"Tuneful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... friendship of the leading men of his time. Such of his music as still exists is of a pleasing and melodious character, full of vivacity and lire, and at times indicates a more deep and serious power than that of merely creating catching and tuneful airs. He was the inventor of the operatic overture, and introduced several new instruments into the orchestra. Apart from his splendid administrative faculty, he is entitled to rank as an original and gifted, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... redbreasts and wrens, that built low in lilac, laburnum, and flowering currant bushes, in crannies of wall and vault, and on the ground. It cannot but be a pleasant thing to be a wee young dog, full of life and good intentions, and to play one's dramatic part in making an old garden of souls tuneful with bird song. A cry of alarm from parent or nestling was answered instantly by the tiny, tousled policeman, and there was a prowler the less, or a skulking cat was sent flying over ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... ring; The foam flies from the charger's flanks, Like wreaths of winter's snow; Spears shiver, and the bright shafts start In thousands from the bow— Strike up, strike up, my minstrels all Use tongue and tuneful chord— Be mute!—My music is the clang Of cleaving ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... Eunice almost doubled up with laughter. Edna sang like a little woodthrush, and Eunice also had a sweet and tuneful voice. ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... upon the elm, Gave forth a scraping note, And ere the sound had died away, Had cut its tuneful throat. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... Ascendest, cause and source of all delight?" "And art thou then that Virgil, that well-spring, From which such copious floods of eloquence Have issued?" I with front abash'd replied. "Glory and light of all the tuneful train! May it avail me that I long with zeal Have sought thy volume, and with love immense Have conn'd it o'er. My master thou and guide! Thou he from whom alone I have deriv'd That style, which for its beauty into fame Exalts me. See the beast, from whom I fled. O save me ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... of the house, but Foxy was not there. She whistled, but no smooth, white-bibbed personality came trotting round the corner. Hazel ran back to the hill. The sound of the horn came up intermittently with tuneful devilry. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... flights. Then we should learn that while the ink from good Langland's pen was yet scarcely dry after his third revision of "Piers Ploughman," Geoffrey Chaucer came forward with his sweet imaginings bodied in immortal verse, his tuneful numbers, his "well of English undefiled,"—and English poetry, which now for more than five centuries has been the chief glory of our literature, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... thousands of birds fly to him from every side and join him in his harmony. The next thing is the Singing-Tree, whose smooth and glossy leaves when shaken by the wind and rubbed against one another send forth tuneful tones which strike the ear like the notes of sweet-voices minstrels ravishing the heart of all who listen. The third thing is the Golden-Water of transparent purity, whereon should but one drop be dripped into a basin and this be placed inside the garden it presently will fill the vessel ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Mr. Smerdon I had written, as I observed before, several tuneful trifles, some as exercises, others voluntarily, (for poetry was now become my delight) and not a few at the desire of my friends. When I became capable, however, of reading Latin and Greek with some degree of facility, that gentleman ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... around th' Eternal's seat who throng With tuneful ecstasies of praise: O! teach our feeble tongues like yours the song Of fervent gratitude to raise— Like you, inspired with holy flame 5 To dwell on that Almighty name Who bade the child of Woe no longer sigh, And Joy in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... harmonical[obs3]; in concord &c. n., in tune, in concert; unisonant[obs3], concentual[obs3], symphonizing[obs3], isotonic, homophonous[obs3], assonant; ariose[obs3], consonant. measured, rhythmical, diatonic[obs3], chromatic, enharmonic[obs3]. melodious, musical; melic[obs3]; tuneful, tunable; sweet, dulcet, canorous[obs3]; mellow, mellifluous; soft, clear, clear as a bell; silvery; euphonious, euphonic, euphonical[obs3]; symphonious; enchanting &c. (pleasure-giving) 829; fine-toned, full-toned, silver-toned. Adv. harmoniously, in harmony; as one ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... What was the meaning of it? Had that master of craft and silence found a breach in the enemy's fortifications? He rubbed the chill from his nose, crossed and re-crossed his legs and teetered till the spurs on his boots set up a tuneful jingle. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... shall I sing for thee, My Lord and Light? What shall I bring to thee, Master, to-night? O for the strong desire! O for the touch of fire! Then shall my tuneful ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... to good, be augury vain, and Tages, Th' art's master, false!" Thus, in ambiguous terms Involving all, did Arruns darkly sing. But Figulus, more seen in heavenly mysteries, Whose like AEgyptian Memphis never had For skill in stars and tuneful planeting,[645] 640 In this sort spake: "The world's swift course is lawless And casual; all the stars at random range;[646] Or if fate rule them, Rome, thy citizens Are near some plague. What mischief shall ensue? Shall towns be swallow'd? shall the thicken'd air Become intemperate? shall ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... still ran the hills among And babbled on in glee; The birds still mated, loved and sung In tuneful melody: But all the soul of song was lost; My flower had withered with the frost Beneath ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... still survives in Maro's strain, And Spenser's verse prolongs Eliza's reign; Great George's acts let tuneful Cibber sing, For Nature formed the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... all in the shade of the wide-spreading beech tree reclining, Sweet is that music you've made on your pipe that is oaten and slender; Exiles from home, you beguile our hearts from their hopeless repining, As you sing Amaryllis the while in pastorals tuneful and tender. ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... of the Country and The City Heiress. It is a well-written, lively enough comedy, but very weak and anaemic withal when compared to Mrs. Behn. B. G. Stephenson, in his vivacious libretto to Cellier's tuneful opera, Dorothy, produced at the Gaiety Theatre, 25 September, 1886, has made great use of Johnson's play, especially Act i, where the gallants meet the two ladies disguised as country girls; the duel scenes of Act v; and the pseudo-burglary of Act iii. He even ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... of outward means for leading an agreeable life in the old villa. Wandering musicians haunted the precincts of Monte Beni, where they seemed to claim a prescriptive right; they made the lawn and shrubbery tuneful with the sound of fiddle, harp, and flute, and now and then with the tangled squeaking of a bagpipe. Improvisatori likewise came and told tales or recited verses to the contadini—among whom Kenyon was often an auditor—after ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to Meg and Elsie, and, rather to the astonishment of the girls, the boys also took it up with enthusiasm, and volunteered their assistance. They enlisted the help of the village schoolmistress, and some of the most tuneful among her pupils, and all on the spur of the moment ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... feet and said that if he might be allowed to accompany himself on his lute in the Italian fashion he would give them a song, keeping, however, strictly to the German tune. As nobody had any objection he fetched his instrument, and, after a little tuneful ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... a short and tuneful little piece with little or nothing MacDowell-like in it and much of nineteenth century German romanticism and harmonies. It has been arranged for orchestra, and for pianoforte ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... join the vocal choir, Let harmony your raptured souls inspire. Hark how the tuneful, solemn organs blow, Awfully strong, elaborately slow; Now to you empyrean seats above Raise meditation on the wings of love. Now falling, sinking, dying to the moan Once warbled sad by Jesse's contrite son; Breathe in each note a conscience ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... the natives might discover them and attempt an attack. The night however passed over quietly, and at the hour proposed, Miantomah, rousing up the party, led the way towards the hills. The birds were saluting the early dawn with their tuneful notes, when, just as the hills came in sight amid the trees, a shot was heard, ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... it that in the fierce fighting days the soldiers were so tuneful, and such scholars? In the first edition of Lovelace's "Lucasta" there is a flock of recommendatory verses, English, Latin, even Greek, by the gallant Colonel's mess-mates and comrades. What guardsman now writes like Lovelace, and how many of his friends could applaud him ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... reach its hearing with loud shrill cries. There was very little difference between these fairies and other lady war-workers. In fact they were only distinguishable by their stature and by the empty and innocent expression of their faces. Also perhaps by their tuneful singing, and by a habit of breaking out suddenly into ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... a poet, too— Taught by the muses how to smite the harp And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp. But let me say, with no desire to taunt you, I never murder even the girls ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... How nobly thou dost sail Through the air! No other bird can compare With the tuneful song Which to thee doth belong. I sit and hear thee sing, While with tireless wing Thou dost fly. And it makes me feel so sad, It makes me feel so bad, I know not why, And I heave so many sighs, O warbler of ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... flecked with foam, his tall form swaying to and fro, rising, bending—now thrown back, then leaning over the marble bar of the tribune—continued to pour forth his scathing sarcasm, his crushing invective, his eloquent persuasion and his unanswerable argument in tones, now soft and tuneful as a silvery bell, then sad and pitiful as an evening zephyr, then clear, high and sonorous as a clarion, then hoarse and deep as the thunder, for a period of four hours, unbroken and continuous, ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... ever thou hast kindly heard A Song in soft Distress preferr'd, Propitious to my tuneful Vow, O gentle Goddess! hear me now. Descend, thou bright, immortal Guest, In ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... fun'ral eloquence her colours spread, And scatter roses on the wealthy dead? Shall authors smile on such illustrious days, And satirize with nothing—but their praise? Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train, Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain? Donne, Dorset, Dryden, Rochester, are dead, And guilt's chief foe, in Addison, is fled; Congreve, who, crown'd with laurels, fairly won, Sits smiling at the goal, while others ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... Eldon caused a loud laugh while the old Duke of Norfolk was fast asleep in the House of Lords, and amusing their lordships with "that tuneful nightingale, his nose," by announcing from the woolsack, with solemn emphasis, that the Commons had sent up a bill for "enclosing and dividing Great Snoring ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... constant companions, by night as well as by day. "I never tire of them," he would say; "they are always a revelation. And how grand is Milton's prose! quite as fine as his poetry!" He was very fond of repeating the following celebrated lines that have the true ring to a tuneful ear as well as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... elegantiarum, of the town of Perpignan; but to the extent of being employed, I fear in a subordinate capacity, by the Mayor and the Syndicat in the work of propagandism. The Tournee Gulland found another drum and went its tuneful but weary way; and Aristide remained gloriously behind and rubbed his hands with glee. At last he had found permanence in a life where heretofore had been naught but transience. At last he had found a sphere ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... swathed in stainless snow. I've dreamed, and dreamed, Of wondrous trees, crowned with perennial green, Whose soft still shadows gleamed with golden lamps Of pensile fruitage, or were flushed with life Radiant and tuneful when broad flocks of birds Swept in and out like sheets of living flame. I've dreamed of aisles tufted with velvet grass, And bordered with the strange intelligence Of myriad loving eyes among the flowers, That watched me with a curious, calm delight, As rows of wayside cherubim may watch ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... window frames forest and heather. I hardly hear the tuneful babble, Not knowing nor much caring whether The text is praise or exhortation, Prayer ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... party, but the Knights of Christendom and the Eastern Potentates take no share in these proceedings, which are oftenest and most inoffensively performed by little boys not yet promoted to be "mummers." It is, however, essential that one of them should have a good voice, true and tuneful enough to sing a long ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... battle before him, dead-chilled with the fear and the wonder: For again in his ancient eyes the light of victory gleamed; From his mouth grown tuneful and sweet the song of his kindred streamed; And no more was he worn and weary, and no more his life seemed spent: And with all the hope of his childhood was his wrath of battle blent; And he thought: A little further, and the river of strife is passed, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... mocking-birds that infest the groves at the foot of Parnassus. Though portions of his songs be wild, fitful, and incoherent, they gush with the force and feeling of a heart loyal to its intuitions, and thus many strains captivate and keep the tuneful ear. Yet such charming lines make conspicuous the want of that high appreciation of form and proportion without which any felicity of touch in the treatment of details will only cause the consummate master to grieve over glorious forms that have no effective grouping, and turn away from colors, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was no wonder the useful hen warbled so proudlike; but that was all nonsense, for I don't suppose a hen ever tasted poached eggs, and surely she wouldn't be happy over the prospect of being fried. Maybe one reason she sang was because she didn't know what was coming; I hardly think she'd be so tuneful if she did. ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... tuneful as a blackbird's, Rona's clear rich young voice rang out, so fresh, so joyous, so natural, so full of the very spirit of maying and the glory of summer's return, that the visitors listened as one hearkens to the notes of a bird that is pouring forth its heart from a tree-top in the orchard. ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... Lookout Rock to watch for Mrs. Jessie and Jamie, who was never far from mamma's apron string. They looked like a flock of blue-birds, all being in sailor rig, with blue ribbon enough flying from the seven hats to have set up a milliner. Very tuneful blue-birds they were, too, for all the lads sang, and the echo of their happy voices reached Mrs. Jessie long ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... verses; and when he dies the mortuary rhyme shall follow him. Indeed, almost every occurrence—a boy's success at school, an advocate's triumphal passage of the perils of examination at Padua, a priest's first mass, a nun's novitiate, a birth, an amputation— is the subject of tuneful effusion, and no less the occasion of a visit from the facchini of the neighboring campo, who assemble with blare of trumpets and tumult of voices around the victim's door, and proclaim his skill or good fortune, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... which will hum their melody in their tuneful flight through life!... Journeys in later life, great towns and moving seas, dream countries and loved faces, are not so exactly graven in the soul as these childish walks, or the corner of the garden seen every day through the window, through the steam and mist made by the child's mouth glued to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... strong and tuneful—for the Muses, if kind, are often lavish of their gifts—so the final refrain of an impassioned love song traveled far that placid morning. Thus, when he reached the iron gates, he found the ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... suggested, "Petit blanc, mon bon frere." He recalled the words so carelessly uttered, "Of course not, for she was a quadroon," and they seemed to make harsh discord with the refrain of the song. He remembered the vivid flush that passed over Rosa's face while her playful sister teased her with that tuneful badinage. It seemed to him that Mr. Fitzgerald was well aware of his power, for he had not attempted to conceal his consciousness of the singer's mischievous intent. This train of thought was arrested by the inward question, "What is it to me whether he marries her or not?" Impatiently he ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... vales its tuneful way, Or hides in Conway's fragrant brakes, Retreating from the glare ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... leaders of the Protestants. In the hamlet of Tareau, close to Gap, Guillaume Farel, a celebrated French reformer, was born in 1489. He died on the 13th Sept. 1565. The most remarkable features of his character were dauntlessness and untiring energy and zeal. He possessed a sonorous and tuneful voice, fluency of language, and passionate earnestness; yet, although seldom failing to arrest the attention of large audiences, he often, by imprudent torrents of denunciation, aroused ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the tuneful throng His obsequies forbid, He still shall live, shall live as long!— 'As ever dead ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... for the note C of the soprano scale, and the number that runs the pitch up to inaudibility. We know the number of vibrations of light necessary to give us a sensation of red or violet. These, apprehended by a sufficiently sensitive ear, pour not only light to one organ, but tuneful harmonies to another. The morning stars do sing together, and when worlds are gone, and heavy ears of clay laid down, we may be ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... touch—the lightest breath of natural feeling that broke up the hot crust, that shut down the fountain of tears—Rosa's voice, tuneful and sad as a nightingale's, chanting the border-lays ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... that Prince Charming had not gone troubadouring in vain, for Orpheus himself could not have restored harmony more successfully. The tuneful apology was accepted with a forgiving smile and a frank "I'm sorry I was cross, but you haven't forgotten how to tease, and I'm rather out of sorts today. Late ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... of whom the Grecian knew, The power that reigneth in each loving heart; From thee the sages their great teachings drew. Thou mak'st life tuneful by the poet's art. Without thy aid the love-god's fiery dart Wakes but a savage and a blind desire, Where nought of beauty e'er can claim a part. Without thee, all to which frail men aspire Has nothing good, is but of this poor earth, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... in a voice so clear and melodious, that Tithonus exclaimed, "You err, O Plato, in saying the tuneful soul of Marsyas has passed into the nightingale; for surely it remains with this young Athenian. Son of Clinias, you must be well skilled in playing upon the flute the divine airs ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... in music, is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come. There are no fields of amaranth on this aide of the grave; there are no voices, O Rhodope! that are not soon mute, however tuneful; there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... received my books safe, and are content with them. I have little idea of Mr. Bentley's; though his imagination is sufficiently Pindaric, nay obscure, his numbers are not apt to be so tuneful as to excuse his flights. He should always give his wit, both in verse and prose, to somebody else to make up. If any of his things are printed at Dublin, let me have them; I have no quarrel with his talents. Your cousin's behaviour has been handsome, and so was his speech, which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... that, when with joy we sung, Were wont their tuneful parts to bear, With silent strings, neglected hung, On ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... hill, and upon the hill a most level space of a plain, which the blades of grass made green: {all} shade was wanting in the spot. After the bard, sprung from the Gods, had seated himself in this place, and touched his tuneful strings, a shade came over the spot. The tree of Chaonia[10] was not absent, nor the grove of the Heliades,[11] nor the mast-tree with its lofty branches, nor the tender lime-trees, nor yet the beech, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... with march sublime in saffron robe Young HYMEN steps, and traverses the globe; O'er burning sands, and snow-clad mountains, treads, Blue fields of air, and ocean's briny beds; Flings from his radiant torch celestial light O'er Day's wide concave, and illumes the Night. With dulcet eloquence his tuneful tongue Convokes and captivates the Fair and Young; His golden lamp with ray ethereal dyes The blushing cheek, and lights the laughing eyes; 420 With secret flames the virgin's bosom warms, And lights the impatient bridegroom to her arms; With lovely life all Nature's ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... came back to him. In his mind he saw the vast prairie roll on to infinity; saw the mountains stand out, a world of white peaks, rising from a sea of darkness. Again he heard the plaintive shrilling of an Indian whistle, or the song of the lad down creek made tuneful and airy by ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... man, what hero, on the tuneful lyre, Or sharp-toned flute, will Clio choose to raise, Deathless, to fame? What God? whose hallowed name The sportive image of the voice Shall in the shades of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Green Erin, break thine icy slumbers! Strike once again thy wreathed lyre! Burst forth once more and wake thy tuneful numbers! ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... night of intense excitement. Now that they began to beat through the air in the old tuneful way, and there was nothing more to claim their attention until they should arrive at Aden sometime in the morning, Bob and Paul took to their hammocks for sleep, but first Bob got Khartum on the wireless and ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers; the wood-pecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusk till day-break, serenades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their complacency by sweet modulations, and a variety of melody. The swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrill alarm bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and bids them be aware that the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... the streaming light and merry lark, Forth rush the jolly clan; with tuneful throats They carol loud, and in grand chorus joined, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... snubnose,' retorted Shubin, 'we will show you. Zoya Nikitishna, sing us Le lac of Niedermeyer. Stop rowing!' The wet oars stood still, lifted in the air like wings, and their splash died away with a tuneful drip; the boat drifted on a little, then stood still, rocking lightly on the water like a swan. Zoya affected to refuse at first.... 'Allons' said Anna Vassilyevna genially.... Zoya took off her hat and began to sing: 'O lac, l'annee a peine ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... say. He sings the praises of the earth and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a moonlight, serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even wisdom comes from his tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more tuneful in the upper notes. But even while he sings the song of the Sirens, he still hearkens to the barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic notes interrupt the flow of his Horatian humours. His mirth has something of the tragedy of the world for its perpetual ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the tuneful lyre, Still poets' hymns to thee belong; Though lips are cold Whereon of old Thy beams all turn'd to worshipping ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... time in the tuneful spring was crowded full to the brim of emotions scarce bearable to McElroy, how much more wonderful was it to Maren Le Moyne, for the first time in her life trembling in all her being from the touch of a ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... cleric heading his little boys and their cricket, and there are the tuneful party in the fern on the opposite side. They have rather good voices, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... petition that this wearisome psalm-sharp, this miauling meter-monger, this howling dervish of hymns devotional, may strain his trachea, unsettle the braces of his lungs, crack his ridiculous gizzard and perish of pneumonia starvation. And may the good Satan seize upon the catgut strings of his tuneful soul, and smite therefrom a wicked, ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... John Cooper was under the immediate orders of Margaret Campbell. After hours, the Sergeant used to play a piccolo, and among other tuneful lays he piped one called "The Campbells Are Coming." It was on one such musical occasion that the young couple simply walked off and got married, thus proving a point which I have long held, to wit: Music is ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... ceased the MUSE, and dropp'd her tuneful shell, Tumultuous woes her panting bosom swell, 465 O'er her flush'd cheek her gauzy veil she throws, Folds her white arms, and bends her laurel'd brows; For human guilt awhile the Goddess sighs, And ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... minster—old, even then—the vast assemblage, grouped beneath the trees around the sacred precincts, lifted up their voices and joined in the funeral hymn, while many wept tears of genuine sorrow. It was awe inspiring, that burst of tuneful wailing, as the monks entered the sacred pile, and it made men's hearts thrill with the sense of the unseen world into which their king had entered, and where, as they believed, their supplications might ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... said. "You do it on my account, because you're too big-hearted to quit before I'm through..." There was a tuneful song of the tin pails as the white streams rattled ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... was wearing a smoking-jacket of crimson velvet and a pipe hung from his nerveless fingers. Only the man's eyes appeared alive; they were fixed upon Lydia at the piano. She was playing some light tuneful melody, with a superabundance of trills and runs. Jim did not know Lydia played; and the knowledge of this trivial accomplishment seemed to put her still further beyond his reach. He did not know, either, that she had acquired her somewhat indifferent skill after ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... again even as in the days of old when Ephraim envied Judah and Judah vexed Ephraim! Nevertheless, times without number, a concert in the midst of strife, such as that described above, sufficed to draw together all classes in friendliest possible intercourse, and seemed a tuneful prophecy of the better days that are destined yet ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... Northbourne. After that, the pupils being pronounced 'finished,' Jerry Blunt set forth, with his batch of performers, to London, where he got a fairly good price for his well-trained songsters. His birds sold off rapidly, each of them going off to be the pride and joy of some girl or boy's heart with the tuneful ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... and so, over the hill he passed from her sight, as all things else had passed, for in the blindness of her tears it was as if dark night had fallen. She turned about and in her ears his words rang, and again strong-set to be brave, the misty night was winked away. Hearing the hum of the old negro's tuneful spirit, she called him and ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... poetic theme, Why is the Muse compell'd to own her dream? Whilst forward wits had sworn to every line, I only wish to make its moral mine. Say then, O ye who tell how authors speed, May Hope indulge her flight, and I succeed? Say, shall my name, to future song prefixed, Be with the meanest of the tuneful mix'd? Shall my soft strains the modest maid engage, My graver numbers move the silver "d sage, My tender themes delight the lover's heart, And comfort to the poor my solemn songs impart? For Oh! thou Hope's, thou Thought's ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... schoolmistress, in the flat country where Kent and Surrey meet. "Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher; cherry-cheeked and tuneful of voice. A little pincushion, a little hussie, a little book, a little work-box, a little set of tables and weights and measures, and a little woman all in one. She could write a little essay on any subject exactly a slate ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... to be patted and soothed into a more tranquil frame of mind before the story could proceed. Then there was a spell of musical chairs, the First Engineer obliging at the piano, and afterwards giving a tuneful West-Country folk-song at the Doctor's request. The Junior Watchkeeper, declaring his inability to remember anything, read half a column from the "Situations Vacant" portion of The Times, and amid the ensuing applause slipped quietly from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... city and behold collections of this latter sort predominating and then through another, where my eyes were gladdened with evidences of good taste, of love for humor that is wholesome, sentiment that is sane, verse that is tuneful and noble, I should at once call on the public librarian and I should say to him, "Thou art the man!" The literary taste of your community is a reflection of your own as shown forth in your own institution—its collection of books, the assistants with which you have surrounded yourself, your ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... dark domains Throw mournful shadows o'er the Aonian clime; For in their silent bourne my filial bands Lie all dissolv'd;—and swiftly-wasting pour From my frail glass of life, health's sparkling sands. Sleep then, my LYRE, thy tuneful tasks are o'er, Sleep! for my heart bereav'd, and listless hands Wake with rapt touch thy glowing ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... on days of festival Clear, gay, and loud is heard; My second grudges others' good; To state a truth my third; And of my tuneful fourth of old A wild ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... I beat her," shrieks he, with the last note left in his tuneful pipe. He staggers the last yard or two and falls into Joyce's arms, that are opened wide to receive him. Who shall say he is not a happy interlude? Evidently Joyce ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... night-musquito is similar to the insect which disturbs our slumbers in Northern latitudes. The day-musquito relieves his comrade at sunrise and remains on duty till sunset. He has no song, but his bite is none the less severe. He disappears at the approach of winter, but his tuneful brother remains. Musquito nettings are a ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... they may have arrived before the storm. I scarcely remember a winter when I have not seen some around, and their instinct guides them where to find shelter. When the weather is very cold they are comparatively silent, but even a January thaw will make them tuneful. They are also migrants, and have been coming northward for a week or two past, and this accounts for the numbers this morning. Poor little things! they must have had a hard time of it ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... township in a minute if we don't head him," said Penfentenyou, leaping to his feet, and crashing into the garden. We headed him with pebbles till he retired through a window to the tuneful reminder that he had left a lot of little things behind him. As we passed the front door it swung open, and showed Jimmy the artist sitting at the bottom of a newly-cleaned staircase. He waggled his hands at us, and when we entered we saw that the man was ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... sound may be heard here in May. You are walking forth in the soft morning air, when suddenly there comes a burst of bobolink melody form some mysterious source. A score of throats pour out one brief, hilarious, tuneful jubilee and are suddenly silent. There is a strange remoteness and fascination about it. Presently you will discover its source skyward, and a quick eye will detect the gay band pushing northward. They seem to scent the fragrant ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... Akenside differed from the majority of his tuneful brethren, before, then, or since. He was a warm and wide-hearted commender of the works of other poets. Most of our sweet singers rather resemble birds of prey than nightingales or doves, and are at least as strong in their talons as they are musical in their tongues. And hence the ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... once the abode of a spirit like our own; beneath this mouldering canopy once shone the bright and busy eye; within this hollow cavern once played the ready, swift, and tuneful tongue; and now, sightless and mute, it is eloquent only in the ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... also, as he sat in the hall, his head bowed upon his hands, while great tears rolled over his cheeks and dropped unheeded on the floor; and, as the feathered choristers without sweetly chirped their tuneful matins, his grateful heart responded with reverent joy—"Glory to God in ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... The tuneful procession moves upon the bridegroom. An Essex Street girl in the crowd, watching them go, says disdainfully: "None of this humbug when I get married." It is the straining of young America at the fetters of tradition. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... Lamech. A true pilgrim with strength of faith and belief, like Abraham son of Terah. A man loving, gentle, forgiving of heart, like Moses son of Amram. A man patient and steadfast in enduring suffering and trouble, like suffering Job. A psalmist full-tuneful, full-delightful to God, like David son of Jesse. A dwelling of true wisdom and knowledge like Solomon son of David. A rock immovable whereon is founded the Church, like Peter the apostle. A chief universal teacher and a chosen ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... Gertrude speaks!" Ingmar was thinking. "She has the sweetest, the cheeriest, and most tuneful voice I ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... far and wide, shining like burnished gold beneath the level light now near to sun-down. Frogs are croaking; those persistent frogs whom the muses have ordained to sing for aye, in spite of Bion and all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat, well-watered soil. Nightingales here and there, new-comers, tune their timid April song. But, strangest of all sounds in such a place, my comrade from the Grisons jodels forth an Alpine ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... He of worlds the Sower: "Away, ye stars! spring in the wastes of heaven; Broider its purple fields with your fair gems; Tuneful, elated, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... issuing from the stovepipe, a strong man turning the hand organ, the greatly improved steam calliope was calculated to astonish the public. If the music were not so vociferous as that his rival's instrument sent forth, it must be admitted that Grady's was more tuneful and ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... of our mourning are ended, The lean years of famine are fled, When, sick for a spoonful of aught that was tuneful, We've sorrowed as over the dead For Music, forlorn and unfriended, Gone down into glimmerless gloom, While rude "rag-time" revels were dancing a devils' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... God the Son of the Glory of his dying Love, if we speak of it only in the gloomy Language of Smoke and Sacrifices, Bullocks and Goats, and the Fat of Lambs? Is not the Ascent of Christ into Heaven, and his Triumph over Principalities and Powers of Darkness a nobler Entertainment for our tuneful Meditations than the removing of the Ark up to the City of David, to the Hill of God, which is high as the Hill of Bashan? Is not our Heart often warm'd with holy Delight in the Contemplation of the Son of God our dear Redeemer whose Love was stronger ...
— A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody • Isaac Watts
... A rich, imaginative eloquence, though it could not fail to have admirers, was out of favour, not only with those who considered Tillotson the model preacher, but also with High Churchmen. Jeremy Taylor would hardly have ranked high in Bishop Bull's estimation. His wit and metaphors, and 'tuneful pointed sentences,' would almost certainly have been adjudged by the good Bishop of St. David's unworthy of the grave and solemn dignity of the pulpit.[1204] And brilliant as were the sallies of Dr. South's vigorous and highly seasoned declamations, they ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... sleeper murmured on. Sometimes the voice was thick and discordant, sometimes low and clear and tuneful as a child's. "Never touch whisky!" he went on, almost harshly. "Never— never! Drop in the street first. I did. The doctor will come then, and he knows what you want. Not whisky.—Medicine; the kind that makes you warm again—makes you want to live; but don't ever dare touch whisky. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... that the showman himself must be able to create from his available material, which he will find and develop in dialogue, lyrics, tuneful music, voice, singing, dancing, characterization, costumes, settings, scenery, properties, lighting, and everything else connected in any way with the stage picture or the presentation of his offering. The publicity and exploitation ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... we passed, a music-loving squire had made a concert for his friends and neighbours, and doubtless, too, for our vagrant delight; we stood uninvited to listen to a tuneful stir of violins, which with a violoncello booming beneath, broke out very pleasantly from the windows of ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this at the top of his tuneful voice, and waved his hand as the sharp craft shot away over ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the one there was no true precedent in English; for the other there was no precedent that might not rather have been called a warning. His matter was to be arranged and his verse handled by his own ingenuity and at his own peril. He left a highroad behind him, along which many a tuneful pauper has since limped; but before him he found nothing but the jungle and false fires. In considering his style, therefore, it is well to treat the problem as it presented itself to him, and to follow his achievement as he won step by step ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... by the tuneful throng, I look for streams immortalized in song, That lost in silence and oblivion lie; Dumb are their fountains, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... gods, how I pity The ears those sweet sounds never heard; More tuneful than loveliest ditty E'er poured from the throat of a bird. There's a prize for each honest endeavour, But none for the man who's a shirk; And the pluck that we've showed on the river, Shall tell in ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Sonnets and elegies to Chloris, Might raise a house about two stories; A lyric ode would slate; a catch Would tile; an epigram would thatch. Now Poets feel this art is lost, Both to their own and landlord's cost. Not one of all the tuneful throng Can hire a lodging for a song. For Jove consider'd well the case, That poets were a numerous race; And if they all had power to build, The earth would very soon be fill'd: Materials would be quickly spent, And ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... in song: though not a purer stream, Through meads more flowery, or more romantic groves, Rolls towards the western main. Hail, sacred flood! May still thy hospitable swains be blest In rural innocence; thy mountains still Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods For ever flourish; and thy vales look gay With painted meadows, and the golden grain! Oft with thy blooming sons, when life was new, Sportive and petulant, and charm'd with toys, In thy transparent eddies have I lav'd; Oft trac'd with patient steps ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... roars of laughter, breaking the cold, frosty air, were heard from ship to ship, as the foxhunters, swelled in numbers from all sides, and those that could not run mounted some neighbouring hummock of ice and gave a loud halloo, which said far more for robust health than for tuneful melody." ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... will I raise my tuneful voice To make thy wonders known; In their salvation I'll rejoice, And bless thee ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... returned to the drawing-room as he let his visitor out. He could hear her playing, and singing in her sweet contralto a tuneful French love-song, ignorant of the hideous crisis that had fallen, ignorant of the awful disaster which had ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, Who do not feel as if they had a ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... murmured in her pleasant lazy drawl. She threw out her chest, and filled the room with healthy tuneful sound. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... the north. Their high notes of a song came back to him,—one of those wailing chants of a score of verses dear to the Mexican heart. In any other place he would have deemed it a funeral dirge with variations, but with Indian women at sunrise it meant tuneful content. ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the Nations afforded a prolific source for sight-seeing, and furthermore, was a sore trial to our organs of hearing. Musical and unmusical instruments of every description were in operation—from the Javanese salendon and pelog to the tuneful instruments, masterly handled ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... of Aegea's shore The brave assembled; those illustrious twins Castor and Pollux; Orpheus, tuneful bard; Zetes and Calais, as the wind in speed; Strong Hercules and many a chief renowned. On deep Iolcos' sandy shore they thronged, Gleaming in armor, ardent of exploits; And soon, the laurel cord and the huge stone Uplifting to the deck, unmoored the bark; Whose ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... while, unpictured and unsung By painter or by poet, Our river waits the tuneful tongue And cunning hand to show it,— We only know the fond skies lean Above it, warm with blessing, And the sweet soul of our Undine Awakes to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... of a hound dog—not so awful loud, but clear and mellow and tuneful, and carried to us on the wind. And then in a minute it come agin, sharper and quicker. They yells like that when they have struck ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... even as with gigantic white eyebrows, towered up from dazzling snow slope, and higher still riven crags, split into all fantastic shapes, frowned forth as though to menace the world. And all around, clinging about the feet of these stupendous heights, soft, luxuriant forests, tuneful with the murmur of innumerable glacier streams. A very Paradise of beauty and grandeur side by side, thought Laurence—amid which the shields and spears, the marching column of the savage host seemed strangely ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... suggestion of joyous exuberance in its wide suffusions. Even the recurrent fluctuations of shadow but gave its pervasive sheen the effect of motion and added embellishment. The wind, hilarious, loud, piping gayly a tuneful stave, shepherded the clouds in the fair fields of the high sky, driving the flocculent white masses here and there as listed a changing will. The trees were red and yellow, the leaves firm, full-fleshed, as if the ebbing sap of summer still ran high ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... whilst from a neighbouring lilac- bush streamed the rich melody of the nightingale. Presently it ceased before the broadening daylight, but in its stead, pure and clear and cold, arose the notes of the mavis, giving tuneful thanks and glory to its Maker. And, as he listened, a great calm stole upon his spirit, and kneeling down there by the open window, with the breath of spring upon his brow, and the voice of the happy birds within his ears, he prayed to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... progressive, climax-reaching arrangement of the events of a story which we call the "plot.") A novel may be largely a study of character; a short-story may deal with action which takes place wholly unseen in the soul of man; a play or a musical comedy may be chiefly a series of scenic pictures or tuneful caperings; but a true photoplay must act out a story—a story with a big central point, supported ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... the greenhouse with resolution, and directed his steps toward the front of the mansion. As he entered the hall, a remarkably tuneful and resonant chime filled his ears with novel music. He looked and saw that a white-capped, neatly-clad domestic, standing with her back to him beside the newel-post of the stairs, was beating out the tune with two padded sticks upon some strips of metal ranged on a stand of Indian workmanship. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... this lady would, if alone, have at once got on extremely well together. The lady had the clearest voice imaginable—infinitely softer and more tuneful than could have been reasonably expected from forty years—and a form decidedly inclined to embonpoint. This voice Caroline liked; it atoned for the formal, if correct, accent and language. The lady would soon have discovered she liked it and her, and in ten minutes they would ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... ye the notes of holy song On Milton's tuneful ear have died? Think ye that Raphael's angel throng Has vanished ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... to poets, literary men, musical composers, and others of the gentle artist-breed, and even into that small nook of sanctity men of other pursuits have thought it decent to intrude themselves. Methinks the tuneful throng, being at home here, should recollect how they were treated in their lifetime, and turn the cold shoulder, looking askance at nobles and official personages, however worthy of honorable interment elsewhere. Yet it shows aptly and truly enough what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... and at their inability to grapple with numbers and the simpler processes of arithmetic. Another characteristic of the same nature was their wonderful lack of musical ability, or of any kind of tuneful creativeness. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... from the war, With spirits as buoyant as air, And thus on the tuneful guitar He sings in the bower of the fair: The noise of the battle is over; The bugle no more calls to arms; A soldier no more, but a lover, I kneel to the power of thy charms. Sweet lady, dear lady, I'm ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... With chant of tuneful birds resounding loud, Thither he bent his way, determined there To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade, High roofed, and walks beneath and alleys brown, That opened in the midst a woody scene, Nature's own work it seemed ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... Boston, filled out an application for a volume of Pope's works, an edition reserved from circulation, in the following tuneful manner: ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... catches their first matin hymns. In the longest June days the robin strikes up about half- past three o'clock, and is quickly followed by the song sparrow, the oriole, the catbird, the wren, the wood thrush, and all the rest of the tuneful choir. Along the Potomac I have heard the Virginia cardinal whistle so loudly and persistently in the tree- tops above, that sleeping after four o'clock was out of the question. Just before the sun is up, there is a marked lull, during which, I imagine, the birds are at breakfast. While building ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Anderson, after a while, "it's got Tom. Now, why couldn't it have been a man-Dago to sing that air into the tuneful horn of the mechanical heavenly maid yonder? No reason, only it's got to be a woman to sing that man's song of 'Annie Laurie.' A man couldn't any more sing 'Annie Laurie' than you could make cocktails without bitters. The only way we can get either one of them here is in bulk, which we have done. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Wretched to redress; Swift of Dispatch, and easie of Access. Oh, had he been content to serve the Crown, With Vertues onely proper to the Gown; Or, had the rankness of the Soil been freed From Cockle, that opprest the Noble Seed: David, for him his tuneful Harp had strung, And Heav'n had wanted one Immortal Song. But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand; And Fortunes Ice prefers to Vertues Land: Achitophel, grown weary to possess A lawful Fame, and lazie Happiness, Disdain'd the Golden Fruit to gather free, And lent the Croud his Arm to ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... uniformly handsome, and some of them showed greater sumptuousness than the people had seen for many years; his orchestra, though faulty in composition as well as execution, did some admirable work under Signor Vianesi; his chorus was prompt, vigorous, and tuneful; his ensembles were carefully and intelligently composed, and his selection of operas was judicious from a managerial point of view. He gave to New York the strongest combination of women singers that the city had ever known; nor has it ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... over us. The window was open and we heard the frogs singing down in the swamp of the brook meadow. We had heard frogs sing in Ontario, of course; but certainly Prince Edward Island frogs were more tuneful and mellow. Or was it simply the glamour of old family traditions and tales which was over us, lending its magic to all sights and sounds around us? This was home— father's home—OUR home! We had never lived long enough in any one house to develop a feeling ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
