"Aeolian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she would write standing, and be wholly abstracted from the company present and their conversation. But if composing a piece of some length, she wished to be entirely alone; she shut herself into her room, darkened the windows, and in summer placed her Aeolian harp in the window:" (thus by artificial excitement, feeding the fire that consumed her.) "In those pieces on which she bestowed more than ordinary pains, she was very secret; and if they were, by any accident, discovered in their unfinished state, she seldom completed them, and often destroyed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... where Laura used to sit and watch us, sometimes, when we put off in the boat. Her aeolian harp was in the casement, breaking its heart in music. A delicate handkerchief was lodged between the cushions of the window-seat,—the very handkerchief she used to wave, in summer days long gone. The white boats went sailing beneath the evening light, children shouted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... undertook to make an immense Aeolian harp by stretching wires from tower to tower of his castle. When he finished the harp it was silent; but when the breezes began to blow he heard faint strains like the murmuring of distant music. At last a tempest arose and swept with fury over his castle, and then rich and grand ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... remained motionless as the marble statue of Psyche that adorned the recess in which she stood. Then the lips moved and the words "Put your trust in God," came forth soft and bewitching as the strain of an aeolian harp, and leaving, as it were, a holy hushed spell, subduing the soul of her who ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... and defended by fortified posts, as an adjunct to the support of the islands. Such a subsidiary coastal hem was called a Paraea. The ancient Greek colonies on the islands of Thasos and Samothrace each possessed such a Paraea.[961] The Aeolian inhabitants of Tenedos held a strip of the opposite Troad coast north of Cape Lekton, while those of Lesbos appropriated the south coast of the Troad.[962] In the same way Tarentum and Syracuse, begun on inshore islands, soon overflowed on to the mainland. Sometimes ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... multitudinous like that of the sea, but one and incessant and invariable, a long scream that almost hissed. On reaching the wreck, however, this shriek became hoarse with rage, and howled as it shook the rigging. It used the shrouds and stays of the still upright mainmast as an aeolian harp from which to draw horrible music. It made the tense ropes tremble and thrill, and tortured the spars until they wailed a death-song. Its force as felt by the shipwrecked ones was astonishing; it beat them about as if it were a sea, and bruised them against the shrouds and bulwarks; it asserted ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... very quickly. They are not in the least slow to comprehend with the heart; in fact, it often seems as though that organ were constructed with as much delicacy as is the Aeolian harp, which quivers and utters sounds when the air just stirs about it. The most of you are very emotional; and that quality of emotion, when it is pure, is your blessing, and a part of the womanhood in you: it is the necessary expression ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... and ceanothus, I gained the summit of the highest ridge in the neighborhood; and then it occurred to me that it would be a fine thing to climb one of the trees to obtain a wider outlook and get my ear close to the Aeolian music of its topmost needles. But under the circumstances the choice of a tree was a serious matter. One whose instep was not very strong seemed in danger of being blown down, or of being struck by others in case they should fall; another was branchless to a considerable height above ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... of Falesa" is a revelation of unfamiliar life and character, and one is attached to the little brown heroine. There was to have been "a supernatural element," better, probably, than the device of the AEolian harps hung in the thicket. "I have got the smell and the look of the thing a good deal," he said, and he had got the style of his rough English narrator, who was, as he told the missionary, "what you call a sinner, what I call a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whose heart and mind were both of the finest. Her life is involved in obscurity, but it is probable that she was a strong advocate of woman's rights in her own land; and as she found men falling in love with other men, so she took special pains to win the affections of the young AEolian ladies, to train them in all the accomplishments suited to woman's nature, and to initiate them into the art of poetry,—that art without which, she says, a woman's memory would be for ever forgotten, and she would go to the house of Hades, to dwell with the shadowy dead, uncared for and unknown. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Lemnian god's command, they urge Their labors thus, and ply th' Aeolian forge, The cheerful morn salutes Evander's eyes, And songs of chirping birds invite to rise. He leaves his lowly bed: his buskins meet Above his ankles; sandals sheathe his feet: He sets his trusty sword upon his side, And o'er his ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... a peculiar Aeolian harp-like cry that ran through the whole train as we settled to rest at last after a long run—an almost sigh of infinite relief, a musical sigh that began in C and ran gradually up to F natural, which I think most observant travelers have noticed day and night. No railway official has ever given ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... the subject of many learned disputes. She was born near the close of the seventh century B.C., either at Mytilene or at Eresos in the island of Lesbos. She grew to maturity at the former place, and became one of the two great leaders of the AEolian school of lyric poetry. From the fragments of her poetry, and those of her great rival, Alcaeus, it is evident that the two were not envious of each other's fame, but lived in the most friendly intercourse. Of ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there; and painted Stoa next. There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit By voice or hand, and various-measured verse, Aeolian charms and Dorian lyric odes, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, {206} Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called, Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own. Thence what the lofty grave Tragedians taught In chorus or iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... what a burst was that! The AEolian strain Goes floating through the tangled passages Of the still woods, and now it comes again, A multitudinous melody,—like a rain Of glassy music under echoing trees, Close by a ringing lake. It wraps the soul With a bright harmony of happiness, Even as a gem is wrapped when ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... Stranded and supperless. He plaits meanwhile With ears of corn a right fine cricket-trap, And fits it on a rush: for vines, for scrip, Little he cares, enamoured of his toy. The cup is hung all round with lissom briar, Triumph of AEolian art, a wondrous sight. It was a ferryman's of Calydon: A goat it cost me, and a great white cheese. Ne'er yet my lips came near it, virgin still It stands. And welcome to such boon art thou, If for my sake thou'lt sing that lay of lays. I jest ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... blessing here below! I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... after the conquest, that 300,000 were thus employed. As they never feed after sunset, it is necessary, when journeying, to allow them to graze for several hours during the day. They utter a peculiar low sound, which at a distance resembles, when the herd is large, the tone of numerous Aeolian harps. On seeing any strange object which excites their fears, they immediately scatter in every direction, and are with difficulty reunited. The Indians treat them kindly, ornamenting their ears with ribbons, and hanging little ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... touch the harp again; No chords will vibrate on the string; Like broken flowers upon the plain, My heart e'en withers while I sing. Aeolian harps have witching tones, On morning or the evening gale; No melody their music owns As sings the ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... to-day! A fellow who's not used to getting drunk always mopes around after a good time like we had.... I'm seeing you through the day after ... you're going to lunch with me at the frat-house and this afternoon there's a sacred concert on in Aeolian Hall that I have ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Awake, Aeolian lyre! awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings; From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take; The laughing flowers, that round them blow, Drink life and fragrance as they flow. Now the rich stream of ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising that ye were to be seen in the morning. Coleridge had got a blazing fire in his study; which is a large, antique, ill-shaped room, with an old-fashioned organ, never played upon, big enough for a church, shelves of scattered folios, an Aeolian harp, and an old sofa, half bed, &c. And all looking out upon the last fading view of Skiddaw, and his broad-breasted brethren: what a night! Here we stayed three full weeks, in which time I visited Wordsworth's cottage, where we stayed a day or two with the Clarksons ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... a sensation pervaded my whole frame, which, although I can never forget, I must most imperfectly describe. I was in a trance—the blood overcharged my brain—a murmuring sound, as of an Aeolian, filled my ears-drops, like rain, oozed from my face—my hat, first elevated to the very tips of the hairs, worked backwards and fell to the ground—in brief, I was regularly, and for the first and last time in my life, ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... Aeolian lyre, awake, And give to rapture all thy trembling strings! From Helicon's harmonious springs A thousand rills their mazy progress take; The laughing flowers that round them blow Drink life and fragrance as they flow. Now the rich stream of music winds along Deep, majestic, smooth, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... into different blues. The radiant heat of Branchspell he found to affect every part of his body with unequal intensities. His ears awakened; the atmosphere was full of murmurs, the sands hummed, even the sun's rays had a sound of their own—a kind of faint Aeolian harp. Subtle, puzzling perfumes assailed his nostrils. His palate lingered over the memory of the gnawl water. All the pores of his skin were tickled and soothed by hitherto unperceived currents of air. His poigns explored actively the inward nature of everything in his immediate ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... believe that they sometimes see specters, and hear alarming sounds. The posterity of Damon, of whom some still remain, mostly in Phocis, near the town of Stiris, are called Asbolomeni, that is, in the Aeolian idiom, men daubed with soot; because Damon was thus besmeared when he ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... exquisite pleasure' and set me composing songs—not to his music, which could be rendered only by sylphs moving to "soft recorders" in the humour of wildness, languor, bewitching caprices, giving a new sense to melody. How I wish you had been with me to hear him! It was the most AEolian thing ever caught from a night-breeze by the soul ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... arctic[363] Sun rose broad above the wave; The breeze now sank, now whispered from his cave; 170 As on the AEolian harp, his fitful wings Now swelled, now fluttered o'er his Ocean strings.[fc] With slow, despairing oar, the abandoned skiff Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce seen cliff, Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main: ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... no Attic shell, No lyre Aeolian I awake; 'Tis liberty's bold note I swell, Thy harp, Columbia, let me take! See gathering thousands, while I sing, A broken chain exulting bring, And dash it in a tyrant's face, And dare him to his very beard, And tell him he no more ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... thought his sketch detestable. There was too much cleverness in her apology: she was laughing both at her uncle and himself. But what a voice! It was like the voice of a soul that had once lived in an AEolian harp. This must be one of Nature's inconsistencies. There could be no sort of passion in a girl who would marry Casaubon. But he turned from her, and bowed his thanks for ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... assail the insurgent mentalities of the youth and morning vigour of the inexpressible human soul, when, flushed with AEolian light, and, as it were, beaded with those lustrous dews which the eternal Aurora lets fall from her melodious lip; if it escape living from the beak of the vulture (no fable here!), then, indeed, it may aspire to ——, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... had hardly left Lord Ipsden's lips, when the sound of a woman's voice came like an AEolian note across the water. ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... not so very long ago. The sloping pathways by which spectators had ascended to their seats were pathways yet. But the whole was grown over with grass, which now, at the end of summer, was bearded with withered bents that formed waves under the brush of the wind, returning to the attentive ear aeolian modulations, and detaining for moments the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... love, when springing up in solitudes like these, where nothing occurs to divert the gathering current, but every thing conspires to increase it,—where to our young devotees all around them seemed to reflect their own feelings,—where the aeolian music of the whispering pines that embowered their solitary walks seemed but to give voice to the melody that filled their own hearts,—where to them the birds all sang of love,—where love smiled upon them in the pensive beams of the moon, glistened in the stars, and was stamped ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... suggestive of tragic recitative, which leads into a broad yet strongly marked and searching rhythm, upon which is built a slow, stately yet mournful melody, broken in upon here and there by strange weird runs and rapid passages. These latter serve a double purpose. They imitate the curious aeolian harp effects of the most characteristic instrument of the Gypsy orchestra, the cembalon, a large, shallow box with strings about as numerous as those of the pianoforte, and played with two little mallets, with which the player produces the weird arpeggios or rapid, ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... my ear caught this vast AEolian intonation, when my eye filled with the golden fullness of life, the pomps and glory of the heavens outside, and, turning, when it settled upon the frost which overspread my sister's face, instantly a trance fell upon me. A vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far blue sky a shaft which ran ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... and more distinctly did I catch a plaintive tone of sorrow in her thought and speech, like the wail of an AEolian harp heard at intervals from some upper window. She had never met one who could love her as she could love; and in the orange-grove of her affections the white, perfumed blossoms and golden fruit wasted away ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... period of lecturing and projecting, had as we have seen married Sarah Fricker, with whom he was now very much in love, and had begun housekeeping in a cottage at Clevedon near the Bristol Channel. The beauty of the place and his happiness there are celebrated in "The Aeolian Harp" and "Reflections on Leaving a Place of Retirement" (better known by its opening words, "Low was our pretty cot"). His next residence was in Bristol—rather a base of operations than a home, for Coleridge was on the road much ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... love, unending love, hovered over the glorious notes—nay, possessed them like a spirit, and made them his. Up! up! rang her wild sweet voice, thrilling his nerves till they answered to the music as an Aeolian harp answers to the winds. On went the song with a divine sweep, like the sweep of rushing pinions; higher, yet higher it soared, lifting up the listener's heart far above the world on the trembling wings ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... heighten the effect of the magnetic charm. "Richly stained glass shed a dim religious light on his spacious saloons, which were almost covered with mirrors. Orange blossoms scented all the air of his corridors; incense of the most expensive kinds burned in antique vases on his chimney-pieces; aeolian harps sighed melodious music from distant chambers; while sometimes a sweet female voice, from above or below, stole softly upon the mysterious silence that was kept in the house and insisted upon ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... might lead me, abjured all thoughts of calamity in my unfriended, yet resolute career. Is it to consider the matter too curiously, to conceive that the laws of nature affect the mind? or that the spirit of man resembles an instrument, after all—an Aeolian harp, which owes all its pulses to the gusts that pass across its strings, and in which it simply depends upon the stronger or the feebler breeze, whether it shall smile with joyous and triumphant chords, or sink into throbs and sounds ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various |
