"Piano" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on a young cousin we got on quite quickly. We left her old dance programmes and several unimportant things of doubtful ownership to her greatest rival; her piano (with three notes missing), on which she had learnt to play as a child, to her Aunt in Australia, said Aunt to pay carriage and legacy duty; her violin to the people in the next flat; her French novels to the church library; her golf clubs and tennis ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... him captive near the piano by playing for him the haunting music of Chopin which I had but just begun to understand. He was disquieted however by my playing, and he said that Chopin's music was too exuberant and at the same time too enervating for me. He had come among ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... other," whispered Lissa with all her sweet fearlessness. "Oh, dear! there goes that monotonous piano and ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... kept referring to it as one of the Belgian Atrocities. There was a larger room opening out of the parlor in which we sat, a sort of general reception and smoking-room combined. There was an old square piano out there and some young man was banging ragtime on it, while half a dozen others leaned over it and roared out songs in several different keys at once. All around the room sat men, smoking until the air was blue, and talking in loud voices, or shouting snatches of ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... treasured, and thought over, day after day. The children wondered why the little dog did not play with them as usual; they did not know how eagerly it was wandering about, listening to every strain of music it could catch. The young ladies who played on the piano could not imagine why that little dog was always under the windows, and why it gave such a hopeful bark every time they began a new Polka or Sehnsucht, and why it whined so sadly every time it was over. ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... after he had read as much as his strength would allow, and before the reading aloud began, he would often lie on the sofa and listen to my mother playing the piano. He had not a good ear, yet in spite of this he had a true love of fine music. He used to lament that his enjoyment of music had become dulled with age, yet within my recollection, his love of a good tune was strong. I never heard him hum more than one tune, the Welsh song ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Victor, whom he had not seen for five years. After a few days here with his two boys, he started for Bayou Sara to see his wife. Beaching Mr. Johnson's house in the early morning, he went at once to his wife's apartment: "Her door was ajar, already she was dressed and sitting by her piano, on which a young lady was playing. I pronounced her name gently, she saw me, and the next moment I held her in my arms. Her emotion was so great I feared I had acted rashly, but tears relieved our hearts, once ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... Alabama. I had a home on it. I lost it. We brought a suit for water damage. We lost it, I reckon. They fixed a dam that ruined my place. I left and went to the North—to Springfield, Ohio. I started public work and worked three or four months in a piano factory. I liked farming the best and come back to it. My boys hope me down hill. I got two boys. My girl left me all I got now. She is dead. I got a home and twenty-five acres of ground. She made the money washing, ironing and farming. I 'plied for the old folks' ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... reached his thirteenth or fourteenth year, his taste for both music and painting was awakened. His liking for these two arts was so genuine and sincere, and consequently his progress in them so rapid, that he came to be looked upon as a child-wonder. He would sit down at a piano and play improvisations and other compositions of his own creation, to the astonishment of all who heard him, for his performances, though somewhat fantastic, were not wanting in talent and originality, and his diminutive stature made him appear some years younger than he really was. In drawing ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the front doorbell rang. Marie, the maid, went to open the door. Genevieve adjusted the down-sweeping, golden-brown tress over her right eye, brushed an invisible speck from the piano, straightened a rose in a vase, and after these traditionally bridal preparations, waited with a bride's optimistic smile the advent of a caller. But it was Marie who appeared at the door, with a ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... parlour. It was small and rather stiff. As one's eyes became accustomed to the dim green light one noticed the incongruity of the furniture: the horsehair chairs and sofa, and large accountant's desk with ledgers; the large Pleyel grand piano; a bookcase, in which all the books were rare copies or priceless MSS. of old-fashioned operas; hanging against the wall an inlaid guitar and some faded laurel crowns; moreover, a fine engraving of a composer, twenty years ago the most popular man in ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... went to the piano and played a long, sad phrase of Borodin, the one which is sung by the recumbent woman just before Prince Igor's dances. Before Aurelle's eyes floated Northern landscapes, muddy fields and bleeding faces, mingling with the women's bare shoulders and the silk embroideries in the studio. ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... that I should be a good economist, a good mistress, as well as a good mother of a family. I wish my Eudora to be able to accompany her voice agreeably on the harp. I wish that she may play agreeably on the piano-forte; that she may know enough of drawing, to feel pleasure from the sight and from the examination of the finest pictures of the great painters; that she may be able to draw a flower that happens to please her; and that she may unite in her dress elegance and simplicity. I should wish that her ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... Cricklander saw that a storm was gathering upon Mr. Hanbury-Green's brow and, admirable hostess that she was, she decided to smooth the troubled waters, so she went across the room to the piano, and began to play a seductive valse, while John Derringham followed her and leaned upon the lid, and tried to feel as devoted ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... round ... Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound— The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ... Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... current incidents of her daughter's career. "She got dressed on purpose before dinner. But she's got a friend of hers there; that gentleman—the Italian—that she wanted to bring. They've got going at the piano; it seems as if they couldn't leave off. Mr. Giovanelli sings splendidly. But I guess they'll come before very ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... company, but what hot feeling repressed, what romantic possibility, what fates unfulfilled lay under the courteous conventionality of the time! Fred leaned over Leonora at the piano. Their voices sounded well together, and if he could not declare his admiration of her, no doubt he conveyed it to her in some tender refrain or serenade. Their blended, passionate voices often moved me in a strange excitement, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in the reading-room's affairs. There was the matter of a new piano for the Sunday-school room. The instrument in use had been a second-hand one when the Sunday School obtained it; and it ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... by sounded a piano; a foolish jingle, but it smote her with a longing for companionship, for friendly, cheerful talk. And then of a sudden she determined that this life of intolerable isolation should come to an end. Her efforts to find employment that would bring her among people had failed ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... the old man, "but Billy Brue ain't exactly broke to a shack like this. I know just what he'd do all his spare time; he'd set down to that new-fangled horseless piano and play it ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... on Reginald's breast! (At this part of the lecture Artemus pretended to tell a story—the piano playing loudly all the time. He continued his narration in excited dumb-show—his lips moving as though he were speaking. For some minutes the audience indulged in ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... eleven in the morning. When the strident voice of the clock again aroused me, I had just time to dress and reach the Grand Central by half-past four. I recognized that I was hungry, that the vicinity was snowed over with sheets of paper, that the piano keys had acquired another inkstain, and my pipe had charred another black spot on the desk top. Well, it had been a good day; and Phillida's tea would have to be my belated luncheon or early dinner. Even so, it was ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... but heart, in the company of Ghita. In this manner the yawl moved ahead, though with materially diminished speed, until, by the formation of the heights, and the appearance of the lamps and candles on the piano, Ghita knew that they were drawing quite near to the indentation of the coast on which is situated ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... time that one of the windows facing the course was broken, and my relief was great. I went down on my knees and helped him in his search. We ran the ball to earth finally inside the piano. ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... have defined his mental state as he made his way through the big rooms towards the door, but he was aware of one main desire—to escape from Fairview. With the odours of the flowers in the tall silver vases on the piano—her piano!—the spirit of desire which had so long possessed him, waking and sleeping, returned,—returned to torture him now with greater skill amidst these her possessions; her volume of Chopin on the rack, bound in red leather ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Francesca appearing in the doorway. "They will know it is only Penelope's havering," and with this undeserved scoff, she took her mashie and went golfing; not on the links, on this occasion, but in our microscopic sitting-room. It is twelve feet square, and holds a tiny piano, desk, centre-table, sofa, and chairs, but the spot between the fireplace and the table is Francesca's favorite "putting green." She wishes to become more deadly in the matter of approaches, and thinks her tee shots weak; so these two deficiencies she is trying ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... cock. Drink—well, of course I do. No sense in only eating.... Let's look about for a place where there's a piano," said Falkenberg. ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... request Miss Wilson sat at the piano and played a few strains of an old waltz we had been discussing. I stood beside her while she sat there, and in tones trembling with the intensity of my feelings I poured forth the old, old story. I told her of my love in such words as I could ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... problems in Euclid, while she had little or no artistic faculty. He put her through much the same course as his own boys, gave her half an hour's private lesson on unoccupied afternoons, and cut down the two hours' practising on the piano to a bare thirty minutes. Esther had pleaded to give up music altogether, on the ground that she had neither love nor skill for this accomplishment, but to this the ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... with palms, while over the sideboard were suspended the American flag and Union Jack intertwined, this last in honour of our two cable experts, both of them being Britishers. We women donned our smartest frocks, the electric piano, slightly out of tune, did rag-time to perfection, the menu included every conventional Christmas dish, and yet—and yet it was not Christmas, and all the roast turkey and plum pudding in the world could not make it so. It was a very jolly dinner, to be sure, well ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... and found in his drawing-room the usual collection of theatrical prints and portraits of opera-dancers, mixed up with those of old statesmen, which he seemed to think perfectly natural, and no doubt he fancies he has good reason for so thinking. There were also a piano and some European luxuries ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... have often seen piano-forte players and singers make such strange motions over their instruments or song-books that I wanted to laugh at them. "Where did our friends pick up all these fine ecstatic airs?" I would say to myself. Then I would remember My Lady in "Marriage a la Mode," and amuse ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... his controls, and sought to meet the shifting strains, while the passenger climbed out on the wing and then upon the running gear. To trust yourself two thousand feet in mid-air with your feet on one piano wire, and one hand clutching another, while with the other hand you grope blindly for a bomb charged with high explosive, is an experience for which few men would yearn. But in this case it was successful. The bombs fell—nobody cared where—and the two imperilled ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... weighing—I will not say how many hundreds of pounds, for the sum is unbelievable. These were young women, and they strode smartly along under these astonishing burdens with the air of people out for a holiday. I was told that a woman will carry a piano on her back all the way up the mountain; and that more than once a woman had done it. If these were old women I should regard the Ghurkas as no more civilized than the Europeans. At the railway station at Darjeeling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... still against them. A German opera appeared on the bill. Carmina turned to the music-seller in despair. "Is there no music, sir, but German music to be heard in London?" she asked. The hospitable shopkeeper produced a concert programmed for that afternoon—the modest enterprise of an obscure piano-forte teacher, who could only venture to address pupils, patrons, and friends. What did he promise? Among other things, music from "Lucia," music from "Norma," music from "Ernani." Teresa made another approving mark with her thumb-nail; ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... mite hard o' hearin'," or the unfortunates who were "not so fur-sighted" as we. So we seated ourselves in delight already begun, for was not Mr. Gad Greenfield performing one of the "orchestral pieces" which the programme had led us to expect? The piano was an antique, accustomed to serve as victim at Sudleigh's dancing-school and sociables. I have never heard its condition described, on its return to Sudleigh; I only know that, from some eccentric partiality, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... was born, on the 21st October 1801, at Treves, of parents in the middle rank of life. When quite a child, the predominating taste of his life was so strongly developed, that in spite of harsh masters he learned to play on the piano, violin, bassoon, and several wind-instruments; and at the age of twelve could read at sight the most difficult music, and even attempted composition. Music, however, was not intended to be his profession, and was only carried on as a relaxation from the severer studies to which Mainzer devoted ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... more to each other that evening. Argemone was called to the piano; and Lancelot took up the Sporting Magazine, and read himself to sleep till the party separated ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... an energetic and original man. He was in the habit of appearing at concerts both as violinist and 'cellist. He was unable to play the piano, so when he was conductor of the opera at Lemberg he directed with the violin, and frequently had to play two parts, which gave him great command over his double stops. When the fame of Paganini reached him he set forth to Italy, that he might profit by hearing the ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... time onward he had always stuck to the firm, working in the tally sheds; paid, out of his earnings, for the use of a room and a piano for practising upon so many hours each week, completely happy ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... then, with cedah and polish it so well that laik the mirrors it will reflect her face as she walks about. Heah will be the music room. It shall have a piano made of the same rich wood. It will look as if it were built in the house. Theah shall be guitahs and mandolins. She plays the guitah a little, Cyclona, the Princess. You should see her small white hands as she fingahs the strings. I will have a low divan of many ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... besides being taught the ordinary duties of life by their mother, such as mouse-hunting, fish-stealing, and bird-catching, they received instructions in the arts of singing, and playing the harp and the piano, and were taught to waltz and dance the polka with every imaginable grace. Now when the kittens grew to be of age, it was their custom of an afternoon to spend some hours at tea and intellectual talk. The youngest always performed ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... dressing table with toilet water and ring my piano top with wet glasses and spatter grease on the kitchenette wall. But I'll be earning a million," Harrietta announced, recklessly, "or thereabouts. Why should ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... into a vault a few notes of prelude were struck upon the piano in the parlor below, and a sweet voice, softened by ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... gambling-hall saloon by the flimsiest board partition. Odors of alcohol, confusion of voices, and calls of a gamester came unimpeded to the women's senses, together with some mighty bad singing, accompanied lustily by strains and groans pounded from a ghastly piano. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... than that of England, and the possibilities for exercise greater than could there have been allowed. Books there were in abundance—2,700 of them at last: he had back files of the "Moniteur" for his writings, and copies of "The Times" came regularly from Plantation House: a piano had been bought in England for L120. Finally there were the six courtiers whose jealous devotion, varying moods, and frequent quarrels furnished a daily ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... in a big chair beside the piano, and sat there alone, interested and curious. And presently Pittiwitz, stealing toward the hearth, arched her back under his hand, and he reached down and lifted her to his knee, where she stretched herself, sphinx-like, her amber eyes shining in ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... puede, en verdad, inspirar respeto la debilidad y la ignorancia? De hecho cuando la mujer estaba en aquel estado en que se tasaban sus conocimientos, porque se creia que un poco de culinaria, de bordado y de piano, a mas de saber el catecismo, eran suficientes para el matrimonio, unica carrera que se le permitia, el hombre le dispensaba toda clase de consideraciones y cortesias, pero estas no estaban inspiradas en un verdadero sentimiento de respeto sino mas bien en una especie de caballerosidad, ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... from the well; and as all the rooms open into the court, you can see the white-capped cook over the furnace in the kitchen, and some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-a-manger. "Edmond, encore un vermouth," cries a man in velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic after-thought, "un double, s'il vous plait." "Where are you working?" asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. "At the Garrefour de l'Epine," returns the other ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... billeted a cavalry officer and four soldiers. The only thing the American has had to complain of up to now is that every morning at six o'clock the officer wakes him up by playing the "Pilgrims' Chorus" from "Tannhauser" on the piano. ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... carved elaborately, and the faded, brocaded chairs were of the order pouf, and as inviting as they were disreputable in appearance; there was manuscript music among the general litter, a guitar hung from the wall by a tarnished blue and silver ribbon, and a violin lay on the piano; and yet, notwithstanding the air of free-and-easy disorder, one could hardly help recognizing a sort of vagabond comfort and luxury in the Bohemian surroundings. It was so very evident that the owners ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... roses and sweet-peas, cut by Christine—her fairy daughter—lay ready to hand. Between them they filled the lofty room with fragrance and harmonies of delicate colour. Then Christine flew to her beloved piano; and Lilamani wandered away to her no less beloved rose-garden. Body and mind were restless. She could settle to nothing till she knew what had passed between Nevil and Roy. His boyish confidences and adorations of the night ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... please explain to me just my position? When must I go, and—and can I take away the things that Uncle Walter has given to me from time to time? The pictures in my own rooms were given to me on certain birthdays and holidays; the piano he gave me new last Christmas, and I have a watch and ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... a little in my distresses, let me present him with the tableau before me. Seated upon the piano-stool was a young-lady of at most eighteen years: her face, had it not been for its expression of exuberant drollery and malicious fun, would have been downright beautiful; her eyes, of the deepest blue, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... buttons strung on its bars; the different rows represented units, tens, hundreds and thousands. He fingered them with incredible rapidity—in fact, he pushed them from place to place as fast as a musical professor's fingers travel over the keys of a piano. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... turned out en masse, including their energetic juggler. There were young ladies, old ladies, ladies of the harem and of the ballet; there were all races and colours. Pipers played the reels, an orchestra of eight from the Divisional band, with Pte. Williams at the piano, the other dance music. A well-stocked buffet did a roaring trade. And we all thought there had never ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... great deal of wine, both at dinner and after. In the evening, he made so many mistakes in playing cards with my aunt, that she dismissed him from the game in disgrace. He sat in a corner for the rest of the time, pretending to listen while I was playing the piano—really lost to me and my music; buried, fathoms deep, in some uneasy thoughts of ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the keyboard, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black-and-white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop—so still you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... wife was seated in front of him. Between the speeches the ladies burst forth into a sort of plaintive ditty. The party was entertained by a band of musicians, consisting of three drummers and four performers on the marimba, a species of piano. It consists of two bars of wood placed side by side; across these are fixed fifteen wooden keys, each two or three inches broad and about eighteen long, their thickness being regulated by the deepness of the note required. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... solving of a problem, for instance, the mind thinks, primarily; in the enjoyment of music it feels, primarily, though its feeling may be determined by the intellectual verdict on the music; in forcing its owner to sit at the piano and practice in the face of strong desire to attend the theater, it wills, primarily. Now one of its functions predominates; now another. But the whole mind, not a feeling section, or a thinking section, or a willing section, operates together to produce ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... that she was all right. At least, you would have said so. She talked a lot at dinner, and chaffed Bobbie, and played us ragtime on the piano afterwards, as if she hadn't a care in the world. Quite a jolly little party it was—not. I'm no lynx-eyed sleuth, and all that sort of thing, but I had seen her face at the beginning, and I knew that she was working the whole ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... times, she was accustomed to talk over household affairs with the maid, and after breakfast would visit the kitchen and make a tour of the grounds and garden. The remainder of her day would be spent in reading, in playing the piano, in doing little household tasks, or in walking about the grounds with her father. Yes, sometimes the yogi would join them, and there would be long discussions. After dinner, in the library, there would also be long discussions, but the girl had no idea what they were about. She heard a fragment ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... little daughter of his housekeeper, one of his serfs, whom he vaguely intended to set free. He passed hours playing with the pretty child, and even had an old French governess come to give her lessons. She taught little Natasha to dance, to play the piano, to put on the airs and graces of a little lady. So the years passed, and the old nobleman obeyed the girl's every whim, and his serfs bowed before her and kissed her hands. Gracefully and willfully she queened it over the ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... room now, for they made use of each other's lodgings alternately, and there was a battered and rather out-of-tune piano. Sometimes, after the evening performance, there would be a gathering of the conspirators, all more or less morose, unshaven and untidy; and while Emile played for her, Arithelli would stand in the middle of the room, her green eyes blazing out of her pale face, her arms folded, ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... limitations, he took lessons on the piano, and often warbled in the domestic circle. In 1843 he writes—"I am learning to sing some of Moore's songs, which I think I shall do to great perfection," His daughter says, with filial piety, that, ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... natures of the two means differ, it does not stultify the water-color that it cannot run the deep gamut of oil. Even if the church-organ be the grandest and most comprehensive of musical instruments we may still be permitted to cherish our piano. Each has its own sphere, its own reason for being. So of the pen,—the piccolo flute of the artistic orchestra. Let it pipe its high treble as merrily as it may, but do not coerce it into ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... French friends did not need to be unfortunate in order to be perfect, and that the doctrine of perfection reached by suffering was a barbarous cruelty, held in horror under the beautiful sky of Italy. When the conversation languished, he prudently sought again at the piano the phrases of the graceful and banal Sicilian air, fearing to slip into an air of Trovatore, which was written in ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... porch and the living room were scrubbed spotlessly clean. There was a rug on the floor, while a piano across one corner, a chifforobe with mirrored doors, a bureau, and several comfortable chairs completed the room's furnishings. A motley assortment of pictures adorning the walls included: The Virgin Mother, The Sacred Bleeding Heart, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... vivid picture of his irritation when she was waltzing in his presence at Matlock; then an account of their riding together in the country on their return to the family residence; again, of his bending over the piano as she was playing the Welsh air of "Mary Anne;" and lastly, of his overhearing her heartless speech to her maid, which first opened his eyes to the real state of affairs—"Do you think I could ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... him, "you must ricollect you ain't at home. What 'ud yo' pa think?" Then she stopped suddenly, and Joe gulped his beer and Kitty went to the piano to relieve her embarrassment. ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... purity of the lines refined by illness, the slowness of the glances, and the occasional fixity of the eyes, made Pierrette an almost perfect embodiment of melancholy. She was served by all with a sort of fanaticism; she was felt to be so gentle, so tender, so loving. Madame Martener sent her piano to her sister Madame Auffray, thinking to amuse Pierrette who was passionately fond of music. It was a poem to watch her listening to a theme of Weber, or Beethoven, or Herold,—her eyes raised, her lips silent, regretting no doubt the life escaping her. The cure Peroux and Monsieur Habert, ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... o'clock on the following morning we reached Moldeoen, where the steamer landed us on a rock on which were a few acres of grass and half a dozen wooden houses. We had a good deal of luggage with us, also some casks, cases, and barrels of provisions, and a piano-forte, as our place of sojourn is somewhat out of the way and far removed from civilised markets. A few poverty-stricken natives stood on the rude stone pier as we landed, and slowly assisted us to unload. At the time I conceived that the idiotical ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... the piano (or any instrument) has a vibration rate of about 260. Go up an octave from this and you double the number of vibrations per second; go down an octave and you halve the number of vibrations. Of any two notes that are an octave ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... she sings, it's a shame I haven't got a piano," Miss Birdseye took upon herself to respond. It came back to her that the girl ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... well-educated, up-to-date young woman with whom a friendly flirtation was just what it was with white womankind—the pleasant amusement of an hour or season. It was a mistake—a very big mistake. Tannis understood something of piano playing, something less of grammar and Latin, and something less still of social prevarications. But she understood absolutely nothing of flirtation. You can never get an Indian to see the sense ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... replied Panshin, with a peculiar bright and sweet smile, which came and went suddenly on his face. He drew up a chair with his knee, sat down to the piano, and striking a few chords began to sing, articulating the words clearly, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... silly possessor of a one-third interest in some great mines on the Klondike River. He told every one of his great deeds, and what he was worth. He let us know how big his house was, and how much he paid for his piano. He was not a bad man, he was merely a cheap man, and was followed about by a gang of heelers to whom drink was luxury and vice an entertainment. These parasites slapped the teamster on the shoulder and listened to every ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... into the dimly lighted house, through the drawing-room, which was quite dark, into the music-room beyond; and there she sat down upon a chair by the piano—a little gilded chair that revolved as she pushed herself idly, now to the right, now ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... all polite advances during the first few days after his arrival at Houston Mansion. Despite Miss Husted's oft-repeated inquiries after the professor's health (the title had been conferred on him by virtue of his possessing a violin and on the arrival of a piano for his room), despite her endeavours to direct conversation into a channel which might lead to a discussion of his personal affairs, Herr Von Barwig remained tacit; hence a mystery attached itself to the personality of the professor. It is a curious fact that the one gentleman of genuine ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... I had finished my "Lord's Prayer" and "Creed." She sat down on the floor, so that she could hide everything quickly under the table in case my aunt returned. But my aunt did not come again, as she and her daughter used to spend their evenings at the piano, whilst my uncle taught ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... important duties were done more punctually and exactly, but because the one was a sympathising man, and the other a mere machine. There was all the difference between the two men that there is between the music of a street piano that rattles through long runs with provoking correctness, and a sweet air played by the fair hands of one whose soul is ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... were in vogue. The words we sang were real poetry, and so distinctly enunciated as to leave no doubt in the listener's mind as to the language in which they were written. We had not learned that tunes were musical tricks. Better still were the Sunday evenings about the piano, everybody lending a helping (never hindering) voice, from grandpapa's cracked pipe down to the baby's tiny treble. Every morning the Lord of the home heard "our voices ascending high" from the family altar, and in the nursery feverish ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... war he had hardly published a line. He spent his summers in the company of books, at the piano, on expeditions, and in playing tennis. During winter he hunted. Hunting was a greater passion with him than poetry. Much of his poetry celebrated the loveliness of the field as seen by the huntsman in the early morning light. But few probably guessed that the youth ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... a barricade of chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops; while a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being successfully wound up, as ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... advice to leave, many Americans insisted on remaining in Germany. Few of them were business people; there were many song-birds, piano players, and students. We had much trouble with these belated Americans. For example, one woman and her daughter refused to leave when advised, but stayed on and ran up bills for over ten thousand marks; and as arrest for debt exists in Germany, they could not leave when ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... brothers-in-law stood close together (two of them had in the meantime become fathers, and the wife of Keyl II., nee Moeller, was in an interesting condition), and chatted about their various uncles and aunts. As of yore, the singing, violin and horn-playing Manitius was at the piano, turning over the leaves of a pianoforte arrangement of the "Trompeter von Saekkingen." And again, as of old, the little red-haired Dr. von Froeben held forth learnedly to every one who would listen. There were only two new men who had entered the regiment during his illness, ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... hair watered down, humdrum neckties, composing away from the piano, no animals—it's all against me ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... They sang hymns at the piano, selecting oftenest those which made best display of Miss Garnet's and Mr. March's voices. Hers was only mezzo-soprano and not brilliant, but Mr. March and a very short college girl, conversing for a moment aside, agreed that it was "singularly winsome." Another college girl, very ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... I were still leaning out of the open window in our nightshirts, watching the play of the cedar-branch shadows on the moonlit lawn, and planning schemes of fresh devilry for the sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of the jocund piano declared that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in their listless, impotent way; for the new curate had been bidden to dinner that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all the world ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... pleasure to their child, from whom they had never been willing to separate. Imagine the happiness of the poor parvenu peasant as he listened to his charming Cesarine playing a sonata of Steibelt's on the piano, and singing a ballad; or when he found her writing the French language correctly, or reading Racine, father and son, and explaining their beauties, or sketching a landscape, or painting in sepia! What joy to live again in a flower ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... moment Wilke came and brought some letters. One was from Kessin, from Innstetten. "Ah, from Geert," said Effi, and putting the letter in her pocket, she continued in a calm tone: "But you surely will allow me to set the grand piano across one corner of the room. I care more for that than for the open fireplace that Geert has promised me. And then I am going to put your portrait on an easel. I can't be entirely without you. Oh, how I shall be homesick to see you, perhaps even on the wedding ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... expense was to be borne by herself; and Mrs. Mills therefore only offered a feeble objection when the girl arranged that the front room upstairs was to be turned out, rout seats hired, and a few articles of furniture, including the piano-forte (which, at one perilous moment, threatened to remain for the rest of its life at the turn of the staircase), transferred from the shop parlour. Bulpert announced his intention of taking charge of the musical and dramatic part of the entertainment. Bulpert no longer ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... He kindly added, that money so earned should bring some pleasure in its expenditure to those who had obtained it by industry, and that he did not see why their parlour should not in time be graced by a pair of globes, or even a piano, honourably obtained by their own exertions. This was a splendid prospect, and an animating one for these good girls, and they determined to set to work again, as soon as the holidays should afford them leisure. It was now necessary, however, ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... banners,' than that little brown-eyed woman of mine when she takes the lapel of my coat in one hand, raises the forefinger of the other, turns her head sideways like a thrush watching a wriggling worm, and says, in a voice that rises as fast as the sound a mouse makes racing up the treble of the piano keys: 'Ump! whew! Didn't I tell you so? The minute my back was turned, of course you made ducks and drakes of all your promises. Show me a "Flying Jenney," that the tip end of any idiot's little finger can spin around, and I'll christen it Edward McTwaddle Singleton!' Seems funny ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... giving one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano, and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless five-finger exercises of a ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... come from Lowbridge to say good-bye. Everybody was quite cheerful and bright, but nobody said much about the war being soon over, as they had said when Jem went away. They did not talk about the war at all—and they thought of nothing else. At last they gathered around the piano and sang the grand ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... can, in some degree, account for the fashion these composers have gained, and why, I fear, they are likely to maintain it. It is that the public have become too musical. Every female, from the highest to the lowest, whose parents can purchase a piano-forte, and pay a master, must learn music; the number of teachers and pupils are multiplied without end; and out of either class how many are there qualified by nature as singers? Not two in fifty. What follows? By labour and attention science may be acquired, although ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... place. But the Association got a new lease of life. It engaged large, airy, pleasant rooms, in a central position. It kept its prayer meeting room neatly and appropriately furnished, but it added a large social parlor, its walls adorned with pictures, a fine piano invitingly open, the best current periodicals, secular and religious, upon the tables, and games of checkers, chess, and dominoes distributed about the room. The young men came in crowds. They were thrown at once into contact with the Christian youth of every church in the city; ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... the worse for Colorow society," laughed Serviss. Then, to clear the shadow which had gathered on the girl's face, he said: "I see a fine piano, and shelves of music books. This argues that you love music. Won't you sing for me? I am hungry for ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... rings, and to leave a rosy blur in the brain. The fingers were short and tapering, dimpled at the base, with nails as smooth as rose-leaves. Ralph lifted them one by one, like a child playing with piano-keys, but they were inelastic and did not spring back far—only far enough to show ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... some classical or fashionable music had been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all, was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know what thoughts you are recalling ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... art was common to all the family. His father died and his mother married an actor, Ludwig Geyer. The stepfather became very fond of young Richard and intended to make a painter of him, but upon hearing him play some of his sister's piano pieces Geyer wondered if it were possible that he had ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... the huge piano that occupies the corner at the left of the door looms out in the uncertain twilight! I neither play nor sing, yet I own a piano. It is a comfort to me to look at it, and to feel that the music is there, although I am not able to break the spell that binds it. It is pleasant to know that Bellini ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... kept up a desultory dialogue with the different domestics, occasionally throwing out a remark to the Judge concerning the deer; but as his conversation at such moments was much like an accompaniment on a piano, a thing that is heard without being attended to, we will not undertake the task of recording his ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... plays at billiards—nay, every village has its billiard tables, one of which is almost as frequent an article of furniture in private houses, as piano-fortes are in England; and the sign of two maces crossed, and the inscriptions "Cafe et Billards" are as common over the wine-houses in the provinces, as chequers formerly were in our own country towns. I remember meeting with a curious adventure during my last residence in Paris. One morning, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... the work of the government in a most able manner. Typewriting, dictaphone, switchboard operating, telegraphy, osteopathy, massage, and salesmanship are to be taught to those who are fitted for these branches; and trades and occupations, including piano tuning, winding coils for armatures used in electric motors, joinery, mat and mattress making, broom and basket making, rug weaving, and shoe cobbling are to be taught to those who are not fitted for the professions. The government will send over to France at least one blind teacher for each base ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... our mess we found our principal recreation in reunions with other fraternities at the patisserie or in an occasional mount. Of patisseries that at Bethune is the best; that at Poperinghe the worst. Besides, the former has a piano and a most pleasing Mademoiselle. In the earlier stages of our occupation some of the officers at G.H.Q. did a little coursing and shooting, but there was trouble about delits de chasse, and now you are allowed to shoot nothing but big game—namely, Germans—although I have heard of an ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... come to the direct percussion of a string, as in the dulcimer, piano, etc., we at once perceive a possible connection between the hammer of the one and the rod or bow of the other: the accidental colliding of the bow with the strings of its accompanying instrument would soon suggest experiments ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... saying now that Colin was wonderful. He was only seven, yet he could play the piano like a grown-up person, very fast and with loud noises in the bass. And he could sing like an angel. When you heard him you could hardly believe that he was a little boy who cried sometimes and was afraid of ghosts. Two masters ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... Milburn had long serious discussions, staying behind in the dining-room to have them after tea, when the ladies took their fancy work into the drawing-room, and Dora's light touch was heard upon the piano. It may be supposed that Hesketh brought every argument forward in favour of the great departure that had been conceived in England; he certainly succeeded in interesting his host very deeply in the English point of view. He had, however, to encounter one that was made in Canada—it resided ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Telegraph Office was occupied in that portion in Old Court House Street by a low-roofed, one-storeyed building owned by a firm of the name of Burkinyoung & Co., piano and musical instrument dealers, that in Dalhousie Square by the office and produce godowns of W. Howarth & Co.; further on to the corner of Wellesley Place by a gateway and passage, ending in a flight of stone-steps ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... had to feed thirty calves and wash the breakfast dishes. On returning from school in the afternoon, often in a state of exhaustion from walking in the blazing sun, I had the same duties over again, and in addition boots to clean and home lessons to prepare for the morrow. I had to relinquish my piano ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... and me," replied Allie, as they started to skate slowly up the creek towards home, and Howard and Marjorie dropped a little in the rear. "He was thirteen last summer, and papa says he's a real, true musician. He'll bring his own piano with him; but I don't know where he'll find room to put it, for our house is full as can be, now. Then he sings, too,—at least, he used to,—in a boy choir. Haven't you seen his picture, Ned? It's homely, but it looks as if he might not ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... buried in a piano case, together. Usually they were placed in packing cases. We asked for a flag with which to cover them as soldiers should be. They asked what that was ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... years before. He entered, drew back, and surveyed the walls with astonished eyes: could this room be a woman's lodgings? Who could live here? His old uncle was unmarried, and his aunt had dwelt for years in St. Petersburg. Could that be the housekeeper's chamber? A piano? On it music and books; all abandoned in careless confusion: ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... who hold communion in the love of classical quartet and trio music by the great masters,—in the piano poems of Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, there will be abundant opportunities. The Mendelssohn Quintette Club, the German Trio, Mr. Satter, the pianist, and would we might add Otto Dresel, will give series of concerts in the pleasant Chickering Saloon, that holds two hundred. Alas! we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... was one of the most prominent stage-singers of his time, and established a school of singing at Bologna. His most famous oratorio is entitled "Maria Vergine addolerata," and is without overture or chorus. Burney notes that in the close of this work degrees of diminution of sound, such as "piano," "piu piano," and "pianissimo," are used for the first time. Caldara wrote a large number of oratorios, mostly adapted to the poetry of Zeno and Metastasio, which are said to have been delightful productions. Colonna, who ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... garden-beds and graveled walk. She ran up the steps of the veranda and entered the drawing-room through the open French window. Glancing around the familiar room, at her father's closed desk, at the open piano with the piece of music she had been practicing that morning, the whole walk seemed only a foolish dream that had frightened her. She was Cissy Trixit, the daughter of the richest man in the town! This was her father's house, the ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... temperament badly. All his life he's been starting some new fool thing. When I first met him he prided himself on having the finest collection of photographs of race-horses in England. Then he got a craze for model engines. After that he used to work the piano player till I nearly went crazy. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... as rapid and certain as a reflex. At eight months, or a year before its first attempts at speaking, the infant distinguished between a tone and a noise, as shown by its pleasure on hearing the sounds of a piano; after the first year the child found satisfaction in itself striking the piano. In the twenty-first month it danced to music, and in the twenty fourth imitated song; but it is stated on the authority of other ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... the old lady, when I had seated myself on the porch to sip a glass of milk for which I had asked her. "The Yankee troops will go right through this house. They will break up the piano and every stick of furniture, and leave the place in ruins. You are sure to be killed ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... late as the last quarter of a century, there were strait-laced Baptist preachers (my own blood kin among them) who would not permit an organ in the church. But today it is quite the vogue for young evangelistic couples to hold forth with piano-accordion and guitar. "It peps up the joiners," the evangelist says. On the other hand, in remote churches, where preachers still hold that note-singing and hymn books with notes are the works of the Devil, ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... we lived in Was duller than a drain And nearly as dingy. There were the big College And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. There were the sordid provincial shops— The grocer's, and the shops for women, The shop where I bought transfers, And the piano and gramaphone shop Where I used to stand Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures Of a white dog looking into ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... been a concert pianist; now she had such large arthritic knobs on all of her knuckles that her hands had become claws. Though there was still that very same fine upright in the cabin that I had learned to play as a child, she had long since given up the piano. Her knees also had large arthritic knobs; this proud woman with a straight back and long, flowing strides was bent over, limping along with a cane. She was also 30 pounds overweight and her blood ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... very happily with commonplace wives, and Robert Worth had never regretted that his Maria did not play on the piano, and paint on velvet, and work fine embroideries for the altars. They had passed nearly twenty-six years together in more than ordinary content and prosperity. Yet no life is without cares and contentions, and Robert Worth had had to face circumstances ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... becomes as common an object in our homes as is a clock or a piano, we may be certain that the succeeding generation will grow up with a much broader view of life and a far greater realisation of the beauties of the natural world. To most of us a glance through a microscope is almost as unusual ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... entirely different with us. Our minister now performs the function of the Greek poet at marriages and funerals. Our funeral sermons and newspaper paragraphs have taken the place of the Greek encomiums. Our fiddles or piano do duty instead of the Greek dithyrambs, hyporchems, and other dancing songs. Our warriors are either left unsung, or celebrated in verse that reads much better than it sings. The members of the "Benevolent Pugilistic ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... they marched in humble procession into the living-room, their feet pressing without sound into the thick rugs. Everything here was fresh and new, but selected with excellent taste and careful attention to detail. Not a thing; was lacking, from the pretty upright piano to the enameled clock ticking upon the mantel. The dining-room was a picture, indeed, with stained-glass windows casting their soft lights through the draperies and the side-board shining with silver and glass. There was a cellarette in one corner, the Major noticed, and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... felt as if a number of wires passed up from the stomach to the brain, and there ramifying into small branches, communicated a sort of jarring or vibrating sensation to each particular nerve. This is a perfect musical case of a dyspeptic, who has a sort of piano-forte stomach; we might fancy him exclaiming in the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... and as it was out of the question to dismiss a governess who had been entrusted with the three daughters of the Duchess of Dulworth, Lady Durwent sent for reinforcement in the person of the organist of their church, and bade him teach Elise the art of the piano. With the dull lack of vision belonging to men of his type, he failed to recognise the spirit of music lying in her breast, merely waiting the call to spring into life. He knew that her home was one where music was unheard, and his ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... closely together. Thus it came to pass that one morning, about a month after Miss Ewes's arrival in her new home, Elma had run in with a message from her mother, and found the distinguished composer, as was often the case at that time of day, sitting dreamily at her piano, trying over on the gamut strange, fanciful chords of her own peculiar witch-like character. The music waxed and waned ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... the young girl, however, turning constantly towards the door, seemed to expect the return of the two young men with anxiety. Her cheeks became slightly flushed when they entered. The Count approached her and besought her to sing as he had often heard her. Aminta sat at the piano. Scarcely, however, had she sung the first bar, than the door of the saloon opened and Scorpione glided in and sat at the feet of the young girl, where he laid down as he used to do; not, however, daring to look at her. Since the scandal ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... status, must have been peopled by a moderately wealthy class. In fairness to Fritz it must be granted that in three years' occupation he had not purloined to any large extent from the larger houses—with the exception perhaps of a few dozen clocks, a piano or two, and ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... in a garret was overhauled, in the expectation that I was concealed within it. Even the chimneys were not neglected, though I doubt if the smallest of professional sweeps could pass through them. One of the guerrillas opened a piano, to see if I had not taken refuge under its cover. They looked into all possible and impossible nooks and corners, in the hope of finding me somewhere. At last they gave up the search, and contented themselves with promising to catch both ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... likewise, were two gilt cages from Paris, in which a heart-breaking succession of native birds drooped and died, until four Dublin finches were at last imported for Daisy's special delight; and a case with glass doors and a lock, made in Boston, wherein to store her books; and, best of all, a piano—or was it a harpsichord?—standing on its own legs, which Mr. Stewart heard of as for sale in New York and bought at a pretty high figure. This last was indeed a rickety, jangling old box, but Daisy learned in a way to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... revels of the night previous, and as though resting in preparation for those to come, it wore an air of peaceful inactivity. At a table a maitre d'hotel was composing the menu for the evening, against the walls three colored waiters lounged sleepily, and on a platform at a piano a pale youth with drugged eyes was with one hand picking an accompaniment. As Wharton paused uncertainly the young man, disdaining his audience, in a shrill, nasal tenor raised his voice ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... the room in the fading western light, Gypsy and Tom together by the window, Winnie perched demurely on the piano-stool, and Joy on the cricket at Mrs. Breynton's feet. The faint light was touching her face, and her mournful dress with its heavy crape trimmings,—there were no white chenille and silver brooches ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... to see from the white, set look of her face as the monotonous months dragged on that she was no nearer to accomplishing that task than on the day of her arrival. Nothing that Knight could do made any difference. When an upright cottage piano appeared one day, the girl seemed ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Piano, Electric. A piano whose manual or key-board operates to close electric circuits, whereby electro-magnets are caused to operate to drive the hammers ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... Courcy was often distraite when she brought her crocheting in of an afternoon, or else she was extremely, not to say boisterously gay, and talked or laughed incessantly, or sang at the upright piano that looked too large for the little parlor. The songs were apt to be compositions with such titles as, "Pretty Maggie Kelly," and "Don't Kick him when He's Down," but Druse never heard anything more reprehensible, ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... Edwards contrived to beat their enemies unassisted by these inventions. Books, likewise, which were a luxury scarcely known to the wisdom of our ancestors, are a luxury now so indispensable, that there is hardly a mechanic who has not his little library: while a piano forte also has become as necessary to a farm-house as a mangle or a frying-pan; and there are actually more copies printed of "Cherry ripe," than of Tull's husbandry. Is not a silver fork, moreover, an acknowledged necessary in every decent establishment? while the barbarous Mussulman ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... said Dorothy. "I've only eaten a wheelbarrow and a piano to-day—oh, yes! and a slice of bread and butter that used to be ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... great basso of the Opera, accompanied at the piano by one of the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking song out of Faust when the ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... only a few stray notes played over and over, over and over, till her brain rang with the maddening little refrain. She was glad when the meal was over, and she could make the excuse to move to the drawing-room. There was a piano here, a rickety instrument long since hammered into tunelessness. But she sat down before it. Anything was better than to sit and listen to that single, plaintive little voice of India ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... no higher work, nor lower work, but merely work? What if in God's eyes there be no higher duty, nor lower duty, but merely duty? If it be necessary to chop wood, and sift ashes, and mend shoes, wherefore should this be a lower occupation than to thump on the piano, and read poetry, and write books, and even listen unto lectures? But the artist is held in higher esteem than the house-drudge! What, then! shalt thou make the esteem of thy fellows, which is as changeable as the wind, thy motive for doing, rather than the esteem of ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... he said, "needs to recuperate. To feed on such a night as this in some low-down hostelry on the level of the street, with German waiters breathing heavily down the back of one's neck and two fiddles and a piano hitting up ragtime about three feet from one's tympanum, would be false economy. Here, fanned by cool breezes and surrounded by passably fair women and brave men, one may do a certain amount of tissue-restoring. Moreover, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... love her—love her so dearly as to die for her, was to her romantic imagination strange as it was beautiful. Adelaide Lyster could play upon her feelings and emotions skilfully as she played upon the chords of a piano. ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Hardee's dance-hall Tex Benton leaned against the wall and idly watched the couples weave in and out upon the floor to the whining accompaniment of the fiddles and the clanging piano. ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... point where it can be played. But, of course, you know the principal themes ... the Allegro ... and then the Intermezzo.... (He goes to the piano ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... trundled into Chicago, from twenty and thirty miles' distance, and unloaded their contents at the doors of the Northwestern Fair, for the benefit of the United States Sanitary Commission. The mechanics and artisans of the towns and cities were not behind the farmers. Each manufacturer sent his best piano, plough, threshing machine, or sewing machine. Every form of agricultural implement, and every product of mechanical skill, was represented. From the watchmaker's jewelry to horse shoes and harness; from lace, cloth, cotton, and linen, to iron and steel; from wooden and waxen and earthen ware ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... have some odd customs. People always carry their burdens on their heads. Baskets as large as barrels are carried in this way without a bit of trouble. They say that four men will carry a heavy piano on their heads but I never saw them moving one. On almost every street there are venders of sweetmeats, vegetables, brooms, baskets and furniture. I saw one vender with two dozen brooms, a dozen mops, two chairs, and a lot of other truck on his head. He had the chairs hooked ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... of her simple speech. Her big drooping eyes were wet with tears, and the little homesick note in her voice made an irresistible appeal to the hearts of those who heard it,—at least it did to mine, and I sneaked away behind the lid of the grand piano, which was open, to get out my pocket handkerchief, for I did not choose to make a spectacle of myself, and I don't know how to cry prettily, like Nora Costello. My nose gets red, and my eyes look as if I were addicted to the use ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... for you, then," said Vesta, taking the relief the talk directed her to. A piano was in another room, but, to avoid changing the scene, as well as to use a simpler accompaniment for an ignorant man's ears, she brought her guitar, and, placing it in her lap, struck the strings and the key, without waiting, to ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... think I'm made of—money?" his father had demanded. "You'll stay where you are until you've learned to read, and write, and figure: then you'll help me with the cattle. Next thing you'll be wantin' to play a flute or the piano." ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... were on both sides of them now. Half a dozen phonographs were going. From up the street came the softer strains of a piano, and from in between the shrieking notes of bagpipe. Peggy Blackton was pointing to a brilliantly lighted, black-tarpaulined shop. Huge white letters on its front announced that Lady Barbers were within. They could see two of them at work through the big window. And they ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... "Bless my piano keys!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "if I can get just one elephant, and pull out his big ivory teeth, I'll be satisfied. I want a nice pair of tusks to set up on either side of my ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton |
