"Guitar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... worn-out voices, seemingly numerous, are talking in low tones. Then rises the sound of a guitar, and the song of a woman, plaintive and gentle in the echoing sonority of the bare house, in the ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... Ago; Days of Absence; A Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home on the Rolling Deep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on the rack, where the plaintive singer has left it, RO-holl on, silver MOO-hoon, guide the TRAV-el-lerr his WAY, etc. Tilted pensively against the piano, a guitar—guitar capable of playing the Spanish Fandango by itself, if you give it a start. Frantic work of art on the wall—pious motto, done on the premises, sometimes in colored yarns, sometimes in faded grasses: progenitor of the 'God Bless ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... conversation but for the most part drank tea, smoked pipes and talked sometimes to our host, a Russianised Finn or to the pedlar who used to hang about the battery selling "fi-ine oranges and lemons," a charming and lively person who in addition to other talents could play the guitar and used to tell us of the unhappy love which he cherished in his young days for the daughter of a policeman. Now that he was older, this Don Juan in a gay cotton shirt had no experience of unsuccessful ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... might be bled, cupped, or blistered, with the assistance of "sufficient advice;" while the more profitable, but less honourable operations upon the hair of the head and beard, were briefly and gravely announced. Within was the well-worn leather chair for customers, the guitar, then called a ghittern or cittern, with which a customer might amuse himself till his predecessor was dismissed from under Benjamin's hands, and which, therefore, often flayed the ears of the patient metaphorically, while his chin sustained from the razor literal scarification. All, therefore, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... tia, aunt. tierra caliente, hot lands. tio mio, my uncle. tiple, a small guitar. toldo, awning, the mosquito netting hung over beds. trago, tragito, a drink, a ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of crockery, the clinking of glasses, the moving of feet, and all the sounds of hungry, boisterous sailors at table. Soon, too, a shout or cheer would be heard, then a verse of a song, roars of laughter, and now and then the tinkle of a guitar struck by vigorous fingers in ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... tenor from the Grand Opera, and the leader of the orchestra, who is a magnificent violinist; that new Spanish painter who plays the guitar divinely; a poet—that is, he has written some pretty songs—besides ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... the end of the cottage he observed that Rose was not at her accustomed work in the garden, and he was about to pass the door when the tones of a guitar struck his ear and arrested his step. He was surprised, for at that period the instrument was not much used, and the out-of-the-way town of St. Just was naturally the last place in the land where he would have expected to meet with one. No air was played—only a ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... no story-telling around the camp-fire that night. They gathered around it, even before the light died out in the sky. Ranald had his guitar and Allison her mandolin, and they thrummed accompaniments awhile for the others to sing. But a mighty yawn catching Margery in the middle of a verse, and Mrs. Walton discovering both Jamie and Freddy sound asleep on the rug beside her, she proposed that they all ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... thought, suggesting other and more objectionable approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... fishing-tackle, flour, bacon, three bushels onions, crate of dishes, Jack's banjo, potatoes, Short History of the English People, cooking utensils, three hair pillows, box of ginger-snaps, four hammocks, coffee, cartridges, sugar, Macaulay's Essays, Pond's extract, sixteen hams, Bell's guitar, pop-corn, molasses, salt, St. Jacob's Oil, Conquest of Mexico, sack of almonds, flea-powder, and smoked herring. Whew! ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to her father. She is distressed at the way her piano is treated; she has no opportunity of playing her air; but she hopes to make up for it by singing a romance, which one of their old neighbours is going to accompany on the guitar. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... together so cosily, the peace of the beautiful scene gradually soothed them all to quiet. They had settled the plans for the morrow and were as happy as such care-free children could be. Helena picked up her guitar and played soft melodies upon it, the others humming them under their breaths—not to disturb the player, only Alfy presuming to fit real words to the music but not interfering ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... o'clock the large sala of the Governor's house was thronged with guests, and the music of the flute, harp, and guitar floated through the open windows: the musicians sat on the corridor. How harmonious was the Monterey ball-room of that day!—the women in their white gowns of every rich material, the men in white trousers, black silk jackets, and low morocco shoes; no color ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... in the burning light. Burmese servants squat motionless, smoking on the broad white steps that lead from the house to the garden. The crows croak drowsily at intervals. Parrots scream intermittently. The sound of a guitar playing a Venetian love-song can be heard coming from the interior. Otherwise life apparently sleeps. Two elderly retainers break ...
— For Love of the King - a Burmese Masque • Oscar Wilde
... seen I think the one I saw at Baghdad furnished about the dullest. There were two principal dancing girls—stars of the theatrical world of Mesopotamia—and a few others forming a kind of chorus. The orchestra, on the stage, consisted of a guitar, a sort of dulcimer, and a drum. The musicians made a most appalling noise and rocked to and fro, as if in the greatest enjoyment of the thrilling harmonies they were creating. The stars came on one at a time, the odd one out meanwhile ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... to see her. Their delight was to sit at her feet and listen to the tales of California when the grandee owned the land, when the caballero, in gorgeous attire, sang at the gratings of the beauties of Monterey. Mrs. Polk would sing these old love-songs of Spain to the accompaniment of the guitar which had entranced her caballeros in the sala of her girlhood; and Helena, who had a charming voice, learned them all—to the undoing of her own admirers later on. It was she who asked a thousand ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... turbulent disposition. On this occasion it was, that he composed the comedy in which he exhibited so many different characters with exact propriety. But his honour was of short continuance; for as he was one night in the time of Carnival rambling about the streets, with his guitar in his hand, he was attacked by six men masked. Neither his courage nor skill in his exigence deserted him: he opposed them with such activity and spirit, that he soon dispersed them, and disarmed their leader, who throwing off ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Gertrude's very secret, and proud too; but I shall know very soon. I've ascertained, my dear, that an officer came under the window the other evening, and sang a verse of a French chanson, from the meadow, in a cloak, if you please, with a guitar. I could ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... stay at Tafyle we changed our lodgings twice every day, dining at one public house and supping at another. We were well treated, and had every evening a musical party, consisting of Bedouins famous for their performance upon the Rababa, or guitar of the desert, and who knew all the new Bedouin poetry by heart. I here met a man from Aintab, near Aleppo, who hearing me talk of his native town, took a great liking to me, and shewed ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... have employed language as the hieroglyphic of their thoughts, has never equalled that of poets in the restricted sense of the term; as two performers of equal skill will produce unequal effects from a guitar and a harp. The fame of legislators and founders of religions, so long as their institutions last, alone seems to exceed that of poets in the restricted sense; but it can scarcely be a question, whether, if we deduct the celebrity which their flattery ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... to one point above the centre. In each house a hall some twenty feet by fifty, and in the hall,—what is not in the hall?—maybe a piano, maybe a fish-rod, maybe a rifle or a telescope, a volume of sermons or a volume of songs, a spinning-wheel, or a guitar, or a battledore. You might ask widely for what you needed, for study or for play, and you would find it, though it were a deep divan of Osiat or a chibouque from Stamboul—you would find it in one of these simple ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... happy fate one never-to-be-forgotten summer, when every girl in the village fell madly in love with his blue eyes and his gray coat and his mustache and his lovely voice, as he strummed the guitar in the moonlight,—and most of all with his merry laugh. Did time permit, I might tell of such odd costumes, such make-ups of homespun and lace, fine old silks and calicoes, in which the ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... musical phrase, the slackening or quickening of time, which make a song exactly what it should be. And to that passion he was able to appeal with his gift. He sang two Italian songs, and she felt Italy in them. Then he sang in French, and finally in Spanish—guitar songs. And presently she gave herself entirely to him as a singer. He had temperament, and she loved that. It meant, perhaps, too much to her. That, no doubt, was what drew her to him more surely than his remarkable physical beauty—temperament which has the keys of ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... magical skill, as various gifts plainly proved. The boys were her devoted servants, ready to run errands, "hitch up" and take her to drive at any hour, or listen in mute delight when she sang to her guitar in ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... shown herself a daughter to me—that she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments, knowing something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery German thing so called, but ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... the head, nor pulls the nerves, which many do as if they were guitar-strings. I drink a couple of bottles a day, winter and summer, and never am the worse for it. You gentlemen of the Agennois have better in your province, and indeed the very best under the sun. I do not ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... a repetition of the first—for Henty; but not for his companion. They made a trip to Vancouver at Christmas and sent bundles of presents home. A. P. loaded up with novels, and, to Evan's consternation, bought a guitar. But he learned to strum it, although it took ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... probably to facilitate digestion. The young men conversed with them, or roasted their nuts for them, while perhaps a dandy would perform a Siberian dance to the music of the violin or gousli, a kind of guitar. Ivan joined heartily in all this dissipation: he smoked with the old men; he drank their punch; he roasted nuts for the ladies, and told them wonderful stories which were always readily listened to, except when some new fashion, which for several years before had been forgotten in Paris—found ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... man whom she addressed as Jose rose negligently and greeted them punctiliously; seated himself again, picked up a guitar and strummed a minor ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... 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 thine; I bend to the magic of beauty, Though the banner and helmet are mine, Yet love calls ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Indifferent health, for he was delicate too, was one of the bonds between us. We were both fond of reading, of quiet walks and talks, and we hated crowds. He was a good musician, played the piano; but the guitar was the favourite accompaniment to his voice, a clear sweet tenor, and he sang well. I was not so susceptible to the "concord of sweet sounds" as he was, but could draw a little, paint a little, string rhymes together; ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... University Court, Glasgow,[36] belonging co the Hunterian collection, in which King David is represented, as usual in the 12th century, playing or rather tuning a harp, surrounded by musicians playing bells, rebec, guitar fiddle (in 'cello position), quadruple pipes or ganistrum, and a bag-pipe with long chaunter having a well-defined stock. The insufflation tube appears to have been left out, and there are no drones to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... I never saw a human being so thoroughly amused as the black Sheykh from the Soudan. Next day we dined at the Austrian agent's and the Baroness at last made the Maohn dance a polka with her while the agent played the guitar. There were a lot of Copts about who nearly died of laughing and indeed so did I. Next day we had a capital dinner at Mustapha's, and the two Abab'deh Sheykhs, the Sheykh of Karnac, the Maohn and Sheykh Yussuf dined with us. The Sheykh of Karnac gave a grand performance ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... was most likely to strike the eye of a stranger on entering the living room was the array of different kinds of musical instruments. At one end of the room stood a small upright piano, a 'cello held one corner, a guitar another; upon a table a cornet was deposited, and on the piano a violin case could be seen, while a banjo hung from a nail ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... gentlemen,—open it out, Theodore! Observe, Gentlemen it is carved rosewood, the panels hand painted, and representing shepherds, and shepherdesses, disporting themselves under a tree with banjo and guitar. Now what am I offered for ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... gourd shaped like some of our long-necked squashes, hollowed out through two vents cut in one side, and the surface over half the perimeter slashed or furrowed so as to offer a file-like resistance to a metal trident, which is scraped over it in time to the music made by the guitar, or whatever other instrument or instruments make up the orchestra. There are times when the result is suggestive of the couchee-couchee music ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... know the tune? Ah, we all of us have hummed it! I've an old guitar has thrummed it, Under many a changing moon. Shall I try it? Do Re MI . . What is this? Ma foi, the fact is, That my hand is out of practice, And my poor old fiddle cracked is, And a man—I let the truth out,— ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... toward and away from this permanent magnet. If the reader should stretch a wire tightly between two pegs on a table, and should then hold the arms of a common horseshoe magnet very near it, and should twang the stretched wire with his finger, as he would a guitar string, the electrometer would show an induced alternate current in the wire. Since this is an illustration of the principle of the dynamo, stated in its simplest form, it may be well to remember that in this manner—with the ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... Upon this I made a speech, and proposed to accompany my new acquaintances on their next expedition: and then Saint Vrain said I was just the man for their life; and this pleased me highly. Then someone sang a Spanish song, with a guitar, I think, and someone else danced an Indian war-dance; and then we all rose to our feet, and chorused the "Star-spangled Banner"; and I remember nothing else after this, until next morning, when I remember well that I awoke with ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... down the beautiful terraced walk, through her father's garden, till she reached a beautiful arbor on the brink of the river, where she had spent so many happy hours. Here was her guitar, her father's flute, and the book they had last read together. She seated herself upon the richly cushioned seat, and looked upon the winding waters that seemed mocking her sad heart as they danced sparkling on beneath the mellow rays of the autumnal sun, its bosom ruffled by ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... attitude of easy preeminence was Mlle. Giraud. A chic costume of white lawn and cherry ribbons supplanted her travelling garb. There was a suggestion of lace, and a frill or two, with a discreet, small implication of hand-embroidered pink hosiery. Upon her lap rested a guitar. In her face was the light of resurrection, the peace of elysium attained through fire and suffering. She was singing to a lively accompaniment a ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... a wisdom rare in his day and generation, and an energy unparalleled among Southern races, he manages to combine the two. After rising at dawn and working from twelve to fifteen hours, he does not sit down and fall asleep, but slings a guitar over his shoulder and is off to the nearest threshing-floor to dance a bolero. His dancing is not the more graceful for coming after hours of field-labor, but it lacks neither activity nor picturesqueness: above all, it is the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... on together with this kind of fit. He just lay there full length on a mat, while a ragged, bare-legged boy that he had picked up in the street sat in the patio, between two oleanders near the open door of his room, strumming on a guitar and singing tristes to him from morning to night. You know tristes—twang, twang, twang, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Tribu des blancs, and was the singer attached to the cafe of the smokers of the hashish. He it was who struck each evening a guitar made of goatskin backed by sand tortoise, and lifted up his voice in ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... of voices continued, and after awhile there came plaintively up to Starr the sound of a guitar, and mingling with it the voice of Luis singing a Spanish song. La Golondrina, it was, that melancholy song of exile which Mexicans so love. Starr listened gloomily, following the words easily enough in that still ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... usually too plain and too busy and too tired to depart from the ways of virtue. On such occasions Lena, attired in a pink wrapper and silk stockings and tiny pink slippers, would sing to him, accompanying herself on a battered guitar. It gave him a delicious sense of freedom and experience to be with a woman who, no matter how, had lived in big cities and knew the ways of town folk, who had never worked in the fields and had kept her ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... left his brow; his eyes sparkled, his nostril was dilated. A singular expression of daring animated his fine features. His foot pressed the ground energetically, and the nerves of his instep quivered beneath the knitted silk like the tense-strings on a guitar-handle. Juancho was really a splendid fellow, and his costume wonderfully set off his physical perfections. A broad red sash encircled his graceful waist; the silver embroideries covering his vest formed, at the collar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... again upon fair terms before the winter had run its course; the two were neighbours and, moreover, were drawn together by a community of interests which made their reconciliation a necessity. Ramsey played the guitar ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... with curly hair and the legs of a bear; the paws laid, with great sculptural skill, upon the foliage. It plays a violin, shaped like a guitar, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... soldier drew near, he heard more and more distinctly musical sounds, and presently could distinguish the tinkling of a guitar, accompanied by a female voice. He stopped and listened. The air was slow and solemn, the notes were soft and clear, and the words sweet, but not English. There was a rich luxuriance, yet pathos in the music, like the utterances of a spirit whose hopes were mingled with reminiscences ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... make room for a big manufacturing plant. I used to visit there every time I went to the Quaker City, and all the furnishings mentioned stand out vividly in my recollection to this day, even to the guitar off in one corner. I never played Fish Pond there, but I have eaten some of the best dinners I ever tasted in that famous kitchen below stairs, which had to serve for dining room as well. That kitchen and the great cat, who ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... with another girl of her set, a part of a quadrille, and the pair were showing off the agile accomplishments of the semi-professionals of the Bullier and Moulin Rouge. These consisted of kicking off the nearest hats, doing the split, the guitar act, the pointed arch, and similar fantasies. Having forced his way in, Jean was instantly recognized by Mlle. Fouchette, who shook the confetti out of her blonde hair at every pose. Then, as she executed a pigeon-wing on his ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... was riding by his side through the Wellwood plantations, listening to the project of his intended improvements;—or seated in her boudoir sketching designs and modelling plans for his two new lodges. Sometimes after dinner she would busy herself with her guitar, and insist on his attempting a second to her Italian notturno; sometimes she persuaded him to lend her his arm towards the village, to assist in executing that easy work of benevolence, the deplenishment of her silken purse. At such, moments she was indeed enchanting;—and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... and our harlequin, Ellar, prince of how many enchanted islands, was he not at Bow Street the other day,* in his dirty, tattered, faded motley—seized as a law-breaker, for acting at a penny theatre, after having wellnigh starved in the streets, where nobody would listen to his old guitar? No one gave a shilling to bless him: not one of us who owe him ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... guitar out of a case and commenced to strum lightly on it, while he rendered the old song in a voice roughened by ill usage but still strong and true. A knock at the door interrupted him at the climax of his song, and he glared toward the unseen and ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... through the weary time! When I was pretty well, I made drawings of the soldiers of the garrison, and of the half-breed and her child (Museau's child), and of Museau himself, whom, I am ashamed to say, I flattered outrageously; and there was an old guitar left in the fort, and I sang to it, and played on it some French airs which I knew, and ingratiated myself as best I could with my gaolers; and so the weary months passed, but the messenger ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... agriculture, including pears, plums, peaches, almonds, grapes, pomegranates, rice, and wheat. The inhabitants were dressed in silk and woollen materials. There were musicians in the chief cities who played on the flute and the guitar. Buddhism was the prevailing religion, but there were traces of an earlier worship, the Bactrian fire-worship. The country was everywhere studded with halls, monasteries, monuments, and statues. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... You sing it for us now, then after dinner we can all sing it. [She picks up guitar and thrusts it at him.] Come on, Lyric ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... after a hard day's work, to go at nightfall to one of these fandangos. The merry notes of the guitar and the violin announce them to all comers; and a motley enough looking crowd, every member of which is puffing away at a cigar, forms are applauding circle round the dancers, who smoke like the rest. One cannot help being struck by the picturesque costumes ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... go out, postponements of outdoor frolics, when, still the centre, he sat and drowsed in the big chair, waking, at times, in that unexpected queer, bright way of his, to roll a cigarette and call for his ukulele—a sort of miniature guitar of Portuguese invention. Then, with strumming and tumtuming, the live cigarette laid aside to the imminent peril of polished wood, his full baritone would roll out in South Sea hulas and sprightly French ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... the devices was the crane standing on one leg, and holding, with the foot of the other, which is raised, the stone he is to drop as a signal of alarm to his companions. Among other feigned contents of a bookcase were an hour-glass, guitar, and pair of compasses; in another were seen a dagger, dried fruits in a small basket made of thin wood, and a tankard, while in a third was represented an open book surmounted with the name of Guidobaldo, who probably made the selection ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... the cemetery wall and took his way homeward he did not go directly to the dormer-windowed cottage where the erect gentleman and the pretty lady awaited him. Just as he was approaching it he heard Elmira Royster's guitar in the porch opposite, and he crossed the street and entered ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... in a wonderful array of china animals on the mantlepiece. She was a great animal lover, and, being a favorite with every one, she received many votive offerings. Her shrine was an amusing one to look at. A green china frog played a tuneless guitar; a pensive monkey gazed with clasped hands and dreadfully human eyes into futurity; there were sagacious looking elephants, placid rhinoceroses, rampant hares, two pug dogs clasped in an irrevocable embrace, an enormous lobster, a diminutive polar ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... like a virginal on The peritoneum, or caul wherein an organ. his bowels were wrapped, like His nails, like a gimlet. a billiard-table. His feet, like a guitar. His back, like an overgrown rack- His heels, like a club. bent crossbow. The soles of his feet, like a cru- The vertebrae, or joints of his cible. backbone, like a bagpipe. His legs, like a hawk's lure. His ribs, like ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... toilette, mass, and dinner. After dinner, she retired to her apartments and passed the time making tapestry, embroidering, and in charity work—no longer the recreation of leisure, but the duty of charity which the poor expected. Her taste for music, the guitar, the clavecin, all amusements in which she delighted before her marriage, were abandoned. Under such circumstances the mistress had full ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... dances before the great ones to please, it is permitted that she may play at being a princess to win the favour of a raja, and sing the love song to the music of the sitar (guitar), but it is a matter of shame to speak it ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... hedges; now and then a firefly flashed before them; the trees seemed wrapped in silent awe at the majesty of the bewildering heavens. As they approached the river, the faint susurra came to them, mingled with the sound of a guitar and some one singing ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... to be the husband of Elizabeth. At last, LORD DARNLEY, son of the Earl of Lennox, and himself descended from the Royal Family of Scotland, went over with Elizabeth's consent to try his fortune at Holyrood. He was a tall simpleton; and could dance and play the guitar; but I know of nothing else he could do, unless it were to get very drunk, and eat gluttonously, and make a contemptible spectacle of himself in many mean and vain ways. However, he gained Mary's heart, not disdaining in the pursuit of his object to ally himself ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... superior, aware of this circumstance, allowed me every indulgence, with the hopes of my being persuaded to remain. The money which I retained for my own exigencies enabled me to make friends with the porter, and I obtained egress or ingress at any hour. I was a proficient on the guitar; and incongruous as it may appear with my monastic vows, I often hastened from the service at vespers to perform in a serenade to some fair senhora, whose inamorata required the powers of my voice to soften her to ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... furniture, were of polished satin-wood, cushioned with delicate azure silk shot and starred with silver. A luxurious number of silken cushions lay upon the couch, chairs, and even on the floor; for two or three were heaped against the pedestal, on which a basket of flowers stood, and upon them lay a guitar, with its broad, pink ribbon hanging loose. Every table was loaded with some exquisitely feminine object of use or beauty, till the very profusion was oppressive, light and graceful ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... stockings with blobs, like the fruit of plane trees, dependent from elaborate "tops," and shoes with a cascade of leather frilling covering the laces. He might almost equally well be about to play golf over putting-holes on the lawn as the guitar. He made a gesture of polished, polite dissent, not contradicting, yet hardly accepting this tribute, remitting it perhaps, just as the King when he enters the City of London touches the sword of the Lord Mayor and tells him to ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... court, who was enamored of the Princess, to gain her favor in such a degree that marriage followed. The young Don had captivated both the Princess and the duenna with his accomplishments, for not only did he play the guitar and write poetry, and dance, but he could as well make bird-cages. But when the Queen learned of her daughter's marriage to one so much beneath her in rank, her heart broke in twain and she collapsed and was buried in three days, the duenna declared, tears streaming down ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... been at his side, he would have felt perfectly safe. But he was not the one to indulge long in gloomy thoughts without a cause, and in order to drive them away, he lighted his lamp, and, drawing his easy-chair upon the porch, amused himself until nine o'clock with his guitar. The music not only served to soothe his troubled feelings, but also had the effect of banishing his suspicions to a great extent, and left him in a much ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... repose is his, and when he appeared on Hans von Wolzogen's Ueberbrettl, or sang at the Munich cabaret called the Eleven Hangmen, his songs—he composes at times—Ilse, Goldstueck, Brigitte B, Mein Liebchen, to the accompaniment of his guitar, there was a distinct individuality in his speech and gesture ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... and sombrero, and, secure in his knowledge of Spanish and Mexican, he now advanced boldly through the more populous and better lighted parts of the city. He even lingered a little while in front of a cafe, where men were playing guitar and mandolin, and girls were dancing with castanets. The sight of light and life pleased the boy who had been so long in prison. These people were diverting themselves and they smiled and laughed. ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... which I listened, as an English audience to an Italian opera, delighted with the sound of words which I did not understand.' Boswell records (Hebrides, Sept. 28) that another day a lady 'pleased him much, by singing Erse songs, and playing on the guitar.' Johnson himself shews that if his ear was dull to music, it was by no means dead to sound. He thus describes a journey by night in the Highlands (Works, ix. l55):—'The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Madame de Bellegarde turned pale. She opened her fan, a fine old painted fan of the last century, and looked at the picture, which represented a fete champetre—a lady with a guitar, singing, and a group of dancers ...
— The American • Henry James
... countless stars, large and luminous and beaming with a softer, stronger light than in the North. A brooding silence hung over the town—the silence of the desert. The hush was broken only by the droning notes of a song, accompanied on a guitar, which came from off in the distance on the outskirts of the little settlement. The music emphasized ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... much more valuable than money; my perfect knowledge of this town and its needs. You can appear as the owner; we will make a monthly division of profits. Besides, concerning a question that interests us both very much, namely, your social improvement, it occurs to me that you play the guitar quite well. In view of the recommendations I could give you and in view of your training as well, you might easily be admitted as a member of some fraternal order; there are several here which would bring you no inconsiderable ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... strings on a box. Here we have the principle of the sounding-board,—a thing of vital moment to the piano, and one upon which the utmost care is bestowed by all the great makers. Whoever first thought of stretching strings on a box may also be said to have half invented the guitar and the violin. No single subsequent thought has been so fruitful of consequences as this in the improvement of stringed instruments. The reader, of course, will not confound the psaltery of the Middle Ages with the psaltery of the Hebrews, respecting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the ancient Parliament ground of Man. It is an open green in the midst of the island, with hills on three of its sides, and on the fourth a broad plain dipping to the coast. This green is of the shape of a guitar. Down the middle of the guitar there is a walled enclosure of the shape of a banjo. At the end stands a church. The round drum is the mount, which has four circles, the topmost being ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... spent very much as the morning had been. The young ladies possessed no other accomplishment than that of playing the guitar and dancing. They read when they could get books, but these were mostly French novels, certainly not of ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... extravagant, addressing letters to each other in terms of elaborate and delicate expressions of affection, and neat turns of thought. As a result of this, they are much given to musical practice; and although the guitar that they use, called cutyapi, is not very ingenious or rich in tone, it is by no means disagreeable, and to them is most pleasing. They play it with such vivacity and skill that they seem to make human voices issue from its four metallic cords. We also have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... room, when the balconies of the house across the way lighted up. They opened wide and soon there came the strains of a tender prelude from a guitar. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... represented to us as an exceedingly gay young fellow, is here described as indulging, in his tent, his old propensities; having brought away, with other trophies, a fair Florentine, who is diverting him with her guitar at that moment. This is excellent news for Spinola; the more so as we are soon made to understand that Nina, being impatient of her husband's return, has fled to his tent to meet him, and discovers the fair Florentine in the very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... ride. There's no new straw, of course, so we had a wagon filled with straw from one of the barns and we drove to Lake Gentian and Querida was glorious in the moonlight with his guitar. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... "Contemporaries of Burns." The latter work contains a brief sketch of his life. He left a considerable number of MSS., which are now in the possession of a relative in Ayr. Possessed of a knowledge of music, he excelled in playing many of the national airs on the guitar. His dispositions were social, yet in society he seldom talked; among his associates, he frequently expressed his hope of posthumous fame. He was enthusiastic in his admiration of female beauty, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sunny days he trolls his lays With gay guitar and Tra! la! la! la! From groves and glades come meadow-sweet maids, None of your saucy minxes or jades; The poet is there Without a care. With no regret, with mild cigarette. With gay guitar, and whiskey from Leith, Will he be crowned with the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... and adjust the machines described by me as not to overlook the smallest particular, I should not be less astonished if they succeeded on the first attempt than if a person were in one day to become an accomplished performer on the guitar, by merely having excellent sheets of music set up before him. And if I write in French, which is the language of my country, in preference to Latin, which is that of my preceptors, it is because I expect that those who make use of their unprejudiced ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... out of her arms, and goes. The COUNTESS accompanies him. THEKLA follows him with her eyes at first, walks restlessly across the room, then stops, and remains standing, lost in thought. A guitar lies on the table, she seizes it as by a sudden emotion, and after she has played a while an irregular and melancholy symphony, she falls gradually into ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... wood in what I call "the guitar line," that is to say, passing by for the present all the corners, I return to them, in my hand gouge 24, three-eighths of an inch, and work them out on the same basis exactly as the main groove. All this being to my mind as shown in fig. 6, I take gouge ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... artists were received by their friends with shouts of welcome. Little was eaten, but much was drunk, and the spirits of the company rose. Songs were sung and ditties were played on the guitar; presently the Salterello sounded, and the merry dance began. Two young Roman girls, who sat as models to the artists, took part in the dance and in the festivity. Two charming Bacchantes were they; certainly not Psyches—not ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... eyes upon the road — An old bent woman in a bronze-black shawl, With skin as dried and wrinkled as a mummy's, As brown as a cigar-box, and her voice Like the low vibrant strings of a guitar. And I have fancied from the girls about What she was at their age, what they will be When they are old as she. But now she sits And smokes away each night till dawn comes round, Thinking, beside the pinyons' flame, of days Long past and gone, when she was young — content To be ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... soft guitar, Hie to the olive-woods afar, And to thy friend, the listening brook, Alone reveal that raptured look; The maid so long in secret loved— A parent's angry will removed— This morning saw betrothed thine, That Sire the pledge, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... meal ended and they were again on the porch in the summer dusk that Winona made any progress in her criminal investigations. There, while Dave Cowan played his guitar and sang sentimental ballads to Mrs. Penniman—these being among the supposed infirmities of the profligate duchess—Winona drew the twins aside and managed to gain a blurred impression of the day's tremendous events. She ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... uneasy glance aft towards the cabin top where Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer sat amicably side by side, he conning a part while she mended a broken string on her guitar. Beyond them, stretched on the after deck with 'Dolph for company, Arthur Miles leaned over the gunwale, apparently studying the boat's reflection in the water. "Between you an' me," Sam confessed, "I can't get no grip on play-actors; an' I'm sorry I ever took up with ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dabbling in clay and plaster of Paris all the morning. George painted beautifully in water-colors, and taught her to sketch from Nature, which she often did now, in their rides, when the days were pleasant enough. George not only thrummed a Spanish guitar, but liked singing; so music went on with wonderful force and improvement. Nothing that George liked better than botany, metaphysics, and micrology. And now Lulu was screaming at dreadful dragons' heads on a pin's point, or delighted with diamond-beetles and spiders' eyes. She fairly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... across as many benches, arranged in the form of a square, and elevated but four palms from the ground. The only decoration of the theatre was an old coverlet, drawn from side to side by cords, behind which the musicians sang some ancient romance, without the guitar." [50] In fact, no further apparatus was employed than that demanded for the exhibition of mysteries, or the pastoral dialogues which succeeded them. The Spaniards, notwithstanding their precocity, compared with most of the nations ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... Wilhelma Amelia Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature; I design her for my Lord Drumstick's eldest son, but that's in friendship, let it go no farther; she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and plays on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be as perfect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place I'll make her a scholar; I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn that language purposely to instruct her; but let that ...
— English Satires • Various
... person was not suitable for forming a point of exclamation between two combatants; and the tavern-keeper troubled so little about what was happening that he drowned the stamping of their feet and clatter of the tumbling stools and utensils by scraping street music on a guitar as loud as he could. Otherwise he was as calm as if he were entertaining two angels instead of ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... have you again," said Rolf: "we'll come for you on August fifteenth; but remember you should bring your guitar and your spectacles." ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of youthful fervor. So good a Catholic as I, of course, has long ago made confession. But another yet remains for me—namely, that I cannot get that song. Yesterday I heard from Isaac, who cannot buy it in New York. Nothing but a copy for the guitar and that Rosalie. Would it be an expensive thing to import? Reed told me he could do that, but as I supposed there was no doubt of its being in New York, I said nothing about it. She should have the song; it would be so fine falling out of her mouth. Mouth-dropped gems would be ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and all their ancestors. Each one of these exploits is commemorated in poems written in their language. These poems are called arreytos. As with us the guitar player, so with them the drummers accompany these arreytos and lead singing choirs. Their drums are called maguay. Some of the arreytos are love songs, others are elegies, and others are war songs; and each is sung to an appropriate air. They ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... mother of these children, had incurred the displeasure of her father, a wealthy Englishman, by marrying her music teacher, whose dark eyes had played the mischief with her heart, while his fingers played its accompaniment on the guitar. Humbly at her father's feet she had knelt and sued for pardon, but the old man was inexorable, and turned her from his house, cursing the fate which had now deprived him, as it were, of his only remaining daughter. Late in life he had married a youthful widow who after ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... followed, and they all joined in on the chorus. Other lively songs were sung, and, by the time Frank put aside the guitar all were in ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... Rome, Mr. Gavin Hamilton, the painter, to whom he had been introduced by Mr. Robinson, took him to a coffee-house, the usual resort of the British travellers. While they were sitting at one of the tables, a venerable old man, with a guitar suspended from his shoulder, entered the room, and coming immediately to their table, Mr. Hamilton addressed him by the name of Homer.—He was the most celebrated Improvisatore in all Italy, and ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... dervish says beggar, and who says beggar evokes the completest type of filth and laziness. But with what an extraordinary combination of gestures, with what attitudes in the management of the long-stringed guitar, with what acrobatic swingings of the body do they accompany their singing of their legends and poetry which could not be more profane. The instinct of the old actor was awakened in Caterna. He could not keep still; it was too much ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... humanity, if intellect breathed within: some reclining against the rails, others seated in groups, or solitary as if buried in "lonely thoughts sublime"; while the rush of the falling waters is sweeter music than that of the pipe and the guitar, that faintly strive to be heard. The cataract in the plate is a very fine one; on its foam the moonlight was lovely: we passed many an hour here on such a night, the clear waters of the Pharpar, as they rolled on, reflecting each pillar, each Damascene slowly moving by in his waving garments. The ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... when the Arizona stars glowed and shimmered on the shadowy adobe, when the wide mesas grew mysteriously beautiful in the soft radiance of the slow moon, Chico Miguel brought his guitar from the bedroom, tuned it, and struck a swaying cadence from its strings. Then Anita's voice, blending with the rhythm, made melody, and Sundown sat entranced. Mood, environment, temperament, lent romance to the simple song. Every singing string on the ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... dictionaries were before you. Every kind of musical instrument seems to have met with a companion in this tiny apartment. Here are a violin, violoncello, horn, and cornopean; there an old Welsh harp and unstrung guitar. On this shelf are pipes of all sorts and sizes, forms, and nations—the straight English, the short German, and the long Turkish; on that are cigar-boxes, snuff-boxes, and tobacco-boxes of various kinds and appearances. Scattered about the room are play-books without number, from Shakspeare to ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... musician than she, having more patience and perseverance. However, I took hardly six months' lessons to her ever so many years; heard how well she played, got disgusted with myself, and gave up the piano at fourteen, with spasmodic fits of playing every year or so. At sixteen, Harry gave me a guitar. Here was a new field where I would have no competitors. I knew no one who played on it; so I set to work, and taught myself to manage it, mother only teaching me how to tune it. But Miriam took a fancy to it, and I taught her all I knew; but as ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... that thus the chain of communication between us is unbroken. What you said about your spiritual experiences in feeling the presence of dear Henry with you, and, above all, the vibration of that mysterious guitar, was very pleasant to me. Since I have been in Florence, I have been distressed by inexpressible yearnings after him,—such sighings and outreachings, with a sense of utter darkness and separation, not only ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... long before caused me to doubt the exact fidelity of this representation; but it cost me a pang to learn that the picture was utterly delusive. It has been no part of my experience in Venice to see an Italian sitting upon the ground, and strumming the guitar, while two gayly dressed peasants danced to the music. Indeed, the indolence of Venetians is listless and silent, not playful or joyous; and as I learned to know their life more intimately, I came to understand that in many cases they are idle from despair of finding work, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... A piano and a guitar, too." Baxter passed into the dining room. "Real silver on the ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... gaze to the Constable again, and Ralph bespoke her attention for a small Lancret hanging near it, which represented a gentleman in a pink doublet and hose and a ruff, leaning against the pedestal of the statue of a nymph in a garden and playing the guitar to two ladies seated on the grass. "That's my ideal of a regular occupation," ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... was a tiny instrument, beautifully grained and richly brown, which resembled a guitar save that it bore four strings. She swept them back and forth with rhythmic forefinger and lifted a voice, thin and mellow, in a fashion of melody that was strange, and in a foreign tongue, warm-voweled, all-voweled, and love-exciting. Softly throbbing, voice and strings arose on ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... them, he gave none. "I like Alexis," he said once. "He's not so original as he makes out, but there's enough to give him a relish. A handy chap, too, in a dozen ways—he'll model you in wax, or draw you in pastels, or sing about you on the guitar, or whistle you off on the piano; but he's not strong, isn't Alexis. The one thing he can do—no, there are two. He can ride anything, and he can use a revolver. I saw him empty the ten of hearts once: very pretty. I dare say, if he was put to ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... dare offer the girls so much as a muffin, and if I ask the carroty one, Beatrice, the simplest question, she blushes and stammers as if I were proposing out of hand. But what am I to do? I can't sing and take to serenading Edith on moonlit nights with a guitar and a blue ribbon around my neck. I can't push her into the river that I may pull her out again. I dare say there is nothing for it but to adopt the American method,—enter with about fifty others for a sort of sentimental steeple-chase, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... night when the performances at the theaters were over. The orchestral arrangements were comprised in one bad piano, to which were occasionally added, by way of increasing the attractions, performances on the banjo and guitar. All the singers were called "ladies and gentlemen;" and the one long room in which the performances took place was simply furnished with a double row of benches, bearing troughs at their backs for the reception of glasses ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... conducted on these principles; man cannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having failed upon several theatres, was obliged to step down every evening from his heights, and sing from half a dozen to a dozen comic songs, twang a guitar, keep a country audience in good humour, and preside finally over the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... affection which ravished me. Her features bore the imprint of a noble soul within, and I pitied her for having to grow up under the authority of a foolish mother. Sophie went to the piano, played with feeling, and then sang some Italian airs, to the accompaniment of the guitar, too well for her age. She was too precocious, and wanted much more discretion in her education than Madame Cornelis was ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... spirit and boldness which presents noble relief to the habitual melancholy of this poetry in general. Professional singers, with a kind of guitar in their hand, wander through the country, sure to find a willing audience in whatever village they may stop. Their ballads are not confined to the scenes of their early history, but find subjects in the later wars with the Turks and Tartars, and in the campaigns ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... people is that which dwells in the Monti district. If, in seeking the Convent of the Neophytes, or the house of Lucrezia Borgia, you miss your way among those foul narrow streets, you will find yourself in the midst of a strange medley of thieves, sharpers, guitar-players, artists' models, beggars, ciceroni, and ruffiani. If you speak to them, you may be sure they will kiss your Excellency's hand, and pick your Excellency's pocket. I do not think a worse breed is to be found in any city in Europe, not even in London. All these people ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... hammocks, sent forth a mild glow from a silk-shaded lamp or two. Across the evening air floated the sounds of light conversation and laughter from these verandas, the tinkle of a banjo, the thrum of a guitar. Automatic sprinklers whirled and hummed here and there. Their delicious artificial coolness struck refreshingly ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... of palms close to the low sea wall came the soft tinkle of guitar, and now and then a burst of joyous song, while under the spreading roof of the broad portico or lanai, the murmur of voices, the occasional ripple of musical laughter, the floating haze of cigarette smoke, told where a party of worshipers were gathered, rejoicing ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... young, and had forgotten it. He had, as he declared, considerable property in the Bank of England. Being desirous of collecting all the information possible respecting the country, he procured two young Spanish renegado musicians, who played on the guitar, and sung Arabic airs and songs, with which he affected to be highly delighted, these musicians, however, served his purpose in another way; for, being apprehensive of creating suspicion by direct enquiries, he ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... and flying locks of hair. The artist has very faithfully depicted the voluptuous twist of her waist, much appreciated by Persians in dancing, and he has also managed to infuse considerable character into the musicians, the guitar man and the followers of the Shah to the left of the picture, as one looks at it, and the tambourine figure to the right. Fruit and other refreshments lie in profusion in vessels on the floor, elaborately painted. This picture is rectangular, and is ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... a dollar or two. The Filipinos are very fond of music, and the cheap gramophones appeal to them strongly. Nearly every Filipino plays some instrument by ear, and many boys from the country are expert players on the guitar or mandolin. On large plantations the hands are fond of forming bands and orchestras, and often their playing would do credit to professional musicians. The Constabulary Band, recognized as the finest in the Orient, has been drilled by ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... little voyage I do not at the present moment possess the necessary funds, but in this you can no doubt assist me, for in a few days I expect some thirty pounds from my relations in Italy. If you will return to my room to-night you might rescue my guitar and what few little objects of value I possess and pawn them, and burn all papers and documents of ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... a very agreeable house, where there are two young people who play—one on the spinet, and the other on the guitar—and a young man who is an attorney's clerk; a house where you may go down on Sunday ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... satisfied look upon every face, showed that these men confided the care of their defence wholly to their chief. At the entrance to the tent lay a man, like a dog watching over his master; and from his long hair and the guitar by the side of his rifle, it was easy to recognise Oroche. His time seemed to be divided between the contemplation of a heaven glittering with stars, and the care of keeping up a fire of green wood, the smoke of which rose in a vertical column silvered ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... with our minds occupied by a variety of reflections: but at any rate highly pleased and gratified by the agreeable family which had performed the part of guides on the occasion. In the evening, a professor of music treated us with some pleasing tunes upon the guitar—which utterly astonished the Count—and it was quite night-fall when we returned homewards, towards our quarters at the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... quite dark and the boys were sitting around the camp fires, enjoying the warmth fully as much as the light, Billy Manners came quietly to Jack, who was sitting with Percival, the latter playing softly on a guitar, and whispered in ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... ladies close in front. I took a seat before Florian's, among the customers stretching themselves before departing, and the waiters hurrying to and fro, clattering their empty cups and trays. Two imitation Neapolitans were slipping their guitar and violin under their arm, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee |
