"Piano" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seemed so much lower. But the youth was very happy with her elder brother. The two men spent afternoons together on the land or in the loft doing carpentry, when it rained. And they talked together, or Paul taught Edgar the songs he himself had learned from Annie at the piano. And often all the men, Mr. Leivers as well, had bitter debates on the nationalizing of the land and similar problems. Paul had already heard his mother's views, and as these were as yet his own, he ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... happiest minute of the poor boy's life when he was led to the place of honor by the piano, and the lads gathered round, never heeding his poor clothes, but eying him respectfully and waiting eagerly to ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... economical, and had saved money; he owned and occupied a very comfortable house on a respectable street. His residence was handsomely furnished, containing among other things a good library, especially rich in poetry, a piano, and some choice engravings. He generally shared his house with some young couple, who looked after his wants and were company for him; for Mr. Ryder was a single man. In the early days of his connection with the Blue Veins he had been regarded as quite a catch, and young ladies ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... find no fault with her. But the upholsterer was dilatory, and days elapsed before he brought the chairs that were to match the sofa; nearly every piece of drapery was hung separately, and they had given up hope of the etageres and girondoles. For a long while a grand piano was their principal piece of furniture. Though she never touched it, Miss Brand could not live without, a grand piano. 'What's the use?' she'd say. 'I've only to open the score to remember —to ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... the drawing-room. The ladies were grouped together at one end, near the piano. Margot was among them. She was, as usual, dressed in white, and round the bottom of her gown there was an edging of snow-white fur. As we came in, she moved away from the piano to a sofa at some distance, and sank down upon it. Professor Black, who had entered the room at ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... Mr. Pickwick rang the bell, and was shown, at his own request, into a private room furnished with a carpet, table, chairs, sideboard and sofa, and ornamented with a looking-glass, and various old prints. Here he had the advantage of hearing Mrs. Namby's performance on a square piano overhead, while the breakfast was getting ready; when it came, Mr. Perker ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... seemed to be a very tall man, and contrasted strongly with his attendant, who was one of the roundest, shortest, most punchy-looking little men ever seen. A symphony was played on a piano behind the curtains, during which the magician waved his wand, and then in a deep voice he explained that he was about to perform a series of wonderful and unaccountable tricks, which no one had ever equalled, or was ever likely to equal while the world lasted; on which the clown clapped his ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... where the host and hostess received them. The older men then went to the punch-bowl to criticise the "brew" which it contained, while the young people found their way to the dining-room, almost invariably devoted to dancing. The music was a piano and two violins, and one of the musicians called the figures for the cotillions and contra-dances. Those who did not dance elbowed their way through the crowd, conversing with acquaintances, the men ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... rendering to those of the same age of the other sex: a party never seemed complete from which he was absent: there was no one whose hand she more willingly accepted for the dance, or whose praise was more welcome when she rose from the piano: but though the emotions she felt in his presence were so agreeable, she had not suspected them to be those of love. Her brother had abruptly awakened her to the reality. In the simplicity of her ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... that there is to see. Because I'm a girl I don't see why I can't go out without a keeper, and why I cannot do what any man can do that isn't wrong; do you? Perhaps you do—perhaps you don't. Perhaps you like a girl to be always in the house dawdling or thumping a piano or reading novels. Perhaps you think I'm bold because I don't like it, and won't lie and say ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... was begun and for ten years edited by Schumann,—in what spirit we may gather from his own words:—"The musical state of Germany, at that time, was not very encouraging. On the stage Rossini yet reigned, and on the piano Herz and Huenten excluded all others. And yet how few years had passed since Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert lived among us! True, Mendelssohn's star was ascending, and there were wonderful whispers of a certain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... an opera-glass; Faith, Hope, and Charity represented by a golden heart and anchor, and I forget what,—a little harp; I cannot remember any more. These were all, I think, memorials of friends. In the morning she sat down to 'Una's beautifully toned piano, and sang one of Lockhart's Spanish ballads, with eloquent expression, so as to make ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... and that he believed all the youth of Norway would adopt it enthusiastically; but that he was still puzzled over the very necessary word to fit the strongly marked refrain. However, he was not going to give it up. Next morning, when Grieg was in his room peacefully giving a piano lesson to a young lady, a furious ringing was heard at his front-door bell, as if the ringer would tear the bell from its wires, followed by a wild shout of "'Fremad! Fremad!' Hurrah, I have got it! 'Fremad!'" ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Bishop turned to the piano, sweeping aside her white draperies as she sat. She struck a few soft chords, and then, her long hands wandering idly and softly up and down the keys, she smiled at them over ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... began to speculate about sexual matters and to observe the coupling of dogs with newly acquired interest. At 10 years he often lay awake, listening to a woman of 25 singing to a piano accompaniment. The woman's voice seemed very beautiful, and so strongly impressed him that he fell in love with her and longed to embrace her sexually. This secret attachment was much more romantic than sensual, though the idea of embracing the woman seemed to T. a natural part of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... She told Mrs. Warlock that she found Harrods' a confusing place, that she had not yet visited Westminster Abbey, that her health was quite good, that she had no brothers and no sisters, that she could not play the piano, and that she was afraid ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... leading periodicals dealing with farm problems, sociology, and economics, as well as lighter subjects, would be on file. In connection with this building would be an assembly-room suitable for dances, social events, and theatricals, and equipped with a player piano and concert-size talking machine. Arrangements were being made for a weekly exchange of records, for a weekly musical evening by artists from the city, for a semi-monthly vaudeville show, and for Sunday meetings addressed by the best speakers on the more serious ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... another pair. The School House changing-room is a noble affair. It is about seventy feet long and sixty wide. All round it run small partitioned-off benches; in the middle are stands for corps clothes. At one end there is what was once a piano. Laboriously the Chief and Ferguson hunted round the room. In the far corner there was an airing cupboard. It was a great sight to see Ferguson climb up on the top of this. He was not a gymnast, and he took ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... said Frederick, as he returned to the musicians, "we will take our parts, and you, Quantz, take your place at the piano." ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... scratching set his teeth on edge. He caught two strings at once, and his hand trembled with weakness. It was clearly no use. When Vassyvkov played his hand seemed to play of itself. Tired of the torment, Raisky begged his guardian to allow him to take piano lessons. ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... Look at the perfect polish of that table! It's like the finish of a rosewood piano." He touched the ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... of the trade that you learn, as a girl learns the notes of her piano. There's nothing in it. You forget it all the next hour. But when a man has been hung whom you have striven to save, you do remember that. Good-morning, Mr. Wickerby. I'll be there a little before ten. Perhaps you may have to ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the stove, piano, and bedding," said Dick. "And just to show their meanness they hacked the top of the piano with ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... you saw her for the first time. You remember her blue plush hat. Then we went to the Quartier des Invalides, where there was a railing on a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We never left each other. That lasted for nine years and some months. I was like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether you understand, Monsieur Pontmercy, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and here Mollie's face wore a look of the deepest dejection; 'we have no piano, and mamma does not play. When we lived at Richmond the lady in the drawing-room taught me my notes, and I used to practise scales and exercises in her room. She was such a funny old dear, with queer little ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was two stories in height. The rooms were large and lofty; perhaps at first they looked rather bare of furniture, but in hot climates people generally keep their rooms more bare than they do in colder ones. I missed also the sight of a grand piano or some similar instrument, there being no means of producing music in any of the rooms save the larger drawing-room, where there were half a dozen large bronze gongs, which the ladies used occasionally ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... notes for the trumpets, trombones and drums to produce a deafening uproar, but it took all the native force of a Wagner to fill, to inform, the thought itself with such energy that, looking at the score, the passages seem almost to leap out from the page, and, played on even a small piano, their effect is still overwhelming. When the opera was produced the effect on the audience was certainly overwhelming, almost stupefying. The Dutchman had been accepted at Berlin on Meyerbeer's recommendation, but that recommendation Wagner probably thought ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... But these footsteps were so odd that one could not decide to call them regular or irregular. Father Brown followed them with his finger on the edge of the table, like a man trying to learn a tune on the piano. ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... solving problems in Euclid, while she had little or no artistic faculty. He put her through much the same course as his own boys, gave her half an hour's private lesson on unoccupied afternoons, and cut down the two hours' practising on the piano to a bare thirty minutes. Esther had pleaded to give up music altogether, on the ground that she had neither love nor skill for this accomplishment, but to this ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... company: he has a coat, if he has not a skin. Let him button it, and march boldly. Our comedies are frequently youth's tragedies. We will smile reservedly as we mark Mr. Evan Harrington step into the midst of the fair society of the drawing-room. Rose is at the piano. Near her reclines the Countess de Saldar, fanning the languors from her cheeks, with a word for the diplomatist on one side, a whisper for Sir John Loring on the other, and a very quiet pair of eyes for everybody. Providence, she is sure, is keeping ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dear Mrs. Trevor! Prospects! I am sick of the word. Shall I play you something?" And in the twilight she sat down to the piano. ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... sunshine just now," and he declared that he had been exceedingly funny. He had in the course of the evening recited "near upon five hundred extempore macaronic verses; composed and executed an oratorio and opera" upon a piano without strings, namely the center-table; drawn "an entirely original view of Nantasket Beach"; made a temperance address; and given vent to "innumerable jests, jokes, puns, oddities, quiddities and nothings," interrupted by his own laughter and that of his hearers. ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... all the evening in a suppressed way over the piano, Viola, Dermot, and I singing, Harold looking on, and Eustace being left a willing victim to the good counsel lavished by my lord and my lady, who advised him nearly out of his senses and ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... night of it, but without the wherewithal. There were neither knockers to steal, nor watchmen to bonnet. At last we remembered that the apothecary's wife had a conversazione, to which she had kindly invited us; and accordingly, off we went to her house. Here we found a number of French officers, a piano, and a young lady; in consequence of which the drum soon became a ball. Finally, it was proposed we should dance a reel; the second lieutenant of the "Artemise" had once seen one when his ship was riding out a gale in the Clyde;—the little lady had frequently studied a picture of the ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... were in their glory, and as soon as the breakfast things were out of the way, they prepared for a grand cooking-time. They were handy girls, though they had never heard of a cooking-school, never touched a piano, and knew nothing of embroidery beyond the samplers which hung framed in the parlor; one ornamented with a pink mourner under a blue weeping-willow, the other with this pleasing verse, each word being done in a different color, which ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... wings crossed each other in the centre and were lashed to opposite sides of the triangle that served as a mast for the stay-wires that guyed the wings. The four ribs of each wing, enclosed in pockets in the fabric, radiated fanwise from the centre, and were each stayed by three steel piano-wires to the top of the triangular mast, and similarly to its base. These ribs were bolted down to the triangle at their roots, and could be easily folded back on to the body when the glider was not in use. A small fixed vertical surface was carried in the rear. The framework and ribs were made entirely ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... the disreputability was cheerful, and cheerfully acknowledged with lights and noise, here of a broken piano, there of a wheezy accordion, and, beyond, of a half-drunken man singing or shouting a ribald song. Elsewhere it was sullen and dark,—the lights, where there were lights, glittering through chinks, or showing ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... thee to a sunny dome, Ringing with echoes of Italian song; Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, And all the pleasant place is like a home. Hark, on the right, with full piano tone, Old Dante's voice encircles all the air; Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling rare Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan. Pass thou the lintel freely; without fear Feast on the music. I do better know thee Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... De Courcy was often distraite when she brought her crocheting in of an afternoon, or else she was extremely, not to say boisterously gay, and talked or laughed incessantly, or sang at the upright piano that looked too large for the little parlor. The songs were apt to be compositions with such titles as, "Pretty Maggie Kelly," and "Don't Kick him when He's Down," but Druse never heard anything more reprehensible, and she ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... He was old, feeble, and notoriously grasping, yet the dirty, ill-smelling room which Religion entered was strewn with choicest books, sheets of music lay on the table and chairs, and several rare violins lay on a piano, whose mother-of-pearl keys ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... who hold communion in the love of classical quartet and trio music by the great masters,—in the piano poems of Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, there will be abundant opportunities. The Mendelssohn Quintette Club, the German Trio, Mr. Satter, the pianist, and would we might add Otto Dresel, will give series of concerts in the pleasant Chickering Saloon, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... vase, full of gorgeous roses, was placed at the foot of a standing mirror framed in silver, so that the blossoms were reflected double. The sitting-room was provided with easy chairs, a writing-table, and a small piano, and here, too, masses of roses showed their fair faces from every corner. It was all so charming that I could not help uttering an exclamation of delight, and the maid who was unpacking my ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... was said) the property of the Baron of Beaugard, which each generation of Barbilles had displayed with as much ceremony as though it was a chalice given by the Pope, went to Virginie Poucette. Virginie also bought the furniture from Zoe's bedroom as it stood, together with the little upright piano on which she used to play. The Cure bought Jean Jacques' writing-desk, and M. Fille purchased his armchair, in which had sat at least six Barbilles as owners of the Manor. The beaver-hat which Jean Jacques ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and varnish of our, at best, imperfect language. Let their awful presences shame and transfigure, terrify and transport us, into reality of communication akin to their own! "I will express myself in music to you," said a great composer to a bereft woman, as he took his seat at the piano. He felt that he could not manifest otherwise the feeling in him that was so deep. By sound or by silence, let it be only the conviction of our heart we venture to offer to spirits before whom the meaning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... They had been married only a few days, and she had obtained permission to accompany him to Old Point. Very pretty, she seemed, in her travelling hat and flowing robes; and he wore a handsome new uniform with prodigious shoulder-bars. There was a piano in the saloon, where another young lady of the party performed during the evening, and the bride and groom accompanied her with a song. It was the popular Federal parody of ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... husbands' post-prandial promenade on the poop until the latter hour, when, the air getting cool, the whole party would adjourn to the saloon, and, Dr and Mrs Henderson producing their violins and Mr Gaunt his flute, Mrs Gaunt or Miss Stanhope would open the piano which formed part of the saloon furniture, and the sounds of a very capital chamber concert would float out upon the evening air, to the great delectation of Captain Blyth, the officer of the watch, the helmsman, and—in a lesser degree, because less perfectly heard by them—the watch ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... cheap actress, Miss Fotheringay, the story carries one along in the leisurely way of the last century. All the people are a delight, from Captain Costigan to Fowker, and from the French chef, who went to the piano for stimulus in his culinary work, to Blanche Amory and her amazing French affectations. ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... window which was opened to the soft July air bearing the scent of the roses and jessamine; its low easy-chairs, of various patterns, its oval table with a cover of white and gold, its neat cabinet piano, the pretty dainty chimney ornaments, the few cool light sketches in water-colour that adorned the walls, the small book-case with a few charmingly bound volumes which filled up one recess by the fireplace, and the china ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... This made me rejoice in secret that I had little leisure for a scene; for I had placed both my other models in position together and I was pegging away at a drawing from which I hoped to derive glory. It had been suggested by the passage in -which Rutland Ramsay, drawing up a chair to Artemisia's piano-stool, says extraordinary things to her while she ostensibly fingers out a difficult piece of music. I had done Miss Churm at the piano before—it was an attitude in which she knew how to take on an absolutely poetic grace. ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... included in the twenty-one, and then I made up a list of ten others and went to it. I chose easy ones, but some of them didn't turn out to be so easy. Music—oh, boy! And when I started to play the piano, they said I wasn't playing at all, but that I really meant it. Can ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the little imps were dancing With ready-loaded pistol and rifle-barrelled gun; All the little devils they played upon the fiddle, But for the grand piano Old Harry ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... hour or two: ladies of low degree scuttled like rats and panders dashed for safety, while "owners" in princely motorcars turned almost as white as their livers as they saw their "warehouses of virtue" going up in flame. Two incidents are very vivid—the sight of a grand piano tumbling out of a five-story window and one of the aforesaid "owners" trying to remonstrate with the avengers, and having his car run into the fire. The military police tried to interfere early in the game, but only made matters worse, as they were pretty ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... site was obtained. In 1864 the building was enlarged, and external workshops have since been added. The institution is entirely supported by voluntary contributions, though a few paying pupils are admitted. The pupils are taught any industrial trade which may support them in after-life, such as piano-tuning, knitting, chair-caning, basket-making, as well as the usual branches of a useful education. They are admitted at any age under eight, and leave at twenty-one if men, and twenty-four if women. There are day-scholars in attendance as well as ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... tendencies. She was a prodigy in the catechism, and was an agent of terror to the excellent priest who taught her and the other children, for she frequently confounded him in open class by questions which have vexed persons of maturest years. She was taught the harp, the piano, the guitar, and the violin. She was proficient in dancing. Such was her astonishing aptitude in all studies that she says, "I had not a single master who did not appear as much flattered by teaching me as I was grateful for being taught; nor one who, after attending me for a year or ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... of the world. To do this she will have to sacrifice some of her present intelligence; it is impossible to imagine a genuinely intelligent human being becoming a competent trial lawyer, or buttonhole worker, or newspaper sub-editor, or piano tuner, or house painter. Women, to get upon all fours with men in such stupid occupations, will have to commit spiritual suicide, which is probably much further than they will ever actually go. Thus a shade of their present superiority to men will always remain, and with it a shade ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... find myself in the open sea and in the midst of the tempest, as I was yesterday and shall be for a long time, perhaps, until he comes to lead me on board. That is a commonplace phrase, but it well expresses what I wish to say and I use it. Then an hour's practice on the piano. Then to the Promenade. Mademoiselle de G—— wore a broad-brimmed grey felt hat, turned up at one side. O, how I would like a hat like that! It is so graceful. I would like a hat like that, and the ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... he heard her voice. She was singing in the drawing-room, and the door of the drawing-room stood open. She sang in a low small voice, very pretty to the ear, and she was accompanying herself softly on the piano. Dick stood for a while listening in the lofty hall, while Ralston looked over his letters which were lying upon a small table. He opened one of them and uttered ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... were comfortable with chairs, lounges, and ottomans; a piano occupied one corner, while two or three good pictures hung upon the walls. In the bow-window was a window-seat piled high with cushions, from which by daylight one might have surveyed the passing show—dull ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... little house was at last got to rights, at least as much so as Milly's limited means permitted. Horatio's resources were squeezed to the last dollar, and the piano came in on credit. Then the family moved in, and soon the girl's restless ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... there's a girl in Tavistock Square that can beat Polly,—she's the eldest, called after her mother, you know,—that can beat her at the piano. And Lucy has read Lord Byron and Tom Moore all through, every word of 'em. By Jove, I believe she knows most of Tom Moore by heart. And the young uns are coming on just ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... one objection to that suggestion—viz., that it's perfectly impossible to tell a cab from a piano-organ. We must find out where we are first, and then turn. PEACOCK, drive on as well as you can, and stop when you come ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... Dorado." Her graceful form never throws its shadow over the threshold of the luxurious home of the lawyer. On rare visits to the residence of his friend, Valois' quick eye notes the evidence of a reigning divinity. A piano and a guitar, a scarf here, a few womanly treasures there, are indications of a "manage a deux." They prove to Maxime that the Egeria of this intellectual king lingers near her victim. He is still under her mystic spell. Breasting the tide of litigation in the United States and ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... and old women call education is the custom of dissimulating natural manners, and when they have completely depraved us they say that we are well-bred. One evening my mistress begged one of the young ladies to sing. When this girl went to the piano and began to sing I recognized at once an Irish melody that I had heard in my youth, and I remembered that I also was a musician. So I merged my voice with hers, but I received some raps on the head while she received ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... were not a necessity, if the wife has objected to the purchase and notified the seller that she will not pay for the same. "Expenses of the family," are not limited to necessary expenses, but whatever is kept or used in the family is included in the term. A piano, an organ, a watch and other jewelry, a cook stove and fixtures, have all been held to come within the term "family expense," for which the property of the wife is liable. But a reaping machine, though used by the husband ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... musicians, consisting of three drummers and four performers on the piano, went round the kotla several times, regaling us with their music. Their drums are neatly carved from the trunk of a tree, and have a small hole in the side covered with a bit of spider's web: the ends are covered with the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... of mine when she takes the lapel of my coat in one hand, raises the forefinger of the other, turns her head sideways like a thrush watching a wriggling worm, and says, in a voice that rises as fast as the sound a mouse makes racing up the treble of the piano keys: 'Ump! whew! Didn't I tell you so? The minute my back was turned, of course you made ducks and drakes of all your promises. Show me a "Flying Jenney," that the tip end of any idiot's little finger can spin around, and I'll christen it Edward McTwaddle Singleton!' Seems funny to you, doctor? ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... law by which it automatically hammers out of a piano an elaborate piece of music, without error, while the man is thinking about something else, or ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a word, Margaret fell back upon the extreme cynicism and world-weariness of twenty-three, and assured herself that she despised everybody, whereas, as a matter of fact, she never in her life succeeded in disliking anything except mice and piano-practice, and, for a very little while, Billy Woods; and this for the very excellent reason that the gods had fashioned her solely to the end that she might love all mankind, and in return be loved by humanity in general and adored by that portion ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... logically, or dexterously addressing the prejudice of the company; no, but a taking sovereign possession of the audience. Him we call an artist, who shall play on an assembly of men as a master on the keys of the piano,—who, seeing the people furious, shall soften and compose them, shall draw them, when he will, to laughter and to tears. Bring him to his audience, and, be they who they may, coarse or refined, pleased or displeased, sulky or savage, with their opinions in the keeping of a confessor, or with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the Wilkinses in Boston, I'm pretty sure to find Mr. Wilkins all smiles and Sunshine, or Mrs. Wilkins all gentleness and politeness. I am entertained delightfully, and after tea little Miss Wilkins shows me her photograph album, and plays the march from "Faust" on the piano for me. I go away highly pleased with my visit; and yet the Wilkinses may fight like cats and dogs in private. I may no sooner have struck the sidewalk than Mr. W. will be reaching ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... because it has been found that these things are transmuted into good, and come out again at the finger-tips of the workers in beautiful results. So we have pictures, statuary, flowers, ferns, palms, birds, and a piano in every room. We have the best sanitary appliances that money can buy; we have bathrooms, shower-baths, library, rest-rooms. Every week we have ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... be settled and comfortable. They tried to make Mark sit in a massive, gold-trimmed armchair, but he had his wits about him by this time and took a humbler seat beside Lorry. Aunt Ellen sank into her rocker with a sigh of achievement and Chrystie perched on the piano stool. Then he told them the story, forgetting his bashfulness under the spell ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... the fairy tales, all things become 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 can ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... smooth neck and delicious shoulders were curved, not fatly, but with youth and happiness. They were square, capable shoulders, with no mid-Victorian droop about them. Her waist was slender naturally, not from stays. Her short but not fat fingers were the ideal instruments for the piano. Slim were her crossed feet, and her unwrinkled pumps (foolish footgear for a snowy evening) ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... better purchase the Hundred Best Books. "Well," he had said (rather sharply, for time was getting on), "I reckon I don't want any but the best." In the same spirit he had approached the gentleman in the piano-forte emporium and ordered a Steinway Grand to be forwarded when he knew his permanent address. For as yet it was uncertain which county contained it, that princely residence—the old manor-house or baronial hall—in which henceforth they would live together in affluence. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... week they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his family, with all the nurses and attendants, take an active part. Dances and marches are performed alternately, to the enlivening strains of a piano; and now and then some gentleman or lady (whose proficiency has been previously ascertained) obliges the company with a song: nor does it ever degenerate, at a tender crisis, into a screech or howl; wherein, I must confess, I should have thought the danger lay. ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... Tscherepin's folklore "Fire Bird" and "Rhapsodie Negre," and John Powell's suite, "The Fair," with the composer at the piano, given by the Russian Symphony Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall, New ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... was playing on the piano as we entered. It was a curious composition—very rhythmic, with a peculiar thread of monotonous melody ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... to all polite advances during the first few days after his arrival at Houston Mansion. Despite Miss Husted's oft-repeated inquiries after the professor's health (the title had been conferred on him by virtue of his possessing a violin and on the arrival of a piano for his room), despite her endeavours to direct conversation into a channel which might lead to a discussion of his personal affairs, Herr Von Barwig remained tacit; hence a mystery attached itself to the personality of the professor. ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... very advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals and played the violin (for N——- was a very musical town), had just joined her for the purpose of extorting "The Swiss Boy, with variations," out of a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful cry under the awakening fingers of Miss ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was glitter and fire in each eye, For two living coals were the symbols; His teeth were calcined, and his tongue was so dry, It rattled against them, as though you should try To play the piano in thimbles. ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... been lighted, but the room was filled with the ruddy glow of the big wood fire. It shone warmly on the frames of the portraits and the tall gilded harp with its shining strings, and gave a burnishing touch to Betty's brown hair, as she stood by the piano, fingering for the hundredth time the presents she had received that day. Her dress of soft white wool suggested, like Lloyd's, the Yule-tide season, for in the belt and shoulder-knots of dull green velvet were caught clusters of mistletoe, the tiny ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... it was without, all was comfortable within doors, and a cheery (one-and-sixpenny) fire crackled in the grate. Our private drawing-room was charmingly furnished, and so large that, notwithstanding the presence of a piano, two sofas, five small tables, cabinets, desks, and chairs,—not forgetting a dainty five-o'clock tea equipage,—we might have given a party in the ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... supplied by a man whose home we visited in the winter. His comfortable farm-house was overflowing with the good things of life: a piano and an organ stood in the parlor, and a well-filled bookcase in the sitting-room; a large bay-window was bright with flowering plants; and base-burner coal-stoves and double-paned windows mocked at the efforts of the wintry winds ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Hamburg, in Germany. I was much pleased with a portrait which was hanging up in her room, and I was particularly struck by the ornamental drawings with which the picture was surrounded. They consisted of whip handles, canes, piano keys, mouth-pieces for wind instruments, all sorts of umbrellas, and many more things, of every sort, made of cane and whalebone. The arrangement was so ingenious, the designs so fanciful, and the ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... a fancy, wrought upon by the recitals of the old butler, illustrated by the very concrete things which had been used by the personages he described. There were the chairs they sat on, the beds they slept on, the piano they played on, all as they had been left. It was impossible for me to conceive that there was yet no connection between these things and the old family. The pictures, too, were still there, in the various rooms, some of them ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... conservatory, to the right, there is a low, oblong tea-table at which are placed three small chairs; and near-by, on the left, are a grand-piano and a music-stool. Against the piano there is a settee, and on the extreme left, below the door, there is an arm-chair with a little round table beside it. At the right-hand window in the wall at the ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... hue on the walls that surely bespoke Henry Chichester's personal taste. There were bookcases, there were mezzotints, there were engravings of well-known pictures, and there were armchairs not covered with horsehair. There was also a cottage piano, severely nude. In the center of the room stood a small square table covered with a cloth ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... into good humor, but he wouldn't; so, to make up, we coaxed the fat poodle, which had been staring in at the performance and sniffing satisfaction, to sit up and beg for us until we gave him the lump of sugar. Then Mrs. Lawson sat down to the piano, and began playing a funny little hornpipe tune that sounded just like a banjo; and, to our astonishment, the fat poodle developed another accomplishment; for, getting on his hind legs, he gravely hopped up and down on the piazza, keeping time ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... 'A little Latin, and less Greek,' German and French enough to read and understand and talk—on the surface of things—and what mathematics, history, et cetera, I have not forgotten. I know the piano well enough to read and play an accompaniment after a fashion, and I have had some good teaching for the voice, and some experience in singing, at home and abroad. In fact, I come nearer to a market ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... interest in progress. She worked at this of an evening, while Miss Wendover, who had a fine full voice, and a perfect enunciation, read aloud to her. Then, when Miss Wendover was tired, Ida went to the piano and played for an hour or so, while the elder lady gave herself up to rare idleness and ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... over to the open piano in one corner of the room. Nora had taken music and so was the pianist of the family. She struck the opening chords, and then they all joined in ...
— The Quest of Happy Hearts • Kathleen Hay
... cluster of girls hovering over the piano, and the quiet groups of the elders in easy chairs, around little tables. I cannot hear what is said, nor plainly see the faces. But some hoyden evening wind, more daring than I, abruptly parts the cloud to look in, and out comes a gush of light, music, and fragrance, so that ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... with unbalanced wall spaces, place against the longest spaces the largest pieces of furniture—the piano, the bookcase, the davenport—grouping perhaps a table, mirror, and chair against a smaller and opposite wall space. This permits the comfortable chairs, tables, lamps, and pottery to relieve the stiffness, allowing them to be grouped in the ...
— Better Homes in America • Mrs W.B. Meloney
... about the room like a little boy. "It was only half finished when they chose me for the big plunge," he said. "Of course I was doing a lot of conducting then, too. Now I'd much rather just write." He hurried across the long, softly-lit room to the piano, came back with a sheaf of papers. "Do you read music? This is just what I've been doing recently. Can't get it quite right, but ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... oval crayon ornamented the wall. By two lamps on the mantle-shelf every detail of the old-fashioned furniture could be distinguished, from the clock on a fish of artificial and painted marble to the old and antiquated piano, on which, without doubt, as a young girl, in leg-of-mutton sleeves and with hair dressed a la Grecque, she had played the airs ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... must have seen the glare of defiant desperation flashing from my restless eyes and no one dared to bar my egress. As I emerged from that shop into Regent Street, I felt as exhausted as if I had just bought a grand piano or a suite of furniture. 'Really,' I said to my wife in conclusion, 'if I could have foreseen all the trouble in store for me over buying this little Japanese basket, price twopence, it would have been still reposing with its ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... mischief. He could sing all kinds of tunes—quick tunes, slow tunes, and merry tunes. He had been able to sing tunes ever since he was quite a tiny baby, and his father and mother often talked together of how, in about a year, he should be taught to play on the piano, or perhaps on the violin, if he liked it better. You might hear his sharp, shrill little voice, singing about the house and the garden all day long. John the gardener called it "squealin'," and told Olly his songs were "capital good" for ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a very innocent Dors, mon enfant, written by a young poet of his acquaintance; this was the first thing I composed to a French text. It was so successful that, when I had tried it over softly several times on the piano, my wife, who was in bed, called out to me that it was heavenly for sending one to sleep. I also set L'Attente from Hugo's Orientales, and Ronsard's song, Mignonne, to music. I have no reason to be ashamed of these small pieces, which I published subsequently as a musical ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... all the others had gone, and Lilian's mother was folding her work, and John was locking a window, and Helen closing the piano, she saw Mr. Reyburn stoop over Lilian's hand as he said good-night—stoop low, and press his lips upon its dimpled back. In after years Helen might recall his manner of that moment and understand it, half reverence, half passion, as it was, but now she only saw Lilian turn white and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... saved my life, but I did not tell him so, for such occurrences are taken as part of the day's work, and the sledge he safeguarded was of much more importance, for it held, as part of its load, the Commander's sextant, the mercury, and the coils of piano-wire that were the essential portion of the scientific part of the expedition. My kamiks (boots of sealskin) were stripped off, and the congealed water was beaten out of my bearskin trousers, and with a dry pair of kamiks, we hurried on to overtake the column. When we caught up, we ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... hearing. I have seen it in the hands of nursery-maids and of shopgirls behind the counters; of frivolous young women who read every novel that is talked about; of business men, professors, and students.... The proprietors of those large shops where anything—from a pin to a piano—can be bought, vie with each other in selling the cheapest edition. One pirate put his price even so low as four cents—two pence!" (Those, it will be remembered, were ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... exclaimed Miss Pamela, "here is some money I didn't expect. Didn't I tell you, Kitty Plumstone, that Providence would send you some new music somehow? She plays on the piano, Master Ned; I really do think she is going to make quite a musician. I teach her myself, you know. I can't play any more because of the stiffness in my fingers, but Kitty can play 'Days of Absence,' and 'Come, Haste to the ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... for one who calls in casually at some of the remoter schools. I have more than once found the teacher giving instruction in his shirt sleeves. In one school, I saw the master with a large melodeon (the Board being too stingy to supply a piano), giving an inharmonious accompaniment to the musical drill. I got a dreadful surprise on meeting the schoolmaster of a district in Jura: the unfortunate gentleman was stone-deaf, his auditory nerves being completely ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... alone, but as he feelingly said, "If I were forty years younger, mademoiselle, you should not sing to me so calmly." His friend Popoff, an intelligent, vivacious Russian, with very Calmuck features, susceptible as a girl, and passionately fond of music, hung over Sybil's piano by the hour; he brought Russian airs which he taught her to sing, and, if the truth were known, he bored Madeleine desperately, for she undertook to act the part of duenna ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... reason suddenly dismissed. Teachers came for her from the High School, among them a real Frenchman, who taught Dasha French. He, too, was suddenly dismissed, almost turned out of the house. A poor lady, a widow of good family, taught her to play the piano. Yet her chief ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... risen from the easy-chair,—a comfortable old family relic which stood opposite the old-fashioned piano. She leaned forward, however, so that the sealskin mantle, which the warmth of the room and the length of her wait had prompted her to throw back, settled down from her shoulders in rich and luxurious folds. She gave him, half extended, a hand, which he lifted ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... give you something better than the Journal would give you, and I am going to give you a happy day in the country. We're now on our way to this lady's house. You are my guest, and you can play golf, and bridge, and the piano, and eat and drink until the polls close, and after that you can go to the devil. If you jump out at this speed, you will break your neck. And, if I have to slow up for anything, and you try to get away, I'll go after you—it doesn't matter where it is—and ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... crash of chords from the piano melted into a rippling prelude, and Winifred breathed easier when her friend began to sing. Her voice was sweet and excellently trained, and there was a deep stillness of appreciation when the clear notes ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... with us. Our minister now performs the function of the Greek poet at marriages and funerals. Our funeral sermons and newspaper paragraphs have taken the place of the Greek encomiums. Our fiddles or piano do duty instead of the Greek dithyrambs, hyporchems, and other dancing songs. Our warriors are either left unsung, or celebrated in verse that reads much better than it sings. The members of the "Benevolent ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... should like to be a piano teacher, when I grow up, for then I shall be able to learn to play many pieces ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... her arms, when Najib plucks a flower and, after smelling it, presents it to her? What makes that reticent, meditative, hard-favoured ancient, who is I believe a psychologist, what makes him so interested in observing Najib when he stands near the piano pointing anxiously to the keyboard? For the child enjoys not every kind of music: play a march or a melody and he will keep time, listing joyously from side to side and waving his hand in an arch like a maestro; play something insipid or chaotic and he will ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... with greater sweetness than usual—she was decidedly in good voice; both Charlie and Harry listened with great pleasure as they stood by her side; Jane was also sitting near the piano, and seemed more interested in the music than usual; it was a song which the young widow had so often heard, in what she now looked back to as the happy days of her girlhood. More than one individual in the room thought it charming to listen to ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... broached to her daughters until the evening on which we first introduced them to our readers. Then taking her seat by the brightly burning lamp, she drew the letter from her pocket and read it aloud, while Alice drummed an occasional note upon the piano and Eugenia beat a tattoo upon the carpet ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... youngest. Well, I went last Easter, politely to pay them a visit, And I wore the new coat now hanging up in the closet, And was frizzled and curld, like all the rest of the youngsters. When I enter'd, they titter'd; but that didn't very much matter. Minnie sat at the piano, the father was present amongst them, Pleased with his daughter's singing, and quite in a jocular humour. Little could I understand of the words in the song she was singing, But I constantly heard of Pamina, and ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... one who sings madrigals to-night, Uncle; she is going to read Colin a lesson"; and, sitting down at the piano, she let her hands run over the keys and burst out joyously into that variation of Raleigh's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... into a saloon listening to that Lady that sings high up—higher than any piano can go. I've set and listened till I didn't know where I was settin'—of course I had to buy a drink, you understand, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... attitude of misery until the door slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away. Then she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief glittering in her green eyes. She burst out laughing once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause under her window to listen to her ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in life with his drawing-room successes, our hero preferred by far burying himself in his hunting story-books, or spending the evening at the club, to making a personal exhibition before a Nimes piano between a pair of home-made candles. These musical parades seemed beneath him. Nevertheless, at whiles, when there was a harmonic party at Bezuquet's, he would drop into the chemist's shop, as if by chance, and, after a deal of pressure, consent to do the grand duo ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... came he found her entertaining four or five other farmers' daughters and a couple of young men. She was playing the piano to them and talking and laughing louder and faster than ever he had heard her in his life. He sat moody a little while and watched her uneasily, but soon took his line, and exerting his excellent social powers became ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and to a report in the Times (April 26, 1915). In this report the Hall is described as "a large, bare house situated in a hollow.... The style of furnishing was that of a sergeant's mess." There was one piano, provided at the prisoners' expense. The billiard tables and other accessories imagined by perfervid patriots vanish into ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... go into Exeter yesterday. I got there about sunset, transacted my business, and turned to walk home again through the warm twilight. In Southernhay, as I was passing a house of which the ground-floor windows stood open, there sounded the notes of a piano—chords touched by a skilful hand. I checked my step, hoping, and in a minute or two the musician began to play that nocturne of Chopin which I love best—I don't know how to name it. My heart leapt. There I stood in the thickening dusk, the glorious sounds floating about me; and I ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... golden masterpiece of autumn's like a bad sketch, torn it across and dropped it into the waste-basket. What is one to do with a day when nothing that has been invented seems enough fun to pay for the bother? He did not wish to paint, he did not wish to read, or to play on the piano, as he sometimes did in solitude, with one hand, to solace himself by re-framing a remembered melody. He did not wish to go out, but was restless from staying in. He did not want to see the face of friend or foe, but could no longer ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... low as to undertake the improvement of the mechanic arts; yet it is astonishing to see what Mexican mechanics do accomplish with their imperfect means. I have often stopped to witness the success of a poor old man building a piano, which was both skillfully arranged and well-toned, and yet the tools employed were apparently inadequate for such a purpose. In the same primitive style were coaches built before foreigners came and substituted coaches of modern pattern ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... but I don't know where to find any one that would attract my James. Except for political meetings, and a literary lecture or two, with a magic-lantern and a piano, we have not much social relaxation at Bulcester. We object to promiscuous dancing, on grounds of conscience. Also, ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... mirrors and gleaming chandeliers, the guests are assembled. Here, on a raised platform, stands a grand piano of great price, which tonight has the additional virtue of not being played upon. Here, hanging on the wall, is an oil-painting of a handsome man in full dress, rigid, erect, straight as the tasseled cane ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... ran to the dining room. The tables had been moved to one end where they were piled on top of one another; the chairs were arranged in a row along the wall; the floor, newly waxed, shone like glass. A small upright piano manipulated by an elderly female in glasses; a tremendous bass viol in charge of a small man, and a violin played by a large ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... she said, and began to pace about the room, up and down, up and down. Her mother watched her anxiously. Angelica closed the piano. Dr. Galbraith and the bishop came in from the dining room, and then Edith declared that driving in the open air had made her so sleepy she must ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... ... Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound— The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ... Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... himself, and lived in it several years as a widower. Carpani in his thirteenth letter draws a pleasant picture of Haydn's life with his mistress Boselli, and incidentally describes how various composers composed: Gluck with his piano in a summer meadow and the bottled sunshine of Champagne on each side; Sarti in a dark room at night with a funereal lamp pendant from the ceiling; Salieri in the streets eating sweets; Paer while joking with his friends, gossiping on a thousand things, scolding his servants, quarrelling ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... was soon seated at the piano which Hesden had kept in tune more for the pleasure of occasional guests than his own. It was three years since she had touched one, but the little organ, which some Northern benefactor had given to the church and school at Red ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... thing in the room was a piano, on which Ronnie very effectively and very inaccurately strummed by ear; and on which Helen, with careful skill, played his accompaniments, when he was seized with a sudden ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... singers can read is more convenient in the choir than a multiplicity of small books; and the music being in full score, its intention cannot be mistaken: for it must be understood that most of these tunes are set in the manner proper for voices, but unsuitable for the piano or other keyed instrument; and the book is intended to encourage unaccompanied singing. A choir that cannot sing unaccompanied cannot sing at all; and this is not an uncommon condition in our churches, where choirs with varying ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... he hesitated—but I cannot feel sure that I observed him correctly. It matters little. With or without hesitation, he followed her to the piano. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the conservatory and making his way towards the piano, as though irresistibly fascinated. For her encore the singer was giving a simple ballad that had been very popular some years before. The last time Peveril heard it was when cruising along a shore of Lake Superior, and it had come to him from somewhere up ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... putting up the shutters; and his mind is easy. But the "good days" of The Bend are over, too. The Bend itself is all but gone. Where the old pigsty stood, children dance and sing to the strumming of a cracked piano-organ propelled on wheels by an Italian and his wife. The park that has come to take the place of the slum will curtail the undertaker's profits, as it has lessened the work of the police. Murder was the fashion of the day ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... first saw a piano. It was open, and he beat the keys, sounding now one note at a time and now two or three together. This was a fascinating exercise, but he was bidden to desist from it, and was given a picture-book to look at It was full of wiry-looking steel ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... whatever was to come to him it would not bring surprise with it. He was in a world where anything might happen. In all the house his favourite room was the high, thin drawing-room with an old gold mirror at one end of it and a piano muffled in brown holland. The mirror caught the piano with its peaked inquiring shape, that, in its inflection, looked so much more tremendous and ominous than it did in plain reality. Through the mirror the piano looked as though it might do anything, and to Henry, who knew nothing about ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... papers are to be read out. I do not say I should like to play often at this game, which might possibly be a tedious and lengthy pastime, not by any means so amusing as smoking a cigar in the conservatory; or even listening to the young ladies playing their piano-pieces; or to Hobbs and Nobbs lingering round the bottle and talking over the morning's run with the hounds; but surely it is a moral and ingenious sport. They say the variety of narratives is often very odd and amusing. The original ...
— English Satires • Various
... back, colder and more self-possessed than Anna. He had heard a light, approaching step. "Some one comes; be composed, dear one; your face betrays too much of your inward emotion." He danced to the open piano and played a merry strain, while Anna hid her blushes in the branches of a geranium placed in the window, and tried to cool her glowing cheeks ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... room in the parish house resounded to the twenty voices of the choir. The choir master at the piano kept time with his head. Earnest and intent, they filled the building with the Festival Te Deum of Dudley ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... By RICARDO LINTER. Piano solo, 3s.: Duet, 4s. "Another of the admired sets by the author of the Canary Quadrilles and the Goldfinch Quadrilles, elegantly composed, as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... too. And these abortionists could double their trade and work the women in, if Capt. Saltmarsh could whirl a horse in, or a piano, or a guitar, in place of his cannon. The fact is, he fatigues the market with that cannon. Even the male market, I mean. These fourteen in the procession are not all satisfied. One is an old "independent" fireman, and he wants an engine in place of the cannon; another is a mate of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... watered down, humdrum neckties, composing away from the piano, no animals—it's all against me except the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... The style of the Regency with its use of musical instruments for decorative motifs is also attractive. The chairs should be comfortable, the lights soft and well shaded side-lights, with a plentiful supply near the piano. ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... crashing chord from the piano. One of the veiled figures had seated herself at the instrument and now proceeded to play "appropriate selections" as ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... States would no more dream of being without ice during the hot season, than they would of failure to take daily supplies of bread and milk. In almost every home through bright and sunny Australia we find a piano and a sewing machine, and yet either of these costs far more than an ice chest, and perhaps as much to keep in repair as the ice to fill it. Looking at it from many points of view, it ought to be considered an indispensable article of furniture, and it has this great advantage ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... a great bunch of the fragrant roses, and hurried down to the parlor, where she found the others waiting, Mrs. Ellsworth alone in an easy-chair, Olive and Love at the piano with Ela, who was playing the accompaniment for a sentimental song that Olive sang while Love turned ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... a piano in the house. Yes, I know, but it was Helena's, and when she was married in November she took it with her. Father hasn't bought a new one yet, because the other girls don't play. Now do you see? You're in for the stupidest evening you've had this winter, for it's too late to get ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... later to breakfast, and they seemed not to go to school; some of them had piano lessons in their rooms. Their mothers did not go out much; sometimes they went to church or the theatre, and they went shopping. But they had apparently no more social than domestic life. Now and then they had a friend to lunch ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... since I was a young fellow courtin' her mother. I don't believe I'd ever got her without that banjo," he added and laughed with great good humour. "Nancy don't think much of it," he went on. "She thinks it's nothin' beside the piano, but Raymond, here, is like me, he thinks it beats the piano ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... really is good," interrupted Amy. "Boys, you should hear him play! He has a guitar hung over his shoulder, a harmonica strapped to his head, a piano near by to which he makes sudden dashes, and all the while he dances the most ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... the united brass instruments, very effective, especially in the open air, though a little trying to nervous ladies in the front rows of an opera-house. This is the celebrated "KilkennischeKatzenMotiv" (Motive of Mortal Combat). It is a syncopated movement, and when given at the piano, is to be played furiously, first with one hand and then with the other, till the performer is ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... know how much Kemper could distinguish. He kept dodging about and twisting his head until I really thought it would come off, unless it had been screwed on like the top of a piano stool. ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... that set the echoes flying between the houses, and a regiment of cavalry went clanking down the street. But that is a not unwelcome morning serenade and reveille. Not so agreeable is the young man next door, who gives hilarious concerts to his friends, and sings and bangs his piano all day Sunday; nor the screaming young woman opposite. Yet it is something to be in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a boudoir upholstered in light gray silk damask, with bouquets of flowers. This is Madame Desvarennes's favorite room. A splendid Erard piano occupies one side of the apartment. Facing it is a sideboard in sculptured ebony, enriched with bronze, by Gouthieres. There are only two pictures on the walls: "The Departure of the Newly Married Couple," exquisitely painted by Lancret; ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... fifty people with whom the family were well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young folk, and there was to be dancing; but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable gaiety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to the beau monde—a ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... exclaimed Madeline indignantly. "I love them each and all—well, with a few exceptions, Ellery. You needn't grin sarcastically. Now there's the piano—such a piano as I have always dreamed of but never hoped to own. If I called it a Steinway Grand, I should know that it was an excellent instrument; but when I call it 'Vera,' it warms and delights my heart ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... the way in which he spoke that McNeice did not like bishops; but I was not prepared for the violence of the speech which he made to me after dinner. Marion and Power were at the piano, which stands in a far-off corner of my rather oversized drawing-room. McNeice settled himself in front of the fire, his long legs straddled far apart, the bow of his white tie twisted under his ear. He is a man of singularly ferocious appearance. He has very bushy ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... talk learnedly even in English; and he had, besides, a conviction that she was angry with him for upsetting her cousin, who was gravely conversing with Miss Goff. Suddenly a horrible noise caused a general start and pause. Mr. Jack, the eminent composer, had opened the piano-forte, and was illustrating some points in a musical composition under discussion by making discordant sounds with his voice, accompanied by a few chords. Cashel laughed aloud in derision as he made his way towards the door through the ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Eleanor's piano accompaniment, met with an ovation. Guido Savelli had been purposely placed last on the programme. "No one will care for anything else after he plays. The audience will have the memory of his music to take away ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... bad yarn about Salter's wife,' he went on. 'Salter is the manager, you know. Dickenson lives close by, in Notting Hill, and he said one morning that he had seen Mrs. Salter, in the Portobello Road, in red stockings, dancing to a piano organ.' ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... winter following her husband's death Mrs. Brandeis had a way of playing solitaire after supper; one of the simpler forms of the game. It seemed to help her to think out the day's problems, and to soothe her at the same time. She would turn down the front of the writing desk, and draw up the piano stool. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... cabin had the great table, as a fixture, in the centre, but that of Eve, somewhat shorter, but of equal width, was free from all encumbrance of the sort. It had its sofas, cushions, mirrors, stools, tables, and an upright piano. The doors of the state-rooms, and other conveniences, opened on its sides and ends. In short, it presented, at that hour, the resemblance of a tasteful boudoir, rather than that of an apartment in a cramped and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper |
