"Musical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... city—for the step was by no means the result of his own independent and unaided enterprise. Such matters were not done in that way in the good old times in the smaller cities of Italy. The matter had been much debated among the leading patrons of the musical drama in the little town. The chances of success had been canvassed. The financial question had been considered. Certain sacrifices had been determined on. And it had been settled what terms the impresario should be empowered ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... presently, made by a black-haired Brother who sat in the corner by the piano and bore a marked resemblance to Bruder Schliemann, the musical director of thirty years ago. Harris exchanged bows with him when he took the cup from his white hands, which he noticed were like the hands of a woman. He lit a cigar, offered to him by his neighbour, with whom he was chatting delightfully, and who, in the glare of the lighted match, reminded him ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... heard, somewhere in the air about us, an extraordinarily musical hum-like a bee, but not just one note. This hum rose and fell, up and down—almost ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... been ill, but I have suffered horribly in many ways," answered Alexander, in his smooth, musical voice. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... little corpulent, as it was fitting, wearing a gold pince-nez instead of old-fashioned spectacles, active, gallant, and joyous, he passed in Vernon for an artist. He thrummed on the piano and played on the violin, and gave musical evenings where interpretations were given ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... down at the shimmering white folds near his feet. "In earlier days my environment was not exactly a musical one." ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... the better part," he said. "Yet Borrowdean is one of those men who know very well how to play upon the heartstrings. A human being is like a musical instrument to him. He knows how to find out the harmonies or ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the count, "it will be necessary to assign an ostensible pretext of some kind. Shall we allege a musical dispute? a contention in which I feel bound to defend Wagner, while you are ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... I've seen his daughters there. Nell has played the organ at times, fer she's mighty musical. My, ye should hear her play the fiddle! She makes it ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... out-of-doors, if possible, and arrange a picnic or a dance or a play; and let people come and go without ceremony. No one is more host than guest; all are hosts and guests. People consort much according to their tastes—literary, musical, artistic, scientific, or mechanical—but these tastes are made approaches, not barriers; and we find out that we have many more tastes in ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... Salimberi for about a year, when he announced to me one day, weeping bitterly, that he was compelled to leave me to go to Rome, but he promised to see me again. The news threw me into despair. He had arranged everything for the continuation of my musical education, but, as he was preparing himself for his departure, my father died very suddenly, after a short illness, and I was ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... fond of it and cultivated it thoroughly we have the assertion of all ancient writers who spoke of them. According to Strabo, the Third order of Druids was composed of those whom he calls Umnetai. What were their instruments is not mentioned; and we can now form no opinion of their former musical taste from the rude melodies of the Armoricans, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... mouth knew gamuts musical Of vices thy worn spine was hurt to follow. Sometimes it seemed to thee that all was hollow In sense in each new straining of sucked lust. Then still new crimes of fancy would he call To thy shaken flesh, and thou wouldst tremble and fall Back on thy cushions ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
... image of the musical instrument constantly recurs to those who write of the art of love. Balzac's comparison of the unskilful husband to the orang-utan attempting to play the violin has already been quoted. Dr. Jules Guyot, in his serious and admirable little book, Breviaire de ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and character of the Gypsies resemble those of the Cechs as nearly as they do those of the Hindoos. The Cechs are an eminently gay and musical race. As regards complexion, it is found that the Gypsies in the Austrian army, who have been compelled to relinquish their wild life and dwell in houses, are as white as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... more highly is the department of musical training esteemed by those who understand the work. All receive training in vocal music as a part of their daily school work, and would there were more with ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... the war another novel but most interesting experience. A certain well-known West End church has been celebrated for over fifty years for the beauty and exquisite finish of its musical Services. As 1915 gave place to 1916, one by one the professional choir-men got called up for military service, and finally came the turn of the organist and choirmaster himself, he being just inside the limit of age. The organist, besides being ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... gridiron with buttons strung on its bars; the different rows represented units, tens, hundreds and thousands. He fingered them with incredible rapidity—in fact, he pushed them from place to place as fast as a musical professor's fingers travel over the keys of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... palace-gates for evermore; hardly in coming years shalt thou, under cloud of night, descend once, in black domino, like a black night-bird, and disturb the fair Antoinette's music-party in the Park: all Birds of Paradise flying from thee, and musical windpipes growing mute. (Campan, i. 197.) Thou unclean, yet unmalignant, not unpitiable thing! What a course was thine: from that first trucklebed (in Joan of Arc's country) where thy mother bore thee, with tears, to an unnamed ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... revolving combinations and forms which succeeded each other in fractions of seconds. He could see nothing but this light. Then there came sound. It was raucous. It was cacophonic. It was an utterly unorganized tumult in which musical notes and discords and bellowings and shriekings were combined so as to be unbearable. And then came pure horror as he found that he could not move. Every inch of his body had turned rigid as it became filled with anguish. He felt, all over, as ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "Tasmania is a more musical alias adopted by the island. It has been given in titular distinction to the first bishop, my excellent and accomplished friend Dr. Nixon, and will doubtless be its exclusive designation when it shall ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... did very well, and was heard with indulgence, though surrounded by artists who had enjoyed what she had not—a life's training. I could not but think what a loss to art is the enslaving of a race which might produce so much musical talent. Had she had culture equal to her voice and ear, no singer of any country could have surpassed her. There could even be associations of poetry thrown around the dusky hue of her brow were it associated with ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and went about his work as methodically as if it were a sum in algebra. The second lieutenant of the Terpsichore was a young Irishman, with a sweet, musical voice; and, as the boats left the ships, he was with difficulty kept in the line, straining to move ahead, with his face on a grin, and his cheers stimulating the men to undue or unreasonable efforts. Such is an outline of the English materials ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... trustees, of parks, gardens, and museums of art or science, as well as of baths and orchestras. Of music in particular he said: "I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms; could I ... know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,—that were a bath and a medicine." It has been a long road from that sentence, written probably in the forties, to the Symphony Orchestra in this Hall, and to the new singing classes on the East Side of New ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... death of Cowley was his last, and, among his shorter works, his best performance: the numbers are musical, and the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... assemblage of gleemen, who were jugglers and pantomimists as well as minstrels, and were accustomed to associate themselves in companies, and amuse the spectators with feats of strength and agility, dancing, tumbling, and sleight-of-hand tricks, as well as musical performances. Among the minstrels who came into England with William the Conqueror was one named Taillefer, who was present at the battle of Hastings, and rode in front of the Norman army, inspiriting the soldiers by his songs. He sang of Roland, the heroic captain ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... musical; she spoke in low tones and her pronunciation and general demeanor betrayed the fact that gentle ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey
... creating new things is constantly active, producing results that express themselves in terms of dollars for himself and others, is that of Mr. Joseph Hunter Dickinson, of New Jersey. Mr. Dickinson's specialty is in the line of musical instruments, particularly the piano. He began more than fifteen years ago to invent devices for automatically playing the piano, and is at present in the employ of a large piano factory, where his various ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker
... passion of his first speeches. [Sidenote: Story of the means by which he modulated his voice when speaking.] He was, in fact, so carried away by his feelings that he had to resort to a curious device in order to keep his voice under control. A man with a musical instrument used, it is said, to stand near him, and warn him by a note at times if he was pitching his voice too high or too low. It was now that he told his stories of the flogging of the magistrate of Teanum ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... pretender prove, Or subtle hypocrite, of whom no few Disseminated o'er its face the earth Sustains, adepts in fiction, and who frame Fables, where fables could be least surmised. Thy phrase well turn'd, and thy ingenuous mind Proclaim thee diff'rent far, who hast in strains Musical as a poet's voice, the woes Rehears'd of all thy Greecians, and thy own. 450 But say, and tell me true. Beheld'st thou there None of thy followers to the walls of Troy Slain in that warfare? Lo! the night is long— A night of utmost length; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... man as well as like a woman, and in many a foreign enterprise she had adopted man's clothing regularly. Yet there was nothing actually masculine about her appearance or her manners, and she had a very sweet and musical voice, which much pleased the ears ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... at Bayreuth, where people went with the sole object of hearing music, and with no other business oppressing them for the moment. But at a time when the struggle for existence is so severe as now it was chimerical on Wagner's part to hope that such a plan could be permanently realized. Few musical people can afford to journey to Bayreuth merely to gratify their taste for opera. Hence the Bayreuth festivals, although most delightful from an artistic point of view, would have never been financially successful, had not the vocalists given their services gratis; and it is doubtful if ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... improvement for singing; but progress may be made towards both ends by the same study, and those exercises which benefit the singing voice benefit the speaking voice, and vice versa. The distinction between speaking tones and singing tones should be clearly understood. Musical tones are produced by isochronous (equal-timed) vibrations of the vocal organs continued for some length of time. Hence, a musical tone is a note, which may be prolonged at will without varying in pitch, either up or down. A speaking tone, on ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... door of the dugout that serves as a first-aid dressing station, I gaze up into that mysterious dark, so alive with musical vibrations. Then a small shadow detaches itself from the greater shadow, and a gray-bearded sentry says to me: "You'd better come in ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... reported of some folks that they are not musical, a calumny that has been whispered of myself: and, though against my own convictions, (who will confess he "has not music in his soul?") I partly acquiesce; that is to say—for, of such a charge, self-defence claims ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... springtide leafage of English woodlands, made musical with the movement and the song of innumerable birds that had their nests among the hawthorn boughs and deep, cool foliage of elm and beech, an old horse stood at pasture. Sleeping—with the sun on his gray, silken skin, and the flies driven off with ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... leisure and amusements. There were times, however (especially after the first few hard years had passed), when a colonist could enjoy himself by smoking his pipe, playing a game, practicing archery, bowling, playing a musical instrument, singing a ballad, or taking part in a lively dance. Excavated artifacts reveal that the settlers enjoyed at least ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... that there was nothing like a false impression for assisting the efficacy of military movements, and presently the General asked him to command a halt. It was high noon, and the sun gleamed on the brass trumpet as the long note blew. Again the musical strain sounded on the cold, bright stillness, and the double line of twenty legs swung in a simultaneous arc over the horses' backs as the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Prison, among other ills, was one that had been often faced by the undaunted Arethusa. Even as he went down the stairs, he was telling himself that here was a famous occasion for a roundel, and that like the committed linnets of the tuneful cavalier, he too would make his prison musical. I will tell the truth at once: the roundel was never written, or it should be printed in this place, to raise a smile. Two reasons interfered: the first ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my mother asked me to show her what I could play on the piano, wisely hoping to divert my father's thoughts by the sound. I played Ueb' immer Treu und Redlichkeit, and my father said to her, 'Is it possible he has musical talent?' ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Dickie became in these days, moods new to him. Also he took to reading poetry. Scott's "Marmion," about the only piece of verse with which he had been on speaking acquaintance, he abandoned for fragments of "Locksley Hall" and "Lucille." His musical taste underwent like change. The rollicking college airs he was accustomed to whistle with more vigor than accuracy gave place to "Tell Me, Pretty Maiden," and "Annie Laurie." These he executed quite as inaccurately, but—and this was ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... deep and musical. It had charmed many a woman's heart, despite the fact that he had led a life of austerity and sought no woman's smiles. But this girl at the sound of it gave a loud cry and bounded up the mountain, leaping through ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... country-people have never heard of Gerardmer, but certainly those who stray hither are few and far between. Fortunately for the lover of nature no English writer has as yet popularized the Vosges. An Eden-like freshness pervades its valleys and forests, made ever musical with cascades, a pastoral simplicity characterizes its inhabitants. Surely in no corner of beautiful France can any one worn out in body or in brain find more refreshment ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... run of each other the way a good many people do. I don't say it wasn't my fault. I was up early and down to work all day, and I'd come home tired at night, and want to go to bed soon as I'd got the paper read—unless there was some good musical show in town. Well, you seemed all right until here lately, the last month or so, I began to see something was wrong. I ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... on one side, the women on the other, and the young people on a third, giving hatchets to the chiefs, knives to the others, beads and other trifles to the women, and rings, counters, and broaches of tin to the children. He then caused our trumpets and other musical instruments to be sounded, which made the natives very merry. We then took leave of them to return to our boats, on which the women placed themselves in our way, offering us of their provisions which they had made ready for us, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... shadows that belong to gray days; it was charged, even more than usual, with mystery: the whole atmosphere tingled with it as with electricity. I couldn't read. I have never been able to play upon any musical instrument, much as I love music. I do not sing, either, except in a small-beer voice; and when I tried to sew I pricked my fingers with the needle. I went into the kitchen, consulted with Mary Magdalen as to the evening's dinner, weighed and measured such ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates Anselm Httenbrenner, a musical friend and composer of Grtz, who had hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... water and circular shape have suggested an old crater flooded. It was Sunday, and we were greeted with the familiar sounds, the ringing of cracked bells, the screaming of harsh, hoarse voices, a military band and detached musical performances. The classical facade of the Marina, through whose nineteen archways and upper parallelograms you catch a vista of dark narrow wynd, contrasts curiously with Catania: the former is a 'dicky,' a front hiding something unclean; while the latter is laid out in Eastern style, where, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... complications, than to wait for the drum membrane to break open spontaneously in his absence. Loss or damage of the eardrums may call for "artificial eardrums." They do not act at all like the drumhead of the musical instrument by their vibrations, but only are of service in putting on the stretch the little bones in the middle ear which convey sound. Some of those advertised do harm by setting up a mechanical irritation in the ear after a time, and a better result ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... at top speed, and my quick ears caught the musical hum of the motor as it crossed the bridge. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... with an appeal whispered but passionate. It was wonderful how musical and yet how softly spoken her words were. They were like live things, and the few feet of darkened space through which they had passed seemed charged ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unites them into troops of never less than five or more than seven in number. Such companies are often advertised weeks before their arrival in a place by hoisting flags or streamers with the names of the performers thereon. Their programme consists of war-stories, traditions, and recitals with musical accompaniment. During the intermission, feats of legerdemain or wrestling fill in the time and give variety ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... antics in the way of dancings and crowings. Again, in the case of all song-birds, the object of the singing is to please the females; and for this purpose the males rival one another to the best of their musical ability. ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... propitiate the angry tamahnawas. But the storm-god hurled him down the mountain side. Miser fell into a deep sleep. Many, many snows after, he awoke to find himself far from the summit, in a pleasant country of beautiful meadows carpeted with flowers, abounding in camas roots, and musical with the song of birds. He had grown very old, with white hair falling to his shoulders. His ikta was empty, save for a few dried leaves. Recognizing the scene about him as Saghalie Illahe, he sought his old tent. It was where he had left it. There, too, was his klootchman, ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... would not expose himself to a repetition of similar danger; and that he might avoid meeting this fair lady again, he refused two invitations from Mrs. Falconer to a ball at her house, and to a musical party.—This deserves to be recorded to his credit, because he was very fond both ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... accepted his offer of silence, and lying back in her soft couch stares with unseeing eyes at the bank of flowers before her. Behind her tall, fragrant shrubs rear themselves, and somewhere behind her, too, a tiny fountain is making musical tinklings. The faint, tender glow of a colored lamp gleams from the branches of a tropical tree close by, and round it pale, downy moths are flitting, the sound of their wings, as every now and then they approach too near ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... domiciled at Cherokee Springs, three miles distant, was also a delightful addition to our little circle. She was thoroughly accomplished, of charming manners, although perfectly frank and outspoken. Her musical talent was exceptional, and her lovely voice, coined into Confederate money, was freely given in aid of all charitable objects. She was a frequent visitor at my office, walking into town in the evening to ride out with ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... chance to have it, I have often thought, how essentially Homeric it was:—indeed what is "Homer" himself but the Rhapsody of five centuries of Greek Skalds and wandering Ballad-singers, done (i.e. "stitched together") by somebody more musical than Snorro was? Olaf Tryggveson and Olaf Saint please me quite as well in their prosaic form; offering me the truth of them as if seen in their real lineaments by some marvellous opening (through the art of Snorro) across the ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... not come from graduates of the University, such as the Newberry Hall of Residence, the late Charles L. Freer's numerous gifts, including a fund of $50,000 for the study of Oriental art, the Lewis Art collection, the Stearns Musical Collections, Waterman Gymnasium and Ferry Field, or such buildings as Newberry Hall, now used by the Y.W.C.A., and Lane Hall, for the ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... Voice. — N. voice; vocality[obs3]; organ, lungs, bellows; good voice, fine voice, powerful voice &c. (loud) 404; musical voice &c. 413; intonation; tone of voice &c. (sound) 402. vocalization; cry &c. 411; strain, utterance, prolation[obs3]; exclamation, ejaculation, vociferation, ecphonesis[obs3]; enunciation, articulation; articulate sound, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... western bank of the river, and it was the great Libyan suburb with its palaces and temples that they were approaching. As they neared the city an enormous multitude poured out to welcome the king and the returning army. Shouts of enthusiasm were raised, the sound of trumpets and other musical instruments filled the air, religious processions from the great temples moved with steady course through the dense crowd, which separated at once to allow of the passage of the figures of the gods, and of the priests and ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... of the cloud-and-angel series, which are so frequent, is seen in Longfield Churchyard on the Maidstone Road. Trumpets of the speaking or musical order are frequently introduced to typify the summons to resurrection, but here we have the listener pourtrayed by the introduction ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... fortunate that you are a gentleman," she said, in a low and soft voice, quite distinct, quite musical in quality, and marked with just the faintest trace of some foreign accent, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... hands with the priest and leave the field. The priest mounted and he, too, was gone. The ground was strewn with arms; even the discordant musical instruments ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... to the other of the little party with keen eyes. "It is well," he said, in his clear, musical voice. "All here, none missing, not even the little one with a face like night. The Little Tiger's heart was heavy with fear lest he should come too late. But neither the jackal's tribe nor the spirits of the night have ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the national melodies of England, Scotland, and Ireland," said Pedgift Junior. "I'll accompany you, sir, with the greatest pleasure. This is the sort of thing, I think." He seated himself cross-legged on the roof of the cabin, and burst into a complicated musical improvisation wonderful to hear—a mixture of instrumental flourishes and groans; a jig corrected by a dirge, and a dirge enlivened by a jig. "That's the sort of thing," said young Pedgift, with his smile of supreme ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Praxiteles representing Apollo, Leto, and Artemis; a fourth slab, needed to complete the series, has not been found The presumption is strong that these reliefs were executed under the direction of Praxiteles, perhaps from his design. The subject of one slab is the musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas, while the other two bear figures of Muses. The latter are posed and draped with that delightful grace of which Praxiteles was master, and with which he seems to ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... say, she has your photograph on the wall where she can see it all the time. She just dotes on that picture. I tell her there is the chance of her life, a fine house, fine clothes, a chance to go abroad and cultivate her musical talent, become a great singer and meet dukes and lords and crowned heads. Why, the girl is just crazy over you, and I believe she would marry you even if you did not have a cent. It is like marrying December to May, you sixty and she nineteen, pretty and ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... enthusiasm into a frenzy of fanatical excitement, would charge our breastworks again and again, leaving their dead in scores after each repulse, while those of their comrades who were unarmed would encourage their efforts by shouting, with much beating of tom-toms, and other musical instruments. Amidst the discordant din which raged around, we could even distinguish bugle calls, evidently sounded by some soi-disant bugler of our native army. As he suddenly collapsed in the middle of the "officers' mess call" we concluded that a bullet had brought ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... a tone of regret in his rich, musical voice, and forgetting that Neil had said he was from Boston. Bessie ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... allow it, I will first prophesy to this lady." He took a mass of soiled, curiously painted cards, and spread them out before him on the table. He took the hand of Fraulein Lethow and seemed to read it earnestly; and now, in a low, musical voice, he related little incidents of the past. They were piquant little anecdotes which had been secretly whispered at the court, but which no one dared to speak aloud, as Fraulein Lethow passed for a model of virtue ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the other forward, as though at the same time listening to the conversation and watching the road. He seemed to have forgotten that an uncouth mountaineer had been talking; he seemed not to have heard the low drawl, or in any way have been affected by its musical crudity, but only by the ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... of the New Testament have been where we have not been. They have ascended heights, and sounded depths in the spiritual world unknown to us. So they are authorities to us, provided we have enough of their spirit in us to enable us to see and know their inspiration. For, unless I have some musical spirit in me, I cannot discern the inspiration of Mozart; unless I have some mathematical spirit in me, I cannot discern the mathematical inspiration of Newton and Kepler. So the natural man (the man who has nothing in him corresponding to the Christian inspiration) cannot discern ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... noontide of the moon, and when The wind is winged from one point of heaven, There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then Is musical-a dying accent driven Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again. Some deem it but the distant echo given Back to the night wind by the waterfall, And harmonized by the old ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... evening by Mr. James W. Moore, in the rooms of the Lincoln Literary Musical Association, 132 West Twenty-seventh Street, to Lieutenant H. O. Flipper, of Georgia, the colored cadet who has just graduated at West Point. Mr. Moore has had charge of the sick room of Commodore Garrison since his illness. The chandeliers were decorated ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... are led with music and singing to the place where the corpse of the husband, wrapped in white muslin, lies upon the funeral pile. At the moment that the victim throws herself upon the corpse, the wood is lighted on all sides. At the same time, a deafening noise is commenced with musical instruments, and every one begins to shout and sing, in order to smother the howling of the poor woman. After the burning, the bones are collected, placed in an urn, and interred upon some eminence ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... requisites in a translation of this most energetic and most harmonious of all poets, it is neither my purpose nor my wish, should I be found deficient in either, or in both, to shelter myself under an unfilial imputation of blame to my mother-tongue. Our language is indeed less musical than the Greek, and there is no language with which I am at all acquainted that is not. But it is musical enough for the purposes of melodious verse, and if it seem to fail, on whatsoever occasion, in energy, the blame is due, not to itself, but to the unskilful manager of it. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... more eager study, though now the study turned into the lines of thought towards which my personal tendencies most attracted me. German I continued to read with a master, and music, under the marvellously able teaching of Mr. John Farmer, musical director of Harrow School, took up much of my time. My dear mother had a passion for music, and Beethoven and Bach were her favorite composers. There was scarcely a sonata of Beethoven's that I did not learn, scarcely a fugue of Bach's that I did not master. ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... quality of a child for whom life had not been simplified by school, a kind of homebred sensibility which might have been as bad for himself but was charming for others, and a whole range of refinement and perception—little musical vibrations as taking as picked-up airs—begotten by wandering about Europe at the tail of his migratory tribe. This might not have been an education to recommend in advance, but its results with so special a subject were ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... suddenly his face beamed with felicity, his whole figure contracted in a frenzy of delight, one foot clutched at the air as though bewitched, as though he were playing a harp with his toes—Master Andres was all at once a musical idiot and a musical clown. And smack! the knife flew to the ground and he had the great tin cover in his hand— chin-da-da-da chin-da-da-da! Suddenly by a stroke of magic the flute had turned into a drum ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... at first identify this voice with the remembered tones of Beulah Baxter. But of course she was now hoarse with the cold. Under the circumstances he could hardly expect his heroine's own musical clearness. Then as the girl spoke again something stirred among his more recent memories. The voice was still hoarse, but he placed it now. He approached the brazier. It was undoubtedly the Montague girl. She recognized him, even as she squeezed ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... murmured the woman, looking slightly dazed. In a minute she had returned. A musical tinkling entered the room with her as she advanced wonderingly toward the bed. It came from the prism pendants encircling the old-fashioned candelabrum in ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... think I should prefer to live in St. Louis, because I have a few friends there," she said. "But I am studying music, and when my mother died, father suggested that I live in Chicago where I could attend a better musical college. Then, too, father could get home more often as he ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... on the Styx Coffee and Repartee Mollie and the Unwiseman Worsted Man; A Musical Play for Amateurs The Enchanted Typewriter Ghosts I Have Met Mrs. Raffles Olympian Nights R. Holmes & Co. ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... A singularly uncouth subject for an opera or even a ballet—the snarling, scuffling and snapping of quarrelsome dogs whose fury is working up to a climax, and it soon becomes as monotonous to unaccustomed ears as the masterpieces of some German composers to those whose musical education is below the required standard; but the boys will spend the best part of the long night in its ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Stock Exchange; people were constantly reading newspapers, drinking Australian Burgundy, and doing other things equally absurd. They either looked shocked when the fine art of pleasure was mentioned, or confused it with going to musical comedies, drinking bad whisky, and keeping late hours in disreputable and vulgar company. He found to his amusement that the profligate were by many degrees duller than the pious, but that the most tedious of all were the persons who preached promiscuity, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... indeed. Her sweet voice, in sudden song, might be heard at any moment of the day; or the ripple of her piano; or her gay laughter, musical as the ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... white ballroom of Devenham House. Electric lights sparkled from the ceiling, through the pillared way the ceaseless splashing of water from the fountains in the winter garden seemed like a soft undernote to the murmur of voices, the musical peals of laughter, the swirl of skirts, and the rhythm of ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... China silk braid. On her wrists were bracelets and on her ungloved hands many rings, with stones rather too large to be taken for genuine on a woman promenading alone at such an hour. Conjoined with the musical instrument, the attire confirmed the student in his first impression after the tragic one, that this was a performer in one of the numerous dance-houses of the popular region, ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... those of the General. Vogotzine, his face crimson, stood by the chair, his little, round eyes blinking with emotion at each of these mournful, musical responses. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... place where he thought she would be likely to go, but no trace could be found. He inquired for Mayall, and was told that he was seen the evening before equipped for a hunting excursion. He returned home in grief and loneliness. His house no longer echoed to the musical voice of his lovely daughter. His wife, who had been the most anxious for her daughter to marry a farm instead of a man of worth, now began to murmur and find fault with her husband for his unkindness to Mayall, who had saved their lives and the life of their daughter, ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... white troops, but in quite a long experience among them I have not found the difference so very noticeable. In all garrisons one will find some men more musically inclined than others; some who love to sing and some who do not; some who have voices adapted to the production of musical tones, and some who have not, and it is doubtless owing to these constitutional differences that we find differences ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... were taught to ride in the saddle while using firearms. At the age of sixteen these boys became soldiers. They were then married to the young negresses who had meanwhile been taught cooking and washing in the Sultan's palaces—except those who were pretty, and these were given a musical education, after which each one received a wedding-dress and a marriage settlement, and was handed over to ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... of course, used to this with singers in musical comedy, who make a point of turning the lyrics assigned to them into unintelligible patter. Perhaps in the present case we lost little by that, though there was one song (of which I actually heard the words) that seemed to me to contain the elements of a sound and consoling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... Cruet Stand'. The audience were very impatient for the curtain to rise, as they did not appreciate the overture, which consisted of airs from 'La Mascotte', adapted for the violin and piano by Mr Handel Wopples, who was the musical genius of the family, and sat in the conductor's seat, playing the violin and conducting the orchestra of one, which on this occasion was Miss Jemima Wopples, who presided at the piano. The Wopples family consisted of twelve star artistes, beginning with Mr Theodore Wopples, aged fifty, and ending ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... accent. Dickens ridicules this habit unmercifully in "Martin Chuckle." Words so mispronounced are ter'-ri-to'-ry, ex'-act'-ly, isn't-best, big-cle, etc. In the latter word this secondary accent is made to lengthen the y, and so causes a double error. The habit interferes materially with the musical character of easy speech and destroys the desirable musical rhythm which prose as ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... the soft purring ways of a cat, the tact of a Jesuit, the penetration of a money-lender, the sensibility of a musical amateur, and the morals of a maid-of-honour. He had extraordinary command over himself; he seemed able to do everything, and wishful to win nothing. There never was a young man (as a matter of fact) who wanted so much or asked so little. It ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the reverse of the medal, and upon my soul, it's equally good!" explained the Second-in-Command. "He's like poor old Barclay Gammon and Corney Grain and half a dozen of those musical-sketch men rolled into one. It's ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... comedian in full dress could step before the footlights into salvoes of savage applause. "A Pair of Unconventional Cooks are we, are we," and the famous refrain, "There he is, that's him," were long unrivalled in our musical annals. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... still whistled through the rigging, but, now, it was more like the musical sound of an Aeolian harp, whose chords vibrated rhythmically with the breeze; while the big sails bellying out from the yards above emitted a gentle hum, as that of bees in the distance, from the rushing ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... gallery of pictures, where she soon found a portrait of the same handsome Prince, as large as life, and so well painted that as she studied it he seemed to smile kindly at her. Tearing herself away from the portrait at last, she passed through into a room which contained every musical instrument under the sun, and here she amused herself for a long while in trying some of them, and singing until she was tired. The next room was a library, and she saw everything she had ever wanted to read, as well as everything she had read, and it seemed to her that a whole lifetime would ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Anonymous
... rat-and-miceless day, fell in such graceful abandon as to show at once that nature was the only maid who crimped their waves into them. Her complexion was rosy with health and sympathetic enjoyment; her mouth was faultless, her nose sensitive, her manners full of refinement, and her voice musical as a wood-robin's, when she spoke to the little boy of six at her side, to whom she was revealing the palace of the great show-king. Billy and I were flattening our noses against the abode of the balloon-fish and determining whether he looked ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... almost every department of human activity—plans of abortive military campaigns, prospectuses of moribund business enterprises, architectural and engineering drawings of structures never to be reared, charts, models, unfinished musical scores, finally a huge papier-mache globe on which were traced the routes of Mr. Colman Hoyt's four unsuccessful dashes for the North Pole. It depressed me, the sight of this vast lumber-room, this collection of useless flotsam and jetsam, cast up and ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Knowing the partiality of my own countrywomen to music, I hazarded the idea, that the Norwegian ladies were filled with an equal admiration for waltzes and polkas; and being fortunately possessed of two very large musical boxes, I wound them up. When these boxes began to play, my fair visitors were much delighted with their ingenious mechanism, and for some short time listened to them with wonder and delight; but at last, in harmonious movement to their ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... all kinds of work becoming a young lady of good birth, she was taught to read and write more than passably well; but what she excelled in above all, was in playing all sorts of instruments suitable to her sex, with extraordinary perfection of musical taste and skill, and with the accompaniment of a voice which Heaven had endowed with such melody that when she chanted she enchanted. All these graces, natural and acquired, gradually inflamed the heart of Richard, whom she loved and respected as the son of her lord. At first his affection ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with crescents, birds, elephants, barrels, and swords of gold, and on some were couched stuffed animals. Innumerable smaller umbrellas of striped stuff were borne by the crowd, and all these were waved up and down, while a vast number of flutes, horns and other musical instruments sounded in the air. All the principal people wore robes woven of foreign silk, which had been unraveled for working into native patterns. All had golden necklaces and bracelets, in many cases so heavy that the arms ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... hearing a word of their arrival. And they proceeded on through the gallery, until they reached the private apartments of the princess, from whence resounded a psalm which her Grace was singing with her ladies while they spun, and which psalm was played by a little musical box placed within the Duchess's own spinning-wheel. Duke Barnim had made it himself for her Grace, and it was ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... their duties, are being reared. For nine months in a year the faculty of Fisk, like those who in large cities man college settlements, day and night seek in every way and by all means to arouse and perpetuate the highest Christian ideals. Added to these are intellectual training, musical culture and a spirit of true gentility. The student body honors scholarship, awakens ambitions, cultivates good manners, frowns upon untidyness of appearance, while by firmly sustained legislation the faculty forbids any display of extravagance in attire. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 01, January, 1900 • Various
... up in good order, the insurgents advanced, to the sound of trumpets and other musical instruments, till within six hundred paces of the enemy, when Carvajal ordered them to halt. The royalists continued to advance till within a hundred paces less, and then halted likewise. At this time, forty musqueteers were detached from the army of Gonzalo, with orders to begin the engagement; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... balmy breezes wafted many other night sounds through Johnnie's open window. From near-by came Chirpy Cricket's cheerful piping. And in the distant swamp the musical Frog family held a singing party every evening. Johnnie Green liked to hear them. But he objected strongly to the weird hooting and horrid laughter of Solomon Owl, who left the hemlock woods after dark to hunt for ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... covered a table with dry fruits, sweetmeats, and everything proper to relish the liquor; a side-board was set out with several sorts of wine and other liquors. Some of the ladies brought in musical instruments, and when everything was ready, they invited me to sit down to supper. The ladies sat down with me, and we continued a long while at our repast. They that were to play upon the instruments and sing arose, and formed a most charming concert. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... employed for the purpose of directly affording enjoyment, such as the labour of a performer on a musical instrument, we term unproductive labour. Whatever is consumed by such a performer, we consider as unproductively consumed: the accumulated total of the sources of enjoyment which the nation possesses, is diminished by the amount of what he has consumed: whereas, if it had been ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... had said of Cipriani de Lloseta that had he not been a Count he would have been a great musician. He had that singular facility with any instrument which is sometimes given to musical persons in recompense for voicelessness. The Count spoke like one who could sing, but his throat was delicate, and so the world lost a great singer. Of most instruments he spoke with a half-concealed contempt. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... musical taste, but Back and Belly Maker (piano) I consider vulgar—almost indecent, in fact. Such anatomical intimacy with the piano would destroy for me the bewitchment of the ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... or an iron box that is capable of being warmed through Pahzhejeahje-ee, prep. over Peendahgun, n. a pocket or pouch Peendig, n. inside Paquahkoostegowng, block-headed Pequahquod, n. a ball or knot Poodahwain, make fire Poodahjegun, n. a musical or blowing instrument Pookedaemin, n. a mandrake Pahmetahgun, n. a servant Pahbegwah, adj. rough Pahquahskezhegun, n. a scythe Papahmebahegood, n. a rider, a name for a dragoon Pamahdezid, the living Pahsquagin, n. leather Pahbahgewahyaun, n. a shirt, calico Pengwahshahgid, adj. naked Pezindun, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... dwelt his dark-eyed daughter, Wayward as the Minnehaha, With her moods of shade and sunshine, Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate, Feet as rapid as the river, Tresses flowing like the water, And as musical a laughter; And he named her from the river, From the water-fall he named her, Minnehaha, Laughing Water. Was it then for heads of arrows, Arrow-heads of chalcedony, Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, That my Hiawatha halted ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... file, the one carrying the folded lion skin leading the way; those bearing the waterbuck trophy and meat bringing up the rear. They kept up an undertone of humming in a minor key; occasionally breaking into a short musical phrase in ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... moment when they have drawn out a note to exquisite fineness, thin as a split hair, to have some blundering elder to come in with a "Praise ye the Lord!" Total abstinence, I say! Let all the churches take the pledge even against the milder musical beverages; for they who tamper with champagne cider soon get to Hock and ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... beautiful girls; Praxiteles designed them all, one after another; then from all these diverse types of beauty, each one of which had its defects, he formed a single faultless beauty and created Venus. The first man who created a musical instrument and who gave to that art its rules and its laws, had for a long time listened to the murmuring of reeds and the singing of birds. Thus the poets who understand life, after having known much of love, more or less transitory, after having felt that ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... rose from her seat, and, taking Amina by the hand, she said to her, "My sister, our friends will excuse us if we seem to forget their presence and fulfil our nightly task." Amina understood her sister's meaning, and collecting the dishes, glasses, and musical instruments, she carried them away, while Sadie swept the hall and put everything in order. Having done this she begged the Calenders to sit on a sofa on one side of the room, and the Caliph and his friends to place themselves opposite. As to the porter, she requested him to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... Year's Day by similar festivities. Sixteen of the men were given leave to go up to the first Mandan village with their musical instruments, where they delighted the whole tribe with their dances, one of the French voyageurs being especially applauded when he danced on his hands with his head downwards. The dancers and musicians were presented with several buffalo-robes and a large quantity of Indian ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... of a newly made senior, well favoured and in fair raiment, beside her. A guitar rested lightly upon his knee, and he was trying to play—a matter of some difficulty, as the floor of the porch also seemed inclined to be musical. From directly under his feet came a voice of song, shrill, loud, incredibly piercing and incredibly flat, dwelling upon each syllable with incomprehensible reluctance ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... Vienna, where they had been fitted with completely new uniforms, Their outfit, although a little theatrical, looked very handsome: the pelisse and dolman in white and the trousers and the shako in lilac; all clean bright and shining. One might have thought they were going to a ball, or to play in a musical comedy. This brilliant appearance contrasted somewhat with the more modest toilette of our Chasseurs, many of whom were still dressed in the worn clothing in which they had bivouacked for eighteen months, in Russia, Poland, and Germany, and ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... discords I produced in the choir because of my enthusiasm in the cause. When, at a later date, I became acquainted with the oratorios in full, it was a pleasure to find that several of those considered in musical circles as the gems of Handel's musical compositions were the ones that I as an ignorant boy had chosen as favorites. So the beginning of my musical education dates from the small choir of the Swedenborgian ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... gave a musical laugh. He could have but one reason, and she felt she knew that reason! What a handsome dear he was, and how she loved ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... prose would destroy one of its special characteristics, which is that in it both prose and verse are mingled. It was not in my power, however, to reproduce at once closely and clearly the metrical schemes and the rich musical quality of the Irish and at the same time compress within the compass of the Irish measure such an analytic language as English, which has to express by means of auxiliaries what is accomplished in Early Irish by inflection. But I hope to have accomplished the main object of distinguishing ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... stream of guests still flowed. The company here was noisier now than when he left it a short time before. Revelry had taken the place of staid propriety. Glasses clinked like a chime of bells, voices ran up into the higher keys, and the loud musical laugh of girls mingled gaily with the deeper tones of their male companions. Young maidens with glasses of sparkling champagne or rich brown and amber sherry in their hands were calling young men and boys to drink with them, and showing a freedom and abandon of manner ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... said Manisty's voice beside her. The tones of it were grave and musical; they expressed an enwrapping kindness, a 'human softness' ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Tim," returned the girl, with a low musical laugh. "Big Tim says hims fadder be great at 'ventions. He 'vent many t'ings. Some's good, ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... lot of school children, every one wanting to help and making suggestions at the same time. Hungry suggested giving it something to eat, while Ikey wanted to play on his infernal jew's harp, claiming it was a musical dog. Hungry's suggestion met our approval, and there was a general scramble for haversacks. All we could muster was some hard bread and a big piece ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Metamora or Damon or Brutus—John R. Scott as Tom Cringle or Rolla—or Charlotte Cushman's Lady Gay Spanker in "London Assurance." Then of some years later, at Castle Garden, Battery, I yet recall the splendid seasons of the Havana musical troupe under Maretzek—the fine band, the cool sea-breezes, the unsurpass'd vocalism—Steffan'one, Bosio, Truffi, Marini in "Marino Faliero," "Don Pasquale," or "Favorita." No better playing or singing ever in New York. It was here too I afterward ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and so on. Man likes the society of girls and women—there he never has it. He likes to have his children about him, and pet them and play with them —there he has none. He likes billiards—there is no table there. He likes outdoor sports and indoor dramatic and musical and social entertainments—there are none there. He likes to bet on things—I was told that betting is forbidden there. When a man's temper is up he likes to pour it out upon somebody there this is not allowed. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he was suddenly stopped by the path being so covered with snow that farther progress was absolutely impossible. So, humbled and disappointed, he came quickly home to find his friend in a terrible state of mind at his lengthened absence. In the evening we had some music—for both bachelors are musical—the older having a baritone voice, and the younger playing the piano. How cold that night was! and how welcome was the great eider-down pillow, which is generally such a nuisance ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... their spirits were low, And repeated in musical tone Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe— But the crew would ...
— The Hunting of the Snark - an Agony, in Eight Fits • Lewis Carroll
... breeze fanned their hot faces gratefully. The musical tap-tap of the waves against the side of the ship came to them as from a great distance, and even the voices and laughter of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... to solve the source of the bewildering tones. A deep, low murmuring filled the air, swelling in volume with each heavier gust which drove over the mountain: the sound deepened and strengthened, mounting to a sustained musical rumble that ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... in the winter, there had been a heavy fall of snow two days before and now the roads in and around Crumville were in excellent condition for sleighing. The musical sound of sleigh-bells could be heard in all directions, and this had made Dave anxious to get out on the road, even though he had to spend most of his time indoors studying, ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... on board the Rock Ferry steamer with an accordion,—an instrument I detest; but nevertheless it becomes tolerable in his hands, not so much for its music, as for the earnestness and interest with which he plays it. His body and the accordion together become one musical instrument on which his soul plays tunes, for he sways and vibrates with the music from head to foot and throughout his frame, half closing his eyes and uplifting his face, as painters represent St. Cecilia ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Madge Wildfire, flitting like a feu follet up and down among the douce Scotch, and the dour rioters. Madge Wildfire is no repetition of Meg Merrilies, though both are unrestrained natural things, rebels against the settled life, musical voices out of the past, singing forgotten songs of nameless minstrels. Nowhere but in Shakspeare can we find such a distraught woman as Madge Wildfire, so near akin to nature and to the moods of "the bonny lady Moon." Only he ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... around was this cradle of snow, and there was firm snow underfoot, that struck with heavy cold through her boot-soles. It was night, and silence. She imagined she could hear the stars. She imagined distinctly she could hear the celestial, musical motion of the stars, quite near at hand. She seemed like a bird ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Rusty sang his dawn song right under Farmer Green's window. His musical trill, sounding very much like the brook that rippled its way down the side of Blue Mountain, always made Farmer Green feel glad that another day ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey |
