"Harp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way to the Five Points, where he was to pass the night. It was intensely cold, and the little fellow's strength was so exhausted by fatigue and the bleak night wind that he staggered under the weight of his harp. At length he sat down on the steps of a splendid mansion to rest himself. The house was brilliantly lighted, and he looked around timidly as he seated himself, expecting the usual command to move off. No ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... multitudinous like that of the sea, but one and incessant and invariable, a long scream that almost hissed. On reaching the wreck, however, this shriek became hoarse with rage, and howled as it shook the rigging. It used the shrouds and stays of the still upright mainmast as an aeolian harp from which to draw horrible music. It made the tense ropes tremble and thrill, and tortured the spars until they wailed a death-song. Its force as felt by the shipwrecked ones was astonishing; it beat them about as ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... alabaster; she is tall, well made, and of a sweet disposition; I have given her an education which would make her worthy of our master, the Sultan. She speaks Greek and Italian fluently, she sings delightfully, and accompanies herself on the harp; she can draw and embroider, and is always contented and cheerful. No living man can boast of having seen her features, and she loves me so dearly that my will is hers. My daughter is a treasure, and I offer her to you if you will consent to go for one year ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... banks of a rapid stream, at the foot of a cascade, she said that the sounds she heard came from Stromkarl. The Stromkarl has a silver harp, on which he plays wild melodies. If his favor be gained, by any present, he teaches the listener his songs. Wo, however, to the man who hears him for the ninth time. He cannot shake off the supernatural charm, and becomes a victim ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... clock that stood over her own fireplace and announced the hours. She entertained settled convictions on a few subjects, in regard to which she resembled a musical box. If you set her going on any of these, she would harp away until she had played the tune out, and then begin over again; but she never varied. Reasons, however good, or facts, however weighty, were utterly powerless to penetrate her skull: her "settled convictions" were not to be unsettled by any such means. Men might change ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the purest could not escape unassailed. I saw her at Pyrmont in 1803; and even then, though the mother of many children, she looked as young and beautiful as ever. She was remarkably well educated and accomplished, a profound musician on the harp and pianoforte, graceful in her conversation, and a most charming dancer. She seemed to bear the vicissitudes of fortune with a philosophical courage and resignation not often to be met with in light-headed French women. She was amiable in her manners, easy of access, always lively ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... continued. In 1768 he published in London a symphony (in C) for two violins, viola, bass, two oboes, and two horns, and in the same year two military concertos for two oboes, two horns, two trumpets, and two bassoons.[8] He wrote pieces for the harp, glees, "catches," and other songs for the voice. One of these, the Echo Catch, was published and had even ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... the Connaught Rangers, marching down to embark for the East. They were a body of young, healthy, and cheerful-looking men, and looked greatly better than the dirty crowd that thronged to gaze at them. The royal banner of England, quartering the lion, the leopard, and the harp, waved on the town-house, and looked gorgeous and venerable. Here and there a woman exchanged greetings with an individual soldier, as he marched along, and gentlemen shook hands with officers with whom they ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be sufficient, in the course of business, for each family." But, in consideration of the want of silver, I would allow five shillings to each family, which would amount to 2,500l.; and, to help this, I would recommend a currency of all the genuine undefaced harp-halfpence, which are left, of Lord Dartmouth's and Moor's patents under King Charles II.; and the small Patrick and David for farthings. To the rest of the kingdom, I would assign the 7,50l. remaining; reckoning ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... harp that played in the wind,—now soft, now loud; now sweet, now solemn. He said that the harp played itself. The people heard the sounds, full of seeming expression, as though touched by airy fingers, and, as they could not ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... elements all pulled together and pulled till cables and hawser snapped like threads. Back the procession started, anchors were dragged or lost, immense new cables were quickly taken ashore and fastened to trees; but no use: trees were upturned, the cables stretched till they grew small and sang like harp-strings, then parted; back, back against the desperate efforts of the men, till within a few feet of her old grave, when there was a great commotion among the craft, floats were overturned, enormous chains parted, colossal timbers were snapped like ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... a golden harp to him, set it on the table, and went away. Then the Ogre said, "Play," to the harp, and it played so delightfully that Jack ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... piano-keys; and die she would, raising her light blue eyes to the ceiling and wildly throwing back her head. Sidonie never could accomplish it. Her mischievous eyes, her lips, crimson with fulness of life, were not made for such AEolian-harp sentimentalities. The refrains of Offenbach or Herve, interspersed with unexpected notes, in which one resorts to expressive gestures for aid, to a motion of the head or the body, would have suited her better; but she dared not admit it to her sentimental instructress. By the way, although ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... ages, every clime Strike the silver harp of time, Chant the endless, holy story, Souls retained in Purgatory. Freed by Mass and holy rite, Requiem, dirge and wondrous might, A prayer which hut and palace send, Where king and serf, where lord and hireling blend. The vast cathedral and the village shrine Unite in mercy's ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... and consented to her living apart in the house. At first, when they met at meals, she had seemed more composed under the new arrangement; but the irksomeness of their position worked on her temperament, and the fibres of her nature seemed strained like harp-strings. She talked vaguely and indiscriminately to prevent his ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... were concerned, or those of his country, in whose welfare and honor his heart was bound up. If on this account he was called a friend of sport; if Glareanus wrote to him gaily in monk's Latin: "I am coming to you shortly, and then we will be of good cheer and play on the jews' harp;" and if Dingnauer, who promised him, that neither envy, nor jealousy, nor the moroseness of old age, nor gold, nor iron should cripple his friendship, believed that he must add the warning: "Watch over your heart, conceal your glowing ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... murmuring like a dying zephyr among the chords of an AEolian harp, 'Farewell, mother dear. Farewell, my lover true. I cannot meet you to-mortarn at the FALLEN TREE' (here Hemstead glanced at Lottie, whose face was instantly suffused); and she bowed her bead upon her brother's shoulder, and ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... that rustic harp, From off that rugged wall, For I must sing another song To suit the Muse's call, For she is bent to sing a poean, On this eventful year, In praise of the philanthropist Whom all his friends hold dear— The Grand Old Man of Oakworth, Beyond his ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... contours of her elegant, slender form. Her dress, cut below the breast, left her shoulders, chest, and arms free in their chaste nudity. A support, fixed to the pedestal on which was placed the player, and traversed by a bolt in the shape of a key, formed a rest for the harp, the weight of which, but for that, would have borne wholly upon the shoulders of the young woman. The harp, which ended in a sort of keyboard, rounded like a shell and covered with ornamental paintings, bore at its upper ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... books by Messrs. Reid, Maurer and Turneaure, and Taylor and Thompson, he will find retaining walls illustrated, which are almost identical with Fig. 2 at a. Mr. Mensch says that the proposed design of a retaining wall would be difficult and expensive to install. The harp-like reinforcement could be put together on the ground, and raised to place and held with a couple of braces. Compare this with the difficulty, expense and uncertainty of placing and holding in place ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... this. 'Spare yourselves, spare me all useless recriminations. The girl is dead; I cannot call her back again. Enjoy your life, your eating and your drinking, your getting and your spending; it is but for a few more years at best. Why harp on old 'griefs?' His last word was a triumph. 'When a man cares for nothing or nobody, it is useless ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... first place in general estimation—his songs glow with patriotic sentiment, and are redolent in beauties; in pastoral scenes, Henry Scott Riddell is without a competitor; James Ballantine and Francis Bennoch have wedded to heart-stirring strains those maxims which conduce to virtue. The Scottish Harp vibrates to sentiments of chivalric nationality in the hands of Alexander Maclagan, Andrew Park, Robert White, and William Sinclair. Eminent lyrical simplicity is depicted in the strains of Alexander Laing, James Home, Archibald Mackay, John Crawford, and Thomas C. Latto. The best ballad writers ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... on the men of mirth, a clouding over the day, and no trout swim in the river. Orpheus on the harp, he lifted up everyone out of their habits; and he that stole what Argus was watching the time he took away Io; Apollo, as we read, gave them teaching, and Daly was better than all ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... think they knew that, singing through the air, There thrilled a vague, insistent, harp-like call— And that, where woodbine blazed against the wall, You held me close and kissed my ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... day). Mr. Povy, according to promise, sent his coach betimes, and I carried my wife and her woman to White Hall Chappell and set them in the Organ Loft, and I having left to untruss went to the Harp and Ball and there drank also, and entertained myself in talke with the mayde of the house, a pretty mayde and very modest. Thence to the Chappell and heard the famous young Stillingfleete, whom I knew at Cambridge, and is now newly admitted one of the King's chaplains; ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... angels below, noting them from left to right, are the celestial hierarchies, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; Dominions, Powers, and Authorities; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. The Old Testament prophets are: David with the harp, Moses with the Tables of the Law, Abraham with the knife, Noah with the ark, Samuel with a sceptre, and Solomon with a church. The eight vacant niches should contain figures of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, Melchizedek, Enoch, Job, Daniel, and Jeremiah. The tier with the Apostles observes ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... do say, who has a little house, beyond that lump of a mountain, above all the others, we see by daylight; he has been in England, and is a strange one for music. He owes (owns, possesses,) a beautiful harp—beautiful! The Lord knows, some do say, that's all he owes in the world, so (except) his coracle and the salmon he takes, and what young people do give him at weddings and biddings, where he goes to play: and what's that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... thy harp in hall Shall from the tower faint echoes call; There songless circles vainly mourn For thee—who shall no more return! Macrimmon shall no more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Montserratian coat of arms centered in the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms features a woman standing beside a yellow harp with her arm around a ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... one valuable ally, whose friendship stood him in good stead. She was of a rich chocolate tint, with good features, and long hair, possibly inherited from some Arab ancestor, bead-like black eyes, and a voice like a harp, but which on occasion could become a flame. Her figure was short and stocky; but more dignity was never compressed within the same number ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... to paint marine subjects, and from that moment his vocation was decided on. Thus nature frequently instructs men of genius, and leads them on in the true path to excellence and renown. Like the AEolian harp, which waits for a breath of air to produce a sound, so they frequently wait or strive in vain, till nature strikes a sympathetic chord, that vibrates to the soul. Thus Joseph Vernet never thought of his forte till he first ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... across the daffadown dillies from the warm chambers of the south. A cloud crosses His Honour's face, a summer cloud dissolving into sunshine. "It is the pomade of Saul:—but it is our own glorious David whose unctuous curls carry the Elysian fragrance." Then taking up his harp and dancing an ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... really think so?—I do think so; I never feel safe until I have pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's defects, but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bow-string,—to a woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and resonant all over, so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of the air about her.— Ah, me!—said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day,—what color would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Gilbert Stuart and other distinguished painters of times gone by, and I particularly remember one large canvas showing a beautiful young woman in evening dress, her hair hanging in curls beside her cheeks, her tapering fingers touching the strings of a harp. She was young then; yet the portrait is that of the great-grandmother, or great-great-grandmother, of present Ridgelys, and she has lain long in the brick-walled family burying ground below the garden. But there beneath the portrait stands the harp ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... filled with people in their holiday suits, trying to outdo each other in speed or elegance of adornment; while groups of young girls, gaily dressed and crowned with flowers, may be seen seated in the boats, singing to the inspiriting accompaniment of the harp ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... The wind came suffing through the swaying arms of the bearded waving hemlocks—Druid priests officiating at some age-old sacrament. Then a night-hawk swerved past with a hum of wings like the twang of a harp string. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... written by a large number of the leading Unitarian ministers, and edited by Dr. Miles, the secretary of the Association; Clarke's Christian Doctrine of Prayer; Thomas T. Stone's The Rod and the Staff, a transcendentalist presentation of Christianity as a spiritual life; The Harp and the Cross, a selection of religious poetry, edited by Stephen G. Bulfinch; Sears's Athanasia, or Foregleams of Immortality; and Seven Stormy Sundays, a volume of original sermons by well-known ministers, ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... only allowable but necessary for young girls, those that the needle, embroidery cushion, and spinning wheel usually afford, and if to refresh my mind I quitted them for a while, I found recreation in reading some devotional book or playing the harp, for experience taught me that music soothes the troubled mind and relieves weariness of spirit. Such was the life I led in my parents' house and if I have depicted it thus minutely, it is not out of ostentation, or to let you know that I am ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... separate structure, removed from the sound-board by the gap for the hammers, was now a stout oaken plank which, to gain an upward bearing for the strings, he inverted, driving his wrest-pins through in the manner of a harp, and turning them in like fashion to the harp. He had two strings to a note, but it did not occur to him to space them into pairs of unisons. He retained the equidistant harpsichord scale, and had, at first, under-dampers, later ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... immortal, And that ... harp awakens of itself To cry aloud to the grey birds; and dreams, That have had dreams for ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... and ye, The sea-wind and the sea, Made all my soul in me A song for ever, A harp to string and smite For love's sake of the bright Wind and the sea's ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... can broil a steak with one hand, powder her nose with the other, rock the cradle with her foot and accompany herself on the harp. (Signed) EVERYMAN. ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... song of the wedding festivals, in which there were ordinarily two choruses, one of boys bearing burning torches and singing the hymenaeos to the clear sound of the pipe, and another of young girls dancing to the notes of the harp. The Chorus originally referred chiefly to dancing. The most ancient sense of the word is a place for dancing, and in these choruses young persons of both sexes danced together in rows, holding one another by the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... farther from the station than at any other place on the coast. What a lively scene! Ten or a dozen boats have already came round us—these Eskimoes are bold sailors—and our anchor is scarcely down before we are boarded in friendly fashion by numerous natives. Yonder white boat is the "Harp," and it brings four good gentlemen in sealskin coats. The patriarch of the band is our venerable Mr. Kretschmer, who came to Labrador in 1852. This year he leaves his loved land after thirty-six years of service, during which he has been home once, twenty-seven years ago. He is followed by ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... banquet, which they enlivened with songs composed for the occasion. One of them so hit the fancy of the king and queen that they quoted it more than once in their letters to their correspondents, and Marie Antoinette even sung it occasionally to her harp: ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... white hair, so dishevel'd; For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave; It was an illusion—the heir, the son you love, was not really dead; The Lord is not dead—he is risen, young and strong, in another country; Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave, What you wept for, was translated, pass'd from the grave, The winds favoured and the sea sail'd it, And now with rosy and new blood, Moves to-day in a ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... near the ground, and spreading in easy curves at the sides in a plane parallel to the axis of the mountain, with the elegant tassels hung in charming order between them the whole making a perfect harp, ranged across the main wind-lines just where they may be most effective in the grand storm harmonies. And then there is an infinite variety of arching forms, standing free or in groups, leaning away from or toward each other ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... sharp, No discord in his harp, He made such sweetness I was discontent; He knew not the desire To rise from warmth to fire, And with his magic rend ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the hall in the court-yard sat Of beggars a motley throng; The meat and drink was more to them Than flute, and harp, and song. ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... Faerie Queen," but it did not follow the description of the ballad. The Faerie Queen, a figure of a Botticellian grace, was coming, with all her fellowship, out of a wonderful pinewood, while Thomas the Rhymer, handsome and young and lean and brown, his harp across his back, had just crossed a mountain-stream by a rough bridge. He appeared suddenly to have beheld her, pausing above him before descending the heathery bank that edged the wood; and looking in her face, ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... far-away roar of the wires. But then the oaks are not connected with the distance, where there might be wind; and they don't ROAR in a gale, only sigh louder and softer according to the wind, and never seem to go above or below a certain pitch,—like a big harp with all the strings the same. I used to have a theory that those creek oaks got the wind's voice telephoned to them, so ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... Mashuk is covered, occasional glimpses could be caught of the gay-coloured hat of a lover of solitude for two—for beside that hat I always noticed either a military forage-cap or the ugly round hat of a civilian. Upon the steep cliff, where the pavilion called "The Aeolian Harp" is erected, figured the lovers of scenery, directing their telescopes upon Elbruz. Amongst them were a couple of tutors, with their pupils who had come to be ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... moved over to the chest of drawers still rhythmically and with set steps, but to the phantom strain of some unheard low music. The music was running vaguely through her head all the time—wild Aeolian music—it sounded like a rude tune on a harp or zither. And surely the cymbals clashed now and again overhead; and the timbrel rang clear; and the castanets tinkled, keeping time with the measure. She stood still and listened. No, no, not a sound save the rain on the roof. It was the music of her own heart, beating irregularly and fiercely ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... in the light of the rising sun of the 13th of October, Taillefer, a minstrel-knight, riding first, playing on his harp and singing the war-song of Roland the Paladin. At seven o'clock they were before the Saxon camp, and Fitzosborn and the body under his command dashed up the hill, under a cloud of arrows, shouting, "Notre ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... bronze. A large china stove in the centre of the wall on the left. In front of it a door. On the right, two doors. The first leads to the apartments of MARIA LOUISA. In front of the window on the left at the back an Erard piano of the period, and a harp. A big table on the right, and against the right wall a small table with shelves filled with books. On the left, facing the audience, a Recamier couch, and a large stand for candlesticks. A great many flowers in vases. Framed engravings ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... The harp chords become again more regular in simple definite rhythm. The music is not so intense as the bride-chorus; and quieter, more sedate, than the notes preceding the entrance of the ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... the grotesque element. We carefully studied the gargoyles round the roof, and, in spite of defacements, made out most of them—here a grinning demon with a struggling human being in its clutch—there an odd beast, part human, part pig, clothed in a kind of jacket, playing a harp—dozens of comic, hideous, heterogeneous figures in various attitudes ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... up and out, shouting and chasing, the lord of the morning. Poplars swayed and tossed with a roaring swish; dead leaves sprang aloft, and whirled into space; and all the clear-swept heaven seemed to thrill with sound like a great harp. ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... her hair, folding her to my heart, which was sunken deep and deep—why not for ever?—in that dream of peace. I ran from her presence, and shouted, and leaped with joy, and sat the whole night through, thrilled into happiness by the thought of her love and loveliness, like a wind harp, tightly strung, and answering the airiest sigh of the ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... the violin to her shoulder, and began to play. At first her chords were light and airy as the sounds from an AEolian harp; then the melody swelled until it broke into a gush of harmony that vibrated through every chord of the archduke's beating heart. As he stood breathless and entranced, she seemed to him like that picture by Fiesole, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... through it full of tears and flashing with the brightness of stars; she held a handkerchief in her mouth, biting it so hard that her teeth were set in it: I never saw finer limbs, but her body was writhing with pain like a harp-string thrown on the fire. The poor creature had made a sort of struts of her legs by setting her feet against a chest of drawers, and with both hands she held on to the bar of a chair, her arms outstretched, with every vein painfully swelled. She might have been a criminal ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... is called forth from the cathedral organ and harp, and one may hear music of every type, from the solemn, stately harmonies of the German choral, the crashing thunders of Bach's fugues and Passion music, to the light oratorios, and duets ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... asked her what she meant. She said she was sent for to go to her husband; and then she up and told us how she had seen him in a dream, dwelling in a curious place, among immortals, wearing a crown, playing upon a harp, eating and drinking at his Prince's table, and singing praises to him for the bringing him thither. Now methought, while she was telling these things unto us, my heart burned withm ran. And I said in my heart, 'If this be ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... there sat an aged minstrel, whose duty it was to fill in the intervals of the feast with the music of his harp, or, if need were, to recite to the company the saga of King Somerled and other great ancestors of ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... poems Frances Ridley Havergal tells of a friend who was given an aeolian harp which, she was told, sent out unutterably sweet melodies. She tried to bring the music by playing upon it with her hand, but found the seven strings would yield but one tone. Keenly disappointed she turned ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... torches opposed the murky darkness or imitated the glaring lightning. The thunder pursued uninterruptedly its tempest symphony, and the fierce wind joined it, swelling into wild harmony when it rushed through the trees, as if in their waving branches it struck the chords of a mighty harp. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... children's band, - harp, cornet, and piano, - and Mrs. Alicumpaine and Mrs. Orange bustled among the children to persuade them to take partners and dance. But they were so obstinate! For quite a long time they would not be persuaded to take partners and dance. Most of the boys said, 'Thanks; much! ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... representatives of that portion of the race which the biblical historian embodies in the pastoral names of Jabal and Jubal—(Gen. iv., 20-22)—"The father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle," and "the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe." In which case the Turanian settlers and builders of cities would answer to Tubalcain, the smith and artificer. The Canaanites, therefore, are those among the Hamites who, in point of color and features, have least differed from their kindred white races, though still sufficiently bronzed ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... is, that Junkie possessed a nature that was tightly strung and vibrated like an Aeolian harp to the lightest breath of influence. He resembled, somewhat, a pot of milk on a very hot fire, rather apt to boil over with a rush; nevertheless, he possessed the power to restrain himself in a simmering ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... of these, at Dunstable, that Dame Gresford had taken Grisell, and there were also sundry of the gentlemen of the escort. A minstrel was esconced under the wide spread of the chimney, and began to sound his harp and sing long ballads in recitative to the company. Whether he did it in all innocence and ignorance, or one of the young squires had mischievously prompted him, there was no knowing; Dame Gresford suspected the latter, when he ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of sequestered quiet ... as I stood before the door I heard the sunrise song of Rossini's Wilhelm Tell ... a Red Seal record ... accompanied by the slow, dreamy following of a piano's tinkle ... like harp ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... around me. There are some of my readers who will remember the old chemical chimney in Roxbury, and what strange sounds were heard there when the boys stood below, laughing and talking. What I now heard recalled most vividly all those experiences. To soothe my mind a little, I then took a jews-harp from my pocket and played the "Star-spangled Banner." The effect was beautiful and almost magical, and I sank at once into a ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... when you think that of all the dangerous savages in this island Arick is one of the most dangerous. The other day, besides, he made Austin a musical instrument of the sort they use in his own country—a harp with only one string. He took a stick about three feet long and perhaps four inches round. The under side he hollowed out in a deep trench to serve as sounding-box; the two ends of the upper side he made to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and between these he stretched ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... During all my early years our old Harvard Alma Mater sat still and lifeless as the colossi in the Egyptian desert. Then all at once, like the statue in Don Giovanni, she moved from her pedestal. The fall of that "stony foot" has effected a miracle like the harp that Orpheus played, like the teeth which Cadmus sowed. The plain where the moose and the bear were wandering while Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, where a few plain dormitories and other needed buildings were scattered ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... breathing the same air, the touch, etc., but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an Aeolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... ye trumpets, and, all ye organs, tremble with exultant sound! Bring forth the harp, and the psaltry, and the sackbut! For the long winter of waiting is at an end, and Mike is flying north to fetch his bride. Now are the walls of heaven built four-square, and to-day was the roof-beam hung with garlands. 'Tis but a small heaven, yet is it big enough for two,—and Mike ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... of Zion," was published in 1825, and does not contain this poem. What appears to have been an inclusive volume of the poems of Knox was published in London and Edinburgh in 1847, and bore the title "The Lonely Hearth, The Songs of Israel, Harp of Zion, and Other Poems." This includes the poem which bears the title "Mortality." It is interesting to recall that it has sometimes been printed with the title "Immortality." To that title, however, it can ...
— The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address • Abraham Lincoln
... I did not know at the time, but she'd been at Bob to get this scroll-work done and fitted that the King might see it. I made him the picture, in an hour, all of a heat after supper—one great heaving play of dolphins and a Neptune or so reining in webby-footed sea-horses, and Arion with his harp high atop of them. It was twenty-three foot long, and maybe nine ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... in the streets, on whom people bestowed scanty alms? Was it not I who rescued you from that shame, and clothed you and gave you a home? Was it not I who gave you a name and procured you consideration and respect by making you my singer and companion, and allowing you to play upon the harp at my improvisations? How has not all Rome admired you when you sang the canzones I wrote for you, thereby procuring you honor and respectability, and making you a popular man from a low beggar? Go, you cannot leave me, for you are my ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Sylvarum, III., 278, and Essay of Masque and Triumph, which show that 'Broken Music' was understood to mean any combination of instruments of different kinds. In Sylva Sylvarum Bacon mentions several 'consorts of Instruments' which agree well together, e.g., 'the Irish Harp and Base-Viol agree well: the Recorder and Stringed Music agree well: Organs and the Voice agree well, etc. But the Virginals and the Lute ... agree not so well.' All these, and similar combinations, seem to have been described ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... clever to juggle with the difficulties of life instead of facing and overcoming them. He will be brave at one time, cowardly at another, and deserves neither credit for his courage, nor blame for his cowardice. Lucien is like a harp with strings that are slackened or tightened by the atmosphere. He might write a great book in a glad or angry mood, and care nothing for the success that he had desired for ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... and periods grew rather than were built; phrases were alive, and learnt, if there were a need, to leap and bound. Verse was moulded by the feeling that inspired it; the melodies were like those of an Eolian harp, long-drawn or retracted as the wind swept or touched the strings. Symmetry was slighted; harmony was valued for its own sake and for its spiritual significance. Rich rhymes satisfied or surprised the ear, and the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... life-tree of their race into our modern English literature, which had grown effete and stale from having had its veins injected with too much cold, thin, watery Gallic fluid. Yes, Walter Scott heard the innumerous leafy sigh of Yggdrasil's branches, and modulated his harp thereby. Carlyle, too, has bathed in the three mystic fountains which flow fast by its roots. In an especial manner has the German branch of the Teuton kindred turned back to those old musical well-springs bubbling up in the dim North, and they have been strengthened and inspired ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... origin of every social, political, and religious evil. Such being the situation, the idea of Uncle Victor made me feel particularly uneasy. This terrible uncle had become absolutely unsufferable now that his sister was no longer there to calm him down. The harp of David was broken, and Saul was wholly delivered over to the spirit of madness. The fall of Charles X. had increased the audacity of the old Napoleonic veteran, who uttered all imaginable bravadoes. He no longer frequented our house, which had become too silent for him. But sometimes, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the drawling quality of his voice which sounded as mellow as though someone had struck a chord upon a harp, surprised them out of an answer. Rousing further, ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... chorus of Hibernian Christian names, "it is Patricia's undeclared impecunious lover. He is afraid that she won't know his gift is a harp, and afraid that the other girls will. He feared to send it, lest one of the sisters or h'orphan nieces should get it; it is frightful to love one of six, and the cards are always slipping off, and the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... may be ascribed some of the noblest efforts of human genius. The Historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire first conceived his design among the ruins of the Capitol; and to the tones of a Welsh harp are we indebted for the Bard of Gray.—GIBBON'S Hist. xii. 432.—Mem. of Gray, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... drapers; and the most frequent style of shop is a store, containing everything from a pickaxe and tin dish (for gold washing) to Perry Davis's patent Pain-killer. We have of course our inns—the Imperial, where the manager of the bank and myself lived; the Harp of Erin, the Irish rendezvous, as its name imports, even its bar-room being papered with green; the German Hotel, where the Verein is held, and over which the German tri-coloured flag floats on fete-days; and there is also a Swiss ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... of his department or in his wretched little study. . . . A river, deep, with fish, a wide garden with narrow avenues, little fountains, shade, flowers, arbours, a luxurious villa with terraces and turrets with an Aeolian harp and little silver bells (he had heard of the existence of an Aeolian harp from German romances); a cloudless blue sky; pure limpid air fragrant with the scents that recall his hungry, barefoot, crushed childhood. ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse; Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your sires' 'Islands of ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... in the Old Law God was praised with musical instruments and human song, according to Ps. 32:2, 3: "Give praise to the Lord on the harp, sing to Him with the psaltery, the instrument of ten strings. Sing to Him a new canticle." But the Church does not make use of musical instruments such as harps and psalteries, in the divine praises, for fear of seeming to imitate the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... answered, bending a little towards him while a sudden glory illumined her features. Her voice, which was vibrant as a harp, had captured the wistful magic of the spring—the softness of the winds, the sweetness of flowers, the mellow murmuring ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... sunshine; the delights of abundance of food; the eternal happiness that awaited them in the heavenly future, where the slave-driver ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest; where Time rolled around in endless cycles of days spent in basking, harp in hand, and silken clad, in golden streets, under the soft effulgence of cloudless skies, glowing with warmth and kindness emanating from the Creator himself. Had their masters condescended to borrow the music of the slaves, they would ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... youths of fashion were in a kind of harlequin habit, the forepart of the trousers white, the back-part blue; their jacket after the same fashion. They delighted much in an instrument made from some part of the iju palm-tree, which resembled and produced a sound like the jews-harp. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... preceding entries, there are some points that illustrate the policy on which Mr. Parris acted, and exhibit the skill and vigilance of his management. The motive that led him to harp so constantly upon "firewood" is obvious. It was to create a sympathy in his behalf, and bring opprobrium upon his opponents. But it cannot stand the test of scrutiny: for it had been expressly agreed, as I have said, that he should find his own fuel; and it ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... a feast miles away. The players seemed to enjoy it as much as the listeners, and they would keep at it for hours at a time, as long as their bodily strength lasted. Girls from six years of age learn to play the harp almost by instinct, and college girls quickly learn the piano. There are no native composers—they are but imitators. There is an absence of sentimental feeling in the execution of set music (which is all foreign), ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... It seems easy to settle now. But no more of that to-night. Come, let us sing our Christmas carol. It will be sweeter than ever. Take your harp, friend, and turn minstrel ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... tale of 'Sylvia's Lovers,' declares that this hand-spinning rivalled harp-playing ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... read; but all that remained to her was the vision of that poor woman who could find no refuge from her flesh and from the demons that played evil rhapsodies upon the harp-strings ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... for governing, for killing, or for curing the greatest number of men, and in the best possible manner: a man may have a genius for the fiddle, or his mission may be for the tight-rope, or the Jew's harp; or it may be a natural turn for seeking, and finding, and teaching truth, and for doing the greatest possible good to mankind; or it may be a turn equally natural for seeking, and finding, and teaching a lie, and doing the maximum of mischief. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown |
