"Musical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very much like asking: "Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?" Obviously, the man who can sing tenor. You could not have deposed Caruso. Suppose some theory of musical democracy had consigned Caruso to the musical proletariat. Would that have reared another tenor to take his place? Or would Caruso's gifts have ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... retained in their vigor his faculties, was more tame perhaps than in his younger years; still the clearness and brilliancy of his powerful mind manifested itself in his every effort. Mr. Pinkney had all the advantages which a fine manly person and clear, musical voice gives to an orator. He spoke but rarely and never without great preparation. He was by no means a ready debater, and prized too much his reputation to hazard anything in an impromptu, extemporaneous address. He listened, for weeks, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... advantage of excellent training, happened to be naturally musical. She played no difficult music, but her touch on the piano was good. Her voice, by no means powerful, was true and pure and pleasing. To Miss Forcus, who, in spite of the advantages of education, loved the wrong things consistently in music, and liked to be moved ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... cheekbones, but narrowed in sharply, both at the forehead and chin. The narrow and oblique eyes showed the relationship between the Burmese and their Chinese neighbours. They seemed to Stanley a light-hearted, merry people, going about their business with much chatter and laughter; and the sound of musical instruments could often be heard, inside the houses. Several men, in bright yellow garments, mingled with the crowds in the market. These were priests, the officer told him; and it would be a mortal act of sacrilege, were anyone else to wear ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... his son under the old Spartan regime. The young Red Cloud is said to have been a fine horseman, able to swim across the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, of high bearing and unquestionable courage, yet invariably gentle and courteous in everyday life. This last trait, together with a singularly musical and agreeable voice, has always been characteristic of ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... of Love."—Do any of your musical correspondents know the author of the following song, and whether it has ever appeared in print? I have it in manuscript, set to a very fine tune, but have never seen or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... asked in regard to external style are such as these: Is it good or bad, careful or careless, clear and easy or confused and difficult; simple or complex; terse and forceful (perhaps colloquial) or involved and stately; eloquent, balanced, rhythmical; vigorous, or musical, languid, delicate and decorative; varied or monotonous; plain or figurative; poor or rich in connotation and poetic suggestiveness; beautiful, or only clear and strong? Are the sentences mostly long or short; periodic or loose; mostly ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Bob, "although I haven't heard Jimmy's musical voice mixing into the conversation and he's usually right there with the ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... ornamental work—pine,cypress, yew, cedar, and oak,* musical instruments,** helmets, leathern jerkins covered with metal scales, weapons of bronze and iron,*** chariots,**** dyed and embroidered stuffs,^ perfumes,^^ dried cakes, oil, wines of Kharu, liqueurs from Alasia, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... her daughter; {17} the picture of Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, and of Philip his son; that of Henry VIII.—under it was placed the Bible curiously written upon parchment; an artificial sphere; several musical instruments; in the tapestry are represented negroes riding upon elephants. The bed in which Edward VI. is said to have been born, and where his mother Jane Seymour died in child-bed. In one chamber were several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Don't think I'm buying him for work. I want only his skin. It looks very tough and I can use it to make myself a drumhead. I belong to a musical band in my village ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... lullaby to the pawpose of the red man whilst swinging in the cradle from the shady trees, wafted gracefully to and fro by the restless wind. The beautiful old basswood tree bending so gracefully stood there, and the brown thrush sang with her musical voice. That tree was planted there by the Great Spirit for me to sport under, when I could scarcely bend my little bow. Ah, I watched that tree from childhood to manhood, and it was the dearest spot to me in this wide ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... than follow MURGER'S novel step by step, the authors of the present libretto, both for reasons of musical and dramatic effect, have sought to derive inspiration from the ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... must come, from inward refinement and delicacy, when combined with absence of consciousness; and which can only be helped, not produced, by any perfection of the physical structure. Then the tints of absolute health, and those low, musical, sensitive tones, flowing on in such ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... with the help of the owners of the works, a Musical Society was established, and the workpeople are furnished gratuitously with medical advice and medicines. To these, in the case of invalid workmen who have been for two years employed in the works, is added a weekly allowance of six francs during illness. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... For a musical treble chirping was heard proceeding apparently from Rufe's pocket. This chicken differed from others that Rufe had put away, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... and the mellow gold horn of the soft shining moon," echoed the musical refrain and chorus of musicians. Nearer and nearer drew the answering echoes of the lovers' voices until they met in the hills and the ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... articles of manufacture in Vienna are jewelry, clocks, kid gloves, musical instruments, shawls, silks and velvets. It is supplied with water that comes forty milds in an aqueduct and gits there as fresh and sparklin' as if it hadn't travelled ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... to the drawing-room, from whence I heard some chords. Captain Nemo was there, bending over his organ, and plunged in a musical ecstasy. ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... opened and dark, her nose short, and her mouth full and petulant. She, too, was conventionally adequate; but her insincerity was clearer than her husband's, it was pronounced quickly, in an impertinent and musical voice, without the slightest pretence of the injection of any interest. Howat Penny felt, in a manner which he was unable to place, that she vaguely resembled himself; perhaps it lay in her eyebrows slanting slightly toward the temples; ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... explain that genius is seldom transmitted, and did not forget to compliment him on his musical abilities. "You know that you play Liszt well. That very sonata in B minor, it pleased me much." "But do I play it like a Friedheim?" he persisted. And I ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... implied that the pronunciation of the accented syllable was on a higher or lower note than the rest of the word. It was therefore a musical, not a quantitative symbol. The rules for its position are briefly as follows. No words but monosyllables or contracted forms have the accent on the last; dissyllables are therefore always accented on the first, and polysyllables on the first or second, according as the penultimate is ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... desired that his people should be enlightened. A small body of earnest men sent out by the London Missionary Society did a great work during the fifteen years they were allowed to labour in the central provinces. They reduced the beautiful and musical Malagasy language to a written form; they gave the people the beginnings of a native literature, and a complete version of the Holy Scriptures, and founded several Christian churches. Many of the useful arts were also ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... signorine, what an exquisite town this Venice is! Imagine a town consisting of houses and churches such as you have never seen; an intoxicating architecture, everything as graceful and light as the birdlike gondola. Such houses and churches can only be built by people possessed of immense artistic and musical taste and endowed with a lion-like temperament. Now imagine in the streets and alleys, instead of pavement, water; imagine that there is not one horse in the town; that instead of cabmen you see gondoliers on their wonderful boats, light, delicate long-beaked birds which ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... from what may be called the ordinary educated public of London and New York. It is not an ideal or a specially selected audience; but it is somewhat above the average of the theatre-going public, that average being sadly pulled down by the myriad frequenters of musical farce and absolutely worthless melodrama. It is such an audience as assembles every night at, say, the half-dozen best theatres of each city. A peculiarly intellectual audience it certainly is not. I gladly admit that theatrical art owes much, in both ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... rustic is yet musical, and the Roman citizen has not lost the genius of his race. He is still unrivalled in sculpture and architecture, in painting, in poetry, and philosophy; and in every handicraft his fingers are ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... stirring impression which the execution made upon me, the singing of the most celebrated artistes whom I had ever heard seemed to me feeble and void of expression. Until then I had had no conception of such long-sustained notes, of such nightingale trills, of such undulations of musical sound, of such swelling up to the strength of organ-notes, of such dying away to the faintest whisper. There was not one whom the sweet witchery did not enthral; and when the singer ceased, nothing but soft sighs broke the impressive silence. Somewhere ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... hers and he kissed it, and so went his ways smiling kindly on them. Then the carle cried to his kine, and they bent down their heads to the yoke; and presently, as he walked on, he heard the rumble of the wain mingling with the tinkling of their bells, which in a little while became measured and musical, and sounded above the creaking of the axles and the rattle of the gear and the roll of the great wheels over the road: and so it grew thinner and thinner till it all died ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... was far from having the genius of his father: he was handsome, it is true, whereas Lorenzo, on the contrary, was remarkably ugly; he had an agreeable, musical voice, whereas Lorenzo had always spoken through his nose; he was instructed in Latin and Greek, his conversation was pleasant and easy, and he improvised verses almost as well as the so-called Magnificent; but he was both ignorant of political affairs and haughtily insolent ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half way into one of brilliancy by the large hazel eyes and the vivid whiteness of the skin. Kendal watched her from his corner, where his conversation with two musical young ladies had been suddenly suspended by the arrival of the actress, and thought that his impression of the week before had been, if anything, below ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places where there were many fairies together, of "toadstool things that shone pink," of fairy food, of which he could only say "you should have tasted it!" and of fairy music, "like a little musical box," that came out of nodding flowers. There was a great open place where fairies rode and raced on "things," but what Mr. Skelmersdale meant by "these here things they rode," there is no telling. Larvae, perhaps, or crickets, or the little beetles that elude us so abundantly. There was a place ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... Pekila, guided us, and was remarkable as almost the only one of the population left with any spirit in him. The depressing effect which the slave-hunting scourge has upon the native mind, though little to be wondered at, is sad, very sad to witness. Musical instruments, mats, pillows, mortars for pounding meal, were lying about unused, and becoming the prey of the white ants. With all their little comforts destroyed, the survivors were thrown still ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... yer musical the night. Hey, Captain Ogilvy, surely I seed you an' Ruby slinkin' down the dark side o' the market-gate half ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... people simple in their habits and manners, noted for their fondness for music and dancing, their hospitality, and pastoral customs. With the poets Arcadia was a land of peace, of simple pleasures, and untroubled quiet; and it was natural that the pipe-playing Pan should first appear here, where musical shepherds led their flocks along the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... promised. He is short; wears gold rimmed glasses; a Southern Colonel's Mustache and Goatee—and capitals are need to describe the style! He had his comical-serious little countenance topped off with a soft felt hat worn at the most rakish angle. He can't carry a tune, and really is not musical. His adopted daughter with whom he lives is rated the ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... jerky movements, his bright oriole colors flashing as he dashed through a patch of sunlight,—a beautiful object, but a perfectly silent one. When his happiness demanded expression he flew to a maple-tree, and poured out his soul in the quaint though not very musical ditty of his race. Sometimes he stood still on a branch, like a bird who has something to say; but more often he rushed around after insects on this tree, and threw in the notes between the firm snaps of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... different notes as they were uttered. This is the record: "Rat-t-t-t-t" (very rapid); "quit! quit! quit!" (a little slower); "wh-eu! wh-eu!" (still more deliberately); "chack! chack! chack!" (quite slow); "cr[e], cr[e], cr[e], cr[e]" (fast); "hu-way! hu-way!" (very sweet). There was a still more musical clause that I cannot put into syllables, then a rattle exactly like castanets, and lastly a sort of "Kr-r-r! kr-r-r!" in the tone of a great-crested flycatcher. While this will not express to ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... the Penny Banks in Yorkshire, an old man in receipt of parish outdoor relief was found using the Penny Bank as a place of deposit for his pennies until he had accumulated enough to buy a coat. Others save, to buy an eight-day clock, or a musical instrument, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... deposed royal race of the reigning king's grandfather—that temple which had been founded by Thotmes III., and whose gate-way Amenophis III. had adorned with immense colossal statues—[That which stands to the north is the famous musical statue, or Pillar of Memmon]—exceeded it in the extent of its plan; in every other respect it held the pre-eminence among the sanctuaries of the Necropolis. Rameses I. had founded it shortly after he succeeded in seizing the Egyptian throne; and his yet greater ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... descended from a race of sheep-dogs, starts with all his faculties directed towards the working of sheep; he is half-educated as soon as he is born. He can no more help working sheep than a born musician can help being musical, or a Hebrew can help gathering in shekels. It is bred in him. If he can't get sheep to work, he will work a fowl; often and often one can see a collie pup painstakingly and carefully driving a bewildered old hen into a stable, or a stock-yard, or any other enclosed space on which he has ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... got bells on her fingers and rings on her toes, elephants to ride upon wherever she goes,' and so on at the top of their voices to an admiring group of Adelie penguins. Meares is the greatest attraction; he has a full voice which is musical but always very flat. He declares that 'God save the King' will always send them to the water, and certainly it is often ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... the day had begun ill with Maggie. The pleasure of having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to Garum Firs, where she would hear uncle Pullet's musical box, had been marred as early as eleven o'clock by the advent of the hairdresser from Saint Ogg's, who had spoken in the severest terms of the condition in which he had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after another and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... our small organ became a medium of much enjoyment. All the members except one played well enough to enjoy themselves and to give pleasure to the others. There was a distinct predilection in favour of "ragtime" and I must say I liked to hear that music at frequent intervals. Any one who plays a musical instrument knows that the mood of the player is generally reflected in the character of the music, particularly when he sits down and plays in a ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the steward and ordered an extra cup and a fresh supply of toast. At that moment Gissing heard two quick strokes of a bell, rung somewhere forward, a clear, musical, melancholy tone, echoed promptly in other parts of the ship. "What is that, Captain?" he asked anxiously. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... theory that if you don't talk about a thing it does not exist; and like most of her kind she swept the disagreeables into a dust heap and made for the high places where all was lovely. And yet she had toiled with the girl through all the difficulties of the Japanese language; and, to give her a musical education, had pinched to the point of buying one hat in ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... carry, and bent to our work in the wet clay. The night was close and foggy, the smell of the damp earth and the awakening spring verdure filled our nostrils. In the distance was heard the rumbling of trains, the jolting of wagons along the country road, the barking of dogs, and clear and musical through all these sounds came the song of a mavis or ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... aim of Elizabeth's life was to make a new man of Nutty. It was her hope that the quiet life and soothing air of Brookport, with—unless you counted the money-in-the-slot musical box at the store—its absence of the fiercer excitements, might in time pull him together and unscramble his disordered nervous system. She liked to listen of a morning to the sound of Nutty busy in the next room with a broom and a dustpan, for in ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the ranks of which operatic first-fiddles kept themselves in practice during their summer holidays—only then did the conductor throw out a delicate compliment, for chance ear-shot, by performing, with variations such as were heard nowhere else, the National Anthem of Jingalo. But each day the musical program was submitted for his Majesty's approval; and if he or the Queen made any suggestion—as it was always hoped they would—then so surely as they approached the kiosk the strains of that particular selection were heard, telling them that Bad-as-Bad ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... jackass.' We had heard of the creature before, but this was our first view of him. We took a good look, and while we were doing so he laughed again, right in our faces. The laugh is almost exactly like that of a human being. It is not musical but is very comical, and, somehow, it has a tendency to set everybody laughing who is within ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... meeting with her gay lover, Harry Carson; forgot Miss Simmonds' errands, and her anger, in the anxious desire to comfort the poor lone woman. Never had her sweet face looked more angelic, never had her gentle voice seemed so musical as when she murmured her broken sentences ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... thickly covered with moving insects, pale yellow cakes crisp and shining, morsels of liver spitted on skewers—which, cooked with dust of keef, produce a dreamy drunkenness more overwhelming even than that produced by haschish—musical instruments, derboukas, guitars, long pipes, and strange fiddles with two strings, tomtoms, skins of animals with heads and claws, live birds, tortoise backs, and ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... last long. One brief spring, musical with the song of robin and mocking-bird, one summer rich in fruit and roses, one autumn of gold and crimson sped by and left their gifts at the feet of an eager, delighted child. Then, in the dreary month ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, musical and wise, that in their most shining moments they aspire to be. So they weave for themselves with words and for a while inhabit a palace of delights, temple at once and theatre, where they fill the round of the world's dignities, and feast with the gods, exulting ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Beyond the lake are seen the green pastures, the villages and farms of Schwytz glowing in the sunshine. On the left of the spectator are the peaks of the Hacken, enveloped in clouds; on his right, in the distance, are seen the glaciers. Before the curtain rises the RANZ DES VACHES, and the musical sound of the cattle-bells are heard, and continue also for some ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... from memory, I, as ignorant of music as of all other accomplishments, could not tell, but even to stupid me, what he did play spoke. I assure my readers that I hardly know a term in the whole musical vocabulary; and yet I am tempted to try to describe what this ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... Kawardha. While begging they play a musical instrument, hence the name from lakri, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... Healer. John Baptist's description of himself is true of them. With rare self-abnegation, he would only reply to the question, 'Who art thou?' with 'I am a voice.' His personality was nothing. His message was all. A musical string cannot be seen as it vibrates. So the man should be lost in his proclamation. We are heralds and nothing more, and the more we keep in the background and the less our hearers depend on us, the better. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... end—that weary, weary march—that long musical journey? It was in a minor key, and anything more depressing it was impossible to conceive. Like the pieces played by WS Gilbert's piper, there was nothing in it resembling an air, but Donald played ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... from head to foot, a musician. He spent every moment he could steal from his school studies in playing through the difficult scores of Wagner's music dramas. His taste, his musical memory, the enormous natural ability which enabled him to surmount all technical difficulties with ease, were apparent to everybody who knew him. Yet his parents determined from the first that he should study law, and enter ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... of gulls can with difficulty be regarded as musical, yet those of us who live the year round by the sea find their plaintive mewing as nicely tuned to that wild environment as the amorous gurgling of nightingales to moonlit woods in May. Their voice may have no great range, but at any rate it is not lacking in variety, suggesting ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... became conscious of another sound, scarcely less musical. It, too, was low; so low and faint that at first I thought my ear deceived me, or that some distant echo was returning Desiree's song down ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... Anne should break down, and so distress them all except the unkind Miriam. However, they need not have troubled themselves. Anne fixed her eyes on the far wall of the dining room and commenced to recite "The Raven" in a clear, musical voice that deepened as she repeated the stanzas. The girls forgot the shabby little figure in its ill-fitting black silk and saw only Anne's small, white face and glowing eyes. Not Miss Tebbs, herself, teacher of English and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... Take them ready made, if you like, and enter his shop; there is a choice assortment. He has a friend whose only duty on earth is to puff him for a long while in certain society, and then present him at their houses as a rare bird and a man of exquisite conversation, and thereupon, just as the musical man sings and the player on the lute touches his lute before the persons to whom he has been puffed, Cydias, after coughing, pulling up his wristband, extending his hand and opening his fingers, gravely spouts his quintessentiated ideas ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the brothers Chorley, one the supreme musical critic of his time, the other a profound Spanish scholar, shut up through life in his library of ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... grief in his robes, he slowly withdrew into the Ark, in order to indulge his sorrow and his musings, alone. Deerslayer did not speak again until the canoe was half-way to the shore. Then he suddenly ceased paddling, at an interruption that came from the mild, musical ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... till Victor Emanuel comes to honor the ceremony. Though not large, and certainly not so magnificent as the Venetians think, the Fenice is a superb and tasteful theatre. The best opera was formerly given in it, and now that it is closed, the musical drama, of course, suffers. The Italians seldom go to it, and as there is not a sufficient number of foreign residents to support it in good style, the opera commonly conforms to the character of the theatre San Benedetto, in which ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... along, 'Less Philomel will deign a song In her sweetest, saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke, Gently o'er the accustomed oak; —Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy; Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And missing thee, I walk unseen, On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering Moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way; And ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... at the theatre by the manager for the players, to celebrate their departure for the South. The play was a musical comedy, and some of the better known players were made the butt of jokes by the performers ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... such as the spirit houses, rice drying frames, and granaries were similar to those seen to-day in all the villages. Likewise the house furnishings, the musical instruments, and even the games of the children were such as are to be found at present, while our picture of the village life given on page 9 still fits nearly any Tinguian settlement in Abra. The animals mentioned are all familiar to the present ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... his teeth and walked on. She looked after him for a moment and began to laugh softly to herself. Julien walked steadily on till he had reached the corner of the street. Then he turned away abruptly and without glancing around. He was angry with himself, angry at the sound of that faint, musical laugh. He had quite made up his mind not to call upon Madame Christophor. It would, in fact, now be impossible. He would never be able to explain his ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... little cracks you can see that all is still dark. In a few moments a faint grayness steals into the air, and off in the half darkness you hear the Somali gunbearers chanting their morning prayers—soft, musical, and soothing. Then there are more voices murmuring in the air and the camp slowly awakens to life. Some one is heard chopping wood, and by that time day breaks with a crash. All is life, and the birds are singing as though mad with ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... length equally absurd and cruel; for they punished with great severity a famous poet and musician, for adding three strings to the harp; grounding their sentence upon a principle universally assented to among them, that the softness of musical sounds produced effeminacy among the people. Of the truth of their proposition in the abstract, there can be little doubt; it is in the rigid application and extreme extension of it the fault lies. Music has certainly a powerful influence on the passions, and produces happy ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... those days could scarce read and write; but he spoke in two languages, played at least one musical instrument as a matter of course, and possessed a number of other accomplishments, from the imping of hawk's feathers, to the mystery of venery, with knowledge of every beast and bird, its time of ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tribunal of exact statutes and expelled for moving their feet in certain ways. If in dancing they whirled like a top instead of being shot straight back and forth like a bobbin in a weaver's shuttle, their moral conduct was aggravated. A church organ was ridiculed as a sort of musical Behemoth—as a dark ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... people began to settle down, into the normal quietude which had been more or less their lot, before Maryllia, with her vivacious little musical protegee Cicely Bourne had awakened a new interest and animation in the midst of their small community,—and they began to resign themselves to the idea that her 'whim' for residing once more in the home of her childhood had passed, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... only have music on my own terms; could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... cry swept through the silent night, louder and much nearer than ever. And a new sound mingled with it, a deep, muttered rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling like the low, constant murmur of ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... Virginia. What could she do to help dear Madam Esmond (a precious woman, she knew!) in the good work? She had a serious butler and housekeeper: they were delighted with the spiritual behaviour and sweet musical ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the sleeping, drunken sentinel, to the stables. She lead out a white horse, her own horse, Arthur was sure, for the creature caressed her with his head, and as she saddled him she talked to him in low tones, sweet, musical words of some foreign tongue. The handsome horse seemed to understand the necessity of silence, for he did not even whinny to the touch of his mistress' hand, and trod daintily and noiselessly as she ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... on the sward by the stream—contracted in seeming by the weeds and flags and fresh sedges—there comes the distant murmur of voices and the musical laugh of girls. The ear tries to distinguish the words and gather the meaning; but the syllables are intertangled—it is like listening to a low sweet song in a language all unknown. This is the water ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... purely professional; for all I know the name "Nugent" was equally a creature of choice; but, anyhow, the lady herself never professed to be anything but English, and openly stated that she retained her title simply because it was more musical than that of "Miss." The old lady and the young one lived together in great apparent amity, and certainly in the utmost material comfort; for they probably got through more money than anyone in the town, and there ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... hum of voices, the rattling of dominoes, and the sounds of strident music. The orchestra was rather smaller than the one that performed at Schomberg's hotel, had the air more of a family party than of an enlisted band, and, I must confess, seemed rather more respectable than the Zangiacomo musical enterprise. It was less pretentious also, more homely and familiar, so to speak, insomuch that in the intervals when all the performers left the platform one of them went amongst the marble tables collecting offerings of sous and ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... being serious, "perhaps he may turn out a poet yet. You never can tell where the lightning is going to strike. He has some idea of rhyme, and some perception of reason, and—yes, some of the lines were musical. His general attitude reminded me of Piers Plowman. Didn't he ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... people; he knew them, worked with them, remembered them, thought about them, and wrote about them using an almost poetic language, while pushing them to reflect the high ideals he believed in. His personality was the embodiment of a refined, idealized form of human civility. He was the consummate musical artist, always looking for ways to communicate a new civilized idea through music, and to work with other musicians in organizing concerts and gatherings to perform the music publicly. He also did as much as he could to promote and compliment those whose ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... gathered with him around the festal board; so he chose the only remaining alternative, and went back to his native country, cherishing the hope that he should one day return to the home he loved so well, and listen again to the musical flow of the brook, which could be distinctly heard from the door of the mansion. But his wish was vain, for when at last America was free and the British troops recalled, he slept beneath the sod of England, and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... It was a musical sound, one that he had heard often in his native state, and, singularly enough, the lad drew encouragement from it. "Be of good cheer! Be of good cheer! Trust in the future! Trust in the future!" said all those voices down among the swamps and reeds. And ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... greeting, or the Dona's coquettish smile of recognition, any suggestion of previous confidences. It was rather to Cecily that Dona Felipa seemed to be characteristically exuberant and childishly feminine. Both mother and stepdaughter spoke a musical infantine English, which the daughter supplemented with her eyes, her eyebrows, her little brown fingers, her plump shoulders, a dozen charming intonations of voice, and a complete vocabulary in her ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... accurate and well made out as those of visible form: what I chiefly mean is, that the feelings belonging to the sensations of our other organs, when accidentally recalled, are kept more separate and pure. Musical sounds, probably, owe a good deal of their interest and romantic effect to the principle here spoken of. Were they constant, they would become indifferent, as we may find with respect to disagreeable noises, which we do not hear after a time. I know no situation ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... interrupted by some one softly whistling a theme from the overture to Masaniello, popular at the college in the form of an arrangement for six pianofortes and twelve hands. There was only one student unladylike and musical enough to whistle; and Miss Wilson was ashamed to find herself growing nervous at the prospect of an encounter with Agatha, who entered whistling sweetly, but with a lugubrious countenance. When she saw in whose ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the following morning we were ordered in to relieve the Twenty-ninth on the picket-line. The clouds had cleared away and the air was keen and cold. We felt our way through the dense, dripping undergrowth to the musical accompaniment of rebel bullets singing above our heads. By daybreak we were in position along the edge of a belt of woods, something less than a quarter of a mile from the rebel works. Their skirmishers kept up a lively fire all through the forenoon, and as a consequence ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the worship of Dionysus so dreary a thing as the modern British drama. Strange that through him who gave us the juice of the grape, 'fiery, venerable, divine,' came this gift too! Yet I dare say the chorus of a musical comedy would not be awestruck—would, indeed, 'bridle'—if one unrolled ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... of the last. We are adapted to infinity. We are hard to please, and love nothing which ends; and in nature is no end; but everything, at the end of one use, is lifted into a superior, and the ascent of these things climbs into daemonic and celestial natures. Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme now high, now low, in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... distinction. He is in the Far East, China, I think. I have not seen him in more than five years. He deserted my mother. That's all there is to that side of my story. I appeared in two or three of the musical pieces produced in London two seasons ago, in the chorus. I never got beyond that, for very good reasons. I was known as Hetty Glynn. Three weeks ago I started for New York, sailing from Liverpool. Previously I had ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the colony, we have the more modern amusements, German opera and Italian opera and the theatre and subscription concerts. Then we have balls nearly every night in the season and dinner-parties and luncheons and lectures and musical parties, and we study a good deal and 'slum' a little. Last winter I belonged to a Greek class and a fencing class, and a quartette club, and two private dancing classes, and a girls' working club, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... love the fairsome (why?— For nothing but to please my eye); And so the fat and soft-skinned dame I'll flatter to appease my flame; For she that's musical I'll long, When I am sad, to sing a song; Then hang me, Ladies, at your door, If e'er ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... giving stone and piles to the home in which he dwelt, enriched the chambers with frescoes and sculptures, the chapels with carving and glass, making St. John's Chapel in the White Tower splendid with saints, St. Peter's Church on the Tower Green musical with bells. In the Hall Tower, from which a passage led through the Great Hall into the King's bedroom in the Lantern, he built a tiny chapel for his private use—a chapel which served for the devotions of his successors until Henry the Sixth was stabbed to death before the cross. Sparing neither ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... next on the list; and with the air of one well satisfied that an abundance of admiration and applause would reward his efforts, he drew forth his flute, when, lo! one of the joints was missing! This accident was nearly fatal to the musical entertainments of the day; for not only was the concerto thereby rendered impracticable, but "Sweet Bird" with the flute-accompaniment obligato, was put hors de combat. Disappointment having, by this, been carried to its uttermost bounds, the announcement that two strings of the ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... quaked with shouts and the crash of musical instruments, and was white with a storm of waving handkerchiefs; and through it all a ragged lad, the most conspicuous figure in England, stood, flushed and happy and proud, in the centre of the spacious platform, with the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time. The chief stone of offence for Hindus is the sacrifice of cows, the most sacred to them of all animals, without which the Mahomedans consider their great annual festival of Bakar-Id cannot be complete. Mahomedans, on the other hand, to whom musical instruments as an accompaniment to religious worship are abhorrent, are often driven wild when Hindu processions pass with their bands playing in front of a mosque. Only four years ago, when the compact between the National Congress ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... rainbow be the fiddle-stick to the fiddle of heaven, Let the spheres be the strings, and the stars the musical notes; Let the new-born breezes make the pauses and sharps, And let time be careful to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... never make mock of anybody," said a musical voice, rich however through all its music in a rather formidable significance. The owner of it turned ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her virginal air, Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile, Come to me out of the past, and I see her there As I saw her ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Henry Purcell, late one of the children of his Majesty's Chappell Royall, whose voyce is changed and gone from the Chappell, the sum of L30 by the year, to commence Michaelmas, 1673." This was in consequence of the sensible custom of retaining as supernumeraries boys who had given evidence of musical ability. Such is certainly true of Purcell, who, at the early age of eleven, had shown promise of his future career by an ode called "The Address of the Children of the Chapel Royal to the King and their Master, Captain Cooke, on His Majestie's ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... reach of his hand, never been beyond the touch of his love and care. What does he need? He needs to be trained, he needs to be educated, he needs to be developed for man is just as naturally religious as he is musical or artistic, as he is interested in problems of government or economics, or any of the great problems that touch ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... crackling log from which a brilliant train of sparks was doubtless at that moment whirling up the chimney in honour of his coming—when, superadded to these enticements, there stole upon him from the distant kitchen a gentle sound of frying, with a musical clatter of plates and dishes, and a savoury smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume—Gabriel felt his firmness oozing rapidly away. He tried to look stoically at the tavern, but his features would relax into ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... guard in the remote west; the divine cities of Meru, whose encircling towers pierced the eastern sky; the Banquet Halls of Ethiopia, gleaming through the fiery desert; the fragrant Islands of Immortality, musical and luring in the central ocean; the happy land of the Hyperboreans, beyond the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Carved gourds and calabashes, shell- scrapers, nets of olona fibre, a junk of ie-ie baskets, and fish- hooks of every bone and spoon of shell. Musical instruments of the forgotten days—ukukes and nose flutes, and kiokios which are likewise played with one unstoppered nostril. Taboo poi bowls and finger bowls, left-handed adzes of the canoe gods, lava-cup lamps, stone mortars and pestles and poi-pounders. And adzes again, a myriad ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... said, "of your rare talent, and of your many elegant accomplishments. I know how to sing a little, although I cannot claim to possess any musical learning; and now that I have the honor of finding myself in the society of a musical professor, I will venture to lay modesty aside, and beg you to sing a few songs with me. I should deem it no small gratification if you would condescend to ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... bitter; it was like beginning a new life with a new identity, though Clayton suffered less than he anticipated. He had become interested from the first. There was nothing in the pretty glen, when he came, but a mountaineer's cabin and a few gnarled old apple-trees, the roots of which checked the musical flow of a little stream. Then the air was filled with the tense ring of hammer and saw, the mellow echoes of axes, and the shouts of ox-drivers from the forests, indignant groans from the mountains, and a little town sprang up ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... sympathetically, though with a little nervousness. "Be just a wee bit careful with the flashlight—about turning it toward the window, I mean—and read in your nice low voice. I always like poetry best when it's almost whispered. I think it sounds more musical that way, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Ridotto al Fresco, a term which the people of this country had till that time been strangers to. These entertainments were repeated in the course of the summer, and numbers resorted to partake of them. This encouraged the proprietor to make his garden a place of musical entertainment, for every evening during the summer season. To this end he was at great expense in decorating the gardens with paintings; he engaged a band of excellent musicians; he issued silver tickets at one guinea each for admission, and receiving great encouragement, he set up an ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... followed after the newest strains; and now the lessons of former ages, though they have a persuasive eloquence for the tranquil listener, are as blank and as silent as the grave to the general ear. The voice of the past, all musical as it is with the finest harmonies of human intelligence, is lost in the jangling din of temporary discussions. Philosophy steals from the crowd, and hides herself in retirement, awaiting a better day; true ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... the camp to guard their goods, the next morning the little army commenced its march, each chief dressed in his gayest attire, attended by a lad carrying his gun, drums beating, colours flying, and musical instruments emitting strange sounds, while the black followers of the Arabs chanted their various war songs in discordant tones. Mohammed had sent for Ned, and by signs made him understand that he was to be his armour-bearer, and to accompany him ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... chamber for the chaplain, who was of course also librarian. And again, he evinced a joy in the services of the castle chapel which sufficiently marked his vocation. The earl was both devout and musical, and the solemn tones of the Gregorian Church Modes were rendered with peculiar force by the deep voices of the men, for which they seemed chiefly designed. As Martin listened, he became aware of sensations and ideas which he could not express—he wept for joy, or trembled with emotion ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... before a theatre into which a stream of pleasure seekers were pouring. The ticket speculators were yelling their wares on the sidewalk. The play was a famous musical comedy. He knew to-night why musical comedy had such vogue in the money centres of the world. It had become the supreme expression of the utterly absurd—the reduction of life to the terms of an absurdity expressed ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... stage (musical comedy), petite, piquant, and very lively; a true grasshopper, living only for the summer; a loud, reckless but respectable young woman, who, having but thirty shillings a week salary and to find her own "tights," was ever ready to accept motor drives, dinners, or a smart hat, or frock, from ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... bravery and good qualities, his voice too musical to halloa to the dogs, his bravery in riding races for the gentlemen of the county, and his constancy in refusing bribes and temptation, have something refreshing in their naivete and freshness, and prepossess one in favor of that handsome ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... woman whose nickname was "Pickled Pork." One historian says: "The marriage festival was celebrated with great pomp: representatives of every tribe and nation in the Empire took part, with native costumes and musical instruments: some rode on camels, some on deer, others were drawn by oxen, dogs and swine. The bridal couple were borne in a cage on an elephant's back. A palace was built entirely of ice for their reception. It was ornamented with ice pillars and statues, and lighted by ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... permitted, contain a good number of suitable hymns admitting antiphonal arrangement. They should supply some grave thought of God's help, or Christ's mediation, or our dependence on Him. The Anthem is a bond of union, not a musical interruption. (See ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... If Buelow's musical trinity, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, had a fourth divinity added, it would surely have been Liszt. The first day's program contained chiefly works by the Hungarian master; among them Au bord d'une Source, Scherzo and March, and ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... now will she wot, When I sit by her side with my brows in a knot, And praise her so calmly, or chide her perhaps, If her voice falter once in its musical lapse, As I've done, I confess, just to gaze at a flush In the white of her throat, or to watch the quick rush Of the tear she sheds smiling, as, drooping her curls O'er that book I keep shrined like a casket ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... whether rough or even, there are formed within us, singing the beauty and wonder of what is or what should be, mysterious sequences and harmonies of notes, new every time, answering to the primaeval everlasting affinities between ourselves and all things; our souls becoming musical under the touch of ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... ardour of their pleasure. I must therefore warn that well-known character, the general reader, that I am here embarked upon a most distasteful business: taking down the picture from the wall and looking on the back; and, like the inquiring child, pulling the musical ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... door of the closet and waited. It would mean a search, probably, this discovery that Morgan had been struck down in his own room by an unknown intruder. And a search certainly would be started at once. First there was confusion, and then a clear, musical man's voice began to give orders: "Harrison, take the cellar. Lefty, go up to the roof. The rest of you take ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... moments' delay. So far as he was personally concerned he felt very unlike the frivolity of the typical musical comedy; but still, he had finished his dinner by this time and was not disposed to be churlish. Fenwick had completed his repast also, and was sipping his coffee in an amiable frame of mind, heedless apparently of business worries of ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... the curious it may be explained that "lamb's singing," the name applied to the musical performances of new boys at Fellsgarth on first-night, is supposed to have derived its title from the frequency with which these young gentlemen fell back upon "Mary had a little lamb" as their theme on ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... our neighbors' or our own. Husbands and wives, parents and children, fellow-citizens and friends, or strangers, owning but the bond of humanity, let such discrete sentences—if we may use rhetorically a musical word—from your lips afford a sweeter consonance than can vibrate and flow from all the pipes and strings of orchestra or organ. So sympathy and verity shall be at one: mercy and truth shall meet together, righteousness and peace ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... to pieces and see what she's made of, if you please,' tittered a pretty German toy that moved to a tinkling musical accompaniment. 'If her works are available after that it will be an ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... sort of way, with the national melodies of England, Scotland, and Ireland," said Pedgift Junior. "I'll accompany you, sir, with the greatest pleasure. This is the sort of thing, I think." He seated himself cross-legged on the roof of the cabin, and burst into a complicated musical improvisation wonderful to hear—a mixture of instrumental flourishes and groans; a jig corrected by a dirge, and a dirge enlivened by a jig. "That's the sort of thing," said young Pedgift, with his smile of supreme confidence. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... of Box is of great value for musical instruments, and for forming the handles of many tools: being very hard, it admits of a fine polish. This tree is growing in quantity at Box-hill in Surry, and has ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury |
