"Flute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... called him "father": he was always "Louis"—simply one of them. He married the family and they married him. He had captured their hearts in France by his story-telling, his flute-playing and his skilful talent with the jackknife. Now he was with them for all time, and he was theirs. It was the most natural thing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... cannot, cannot be. Late as he left the shore, she linger'd there, Till, less and less, he melted into air!— Sigh after sigh steals from her gentle frame, And say—that murmur—was it not his name? She turns, and thinks; and, lost in wild amaze, Gazes again, and could for ever gaze! Nor can thy flute, ALONSO, now excite, As in VALENCIA, when, with fond delight, FRANCISCA, waking, to the lattice flew, So soon to love and to be wretched too! Hers thro' a convent-grate to send her last adieu. —Yet who now comes uncall'd; and round and round, And near and nearer flutters ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... person, he became at once like a near neighbour and friend. It was strange to me—as I have thought since—how he conveyed to us in few words the essential emotional note of his life. It was no violin tone, beautifully complex with harmonics, but the clear simple voice of the flute. It spoke of his wife and his baby girl and his home. The very incongruity of detail—he told us how he grew onions in his back yard—added somehow to the homely glamour of the vision which he gave us. The number of his house, ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... continued to throw into the air exquisite puffs to intoxicate them; the darkness that enveloped them seemed more and more caressing and soft; in the silence of the village and of the country, the tree-toads gave, from moment to moment, their little flute-note, which seemed a very discreet love call, under the velvet of the moss; and, through the black lace of the foliage, in the serenity of a June sky which one thought forever unalterable, they saw scintillate, like ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... that there is still love and truth upon the earth, but one must not be silly enough to look for it among men. Come here, Diana, my little companion; I was wrong to call myself solitary, for are you not here? and then have I not my flute? Is she not a loving, trustworthy friend, to whom every thing can be confided? You two shall be my sole ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Sound the flute! Now 'tis mute; Birds delight Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky— Merrily, Merrily, merrily to welcome ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... bed he pulled a box from which he drew a handsome flute. 'Ye'll forgive me, Mr Brand, but I aye like a tune before I go to my bed. Macnab says his prayers, and I have a tune on the flute, and the principle ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... prettily, and laughed a laugh that Wentworth thought was like a little ripple of music from a mellow flute. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... Sadako had finished her practice, came borne upon the distance the still more melancholy pipe of a student's flute. This was the last human sound. After that the night was left to the orchestra of the insects—the grasshoppers, the crickets and the semi (cicadas). Asako soon was able to distinguish at least ten or twelve different songs, all metallic in character, like clock springs being ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... could not sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... and freeze piety in the most generous soul. It suddenly struck the constable's wife that she had never, in fact, seen either of her lodgers exercising any human function. Though the younger man's voice was as sweet and melodious as the tones of a flute, she so rarely heard it that she was tempted to think his silence the result of a spell. As she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white face, and saw in memory the fine hair and moist brilliancy of those eyes, she believed that they were indeed the artifices of the Devil. She remembered ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... covered; and we often find associated with them in these cases the remains of no other plant. The Sigillaria were remarkable for their beautifully sculptured stems, various in their pattern, according to their species. All were fluted vertically, somewhat like columns of the Grecian Doric; and each flute or channel had its line of sculpture running adown its centre. In one species (S. flexuosa) the sculpture consists of round knobs, surrounded by single rings, like the heads of the bolts of the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... will, Would see how madness rages, And cries: Wild spirit awake! Loud cymbals catch the cry, And back its echoes shake; And, shouting peals of laughter, The trumpet rushes after, And cries: Wild spirit awake! Amid them flute-tones fly, Like arrows, keen and numberless; And with bloodhound yell Pipes the onset swell; And violins and violoncellos, Creaking, clattering, Shrieking, shattering; And horns whence thunder bellows; To leave the victim slumberless, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... with a steady light. Afterwards the audience would all say again what they had always said about every great lyric soprano, that it was just a wonderful instrument without a particle of feeling, that it was an over-grown canary, a human flute, and all the rest of it; but while the trills ran on the people listened in wonder and ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... on Athens and her beauty. The images stamped so carefully on his sensitive brain became his most precious treasures. Over and over he dwelt on them. Ever in memory his feet climbed the steps to the Acropolis or walked beneath stately orange-trees, beating a soft rhythm to the sound of flute and viol. For Achilles was by nature one of the lightest-hearted of children. In Athens his laugh had been quick to rise, and fresh as the breath of rustling leaves. It was only here, under the sooty sky of the narrow street, that his face had ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... from the sanctuary one afternoon I heard the landlord's comic song, of which I have spoken above. It was about the musical instruments in a band: the trumpet did this, the clarinet did that, the flute went tootle, tootle, tootle, and there was an appropriate motion of the hand for every instrument. I was a little disappointed with it, but the landlord said I was too serious and the only thing that ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... warrior Tritonid hath alway in guard, Where on many a sacred shrine Young bulls' thigh-bones burn and shine As the god that is fire overtakes them, and fast The smoke of Arabia to heavenward is cast, Scattering wide its balm: and shrill Now with nimble notes that thrill The flute strikes up for the song, and the harp of gold Strikes up to the song sweet answer: and all behold, All, aswarm as bees, give ear, Who ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... His father met him with some impatient questions as to what he had been living on so long, for the old man well knew how scantily his pocket was supplied. "Pretty much like the young ravens," answered he; "I only wished I had been as good a player on the flute as poor George Primrose in The Vicar of Wakefield. If I had his art I should like nothing better than to tramp like him from cottage to cottage over the world."—"I doubt," said the grave Clerk ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... considerable eminence in the art. Without undue immodesty, I think I may fairly claim some distinction in it myself, although I have not regularly acquired it as one acquires knowledge and skill in writing, painting and playing the flute. O yes, I am a notable Sole Survivor, and some of my work in that way attracts ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... open. The stops labelled flute, horn, celestial voice, were pulled out, ready to be placed. Des Esseintes sipped here and there, enjoying the inner symphonies, succeeded in procuring sensations in his throat analogous to those which music gives to ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... this one morning. So prepared, we need not much wonder at what followed. Caesar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when suddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a flute. This phantom was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human, so far as its lineaments could be traced in the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the story, on any hypothesis which would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... her white tunic, which seemed to protect her person against the liberties of his wit. He, the conqueror, the irresistible, had never met one of that audacious, self-willed race. So he enveloped her in all the magnetic currents of his seductive charm, while around them the murmur of the fete, the flute-like laughter, the rustling of satins and strings of pearls played an accompaniment to that duet of worldly passion and ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... replied that he "didn't seem to be able to get on the key." And this was apparent when he started in and wandered up and down the tonal till he managed to strike the tonic. Then he asked me whether I would rather hear "Qui sdegno," from Mozart's "Magic Flute," or "Love Me and the World is Mine." Upon the latter being chosen he asked the accompanist to transpose it, and upon this gentleman's suggesting a third lower, he said: "No, put it down an octave." And that's where ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... middle, resembling an hour-glass, on one end of which they beat with one hand, while with the other they strained the cords which surround it, making it to sound soft or loud at their pleasure, and tuning their voices to its sound, while others played on a fife or flute; but all was harsh and unpleasant to our ears. I never saw a play of which I took such notice, as it was wonderfully well represented, yet quite different from ours in Christendom, which are only dumb-shews, while this was as truth ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... bowl of roses filled the room with the simple and deep poetry of summer, the story of the hedges and the fields, of orchards shot through with the voices of birds, of cattle knee-deep in cool water where the dragon-flies keep up their eternal dance to the flute-like ripple of ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and gymnastic; one class of them superintending gymnasia and schools, and the attendance and lodging of the boys and girls—the other having to do with contests of music and gymnastic. In musical contests there shall be one kind of judges of solo singing or playing, who will judge of rhapsodists, flute-players, harp-players and the like, and another of choruses. There shall be choruses of men and boys and maidens—one director will be enough to introduce them all, and he should not be less than forty ...
— Laws • Plato
... said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego? do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... enjoyed ourselves—I think I can safely say that, but it was in a rather quiet way. We very, very seldom played the piano; we played the flute and the clarinet together, and made good music, too, what there was of it, but we always played the same old tune; it was a very pretty tune —how well I remember it—I wonder when I shall ever get rid of it. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ingenuo). This is a lovely tone poem, opening with a characteristic little figure reminiscent of the opening of the Love-Song in the Indian Suite for Orchestra (Op. 48). The theme is punctuated by little flute-like embellishments. The middle section, poco piu lento, is idyllic, with a perfectly balanced, swaying rhythm. In playing this portion, the left hand should describe an equal series of semicircles as it alights first on the low chord, and then on the ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... son—a Chinaman's dearest wish on earth—elicits no congratulations from thronging friends; no red eggs are sent to the lucky parents, and no joyous feast is provided in return. Merrymaking of all kinds is forbidden to all classes for the full term of one year, and the familiar sound of the flute and the guitar is hushed in every household and in every street.[*] The ordinary Chinese visiting-card —a piece of red paper about six inches by three, inscribed with its owner's name in large characters—changes to a dusky brown; and the very lines ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... thickest part of the wood, because she did not know what her heart was made of, and she was afraid of the dragon, and there in a dell she came on Elfin and his five and seventy fine pigs. He was playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... with scores of specimens, the most beautiful butterflies, moths, beetles, birds, flowers, and rare stones. The floor of the cabin was covered by different kinds of skins. Besides, there were telescopes, field-glasses, magnifying-glasses, specimen cases, old weapons, and a flute. And by the great wide fireplace, in front of which the guide was cooking biscuits and cookies in a reflector oven, lay several kittens, the old black dog, Thor, and a dappled ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... saying that he keeps company with other standard authors. Ealer always had several high-class books in the pilot-house, and he read the same ones over and over again, and did not care to change to newer and fresher ones. He played well on the flute, and greatly enjoyed hearing himself play. So did I. He had a notion that a flute would keep its health better if you took it apart when it was not standing a watch; and so, when it was not on duty it took its rest, disjointed, on the compass-shelf ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... plan, he left the pilot without so much as a "thank you," running down the steps, two at a time, unobserved by Mr. Lazelle, who was playing the flute. He wanted to see how the "rigging" was made, and stopped to ask ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... that Waitstill's heart, if it moved at all, would rush out like a great river to lose itself in the ocean, and losing itself forget the narrow banks through which it had flowed before. Patty knew that her own love was at the moment nothing more than the note of a child's penny flute, and that Waitstill was perhaps vibrating secretly with a deeper, richer music than could ever come to her. Still, music of some sort she meant to feel. "Even if they make me decide one way or another before I am ready," she said to herself, "I'll never say ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... meanwhile the scene is changed, the fire and water taken from the MAGIC FLUTE begin to play, above appears the open temple of the sun, the sky is clear and Jupiter sits within it, beneath Hell with Terkaleon, cobalds and witches on the stage, many lights, etc. The audience ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... did not take me long to discover that he was wrapped up in her. His beard was smaller and more neatly trimmed than it had looked at the Cooper Institute meeting, but it still ill became him. He had an unsophisticated smile, which I thought suggestive of a man playing on a flute and which emphasized the discrepancy between his weak face ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... mixed up with others, and plainly distinguishable from them; but arises altogether from the manner, in which impressions appear to the mind, without making one of the number. Five notes played on a flute give us the impression and idea of time; though time be not a sixth impression, which presents itself to the hearing or any other of the senses. Nor is it a sixth impression, which the mind by reflection finds in itself. These five sounds making their appearance ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... not persuade Vathek's good genius to desert him, and he made one final effort to save the caliph from the fate awaiting him. Disguised as a shepherd, and pouring forth from his flute such melodies as softened even the heart of Vathek, he confronted him in his path, and warned him so solemnly against pursuing his journey that when night fell almost every one of his attendants had deserted ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... a sylph or a fairy, Sinuous, wary, I passed from the airy Lawns, where the flute Of the winds made tremulous music ...
— Household Gods • Aleister Crowley
... in his stocking, and Tom pulled a flute out of his. He had everybody awake in no time ...
— Dear Santa Claus • Various
... women who performed them were hence known by the expressive names of Bacchae, Maenads, and Thyiades. They wandered through woods and mountains, their flying locks crowned with ivy or snakes, brandishing wands and torches, to the hollow sounds of the drum, or the shrill notes of the flute, with wild dances and insane cries ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... good on thin slices of apple, pineapple, pear, French "flute" or pumpernickel. As-with Brie and with oysters, Camembert should be eaten only in the "R" months, and of these September ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... below. Janet had struck up "Tipperary," and the small flute-like voices of the girls, supported by her harsher one, mounted joyously through every crevice of ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... earliest account-book there is an item when he was sixteen years old, "To cash pd ye Musick Master for my Entrance 3/9." It is commonly said that he played the flute, but this is as great a libel on him as any Tom Paine wrote, and though he often went to concerts, and though fond of hearing his granddaughter Nelly play and sing, he never was himself a performer, and the above entry probably refers to the singing-master whom the boys and girls of that day made ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... organ-stops none excites such admiration as the vox humana; a brief account of the vocal organ will not, therefore, be out of place. The principles of the action of the larynx are easily illustrated by reference to the simpler musical instruments. In a flute or flageolet the musical sound is produced by the vibration of a column of air contained in its interior. In a clarionet or a bassoon another source of sound is added in the form of a thin slip of wood contained in the mouth-piece, and called the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... were accustomed to this. They did not turn any blacker. The prisoner was scratching on them both pictures and verses; but I did not read the latter. I fancy he was tired of being alone, for I was a welcome guest. He enticed me with crumbs of bread, with his flute, and kind words. He was so happy with me! I put confidence in him, and we became friends. He shared with me bread and water, and gave me cheese and sausages. I lived luxuriously; but it was not alone the good cheer that detained me. He allowed me to run ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... individuals who had the effrontery to consider themselves equal to him in this respect, and, accordingly, each challenged him to compete with them in a musical contest. These were Marsyas and Pan. Marsyas was a satyr, who, having picked up the flute which Athene had thrown away in disgust, discovered, to his great delight and astonishment, that, in consequence of its having touched the lips of a goddess, it played of itself in the most charming manner. Marsyas, who was a great lover of music, and much ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... the former was a stay-at-home, spending his time in solitude, or at most taking a stroll with a few intimates; whereas Comedy put herself in the hands of Dionysus, haunted the theatre, frolicked in company, laughed and mocked and tripped it to the flute when she saw good; nay, she would mount her anapaests, as likely as not, and pelt the friends of Dialogue with nicknames— doctrinaires, airy metaphysicians, and the like. The thing she loved of all else was to chaff them and drench them in holiday impertinence, exhibit them treading on air and ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... gifts with thine outweigh. Surpass the twined garland's grace With arms entwined in soft embrace; The crimson of the rose eclipse With kisses from thy rosy lips. Or if thou wilt, be this my meed And breathe thy soul into the reed; Then shall my songs be shamed and mute Before the music of thy flute. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... come, Unheralded by trump or drum; Harp and timbrel now are mute, Cymbal loud and softer flute. And where are they, the bands that rent At morn with shouts the firmament? Like clods, far stretched o'er plain and hill, Their limbs are stiff, their lips are still! Broken is the arm of war; Quenched ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... to was de Miller O. Field place. Cam King, de teacher, was a Injun and evvywhar he went he tuk his flute ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... gladden even while grieving; the wild strain That night-winds wake from reeds that breathe in pain, Though breathing still in music; and that voice, Which most he did affect—whose happy choice Made sweet flute-accents for humanity Out of that living heart which cannot die, The Catholic, born of love, that still controls While man is man, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... music lingers: Like the breath of forgotten singers It flies,—or like the March-cloud's shadow That sweeps with its wing the faded meadow Not long! And yet thy fleeting, Thy tender, flute-toned greeting, O bluebird, wakes an answer that remains The purest chord in all the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... there were great festivities at the Court. The Emperor threw himself into the enjoyment of the season, and commanded that Princess Hase should perform before him on the koto, and that her mother Princess Terute should accompany her on the flute. ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... far, has called for one. An obbligato? Never so much honored. No, indeed. Why, to me it would seem almost like singing with an orchestra. Imagine a 'cello. Imagine a flute—still I'm not a soprano going mad. Or imagine a saxophone; ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... study pleasure only, and the arts which are concerned with the higher interests of soul and body. Does Callicles agree to this division? Callicles will agree to anything, in order that he may get through the argument. Which of the arts then are flatteries? Flute-playing, harp-playing, choral exhibitions, the dithyrambics of Cinesias are all equally condemned on the ground that they give pleasure only; and Meles the harp-player, who was the father of Cinesias, failed ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... savage chief of still more savage men. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... mountains the sense of deep solitude is at once heightened and softened by the flute-like notes of the solitaire. I shall never forget the impression produced by first hearing this. It was on the top of St. Catherine's Peak, fifty-two hundred feet above the sea, in the early morning, when the mountain ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... fond of holiday-making here as in other parts of the province; but it seemed to be a growing fashion to substitute rational amusements for the processions and mummeries of the saints' days. The young folks are very musical, the principal instruments in use being the flute, violin, Spanish guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, called cavaquinho. During the early part of my stay at Santarem, a little party of instrumentalists, led by a tall, thin, ragged mulatto, who was quite ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... heroes of the old ballad of The Fryar and the Boye, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, and included in the Appendix to Furnivall and Hales' edition of the Percy folio. The boy was the possessor of a "magic flute," and, having got the friar into a bush, made him ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... what infinite variety, belongs to the voice! Sometimes it is a flute, sometimes a trip-hammer; what a range of force! In moments of clearer thought or deeper sympathy, the voice will attain a music and penetration which surprise the speaker as much ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... merry creatures played a strange cross-game on the occasion. The blissful day over, and the happy bride and bridegroom withdrawing from the banquet and the dance, the well-pleased chirping, able little tutor hopped before them, and led them to the hymeneal bower with floral flute, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... with a hard note in her flute-like voice. "If I pity not myself, why shouldst thou pity? Am I not loved, and have I not loved greatly? Have I ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Drew's experience and my own. We came to the front feeling deeply sorry for ourselves, and for all airmen of whatever nationality, whose lives were to be snuffed out in their promising beginnings. I used to play "The Minstrel Boy to the War Has Gone" on a tin flute, and Drew wrote poetry. While we were waiting for our first machine, he composed "The Airman's Rendezvous," written in the manner of Alan ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... the broken branch to the place from which it had been torn, but "everything in its place" cannot always be managed, and therefore he stuck the piece in the ground. "Grow and prosper till you can furnish a good flute for them up yonder," he said; for he would have liked to play the "rogue's march" for my lord the baron, and my lord's whole family. And then he betook himself to the castle, but not into the ancestral hall, he was too humble for that! He went to the servants' quarters, and the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... an absent one whose instrument has been cherished in memory of happy moments when harmonious sounds and beautiful music were drawn from the now long-neglected piano, harp, or violin. To its owner a simple flute or bugle is probably of as much value as an old piano, although the more important instrument may be more valuable as a curio and antique. There are some old instruments which increase in value, such, for instance, as violins made years ago by masters of constructional ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... skilled in music took his flute and his nets to the sea-shore. Standing on a projecting rock he played several tunes, in the hope that the fish, attracted by his melody, would of their own accord dance into his net, which he had placed below. At last, having ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... resumed musingly, and I spoke rather to myself than to my companion, "yet, how happy do they seem! what a revival of our Arcadian dreams are the flute and the dance, the glossy trees all glowing in the autumn sunset, the green sod, and the murmuring rill, and the buoyant laugh, startling the satyr in his leafy haunts; and the rural loves which will grow sweeter still when ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tales of the gods are reflected in Haleole's romance of Laieikawai. Localized upon Hawaii, it is nevertheless familiar with regions of the heavens. Paliuli, the home of Laieikawai, and Pihanakalani, home of the flute-playing high chief of Kauai, are evidently earthly paradises.[1] Ask a native where either of these places is to be found and he will say, smiling, "In the heavens." The long lists of local place names express ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... in the same nests; they love like us; they are always together like us. Hark? how they call and answer from one tree to another. So when the echoes bring to my ears the air which you play upon your flute at the top of the mountain, I repeat the words at the bottom of the valley. Above all, you are dear to me since the day when you wanted to fight the master of the slave for me. Since that time how often have I said to myself, 'Ah, my brother has a good heart; ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... was his duty to devote his every breath to the gift of music and poetry bestowed upon him, that man was Lanier. His wife agreed with him in his ideals and faith, so in 1873 he left his family in Georgia and went to Baltimore, the land of libraries and orchestras. He secured the position of first flute in the Peabody orchestra, and, by sheer force of genius, took up the most difficult scores and faultlessly led all the flutes. He read and studied, wrote and lectured like one who had suffered from mental starvation. In 1879 he received the appointment of lecturer on English literature ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Christian; traveller, adventurer, podesta, valet, avvocato, and gondolier, held their way alike to the common centre of amusement. The hurried air and careless eye; the measured step and jealous glance; the jest and laugh; the song of the cantatrice, and the melody of the flute; the grimace of the buffoon, and the tragic frown of the improvisatore; the pyramid of the grotesque, the compelled and melancholy smile of the harpist, cries of water-sellers, cowls of monks, plumage of warriors, hum of voices, and the universal movement and bustle, added to the more ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Clear and flute-like the maiden's cultured voice swelled out on the still night air, and the mountain echoes caught up the strains and lent ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... battle, the Argives and their allies advancing with haste and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the music of many flute-players—a standing institution in their army, that has nothing to do with religion, but is meant to make them advance evenly, stepping in time, without break their order, as large armies are apt to do in ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... deriv'd from ancient days, With thoughtless reverence we praise; The rites that taught us to combine The joys of musick and of wine, And bade the feast, and song, and bowl O'erfill the saturated soul: But ne'er the flute or lyre applied To cheer despair, or soften pride; Nor call'd them to the gloomy cells Where want repines and vengeance swells; Where hate sits musing to betray, And murder meditates his prey. To dens of guilt and shades of care, Ye sons of melody repair, Nor deign ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... desired by the most fastidious taste. The gentleman of a vocal turn was head mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest took anything they could get. The youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into a flute. He didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better. If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would have been impossible to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... world." When, in that vault, before the two sarcophagi containing the bodies of Moomtaza and Shah Jehan, the priest reads the Koran in a sort of mournful chant, or an attendant plays with subdued breathings on a flute, the notes are borne up into the numerous arcades and domes, reduplicated, intermingled, dying away, fainter and fainter, sweeter and sweeter, until the ravished hearer, as he departs, can remember ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... personality soon made him a favorite both as a physician and in society. He was a good singer, a fair violinist and flute-player, and a very successful writer of prose and verse. But with all his professional and social duties he still kept up his scientific investigations, among other things making some careful observations on the hibernation of hedgehogs at the instigation of Hunter, the results of which were laid ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... successful, they would join the Army as officers. But Mark is seen to be a cad and liar, and there is a fight between them, Mark being apparently dead. Dick, who is a good musician, goes off with his flute in its case, intending to make his way to a city where there is an Army barracks and a Naval port, presumably Chatham, since we are in Kent. He had intended to cross a river by a certain bridge, but the river was in flood, and the bridge had been washed away. As he is looking at this, a drowning ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... the quavering, vibratory tones Of flageolet and solitary reed; Now as a blending of all instruments In echoing harmonics, sweet and low, In soft reverberating resonance; The voice of cornet and sonorous horn Blent with the warbling accents of the flute And chime of mellow bells, unknown to earth; Paean of dulcimer and harpsichord In combination of concordant tone, Melting ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... gave a signal, Mr Helder's hands descended on the keys, and at the same instant from between Claire's pursed-up lips there flowed a stream of high, flute-like notes, repeating the air with a bird-like fluency and ease. She had chosen the old-world ballad, "Cherry Ripe," the quaint turns and trills of which lent themselves peculiarly well to this method of interpretation, and the swing and gaiety of the measure carried the audience ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... fretful guest. 'You subject the winds to serve you; that's a gain. You do actually accomplish a resonant imitation of the various instruments; they sing out as your two hands command them—trumpet, flute, dulcimer, hautboy, drum, storm, earthquake, ethereal quire; you have them at your option. But tell me of an organ in the open air? The sublimity would vanish, ma'am, both from the notes and from the structure, because accessories ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... capturing and taming them for exhibition, which they do with singular adroitness, and with fearful interest to the unpractised observer. They carry the reptiles from house to house in a small round basket, from which they issue at the sound of a sort of flute, and execute certain movements ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... the Thracians, and all modified the institutions of the Greeks who settled on the coast for purposes of traffic or colonization. The music of the Greeks was borrowed from the Phrygians and Lydians. The flute is known to have been invented, or used by the Phrygians, and from them to ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... some one. Suddenly he gave a "couac." He had seen his sweetheart in the distance with a youth from Christ Church. The conductor turned on the estrade in the centre of the orchestra and scowled at him, and he hastened to become Arcadian once again, gazing at his flute as if the devil had entered into it. In a doorway shrouded with heavy curtains two acting managers talked warily, their hands in retreat behind their coat-tails. They surveyed the house and mentally ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... like good Father Philip, in the romance of "The Monastery," they seemed utterly unable to change their tune. "Cherry ripe!" "Cherry ripe!" was the universal cry of all the idle in the town. Every unmelodious voice gave utterance to it; every crazy fiddle, every cracked flute, every wheezy pipe, every street organ was heard in the same strain, until studious and quiet men stopped their ears in desperation, or fled miles away into the fields or woodlands, to be at peace. This plague lasted for a twelvemonth, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... stranger in a foreign land, Soft music met mine ear— O Richard, O mon roi, struck up In flute-notes wild and clear: And scarce had died that plaintive strain, When lo! how could it be? Thy thunder pealed above the tide, 'Britannia rules the sea!' I knew not whence the magic came, But sought the distant shore, And there ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... words were half-battles,' 'they were living creatures that had hands and feet'; his speech, direct, strong, homely, ready to borrow words from the kitchen or the gutter, is unmatched for popular eloquence and impression. There was music in the man. His flute solaced his lonely hours in his home at Wittemberg; and the Marseillaise of the Reformation, as that grand hymn of his has been called, came, words and music, from his heart. There was humour in him, coarse horseplay often; an honest, hearty, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... is a strain of music! Oh! what lips breathed forth that gush of touching melody which flows in such linked sweetness from the flute of an unseen performer? How soft, how gentle, but oh, how very mournful are the notes! Alas! they are steeped in sorrow, and melt away in the plaintive cadences of despair, until they mingle with silence. Surely, surely, ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... first faint, flute-like note Jill thought that she must have awakened from sleep or delirium, and, it must be confessed, really did not care which was the solution of the mystery; sinking back into a state of apathy so exhausted was she, until the three camels came to a standstill, and the Arab, with ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... quarter-deck, or rather, as there was in truth no quarter-deck to the Goldfinder, on that clean, large, luxurious expanse devoted to the aristocracy in the after-part of the vessel. From among the second-class passengers, two fiddlers and a flute player had been procured, who formed the band. At sea you have always to look for your musicians among the second-class passengers. And now under the awning young and old were standing up, and making ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... their grief, a noble chorus of yearning and despair. The calves projected a high, full-throated barytone, with here and there a wailing tenor against the rumbling bass of their dams. And ever and again pealed distantly into the chorus the flute obbligato of an emotional coyote down on the flat. There was never a diminuendo. The fortissimo had been steadily maintained for three hours and would endure the night long, perhaps for ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Many of the planters themselves in their leisure moments indulged in this delightful amusement. Robert Carter had in his home in Westmoreland County a harpsichord, a piano-forte, an harmonica, a guitar and a flute, and at Williamsburg an organ. He had a good ear, a very delicate touch, was indefatigable in practicing and performed well on several instruments. Especially was he fond of the harmonica, and spent much time in practicing upon it. His skill is thus described by his tutor, "The ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... a chorus of delight when the funny old clown, who had been forcibly deprived of three tin flutes in rapid succession, now produced yet a fourth from the seemingly inexhaustible depths of his baggy white pants—a flute with a string and a bent pin affixed to it—and, secretly hooking the pin in the tail of the cross ringmaster's coat, was thereafter enabled to toot sharp shrill blasts at frequent intervals, much to the chagrin of the ringmaster, who seemed utterly unable to discover ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... Not far off, sir. He was sitting by the bank of the stream playing on his flute; and Miss Barbara, she had climbed one of my apple-trees,—she says they are ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... Beneath this generous sky the country-folk Could lead a freer life,—the fat, green fields Offered rich pasturage, athwart the air Rang tinkling cow-bells and the shepherds' pipes. The knight met many a strolling troubadour, Bearing his cithern, flute, or dulcimer; And oft beneath some castle's balcony, At night, he heard their mellow voices rise, Blent with stringed instruments or tambourines, Chanting some lay as natural as a bird's. Then Nature stole with healthy influence Into his thoughts; his love of beauty woke, His Muse inspired ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... heart in every possible form? The everlasting hum and seething of myriad life satisfies and soothes me. I feel as if something were going on in the world, else why all this shouting, and bedecking of every weed in its best, this endless strain from every tiny weed or great oaken flute? All that cannot sing, dances; the gnats in the air and the long-legged spiders on the water. Even the ants and beetles, the workers that are quoted for examples by hoarding men, run about doing nothing, putting their ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Like those birds in clouds that choir. Aching-sweet from silver string, Purling flute and golden wire Music flows no mortal knows Even in April thronged with voices. Deeper glory throbs and glows Till the ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... continued at San Miguel de Macuco a fine church choir, and musical instruction for the Indian youth. Very lately a traveller was surprised to see the natives playing on the violin, the violoncello, the triangle, the guitar, and the flute. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the engine and the clatter of the steamer's wheels, mingling with the sounds of the music, produced in the air something which sounded like the wild song of a snow-storm. The whistle of the flute, the shrill singing of the clarionets, the heavy roaring of the basses, the ruffling of the little drum and the drones of the blows on the big one, all this fell on the monotonous and dull sounds of the wheels, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... calmer, though her mind never deviated from the subject. The trio had ceased to sit in the large reception hall, for its gun-rack and rods and reels, its fur rugs, its trophies of sport, its mandolin and flute and piano, were now pathetically reminiscent of the vanished presence of its joyous and genial owner. They used instead the small library which opened from it, where a spacious bay-window gave ample light in the dreary ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... for a slashing article against any man in England!" He would not only write, but fight on a pinch; was a good scholar, and as savage in his manner as with his pen. Mr. Squinny is of exactly the opposite school, as delicate as milk-and-water, harmless in his habits, fond of the flute when the state of his chest will allow him, a great practiser of waltzing and dancing in general, and in his journal mildly malicious. He never goes beyond the bounds of politeness, but manages to insinuate a great deal that is disagreeable to an author in the ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his flute is the music of the smell of wild flowers, of the glistening leaves and gleaming water, of shadows resonant with ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore
... smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in playing. The stock has six or seven ventiges on the upper side, and one back ventige, like the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the Braes of Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds wont to use in ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... was a little hump-backed Jew, who seemed to know every man and woman (especially woman) worth knowing in Vienna. Through him I made the acquaintance of several families of the middle class, - amongst them that of a veteran musician who had been Beethoven's favourite flute-player. As my veneration for Beethoven was unbounded, I listened with awe to every trifling incident relating to the great master. I fear the conviction left on my mind was that my idol, though transcendent amongst musicians, was a bear amongst men. Pride (according ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Night Ward ('Hospital Sketches') Amy's Valley of Humiliation ('Little Women') Thoreau's Flute (Atlantic Monthly) Song from ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... their ears with their fingers and gave clear signs of the unpleasant feelings they were suffering from. But it was quite different when they heard the higher-toned instruments, especially those of wood, as the flute, the clarionet and the oboe. The pure, vibrating notes gave them intense enjoyment judging from the pleased expression of their countenances and ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of their demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whisper'd by ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... especially if it be anecdotage. Let me reveal the working of the musical fiction mill. Here, for example, is something in the historical vein. Of necessity it must be pointless and colorless; that lends the touch of reality. Let us call it—"Bach and the Boehm Flute." ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... said in a little flute-like voice so cruelly natural and quiet that Leonard, unable to control his jealousy of this son who left him no place in his wife's heart, retorted with a solemn snap of the jaw, 'Meanwhile, madam, others can do as I do. I have no mansion, I keep no horses and no English cart. The tramway ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... menial position, a savage brute for a tutor, and few inclinations to the study exacted. But he was not without his consolations; he could sing a song well, and, at a new insult, could blow off excitement through his flute. The popular picture of him in these days is of a slow, hesitating, somewhat hollow voice, a low-sized, thick, robust, ungainly figure, lounging about the college courts on the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... his speaking was characterized by great condensation of thought and forcefulness of words and he consequently was unable to restrain himself easily but was often led to say what he did not wish, he used to bring in a flute-player, and from him, playing a low accompaniment, he would take his rhythm and time, or if even so he in some way fell out of measure, he would stop. This was the sort of man that attacked the government, and, by assuming no speech or act to be forbidden, in the briefest time became ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... until it has got 4 turns, taking care to keep the edges as even as possible, and for the last time roll out a good deal larger than the dish. Put a band of paste on the dish, wet this and lay on the cover. Flute the edges neatly. Brush over with egg. Cut the trimmings of paste into leaves, &c., and decorate the pie, putting a rose in the centre. Brush these also with egg. Make one or two slits to let out the ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... bow of one of the canoes sat the Arion of Tilly, Jean de La Marche; a flute or two accompanied his violin, and a guitar tinkled sweetly under the fingers of Heloise de Lotbiniere. They played an old air, while Jean led the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... early age; he was an astronomer, a mathematician, and there were few branches of science in which he was not versed. When young, his Quaker habits did not prevent him from taking lessons in music and dancing. I have heard him accompany his sister-in-law with the flute, while she played the piano. When not more than sixteen years of age he was so remarkable for steadiness and acquirements that he was engaged more as a companion than tutor to young Hudson Gurney, who was nearly of his own age. One spring morning Young came to breakfast ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... all terrace, pool, and flower recollect thee: Ye weavers in saffron and haze and Tyrian purple, Tell yet what range in color wakes the eye; Sorcerer, release the dreams born here when Drowsy, shifting palm-shade enspells the brain; And sound! ye with harp and flute ne'er essay Before these star-noted birds escaped from paradise awhile to Stir all dark, and dear, and passionate desire, till mine Arms go out to be mocked by the softly kissing body of the wind— Slave, send Vashti to ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... come with me?" said the donkey. "You see, I am going to try my luck as a street musician in the city. I think we might easily earn a living by music. You can play the bass drum and I can play the flute." ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... the subject. "Tell me, what do you do all day in your stateroom? Do you read? Do you play the flute? Do you telepath sweet nothings across the light-years to your girl friend on ...
— The Passenger • Kenneth Harmon
... tunnels like the air through a flute, now rumbling in the darkness, now whistling in the light. Rossi closed his eyes and shut out the torment of passing scenes, and straightway he was seeing Roma. He could only see her as he had always seen her, with her golden complexion, her large violet eyes ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Greek god of shepherds, and patron of fishing and hunting. He is represented as having the head and body of a man, with the legs, horns, and tail of a goat. It was said that he invented the shepherd's pipe or flute, which he made from reeds plucked on ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... rooms are accustomed to present, when their occupants are about to depart. The books were all stowed away in boxes—the pictures taken down—the bed unmade—the sofa littered with papers, and the violin, and flute—the general air of the desolate room, that of a man who has parted with his last hope and wishes ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... parting camp on the river. We had done no harm; no accident had befallen us; we had seen many lovely things and heard music from warbler and vireo, thrush and wren, all day long. Even now a wood thrush closed his last descant in flute-like notes across the river. Night began silently to weave her dusky veil upon the vast loom of the forest. The pink glow had gone from the flower-masses around us; whitely they glimmered through the deepening shadows, and stood like gentle ghosts against the dark. To-morrow ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... rats were all dead, and there was no chance of their returning to plague them, the people of Hamelin refused to pay the reward, and they bade the piper do his worst. He took them at their word, and a few moments later the weird strains of the magic flute again arose, and this time it was the children who swarmed out of the houses and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... sat him down On his golden throne, in his golden crown, And shouted, "Wine and flute-girls three, And the Captain, ho! of my ships ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... for any offences committed against the nymphs of the streams, the dryads of the woods, and the other deities of the Italian Olympus. This over, bonfires of hay and straw were lighted, music was made with cymbal and flute, and shepherds and sheep were purified by passing through the flames. A feast followed, the simple folk lying on benches of turf, and indulging in generous draughts of their homely wines, such, probably, as the visitor to-day may regale ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... a court, too, of romance. It might be a garden of Allah, with a plaintive Arab flute singing, among the orange trees, of the wars and the hot passions of the desert. It might be a court in Seville or Granada, with guitars tinkling and lace gleaming among the cool arcades. It is a ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... she suddenly rechristened the bird for herself now. That bird henceforth would be the Magic Flute to musical June—and she leaned back with ears, eyes and soul awake and ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... Arthur. "There are any number left; and Charlie, man, be sure and bring your flute to waken the echoes of the grove. It will be delightful ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... in the year 1265. We have there the various trades and crafts-mariners, coat-makers, fullers, cloth-dyers and sellers, butchers, cordwainers, tanners, hucksters, smiths, masons, carpenters, arranged by guilds, and marching to the sound of flute and tabor, under banners bearing a fish and platter, a painted ship, and other "rare devices." On the walls, when finished, cross-bows hung, with store of arrows ready to shoot; when the city horn sounded twice, burgess and bachelor vied with each other in warlike haste. In ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... lay myself out to do it. Buy a bottle of champagne, drink it off, and there you have to show for your total permanent investment on the transaction the memory of a noisy evening and a headache the next morning. Buy a flute, or a book of poems, or a little picture, or a Palissy platter, and you have something to turn to with delight and admiration for ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... lad, so pitted by smallpox that boys made sport of him, earned his living by writing little ballads for street musicians. Eight cents a day was often all he could earn. He traveled through France and Italy, begging his way by singing and playing the flute at the cottages of the peasantry. At twenty-eight he was penniless in London, and lived in the beggars' quarters in Axe Lane. In his poverty, he set up as a doctor in the suburbs of London. He wore a second-hand coat of rusty velvet, with a patch ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano till very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About midnight she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a clarinet, hautboy, flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon, flageolet, and triangle. All the neighbours were at their windows. The poor girl, already frightened at seeing the people in the street, received a dreadful shock as she heard the coarse, rough voice of a man proclaiming in ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... it is so nice to feel warm! I am always cold. I felt so happy that without thinking I began to try over Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre, just for fun, and then I began to listen to myself because my voice was something like the sound of the flute your shepherd plays." ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... having a wholesome fear of her brother—who could be rather awful when she went too far—wisely contented herself with watching him like a little cat, ready to pounce on the first visible sign of weakness. Demi had taken to playing pensively upon his flute after he was in his room for the night, making this melodious friend his confidante, and breathing into it all the tender hopes and fears that filled his heart. Mrs Meg, absorbed in domestic affairs, and Daisy, who cared for no music but Nat's violin, paid no heed to these ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... one evening in taquitock (autumn), when the red glow of the forests was half veiled in the bluish mist that came with the return of soft languid days after frost had painted the trees and ripened the bristly chinquapins and luscious persimmons, Claw-of-the-Eagle took his flute and set ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... rush of every produceable sound; tom-tom, conch-shell, cymbal, flute, stringed instruments and bells burst into chorus together. The idol was going to be carried out from his innermost shrine behind the lights; and as the great doors moved slowly, the excitement became intense, ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... while the roses heard the flute, violin, bassoon, none in all the gay company had been gayer than Sharlee. Past many heads in the dining-room, West had watched her, laughing, radiant, sparkling as the wine itself, a pretty little lady of a joyous sweetness that never knew a care. In the dance, for he had watched her there, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... is worth twenty dinners to have you hear the opera. I have longed so every night to have you there, and to have you on the stage! my highest wishes are granted. Oh! Marie, when you make a great point, I shall have to take my flute from my mouth and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... trousers, a blue coat with a pink handkerchief showing, and a straw hat much too small for him, perched at the back of his head. He plays the guitar. A little chap in white canvas shoes, his face hidden under a felt hat like a broken wing, breathes into a flute; and a tall thin fellow, with bursting over-ripe button boots, draws ribbons—long, twisted, streaming ribbons—of tune out of a fiddle. They stand, unsmiling, but not serious, in the broad sunlight opposite the fruit-shop; the pink spider of a hand beats the guitar, ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... harmonious (a circumstance which redounds very much to the honour of this muse) that England ever gave birth to. He has mellowed the harsh sounds of the English trumpet to the soft accents of the flute. His compositions may be easily translated, because they are vastly clear and perspicuous; besides, most of his subjects are general, and relative to ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... universally in Grecian music, the solemn choral song, of which we may form to ourselves some idea from our artless national airs, and more especially from our church-tunes, had no other instrumental accompaniment than a single flute, which was such as not in the slightest degree to impair the distinctness of the words. Otherwise it must hare increased the difficulty of the choruses and lyrical songs, which, in general, are the part which we find it the hardest to understand of the ancient tragedy, and as it must also have ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the special joy of man is limited creation, the combination of creation with limits. Man's pleasure, therefore, is to possess conditions, but also to be partly possessed by them; to be half-controlled by the flute he plays or by the field he digs. The excitement is to get the utmost out of given conditions; the conditions will stretch, but not indefinitely. A man can write an immortal sonnet on an old envelope, ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... "Flute! some fashionable assembly that will bore me beyond endurance," he sighed. "With you alone, Lisette, have I known true happiness—the train rides on summer nights that were joyous because we loved; the simple meals that ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... it," he conceded, to a dilapidated faun, who, though his flute and the hands that held it had been missing for over a quarter of a century, piped, on with unimpaired and fatuous mirth. "Ah, heart of gold—demented trinket that you are, I have not merited that you should retain my likeness all these years! If I had my deserts—parbleu! let us ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... then he is a mere child. The only interruptions to his careless cheerfulness are on a wet Sunday, when he is apt to be unusually religious and solemn, and sometimes of an evening, when he has been blowing a very slow tune on the flute. On these last-named occasions he is apt to incline towards the mysterious, or the terrible. As a specimen of his powers in this mood, I refer my readers to the extract from the clock-case which follows this paper: ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... could not rest till they had seen Joan of Arc. So the King sent for them and presented them to her, and you may believe she filled the bill of their expectations. When they heard that rich voice of hers they must have thought it was a flute; and when they saw her deep eyes and her face, and the soul that looked out of that face, you could see that the sight of her stirred them like a poem, like lofty eloquence, like martial music. One of them wrote home to his people, and in his letter he said, "It seemed something ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... fine, bold, frank, deep voice, like a choir-boy's, and Mrs. Gibson danced a Spanish fandango, and displayed feet and ankles of which she was very proud, and had every right to be; and then Mr. Gibson played a solo on the flute, and sang "My Pretty Jane"—both badly enough to be very funny without any conscious effort or straining on his part. Then we supped, and the food was good, and we were all very jolly indeed; and after supper Mr. Gibson said ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Byzantine people: and Theodora, after following Comito on the stage, in the dress of a slave, with a stool on her head, was at length permitted to exercise her independent talents. She neither danced, nor sung, nor played on the flute; her skill was confined to the pantomime arts; she excelled in buffoon characters, and as often as the comedian swelled her cheeks, and complained with a ridiculous tone and gesture of the blows that were inflicted, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... white cloake with a very deep cape, which comes halfway down their backs, made of the locks of the sheep. There was a sheep-crooke (vide Virgil's Eclogues, and Theocritus,) a sling, a scrip, their tar-box, a pipe or flute, and their dog. But since 1671, they are grown so luxurious as to neglect their ancient warme and useful fashion, and goe a la mode. T. Randolph ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... before the Dooty's house. But when they were informed that a white man was come into the town, they left off dancing, and came to the place where I lodged, walking in regular order, two and two, with the music before them. They play upon a sort of flute; but instead of blowing into a hole in the side, they blow obliquely over the end, which is half shut by a thin piece of wood: they govern the holes on the side with their fingers, and play some simple and very plaintive airs. They continued ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... ghost of Jezebel and I danced a fandango together in the graveyard up yonder, while the Devil himself sat cross-legged on old Daniel Root's tombstone and blew on a dry, dusty shank-bone by way of a flute. And now" (here he swore a terrific oath) "you know the worst that is to be known, with only this to say: if ever a man sets foot upon Pig and Sow Point again after nightfall to interfere with the Devil's sport and mine, ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle |
