"Harpsichord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... strolling vagabonds—so the duke called them—entered his chateau. And he kept his word, did the duke. The Chevalier Gluck, a fine, shapely man, was invited down by the duchess and amused her and her guests by playing his wonderful tunes on the beautiful harpsichord in the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... that they learned by instruction and direction; so that, in short, I learned to dance and speak French as well as any of them, and to sing much better, for I had a better voice than any of them. I could not so readily come at playing on the harpsichord or spinet, because I had no instrument of my own to practice on, and could only come at theirs in the intervals when they left it, which was uncertain; but yet I learned tolerably well too, and the young ladies at length got two instruments, that ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... the hautboy, the violin and the harpsichord. The organ came easy. When he played the organ in the Chapel at Bath, fair ladies forgot the Pump-Room, and the gallants followed them—naturally. Herschel became the rage. He was a handsome fellow, with a pride so supreme that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... possessing the quality of exciting the spirits, this, like every other stimulus, either by constant use loses its effect, or unnerves the system it is meant to strengthen. The nerves through which the animal spirits circulate being, like the strings of a violin or harpsichord, too frequently braced, lose, at last, their natural tensity, and thus render the human frame one system ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... to a harpsichord which stood in the room, and, while the servant and master gazed on each other, as if doubting whether her senses were about to leave her entirely, she wandered over the keys, producing a wilderness of harmony, composed of passages recalled by memory, or combined by her own ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... those languages ornamented her shelves. He had endeavoured also to be her preceptor in music; but as he began with the more abstruse doctrines of the science, and was not perhaps master of them himself, she had made no proficiency further than to be able to accompany her voice with the harpsichord; but even this was not very common in Scotland at that period. To make amends, she sang with great taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of what she uttered that might be proposed in example to ladies of much superior musical talent. Her natural ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... pronounced souple) Jack, a flexible cane; Jack by the hedge, a plant (Erysimum cordifolium); the jacks of a harpsichord; jack, an engine to raise ponderous bodies (Bailey); Jack, the male of birds of sport (Ditto); Jack of Dover, a joint twice dressed (Ditto, from Chaucer); jack pan, used by barbers (Ditto); jack, a frame used by sawyers. I have also noted ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... child slipped away, and suddenly we heard all over the house the sweet sounds of "Muriel's voice," as some one had called the old harpsichord. When almost a baby she would feel her way to it, and find out first harmonies, then tunes, with that quickness and delicacy of ear peculiar to ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... imagination paints on my heart the situation of my beloved home when this letter reaches you. I think I see you and my good aunt, seated on the blue sofa in your dressing-room, with your needle work on the little table before you; I see Mary in her usual nook—the recess by the old harpsichord—and my dear father bringing in this happy letter from your son! I must confess this romantic kind of fancy-sketching makes me feel rather oddly: very unlike what I felt a few months ago, when I was a mere coxcomb—indifferent, unreflecting, unappreciating, and fit for nothing ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... societies and churches. Nearly everybody sang by note, and she was dull of ear or wits who could not bear her part at sight in any simple church tune. The pianoforte took the place of our grandmother's spinet and harpsichord, and every girl in every family was taught to play upon it after a fashion. She who had not taste or talent for music gave it up after her marriage. In this particular she was no more derelict than the "performer" of our times, whose florid flourish ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... himself to be seduced by the childlike diversion of touching the keys of that great harpsichord. Unquestionably, more skillful hands might have evoked a thrilling and profound melody—not of those which simply caress the ear—but of those intimate harmonies which stir the whole man to the depths of his being, as if each key of the key-board were ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... constrained, and her father always contrived an excuse for dismissing her. This was the more noticeable as she continued to appear at the meetings of the Honey-Bees, where she joined freely in the conversation, and sometimes diverted the guests by playing on the harpsichord or by recitations from the poets; all with such art and grace, and withal so much simplicity, that it was clear she was accustomed to the part. Odo was thus driven to the not unflattering conclusion that she had been instructed to avoid his ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... of the rumbling and crashing of the thunder they had heard the sweet tones of harps. Many of the burghers said that they too had heard it, and the ducal Maker of Musical Instruments declared that the notes sounded as if they had come from a fine harpsichord—though not from one of the best—which some one had played ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fugues of good masters, above all, those by J. Seb. Bach. Let his "Well-tempered Harpsichord" be your daily bread. By these means you will ...
— Advice to Young Musicians. Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln • Robert Schumann
... with any of these trifling performances; but there are many faded drawings of the present generations, which cannot stand in competition with the glowing and faithful colours of the silk and worsted of former times; and many of the hours spent at a stammering harpsichord, might, surely, with full as much domestic advantage, have been devoted to the embellishment of chairs and carpets. We hope that no one will so perversely misunderstand us, as to infer from these remarks, that ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... for more than fifty years over a pure Court in England. The German princess of sixteen, with her spare little person and large mouth which prevented her from being comely, and her solitary accomplishment of playing on the harpsichord with as much correctness and taste as if she had been taught by Mr. Handel himself, had identified herself with the nation, so that no suspicion of foreign proclivities ever attached to her. Queen Charlotte bore her trials gravely; while those who came nearest to her could tell that ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Rousseau with his wife, he again made a little sojourn with his sister in lovely Chambery, making various excursions in all the picturesque region about, and again visiting "Les Charmettes," which Miss Browning had not before seen; as before, Browning sat down to the old harpsichord, attempting to play "Rousseau's Dream," but only two notes of the antique instrument responded to his touch. Through all the wonderful scenery of the Mont Cenis pass they proceeded to Turin and thence to Venice, where they arrived in the midst of the festivities of the ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... rum-soaked and emaciated brain, and ennui, like a mighty canker, ate away large corners of his moth-eaten soul, she would sit in the gloaming and sing to him, "Hard Times, Hard Times, Come Again No More," meantime accompanying herself on the harpsichord or the sackbut or whatever they played in those days. Then she instituted theatricals, giving, through the aid of the nobility, a very good version of "Peck's Bad Boy" and "Lend Me ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... the winter vacation when Payson, Sr., fagged from his long day at the office sought the "Frolics" or the "Folies," Payson, Jr., might be seen at a concert for the harpsichord and viola, or at an evening of Palestrina or the Earlier Gregorian Chants. Had he been less supercilious about it this story would never have been written—and doubtless no great loss at that. But it is the prerogative of youth ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... utmost exertions as an instructor, it was with difficulty he supported a wife and family. Anna Maria,[3] born August 29, 1751, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born January 27, 1756, were the only two of seven children who survived. The sister made such progress on the harpsichord, that in the first journeys which the father took in order to display the talents of his children, she divided the public attention with her brother. Wolfgang, however, not only profited as a player, from the careful instruction which both the children received from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... lighted by a single candle. Opposite the door the wall was covered with books from floor to ceiling. In a corner an open bureau was strewed with papers. The violin was laid carelessly on an old harpsichord. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... back, spreading out the fingers of each hand as if the table's edge was a harpsichord, and he stretching octaves ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... last. — She is a poor good-natured simpleton, as soft as butter, and as easily melted — not that she's a fool — the girl's parts are not despicable, and her education has not been neglected; that is to say, she can write and spell, and speak French, and play upon the harpsichord; then she dances finely, has a good figure, and is very well inclined; but, she's deficient in spirit, and so susceptible — and so tender forsooth! — truly, she has got a languishing eye, and reads romances. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... (1688-1757), most of whose life was spent in trying to perfect his Clavecin oculaire, an instrument on the order of the harpsichord, intended to produce melodies and harmonies of color. He also wrote L'Optique des couleurs (1740) and Sur le fond de la ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... when peace had long been made, and pardon sealed with a grant to Handel of 200 pounds a year. The ice was, perhaps, broken by Geminiani, the great violinist, who, when he was to play his concertos at court, requested to be accompanied on the harpsichord by Handel, as he considered no one else capable of doing it. The petition was powerfully seconded by Kielmansegge, and acceded ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... Whatever effect Venice, with its weird and mysterious beauty, with its marble palaces, facades, pillars, and domes, its magnificent shrines and frescoes, produced on Handel, he took Venice by storm. Handel's power as an organist and a harpsichord player was only second to his strength as a composer, even when, in the full zenith of his maturity, he composed the "Messiah" ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... had been blind, deaf, and crazy, having lost his reason not very long after the jubilee, which celebrated the fiftieth year of his reign (1809). Once, in a lucid interval, he was found by the Queen singing a hymn and playing an accompaniment on the harpsichord. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... miniatures on little velvet stands set on the mantelpiece—these were beautiful, and of value; some engravings of famous pictures adorned the walls, all well chosen; the quaint china bowl on the centre table was full of roses carefully arranged—and there was a very ancient harpsichord in one corner which apparently served only as a stand for the portrait of a man's strikingly handsome face, near which was placed a vase containing a stem of Madonna lilies. Innocent found herself looking at this portrait now ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... to represent what is satirized as being necessarily ugly, which is but the resource of an angry child or a jealous woman, it serves no purpose but to produce a disagreeable result. There is no reason why the farmer's daughter in the old caricature who is squalling at the harpsichord (to the intense delight, by the bye, of her worthy father, whom it is her duty to please) should be squab and hideous. The satire on the manner of her education, if there be any in the thing at all, would be just as good, if she were pretty. Mr. Leech would ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... 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 harpsichord in families of distinction, but wanted self-respect enough to save him from declining ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... from the Opera House; but the singularity most attractive consisted of an organ combined with a harpsichord, played by clock-work, which exhibited the movements of an orrery and air-pump, besides solving astronomical and geographical problems on two globes, and showing the moon's age, with ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... Lambourne had good opportunity to try her maiden steel upon Harry. As soon as he came in, he withdrew himself to a cabinet of medals in a remote corner. Mr. Hadley approached the harpsichord and reached it just before it fell silent. Miss Lambourne ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... enthroned, In tattered damask stand; In gray neglect a faun extends A mutilated hand; And silence makes the festal board Mute as the stringless harpsichord. ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... to whom she is so devoted; the beautiful Comtesse d'Egmont, Mme. de Beauvan, President Henault, the witty Pont de Veyle, Mairan, the versatile scientist, and the Prince de Conti. In the midst of this group the little Mozart, whose genius was then delighting Europe, sits at the harpsichord. The chronicles of the time give us pleasant descriptions of the literary diversions of this society, which met by turns at the Temple and Ile-Adam. But the Prince as well as the clever Comtesse had a strong leaning towards philosophy, and the amusements were interspersed with much ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... persons do, indeed, carry money and valuables to the National Assembly, but others pillage and destroy all that they can.[2697] They shatter mirrors, break furniture to pieces, and throw clocks out of the window; they shout the Marseilles hymn, which one of the National Guards accompanies on a harpsichord,[2698] and descend to the cellars, where they gorge themselves. "For more than a fortnight," says an eye witness,[2699] "one walked on fragments of bottles." In the garden, especially, "it might be said that they had tried ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... organ resembles; indeed, Galien compares it to a flute, Magendie to a hautboy, Despiney to a trombone, Diday to a hunting-horn, Savart to a bird-catcher's call, Biot to an organ-pipe, Malgaigne to the little instrument used by the exhibitors of Punch, and Ferrein to a spinet or harpsichord. The last-named compared the lips of the glottis to the strings of a violin; hence was given the name Vocal Cords, which they have since retained. The current of air was the bow, the exertion of the chest and lungs the ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... Lares and Penates there honored were not now the images of Emmett and Agnew, not the names of dead ancestors, but the living spirit and example of Napoleon and the magic word Empire. No longer could the harpsichord charm or the strings of the viol allure. The music-books gathered dust in the alcove, and the "Iliad" stood unopened on the shelf. Instead of rambling in the woods, or strolling on the banks of the Ohio, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... prize-fighter, watches his movements with an expression of contempt. Another portrait is Bridgman, a well-known landscape gardener of the time, who is proposing to our young hero some scheme for his estate; while the seated and periwigged figure who runs his fingers over the harpsichord has been suggested as that of the great composer Handel. But when we start forth to knock down the watch, "beat the rounds," intrigue with the fair, and generally keep up the character of a young blood or "macaroni," a little timely assistance is often welcome; and is here proffered ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... anything quite so crazy. To keep a decent countenance he turned away from a grotesque bed, contrived by the ingenious cook in the case of an old harpsichord, and looked at Marianna's narrow couch, of which the single mattress was covered with a white muslin counterpane, a circumstance that gave rise in his mind to some sad ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... separate us. "But we shall meet again," said he, "when the honors of war shall have rewarded the bravery of my son." Louisa grew pale, a half suppressed sigh escaped her, and, to conceal her emotion, she turned to her harpsichord. ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... found a harpsichord, a spinet, and a piano, all tuned expressly for her. This amused her, as she had never seen either of the two older instruments in her life. She ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... loophole of a window, I was at last obliged to desist from this diversion (such as it was), and pass the rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome vacuity. The sound of people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant note of a harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a kind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... placed near the window, like a harpsichord, though covered over to the ground: and when she is so ill that she cannot well go to her closet, she writes and reads upon it, as others would upon a desk or table. But (only as she was so ill last night) she chooses not to see any body ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... leaf-blowzed window, And start as a gazer who, passing a death-vault, Sees life sitting hopeful within. She is young, but a woman, round-breasted, Waiting the peril of Eve; And she makes the shadows about her sweet As the glooms that play in a pine-wood. She sits at a harpsichord (old as the walls are), And longing flows in the trickling, fairy notes Like a hidden brook in a forest Seeking and ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... possible. You know that a lady in a mob-cap and panniers is playing inside that shyly curtained window. Hark! You can hear the thin, delicate notes quite plainly: this is such a quiet little street. A piano rather out of tune? Perish the thought! Dear friend, it is a spinet,—a harpsichord. Almost you ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... music ceased; the applause was loud, The pleased musician smiled and bowed; The wood-fire clapped its hands of flame, The shadows on the wainscot stirred, And from the harpsichord there came A ghostly murmur of acclaim, A sound like that sent down at night By birds of passage in their flight, From ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of the harpsichord, She cleaned the hilt of the family sword, She cleaned my lady, she cleaned my lord, All the pictures in their frames, Knights with daggers and stomachered dames— Cecils, Godfreys, Montforts, Graemes, Winifreds—all those ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... too much for him, though perhaps he did not realize the extent of its effect at the time. In a word, all he had in the world went with the theatre. Nothing was left either for him or the principal shareholders. Yet he bore it all with fortitude, till he heard that the harpsichord, on which his first wife was wont to play, was gone too. Then ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... guests waiting in the drawing-rooms, and the sound of men's voices laughing, and then of a female voice singing to a harpsichord, were heard distinctly in the hall over the stairs; for old Judge Harbottle had arranged one of his dubious jollifications, such as might well make the hair of godly men's heads stand upright for ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... I always could get myself out of them again. Why, I'll tell you an instance of it.—You must know I was once a journeyman sonnet-writer to Signor Squallini. Now, his method, when seized with the furor harmonicus, was constantly to make me sit by his side, while he was thrumming on his harpsichord, in order to make extempore verses to whatever air he should beat out to his liking. I remember, one morning, as he was in this situation, thrum, thrum, thrum, (moving his fingers as if beating on the harpsichord,) striking out something prodigiously great, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... spinning-wheel in every house, and then, probably, in constant use. Now its place in our homes is taken by the piano. This instrument had not then come into use. Something resembling it,—namely, the spinnet or the harpsichord,—was to be found in some instances; but it was by no means common to find these, for there was but little knowledge of music in America in those days. A hundred years ago, only one or two churches in Boston ...
— The Olden Time Series: Vol. 2: The Days of the Spinning-Wheel in New England • Various
... praise he lavished upon me. I was only twelve years of age; he proposed to teach me music, and finding that I had a fine voice, he cultivated it carefully, and in less than a year I could accompany myself on the harpsichord. His reward was that which his love for me induced him to ask, and I granted the reward without feeling any humiliation, for I worshipped him. Of course, men like yourself are much above men of his species, but Salimberi was an exception. His beauty, his manners, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... desks Apollo's sons repair, Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair! In unison their various tones to tune. Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Attunes to order the chaotic din. Rejected Addresses: The Theatre. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... day there,—walking, among other diversions to "Les Charmettes", the famous abode of Rousseau—kept much as when he left it: I visited it with my wife perhaps twenty-five years ago, and played so much of "Rousseau's Dream" as could be effected on his antique harpsichord: this time I attempted the same feat, but only two notes or thereabouts out of the octave would answer the touch. Next morning we proceeded to Turin, and on Wednesday got here, in the middle of the last night ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Schubart began to flourish with all his natural luxuriance; read classical and domestic poets; spouted, speculated; wrote flowing songs; discovered 'a decided turn for music,' and even composed tunes for the harpsichord! In short, he became an acknowledged genius: and his parents consented that he should go to Jena, and perform his cursus ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle |
