening, during which he invariably remained in the house, he would spend the few hours before retiring in playing upon the violin, an instrument of which he was very fond, and upon which he ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... impudence to make sonnets, as he calls them; and, which is greater impudence, he sings them too; there's not a street in all Rome which he does not nightly disquiet with his villanous serenade: with that guitar there, the younger brother of a cittern, he frights away the watch; and for his violin, it squeaks so lewdly, that Sir Tibert[1] in the gutter mistakes him for his mistress. 'Tis ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... watch you, I then think I ought to be able to do it too." So the tailor once more gave him a pebble, and the bear tried and tried to bite into it with all the strength of his body. But no one will imagine that he accomplished it. When that was over, the tailor took out a violin from beneath his coat, and played a piece of it to himself. When the bear heard the music, he could not help beginning to dance, and when he had danced a while, the thing pleased him so well that he said to the little tailor, "Hark ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... Eugene insists upon giving her a few lessons, and she feels really interested, but she does not want to detach him from Miss Murray. The supper is out of doors and is undeniably gay. Violet obligingly plays most of the evening, accompanied by a violin. She has discussed the German with Lucia, and that evening lays it ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... odd man who goes by the name of Count Saint-Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... before a hive. Maurice Guest, who had come out among the first, lingered to watch a scene that was new to him, of which he was as yet an onlooker only. Here and there came a member of the orchestra; with violin-case or black-swathed wind-instrument in hand, he deftly threaded his way through the throng, bestowing, as he went, a hasty nod of greeting upon a colleague, a sweep of the hat on an obsequious pupil. The crowd began to disperse and to overflow in the surrounding ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Niagara and very pretty. There seems no end to this river, it has so many turns and arms and rapids. We had tea (by this time I was nearly dead), and three dear small boys appeared; one only two and half had a violin, and he imitated a person playing on it, and made the sounds with his voice in the most amusing clever way, and laughed so merrily when we shouted applause. Mr. Macklem drove us home, and after dinner we played whist ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... "Allison went abroad, then, to study the violin, and the house has been open only once since. Richard came back for a Summer, to attend to some business, then returned to Europe. How ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... than enjoying "The Ride of the Valkyries." However as I played some simpler things, a song of MacDowells, a study by Grieg, my Uncle's head bowed, and on his face came that somber brooding look which recalled to me the moods of David, his younger brother, whose violin had meant so much to me when as a boy, I lay before the fire and listened with sweet Celtic melancholy to the ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... recreated themselves with singing musically, in four or five parts, or upon a set theme, as it best pleased them. In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play the lute, the spinet, the harp, the German flute, the flute with nine holes, the violin, and the sackbut. This hour thus spent, he betook himself to his principal study for three hours together, or more, as well to repeat his matutinal lectures as to proceed in the book wherein he was; as also to write handsomely, to draw and form the antique and Roman letters. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... this magnificent, star-lighted, sun-warmed, shower-baptized, flower-strewn, angel-watched, God-inhabited planet? From such homes young men make a wild plunge into dissipation. Many of you have the means: why do you not buy them a violin or a picture? or have your daughter cultured in music until she can help to ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... of music, but it was too much trouble to learn the piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been too great an exertion. So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and played on the Jew's-harp; and if the ants bit them, why they just got up and went to the next anthill, till they were bitten ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... to it. I'm going to bring Mom Wallis a new bonnet like one I made for mother; and I'm going to teach her how to make corn gems and steamed apple dumplings. I'm bringing some songs and some music for the violin; and I've got something for you to help me do, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... and one could sing, The other play on the violin; Such joy there was at my wedding, On New-year's Day in ...
— The Baby's Opera • Walter Crane |
