"Orchestra" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The wakes continued as usual, except that the Chief Constable, upon representations being made to him by Mr. Critchlow and other citizens, descended upon St. Luke's Square and forbade the activities of Wombwell's orchestra. Wombwell and the Chief Constable differed as to the justice of the decree, but every well-minded person praised the Chief Constable, and he himself considered that he had enhanced the town's reputation ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Hoffmann, Opera House, with Mother. Good performance. First and third acts excellent; second ("Barcarolle" act) poor. Orchestra superb. Felice Lyne, Pollock, Victoria Fer—artistes of ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... to view the whole field of the world's greatest battle—a battle which lasted a year and cost a million men—as from the gallery of a theatre one might look down upon the stage, the boxes, and the orchestra-stalls. Below me, rising from the meadows beside the Meuse, were the shattered roofs and fire-blackened walls of Verdun, dominated by the stately tower of the cathedral and by the great bulk of the citadel. The environs of the town and ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... The orchestra was already seated, and as Norma stood awed and ecstatic in the front of the Von Behrens box, the conductor came in, and was met with a wave of applause, which had no sooner died away than the lights fanned softly and quickly down, there was the click of a baton on wood, and in the instantly ensuing ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... a restaurant where ladies and gentlemen dine. A fine great hall, polished floors, rugs, palms, a lot of little tables, colored lights, flowers, silver, cut glass, perfumes, a grand orchestra—get that in your mind—and then the orchestra strikes up and you come down the aisle, right through the crowd and ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... sit (full 15,000 or more) wedged close together upon rough wooden benches set upon the hill slopes.[*] At the foot of their wide semicircle is a circular space of ground, beaten hard, and ringed by a low stone barrier. It is some ninety feet in diameter. This is the "orchestra," the "dancing place," wherein the chorus may disport itself and execute its elaborate figures. Behind the orchestra stretches a kind of tent or booth, the "skene." Within this the actors may retire ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... engaged, amusing itself by drumming on some resonant dead limb, or on the roof and sides of houses, barns, etc." For though, like other drummers, the Woodpeckers are not found in the front ranks of the orchestra, they beat a royal tattoo that may well ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... this silent and yet so eloquent orchestra, which from morn to night was continually crying 'Glory, glory, glory' in the ear of the self-enamoured poet, Hyacinth Rondel was sitting one evening. The last post had brought him the above-mentioned leaves of the Romeike laurel, and he sat in his easiest chair by the bright fire, adjusting ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... and grumpy old gentleman in the crowded restaurant was compelled to sit, much against his will, next to the orchestra. His stare at the leader as the jazz selection came to an end. The annoyed patron snorted, and ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... that he was keeping it to miscreants. It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand. The barrel-organ seemed to give the marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises of a whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under all the trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... the bridal procession to the strains of Mendelssohn's wedding march played by the orchestra, stationed in a palm-screened corner of the wide hall. It was the same old orchestra which had become so closely identified with the good times of the Eight Originals during their high school days. Jessica ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... air. The leader was an imitator of Sousa and had his gymnastic eccentricities down to a fine point. He executed a fantasia on his horn of plenty that brought a shower of silver on the stage. We were told that the members of the orchestra were called the "Flowers of Music from Stamboul," and were working their passage to the "halls" of the European capitals. May the hat never be returned empty nor the charm ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... at that time greatly in vogue as a place of public entertainment. It was situated near Chelsea; the principal room was a rotunda of great dimensions, with an orchestra in the center and tiers of boxes all round. It was a place to which Johnson resorted occasionally. "I am a great friend to public amusements," said he, "for they keep people from vice." [Footnote: "Alas, sir!" said Johnson, speaking, when in another mood, of grand ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the spoon went round the basin again and was followed by an audible sip, on hearing which Poole went to the window, thrust out his head, and began to whistle, keeping up his tune as if he were playing orchestra to a banquet, while he watched the dart and splash of a fish from time to time about the surface, and the shadowy shapes of others deep down below the schooner's stern-post, clearly enough seen in the crystal sunlit ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... was. And when they sat upon a plush sofa and let the smoke go up between them and the stage, and heard far off the high- pitched voices and the jolly orchestra breaking in opportunely he was still awkward, only Fanny thought: "What a beautiful voice!" She thought how little he said yet how firm it was. She thought how young men are dignified and aloof, and how unconscious ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... composer, "a musician always finds it difficult to reply when the answer needs the cooperation of a hundred skilled executants. Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, without an orchestra would be of no ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... furnished by an orchestra consisting of four men, three with copper gongs (gangsas), and one with a drum. The gongs are tambourine shape, with sides about an inch and a half high. They are placed against the thighs of the players who kneel on the ground, and are beaten with a stick and the palm of the hand or by ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... season, the racing season had commenced, and all the hotels had put on coats of new, white paint, and opened their doors, while in the huge Kursaal they played childish games of chance now that M. Marquet was no longer king—yet the magnificent orchestra was worth a journey ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... earn his daily bread. Willing to descend, that he might rise, he became a violin player of minor parts at the Hamburg Opera House. The homage he had received prompted his vanity to create a surprise. He played badly, and acted as a verdant youth. The members of the orchestra sneeringly informed him that he would never earn his salt. Handel, however, waited his opportunity. One day the harpsichordist, the principal person in the orchestra, was absent. The band, thinking it would be a ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... an unfailing help to pass the time. A word will sometimes keep a player puzzling for hours, which is, of course, too long. "Pomegranate," "Orchestra," and "Scythe" are good examples ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... cases are insignificant compared with such transformations as that of the prelude of the E major partita for unaccompanied violin into the sinfonia for organ obligato accompanied by full orchestra (including three trumpets and a pair of drums) at the beginning of the church cantata, Wir danken dir, Gott. The original version is perhaps the most complete and natural of the violin solos, for its arpeggios produce full harmony ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... very much embarrassed—never more so in my life—and I knew not what to say. I made a desperate effort, and a few words escaped me, but what they were I could not for the life of me tell, nor could any one else in the house. My utterances were inaudible even to the leader of the orchestra, Mr. Dean, who was sitting only a few feet in front of me. Bowing to the audience, I beat a hasty retreat into one of the canons of the stage. I never felt more relieved in my life than when I got out of the view of that immense crowd. That evening ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... army people laughed and danced, the native orchestra played on, and Percival Ford wrestled with the abrupt and overwhelming problem that had been thrust upon him. He prayed quietly, his elbow on the table, his head bowed upon his hand, with all the appearance of any tired onlooker. Between the ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... simulacra; imitations of art, not real art. This is the reason why no mechanical device, be it never so skillfully contrived, can ever take the place of the living artist. The pianola can never rival the living performer; nor the orchestrion the orchestra; nor the chromo the painting. No mechanical device has yet been invented to produce poetry; even if some shrewd Yankee should invent a printing machine which would pick out rhymes as some printing machines seem to pick ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... the patron of Procida, that the Tarantella can now be seen to best advantage. Of the three islands that lie close to Naples, Procida is the least known or visited by strangers, so that when the Tarantella is danced by the Procidani, the old-fashioned popular orchestra is employed to give the necessary music. This consists of five quaint instruments (obviously of Oriental origin as their counterparts can still be seen amongst the Kabyles of Northern Africa): the first being a fife (siscariello); the second ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... to a much purer divinity) opened wide upon the gardens and groves; the little river that issues from the bosky mountains of the Black Forest flowed, with an air of brook-like innocence, past the expensive hotels and lodging-houses; the orchestra, in a high pavilion on the terrace of the Kursaal, played a discreet accompaniment to the conversation of the ladies and gentlemen who, scattered over the large expanse on a thousand little chairs, preferred for the time the beauties of nature to the shuffle of coin and the calculation ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... been a huge column of smoke arose as from the crater of a volcano. Then fast and furious the enemy guns opened on us. For the first time they showed their full force of fire. Again, the big howitzers led the infernal orchestra pitting the face of no man's land with jet black blotches. The puppet figures we watched began to waver; the Senegalese were torn and scattered. Once more these huge explosions unloading their ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... As soon as I am able to take a drive I am going to view the attractions of this city—which Babette says is even more beautiful than Paris. I must see 'The Beautiful Blue Danube,' and I must hear Johann Strauss's orchestra. They will be the only happy memories of ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... jewels. Writers on fire with the romance of this continental city love to speak of the splendors of the French Opera House, the first place in the country where grand opera was heard, and tell of the tiers of beautiful women with their jewels and airs and graces. Above the orchestra circle were four tiers, the first filled with the beautiful dames of the city; the second filled with a second array of beautiful women, attired like those of the first, with no apparent difference; yet these were the octoroons and quadroons, whose ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... The peculiar and characteristic Magyar instrument which is indispensable to every gypsy orchestra, taking the place of harp and piano. It is in the form of a zither of large size, played with padded sticks, and forms the foundation of ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... kindled great clustered lights with bamboo supports, like candelabra. People were beginning to illuminate their houses, and through the open windows one could see the guests moving about in the radiance among the flowers to the music of harp, piano, or orchestra. Outside, in gala costume, native or European, Chinese, Spaniards, and Filipinos were moving in all directions, escaping with difficulty the crush ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... went with Miss Skeat and sat in the front box of the theatre, which the great actor had placed at her disposal. The play was Othello. Mr. Barker had ascertained that she was going, and had accordingly procured himself a seat in the front of the orchestra. He endeavoured to catch a look from Margaret all through the first part of the performance, but she was too entirely absorbed in the tragedy to notice him. At length, in the interval before the last act, Mr. Barker took courage, and, leaving his chair, threaded his ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Like most stuttering unfortunates, he is a chronic talker. He stutters garrulously in several tongues. There are serious impediments in his pumping gestures. His tongue, hands, and feet, like stringed orchestra, seem trying to arrive at an amicable understanding, but never find ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... not continuously remain in the seats, but promenades and talks, the voices at times rising to a din amid the strains of the orchestra, conducted by the EMPEROR'S Director of Music. Refreshments in profusion are handed round, and the extemporized cathedral resolves itself into a gigantic cafe of persons of ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Phrynicus's poorest, when they pelted his chorus from the orchestra with date-stones. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... there was an orchestra, and some singers, who discoursed very good music for the benefit of all persons who patronized the restaurant. A multitude of ladies and gentlemen were ranged under the trees before them, sipping coffee, wine, or brandy. The sight was a very ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... another word, the music crashed and all that assemblage was on its feet. The orchestra was playing the Swedish National Anthem; and upon that, one after the other, followed the hymns of the peoples who had taken part in the Games. In turn the representatives of each people stood and resumed their seat, the music underlining their individuality and ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... we could get the High School mandolin club for an orchestra. If we hurried we could have it week after ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... pleasantly recall the things that he and Ben Jonson had seen done at the Mermaid than an old Brook Farmer remembers the long walks, eight good miles in and eight miles out, to see the tall, willowy Schmidt swaying with his violin at the head of the orchestra, to hear the airy ripple of Auber's 'Zanetta,' the swift passionate storm of Beethoven's 'Egmont,' the symphonic murmur of woods and waters and summer fields in the limpid 'Pastorale,' or the solemn grandeur of sustained pathetic human ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... dream that I sat at her feet. Or I could see the grey flicker of the pongee skirt in the twilight distance of cathedral aisles with a chant sounding from a chapel; and, so dreaming, I would start spasmodically, to hear the red-coated orchestra of a cafe' blare out into "Bedelia," and awake to the laughter and rouge and blague which that dear pongee had helped me for a ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... an acrobatic turn of mediocre quality, and the boys waited impatiently for it to finish, for Tim and Larry were billed to appear in the next act. With a moderate meed of applause, the acrobats retired. The orchestra struck up a catchy tune and the big curtain slowly rose. The scene disclosed was pretty and artistic, representing a glade in a forest, realistic trees surrounding a green clearing. Nothing was to be seen of Larry and ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... Here a fine orchestra discourses sweet music, moving pictures are regularly shown, lectures and concerts occasionally provided, besides all the conveniences for private card-parties and other pleasures that fashionable visitors ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... opera begins a new era in the history of the German theatre. Tannhaeuser is more a drama than an opera, every expression in it is highly dramatic; the management of the orchestra too is quite different from anything hitherto experienced, it dominates everywhere, the voice of the performer being often only an accompaniment to it. Tannhaeuser is the first opera, or as Wagner {317} himself called it, drama of this kind, and written after ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... made his garden-party as deadly dull as possible. Little groups of bored people drifted about under the trees and exchanged the usual commonplace observations. Tea and cakes were served under a canopy tent and the local orchestra struggled with ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... the voices were in full chorus, and all the batons in full wave, and all the orchestra in full triumph, and a hundred anvils under mighty hammers were in full clang, and all the towers of the city rolled in their majestic sweetness, and the whole building quaked with the boom of thirty cannon, Parepa Rosa, with a voice that will never again be equalled ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... was the sole subject under discussion. Yes, the girls wore evening gowns, if they had them. Lots of girls wore their best summer dresses. The leading caterer of Sanford always had charge of the refreshments and the boys paid the bills. There was a real orchestra, too. Of course all the teachers were there, but the pokey ones went home early and the jolly ones, like Miss Flint and Miss Atkins, stayed ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... Gluck, with a frown, would recall the ambitious tenor, and do away with his embellishments. In vain had the chorus-singers complained of the impossibility of learning their parts. Gluck instructed them one by one. He had trained the orchestra, too, to fullest precision; and finally, every difficulty overcome, the great opera of "Orpheus and Eurydice" was ready for representation on the birthday of the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... calling my name, intoxicated with enthusiasm, and dazzled, not by a daring feat, but by the spirit that prompted it. Women tore off their jewels to twist them into a sling for my injured hand; men rose and made me a conqueror's ovation; the orchestra played the old Etrurian hymns of freedom; I was attended home with a more than Roman triumph of torch and song, stately men and beautiful women. But chameleons change their tint in the sunshine, and why should men always march under one color? Friend, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... "that I ought not to let that part of it spoil concert music for me. And it doesn't, of course. I've had some wonderful times . . . people who play in orchestra and make chamber-music are the real thing. But the music you make yourself . . . the music we make up here . . . well, perhaps my taste for it is like one's liking (some people call it perverse) for French Primitive ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... upon the purse, and it is the periodical operatic performance of the Wagner Society in Amsterdam. As a rule, two representations a year are given, and some of the best singers of Europe are invited to sing in one or other of Wagner's operas. The best Dutch orchestra plays, and chosen voices from the Amsterdam Conservatoire take part in the choruses. The scenery is worthy of Bayreuth itself, and such expense and care are bestowed upon these choice performances that, though the house is invariably filled ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... were that perched, half out of sight, on window ledges and cornices; but all in their amazing eagerness seemed quite careless how far they risked their lives. After the manner of a sacrifice I was led by the public officials down the middle of the stage, and was left standing in the midst of the orchestra. Once more the voice of the court crier boomed forth, calling for the prosecutor, whereupon a certain old man arose, and having first taken a small vase, the bottom of which ended in a narrow funnel, and having filled it with water, which escaping drop by drop should mark the length of ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... run on rather liberal principles; a number of flushed and noisy couples were dancing to the music of a colored orchestra. It was a "hip-pocket" crowd, and while there was no public drinking, the high-pitched volubility of the merrymakers was plainly of alcoholic origin. Gray realized that he was in for an ordeal, for he had become too well known to escape notice. Consternation filled him, therefore, at thought ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... of which I was guilty on that occasion to the unusual frame of mind in which I found myself on my return home. I had dined with some friends at the Cascade restaurant, and, the entire evening, whilst we smoked and the orchestra played melancholy waltzes, we talked only of crimes and thefts, and dark and frightful intrigues. That is always a poor ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... ensemble, the glands of internal secretion wield a determining influence upon the development of the individual from his very inception. If his various powers may be conceived of as an orchestra, they may be said to conduct it from the very beginning of its movements, and to cease only with its termination. From the moment when the spermatozoon penetrates and fecundates the ovum, the fate of the future being is settled by their ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... season of bird migration, the resounding golunk, golunk, of the wild goose, the shrill klil-la-la of the swift and wary brant, the affectionate qu-a-a-rr-k, quack of the Mallard drake and his mate, with the strange, inimitable cry of the whooping crane, combined to form a sylvan orchestra, the music of which thrilled us with more pleasurable sensations than were ever awakened by the household organ or the town ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Here the orchestra mercifully strikes up, and the big drum drums the garrulous monologue of the veteran theatrical observer. We have another act of the opera, sung far better than any opera has been sung at the Academy for years. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... aristocracy, and the whole arena was lighted up with the splendor of their garments and the flaming brightness of their jewels. Then came a movement, and a low murmur of discontent, which the grandest efforts of the orchestra could not silence. The hour had arrived, but the curtain was still down. Was there to be ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... distinguishing feature being that, while the Roman auditorium formed half a circle, that of the Greek type formed over two-thirds. In the Roman type the level semicircle in front of the stage, from which we derive the name "orchestra," was occupied by the chairs of the senators, and the fourteen tiers of stone seats immediately behind them by the knights; certain sections were also set apart for special classes, one being for soldiers, one for boys not yet of age, and ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... Park and a little dinner at a cool restaurant near Thomas's Garden, and then the concert. That prince of musical caterers has made a fine selection for to-night, and, with the cigar stand on one side of us and the orchestra on the other, we are certain to kill a couple of hours ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... separated them. At the dinner-table, at the theatre, at the balls and concerts, they always came together into the proud society that awaited them. At dinner, Napoleon, playing the polite and obliging host, always had Alexander placed at his right. At the theatre, directly behind the orchestra, were two gilded easy-chairs on a small platform, and the two emperors were enthroned on them near each other; on the floor behind this stood four small arm-chairs, occupied by the Kings of Bavaria, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... below the bridge sounded the strains of the ship's orchestra, playing blithely a favorite air from "The Chocolate Soldier." All went as merry as a wedding bell. Indeed, among that gay ship's company were two score or more at least for whom the wedding bells had sounded in truth not many days before. Some were on their honeymoon ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... a theme by Clara Wieck. Pianoforte Sonata, dedicated to Clara. Concerto without orchestra. "Etudes Symphoniques" "Davidsbundlertanze" "Kreisleriana." ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... burnt low, and the orchestra, after futilely playing two or three dances, became quite demoralised; and the musicians laughed and joked in loud tones, walked about ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... ever weary of dancing?" Belle demanded. "Well, perhaps one might, though never on the small amount that has come to me so far in life. And this Navy orchestra plays so divinely!" ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... was taking place in one of the ground-floor rooms which had French windows opening on to the drive, and it was to these French windows that I now made my way. An orchestra was playing something with a good deal of zip to it, and under happier conditions I dare say my feet would have started twitching in time to the melody. But I had sterner work before me than to stand hoofing it ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... and a hundred and five degrees longitude. The weather continued fine and serene, and our men expressed a wish to interrupt the uniformity of their lives, by getting up a play. The theatre was prepared, the play-bills given out, and the orchestra had even made the signal for the company to assemble, when our merriment was suddenly changed into terror and distress; another sailor fell overboard. He had been keeping watch on the fore-mast, to provide ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... she scudded through the woods like a deer, winding in and out of the stately columns that were here silver-gray, there white; beech and birch, dark hemlocks, that not having space to branch out, grew up tall with a head almost like a palm. Insects hummed and shrilled, or whirred like a tiny orchestra. Now and then a bird flung out a strain of melody, squirrels ran about, and the doe came and put its nose in her hand. She had tied a strip of skin, colored red, about its neck, that no one might shoot it. The ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... to be introduced to the leader of the Italian Opera Band—a warm-hearted and sensitive Neapolitan—Spagnoletti. The latter had a great contempt for guitars, concertinas, and other fancy instruments not used in the orchestra. He was fond of snuff, had a capacious nose, and, when irritated, would ejaculate 'Mon Dieu!' On my presenting the vain Spaniard to Spagnoletti, the latter inquired, 'Vat you play?' Huerta—'De guitar-r-r, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... about six years old they go into the primary schools and up thru the grammar grades, and get the first string—the little E string. The trouble is so many of these human fiddles think they are an orchestra right away. They want to quit school and go fiddling thru life on this ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... compelled repression; yet at times the pain was so exquisite that I could hardly keep the tears back. At those times, as the howlings and wailings and shrieking of the singers, and the ragings and roarings and explosions of the vast orchestra rose higher and higher, and wilder and wilder, and fiercer and fiercer, I could have cried if I had been alone. Those strangers would not have been surprised to see a man do such a thing who was being gradually skinned, but they would have marveled at it here, and made remarks about ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... everything else in heart and mind has been blurred over, and of all the magic mirrors which reflect back our lives for us the most effective is a melody linked to words which moved us in our youth. When an orchestra stops playing its waltzes and mazourkas of the latest fashion and takes up the strains of "Kathleen Mavourneen," "Oft in the Stilly Night," or "Robin Adair," one may readily observe a change come over the older part of the crowd who listen. The familiar air is like a shell murmuring in their ears ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... engine driving a group of dynamos, and estimate the energy expended; and then look at the incandescent filaments of the lamps excited by them, and estimate how much of their radiated energy is of real service to the eye. It will be as the energy of a pitch pipe to an entire orchestra. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to wrong thoughts—through "the lascivious pleasing of a lute." Others think dancing wicked, while a few allow square dances, but condemn the waltz. Some sects allow pipe-organ music, but draw the line at the violin; while others, still, employ a whole orchestra in their religious service. Some there may be who regard pictures as implements of idolatry, while the Hook-and-Eye Baptists ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... number of bodies of men, each body well trained as a unit, but the combined units not trained at all as component elements of the whole. The result would be a little like what one would expect from the efforts of an orchestra at playing a selection which the whole orchestra had never played before together, but of which each member of the orchestra had previously learned his part, and played it according to his own ideas, ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... should like to see it!" Violet cries, eagerly. "I wonder if it will ever look so lovely again. And the orchestra! I wish I could be down in the pretty summer-house looking and listening. Will they dance ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... potatoes. Quizzing golems was hopeless. He would have to find out for himself. He turned to look at the fat man. As Brett watched he took a large handkerchief from a pocket, blew his nose loudly. No one turned to look. The orchestra played softly. The couples danced. Now was as good a time ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... hand, and I threw it open. The noise I made did not frighten me, for in the main hall a loud orchestra was drowning out ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... our being threatened with a policeman it we made any more disturbance; so, after a hasty glance round had assured us of the impracticability of making our escape in any more everyday style, we sat down with a stern resolution of endurance—lips firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Then the orchestra plays and the leopards sneak out and the people in the boxes are all talking gayly to show that they're not the least affected. And everybody is wondering how it will come out, or rather how it ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... the orchestra tuning for the overture, and shivered. She felt much more like a victim waiting her turn to be thrown to the lions than a young woman about to make her debut as a "headliner." To herself she kept repeating ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... the old-fashioned canvas-covered brick pavement, not hitherto seen in any Roman palace. A thousand candles, disposed in every variety of chandelier and candelabra, shed a soft rich light from far above, and high in the gallery at one end an orchestra of Viennese musicians ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... rather too much. I declined; she persisted. She certainly wanted to have the utmost pleasure, the whole orchestra of sentiment, from the moon to the rhymes of poets. In the end, I had to yield, and, as if in mockery, I recited for her a charming little poem by Louis Bouilbet, of which the following are a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... claws into me," said Mendelssohn to his critics when entering the Birmingham orchestra. "Don't tell me what you like, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Sixty charabancs arrived on Monday and the Riot Act was read several times before the passengers could be induced to desist from their badinage of the residents, most of whom have since retired behind the wire- entanglements at Kelrose. The municipal orchestra was subjected to a brisk fusillade of rock-cakes on Saturday night; the conductor and several of the instrumentalists suffered contusions, and their performances have since been discontinued. This has not unnaturally given rise to a certain amount ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... covers of well-known sentimental songs trilled by our mothers, to say nothing of a couple of operas, played in 1815 and 1816, and divers unpublished scores. The worthy soul was now ending his days as the conductor of an orchestra in a boulevard theatre, and a music master in several young ladies' boarding-schools, a post for which his face particularly recommended him. He was entirely dependent upon his earnings. Running about to give private lessons at his age! —Think ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... inspiring congregational singing, and the use of the piano, organ, orchestra and brass band are important factors in the curriculum. In the chapel I spoke to an audience so attentive, so alert, so receptive, so filled with animation, that the whole place looked like ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... days when the lad could first hold a violin under his little chin. He had died when the boy was twenty, and Haldane had gone on, contentedly enough and absorbed, to take his father's place among the violins of an orchestra, and to teach music. As he grew older his father's friends told him he was leading a wretchedly lonely life; that he ought to marry. And at this Haldane smiled his deprecating, affectionate smile—a smile that, somehow, convinced his advisers ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... at one of them to dine. When he rejoined us, he told us that he would take us to a scene in which he hoped we should never be tempted to mix. We went out, and soon reached a magnificent building, full of spacious halls, with an orchestra keeping up a succession of attractive airs. Making our way, not without difficulty, through the crowd, we saw before us several long, green-covered tables, surrounded by people, who appeared to be ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... participated in by all the relatives and a great number of friends, was a huge success. An orchestra had been engaged for the occasion, and after the meal there was dancing by the young folks for several hours, both indoors and on the broad ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... heard not that; only the bells, bells, bells, jingling all over the city, as though it were on fire, those of the cathedral leading the orchestra of campanule music. And yet another gun from the citadel, with the answering one from the "Summer Palace ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... squares, around which the Players, who are mostly English, are sitting or standing. A Croupier with his rake presides at each table. In an obscure corner of the balcony outside, Miss DAINTREE and her Married Sister have just established themselves. There is a Ball at the Casino, and the Orchestra are heard tuning up for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... "Mabel" still dominant in the orchestra. O that air! I can hear it now, as I heard it then, ringing yet in my ears—as it will continue always ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a man, though," said he to himself, very philosophically, "and as he is good to my sister, he shall know of it." Hans delighted him every evening, by the powers of his violin; and the bergman, excessively fond of music, like most of his countrymen, declared that he might perform in the emperor's orchestra, and find nobody there to beat him. When he took his leave, therefore, he seized one of Hans's hands with a cordial gripe that was felt through every limb, and into the other he put a bag of one thousand rix dollars, saying, "My sister ought not to have come dowerless into a good ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the fatal march, interrupted every now and then by the surging footsteps of the crowd. At its close, the hero ascends the scaffold; amid a hush, the tender love theme reappears, but is obliterated by a sudden crash of the full orchestra, and all is still. Berlioz, however, does not let his hero rest in the grave, but adds a fifth movement to show him in the infernal regions. Piccolo and other wild instruments depict the fury of the demons, a parody on the Dies Irae follows, and even ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... of snow, all these together produced a scene no one could have imagined. Neither plant nor bird, excepting a few condors wheeling around the higher pinnacles, distracted my attention from the inanimate mass. I felt glad that I was alone: it was like watching a thunderstorm, or hearing in full orchestra a chorus of ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... waxed and polished with the greatest care, and protected by a balustrade. Around this arena were seated a number of spectators of all ages, country, and costumes, and exhaling a strong odour of garlic. The ceremony was commenced: for to the music of a barbarous orchestra, composed of small timbals and squeaking fifes, accompanying some nasal voices, about twenty tall, bearded young men, clad in long white robes, were waltzing gravely round an old man in a blue pelisse. These men carried ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... this tedious explanation to a close, permit me to hush our orchestra for a final word. I have a most important announcement. It is the sum and essence of all these pages. This play of pirates—doctored somewhat with fiercer oaths and lengthened for older actors—this play and my other play of beggars I dedicate with my love to John ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... man, to the right on him, wuz a colonnade runnin' round a circular room covered with a ruff in the shape of a tent. The ceilin' and walls are covered with landscape views of Southern Spain, and a mandolin orchestra carried out the idee of a ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... him which I think very imposing. He is the only man I ever saw who, without being very young, was not an unfit companion for youth. And there is no affectation of juvenility about him. He involuntarily reminds you of youth, as an empty orchestra does of music.' ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... at their height. The orchestra was playing a waltz, and in a whirl of silk and gauze the young people seemed ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... an inherent passion. Musicians are to be found in every village, and even among the very poorest classes. Before the Revolution there was scarcely a parish, however remote, without its orchestra, and this natural taste was laudably encouraged by the priests. Some of these bands acquired great local fame, and were sought for wherever there was a feast miles away. The players seemed to enjoy it as much as the listeners, and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... in every way. Nat will get capital drill in Bachmeister's orchestra, see London in a delightful way, and if he suits come home with them, well started among the violins. No great honour, but a sure thing and a step up. I congratulated him, and he was very jolly over it, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... him, his seemed to be withdrawn from her. It had that appearance. It seemed as if she had been one moment too late; and as long as she dared observe, he did not look again: but the performance was recommencing, and she was forced to seem to restore her attention to the orchestra ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... away. There was a long interval. Into the shuffle and chatter of the passing crowd crept the muffled blare of the orchestra. The acrobat still held the boy's hand tight—still anxiously ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... colours of their garments mingled and merged like the colours of a sunset. There was a constant flow of people through the room, and the chatter of animated voices and bursts of laughter and the jingling, sentimental music played by the orchestra made Jimphy forget how bored he had been at the theatre. The slightly fuddled air which he had had in the bar of St. James's had left him and he began ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... a postal-telegraph office. A special feature was the garden court, containing over 30,000 square feet of open space, and tastefully laid out with plants and flowers. Here fountains splashed and an orchestra played while the patrons lounged on comfortable rattan chairs or gossiped with their friends. Up on the sixteenth floor was the cool roof garden, an exquisite bower of palms and roses artificially painted by a famous French artist, with its recherche ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... game of cards in the evening now, all together, and become interested in that and forgotten to talk of their claims, and some good whisky after it, or cleared out one of the cabins and had a dance there with some of the hands who lived near, and a man to whistle tunes for them if there was no other orchestra; but no! Stephen thought that cards were wrong and wouldn't have them in his house, and whisky too, and dancing worst of all, and only the sin of avarice and the lust of gold was to be connived at there. As ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... the dog. We eat and smoked for an hour, when it became dark: every thing was then cleared away for the dance, a large fire being made in the centre of the house, giving at once light and warmth to the ballroom. The orchestra was composed of about ten men, who played on a sort of tambourin, formed of skin stretched across a hoop; and made a jingling noise with a long stick to which the hoofs of deer and goats were hung; the third instrument was a small skin bag with pebbles in it: these, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... God's good earth, from border unto border Shows man's disorder, Let me not waste my dower of mortal might In grieving over wrongs I cannot right. This is my task: amid discordant strife To keep a clean sweet centre in my life; And though the human orchestra may be Playing all out of key - To tune my soul to symphonies above, And sound the note of love. ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the annual fair, the quiet little town of Weyn gave itself up to merrymaking. Shows and caravans choked the narrow streets; huge roundabouts as "patronised by all the crowned heads of Europe," swung giddily round in the market-place, and the shouts of the stall-keepers, and the din of the orchestra, and the ceaseless crack of the rifle ranges, where boys were shooting for cocoa-nuts, made a ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... places, and patiently prepares the precious metals in the most secret chambers of the earth. The art of exercising a refined hospitality is a fine art, and the music thus produced only differs from that of the orchestra in this, that in the former case the overture or sonata cannot be played twice in the same manner. It requires that the hostess shall ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... boys' orchestra? I remember I used to play 'zweite Geige' in it. Bruder Schliemann conducted at the piano. Dear me, I can see him now with his long black hair and—and—" He stopped abruptly. Again the odd, dark look passed ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... flutes composed the orchestra of the Romans. He reinforced it with all the known instruments. He added choruses of dances to his representations, and took care that their steps and figures, should always have some relation or affinity to the principal action. He provided them with ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... violin; but Cobbington declared that he had played that instrument for years before he left home: only he had no fiddle. Fortunately, Landy Perkins, who played the violoncello, and was learning to play the violin, had one, and our orchestra was complete. ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... advance before them. He ran his eye down the trench. The man next him was licking his two first fingers, as if he might be going to bowl at cricket. Further down, a man was feeling his puttees. A voice said: "Wot price the orchestra nah!" He saw teeth gleam in faces burnt almost black. Then he looked up; the sky was blue beyond the brownish film of dust raised by the striking shells. Noel! Noel! Noel!... He dug his fingers deep into the left side ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... melons, "pates au jus romanum," and a fillet of beef with mushroom sauce. Mademoiselle Mariette, the illustrious sister of our head-clerk and leading lady of the Royal Academy of music and dancing, having obligingly put at the disposition of this Practice orchestra seats for the performance of this evening, it is proper to make this record of her generosity. Moreover, it is hereby decreed that the aforesaid clerks shall convey themselves in a body to that noble demoiselle to thank her in person, and declare to her that on the occasion ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... of Penny's young life was that, although he had made innumerable attempts, he could not succeed in the formation of a school orchestra. There was a Glee Club and a Musical Society, the latter composed of performers on the mandolin, banjo and guitar, but no one would take any interest in Penny's project. Or no one save a fellow named Pillsbury. Pillsbury played the bass viol, and once ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sophomore ushers began arranging the couples in a long line leading to the grind table, and Betty knew that her hour had come. The orchestra played a march, and as the girls walked past the table the sophomore officers presented each freshman with a small booklet bound in the freshman green, on the front cover of which, in letters of sophomore scarlet, ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... club, a mile away from the Breckenridge house, but long before the visions born that evening were exhausted, he saw the familiar lights, and the awninged porches, and heard the faint echoes of the orchestra. They were dancing. ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... proposed that his son and daughter and I should act a charade. Napier was the audience, and Marryat himself the orchestra - that is, he played on his fiddle such tunes as a ship's fiddler or piper plays to the heaving of the anchor, or for hoisting in cargo. Everyone was in romping spirits, and notwithstanding the cheery Captain's signs of fatigue ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the amusing conversation, and the smell of good cigars. Within, we saw some pleasant drawing-room, with lamps and a big table set with candles and cards, and we felt that the nightingale provided a very charming orchestra. We listened to it as we listened to amusing conversation, with a sense of comfortable enjoyment and rest. Why talk of the time when it sang of breaking hearts and high endeavour never satisfied, and things which no one ever knew or guessed ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... We supped in the circle which has the statue of Handel in its centre. The hour growing late,—or rather early in the morning,—our company dispersed, and no one remained excepting Mr. Robinson, Mr. Fitzgerald, and myself. Suddenly a noise was heard near the orchestra. A crowd had assembled, and two gentlemen were quarrelling furiously. Mr. R. and Fitzgerald ran out of the box. I rose to follow them, but they were lost in the throng, and I thought it most prudent to resume my place, which I had just quitted, as the only certain way of their finding me in safety. ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... vocal concerts of a feathered orchestra. They wake the slumbering bride long before Don Miguel calls his swarthy retainers ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... near the Theatre Francais, is a little stage, on which farces, composed for the purpose, are represented gratis. In another, is an orchestra consisting entirely of performers belonging to the National Institution of the Blind. In a third, on the north side of the garden, are a set of musicians, both vocal and instrumental, who apparently never tire; for I am told they never cease to play and sing, except to ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... garden hall where several members of the company were already waiting for the rehearsal to begin. They sat about on chairs in little groups laughing, joking, telling tales, and complaining while the tuning of the orchestra furnished an accompaniment to ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... blue serge, a man with the complexion of a strip of rawhide and the mustache of a third-rate orchestra leader, felt his way gingerly down by the light of the brakeman's lantern, hesitated and then came questioningly toward them, carrying with ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... those times that it takes a whole orchestra and a gallery of paintings to tell any thing about: for Mrs. Lee as well as her husband was on the beach; and within a minute after "Captain Kinzer" and his crew had landed, poor Dick was being hugged and scolded within an inch of his life, and the two other boys found ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... more supple, elastic, and tempting form, than this singular girl, who seemed possessed with the spirit of dancing and perpetual motion, for, almost every moment, a slight undulation of head, hips, and shoulders seemed to follow the music of an invisible orchestra; while the tip of her right foot, placed on the carriage door in the most alluring manner, continued to beat time—for the Bacchanal Queen stood proudly erect ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... music uncoiled itself like a huge boa about to engulf a tiny rabbit. The simile forced itself against her volition; all this monstrous preparation for a—rabbit! In a concert-hall the poetic idea of the tone-poem was petty. And the churning of the orchestra, foaming hysteria of the strings, bellowing of the brass—would they never cease! Such an insane chase after a rabbit! Yes, she said the word to herself and found her lips carved into a hard smile, which she ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... favoured subjects. The average compass in male voices is about two octaves minus one or two tones. I mean, of course, tones that are really available when the singer is on the stage and accompanied by an orchestra. Now, a baritone who strives to transform his voice into a tenor, simply loses the two lowest tones of his compass, possibly of good quality and resonance, and gains a minor or major third above the high G (sol) of a very poor, strained character. The compass of the voice remains exactly the ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... visit to Possendorf a few years later. I did not go to the place again till long afterwards, when I visited it on an excursion such as I often made, far into the country, at the time when I was conducting the orchestra in Dresden. I was much grieved not to find the old parsonage still there, but in its place a more pretentious modern structure, which so turned me against the locality, that thenceforward my excursions were always made in ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... one been justified, The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments—the baton has ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... that individuality which is not a threescore-ten proposition, and must begin to express it in his work before he can take his place in the big cosmic orchestra. In fact, he must achieve his own individuality before he has a decent instrument to play upon, or any sense of interpretation of the splendid scores of life. In fact again, a man must achieve his own individuality before he can realise that the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... orchestra. The stage curtain, blushing pink at the name "Asbestos" inscribed upon it, came down with a slow midsummer movement. The audience trickled leisurely down the elevator ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... peculiar Boston interests, and by careful reading of the Transcript was enabled to vibrate in full harmony with the local hymn of gratitude. New York became a mere emporium, a town without a library, a city without a first class orchestra, the home of a few commercial painters and several journalistic poets! Chicago was a huge dirty town on the middle border. Washington a vulgar political camp—only Philadelphia was admitted to have the quality of a real city and her literary and artistic resources ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... playing at random, without the slightest regard for time or tune. His fingers traveled mechanically over the worn keys of his instrument; he did not trouble himself over a false note now and again (a canard, in the language of the orchestra), neither did the dancers, nor, for that matter, did my old Italian's acolytes; for I had made up my mind that he must be Italian, and an Italian he was. There was something great, something too of the despot about ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... force, and in spite of ourselves. I could give you many examples. I myself, in La Vivandiere d'Austerlitz, staggered the house by my gaiety of tone, when I had just been informed that my Doulce, so great an artist and so good a husband, had had an epileptic fit in the orchestra at the Odeon, just as he was picking up ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... (Southey's Glendoveers) are celestial musicians inhabiting Indra's heaven and forming the orchestra at all the banquets of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... song greeted my ear! How many choralists took part in the matutinal concert I cannot say, but there were scores of them. The volume of song would sometimes swell to a full-toned orchestra, and then for a few moments it would sink almost to a lull, all of it like the flow and ebb of the tides of a sea of melody. It was interesting to note how several voices would sometimes run into a chime when they struck the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... never attended a Commencement exercise before; I had never been in an opera house before; and the painted light through the roof of windows high overhead, the strains of the orchestra from far below me, the banks of broad-leaved palms, the colors, the odors, the confusion of flowers and white frocks, were strangely thrilling. Nothing had ever happened to me in the woods like this: the exaltation, the depression, the thrill of joy, the throb of pain, the awakening, the ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... house, through whose open doors and windows came sounds of revelry. A stringed orchestra was playing somewhere out of sight, and to its music the late arrival, holding his head well up that he might keep his collar intact until the latest possible moment, set his course toward ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... me that your idea is a particularly happy one. Should you institute a "Bird Day," the feathered tribe ought to furnish music for the occasion. A chorus of robins and thrushes and a few other songsters would be more appropriate than an orchestra. With thanks for your cordial ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... of the mind; an intellectual orchestra, where all the instruments should bear a part, but where none should ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... motionless hand, or the introspective face, he was afterwards unaware. But he heard all the quiet roar of the London evening, and was able to distinguish even the note of each instrument that helped to make up that untiring, inconclusive orchestra. Far away to the northwards sounded a great thoroughfare, the rolling of wheels, a myriad hoofs, the pulse of motor vehicles, and the cries of street boys; upon all these his attention dwelt as they came up through ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... there, in that drawer, are the notes, a few scraps of paper. The rest of it—the experience of a strong life, a visioning life, are with the mind that is dumb. Sometimes when I sit here I hear it all played, an orchestra ... new harmonies, pure emotion.... The wonder and then the pain of it ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... in a reminiscent mood? Is it The Typical Tune of Zanzibar, or Baby, Baby, Dance My Darling Baby, or Starlight, Starbright, or Tell Me, Pretty Maiden, or A Simple Little String, or J'aime les Militaires (if you whistle this, ten to one your next door neighbour thinks you have been to an orchestra concert and heard Beethoven's Seventh Symphony), or Sister Mary Jane's Top Note, or A Wandering Minstrel I, or See How It Sparkles, or the Lullaby from Erminie, which Pauline Hall used to sing as if she herself were asleep, and which ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... Sociology, as we have seen, may show us how to secure to each performer his voice or his instrument; but it will not show us how to make either the voice or the instrument a good one; nor will it decide whether the orchestra shall perform Beethoven or Offenbach, or whether the chorus shall sing a penitential psalm or a drinking song. When we have discovered what the world's highest gladness can consist of, we will again come to the question of how far such gladness can be ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... wicker-lined rocking-chairs (relic of the time when the Yankee had Port Mahon for a rendezvous), and he told me many things. "But," he concluded, "it was the music that drove me out. Those dark-eyed factory girls were just fine, and la marguerita as a dance perfection. But the orchestra was an addition I couldn't stand at any price. It was something too ghastly for words. All the brass sharp and the strings screechy. So I just skipped, came back here, and forgathered with a lone, lorn Englishman on his first trans-Channel trip. He was a splendid ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Orville Platt had been Terry Sheehan, she had played the piano, afternoons and evenings, in the orchestra of the Bijou Theater, on Cass Street, Wetona, Wisconsin. Anyone with a name like Terry Sheehan would, perforce, do well anything she might set out to do. There was nothing of genius in Terry, but there was something of fire, and much that was Irish. Which meant that the Watson Team, Eccentric Song ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... been since 1794. (It was the one torn down during the Restoration, on account of the murder of the Duke of Berry, who was killed on the threshold.) By means of a floor placed level with the stage over the orchestra and the pit, there was made a magnificent ball- room. Twenty-four chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and candelabra were set on each side of every box. The decorations consisted of silver gauze, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... this, he convoyed me to several of the cafe's where inverts are accustomed to foregather. These trysting places were much alike: a long hall, with sparse orchestra at one end, marble-topped tables lining the walls, leaving the floor free for dancing. Round the tables sat boys and youths, Adonises both by art and nature, ready for a drink or a chat with the chance Samaritan, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the grains of sand that bar the ocean's waves, or the stars that begem the vault of night. But it can easily hold these, and myriads more. Yet there is room! As age after age has poured in its crowds, still the cry has gone forth, There is still room! The many mansions are not all tenanted. The orchestra is not full. The complement of ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... street outside, the banging of carriage doors, and an incessant rustle of stiff skirts ascending the stairs. From the ladies' dressing-room came an increasing soprano chatter, while downstairs the orchestra around the piano in the back parlour began to snarl and whine louder and louder. About the halls and stairs one caught brief glimpses of white and blue opera cloaks edged with swan's-down alternating with the gleam of a starched shirt bosom ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris |
