"Piano" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which occurred at Front Royal. A member of my staff arranged for supper at the house of Colonel Bacon, an old man and Secessionist. The Colonel treated us politely, but while we were eating a number of ladies of the town assembled in an adjoining parlor in which there was a piano, threw the communicating door open, and proceeded to sing such Confederate war-songs as Stonewall Jackson's Away and My Maryland. We of course accepted good humoredly this concert for our benefit, but when we had finished supper, uninvited, Chaplain McCabe—now Bishop McCabe—and I stepped into ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... substance. The room, after the manner of the Dutch, was well furnished. Ponderously decorated with the same lack of proportion which is to be found in an English middle-class lodging-house. Harmonium and piano in opposite corners,—crude chromos and distorted prints upon the walls; artificial flowers, anaemic in colouring and glass-protected, on the shelves; unwieldy albums on the table; coarse crotchet drapings on the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... saw—or the dusk deceived him— A mist with hands of mist blow down from the tree And open the door and enter and close it after? Who will say that he saw, as midnight struck Its tremulous golden twelve, a light in the window, And first heard music, as of an old piano, Music remote, as if it came from the earth, Far down; and then, in the quiet, eager voices? "... Houses grow old and die, houses have ghosts— Once in a hundred years we return, old house, And live once more." ... ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... visible. She smiled to herself, however, for she knew that her singing would bring him—he worshipped it. Her heart was warm towards him, because of that moment when she rebelled and was hard at soul. She played her own accompaniment, and he was hidden from her by the piano as she sang—sang more touchingly and more humanly, if not more artistically, than she had ever done in her life. The old art was not so perfect, perhaps, but there was in the voice all that she had learned and loved and suffered and hoped. When she rose from the piano to a storm of applause, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Chopin. With a connoisseur's envy, the novelist describes to Eve the interior, the elegantly furnished dining-room in carved oak, the cafe-au-lait upholstered drawing-room, with its superb Chinese vases of fragrant flowers, its cabinet of curiosities, its Delacroix pictures, its rosewood piano, and the portrait of the authoress by Calamatta. What struck him as much as anything was the bedroom in brown, with the bed on the floor in Turkish fashion. He was careful to assure his correspondent that, Chopin being the maitre de ceans, she ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... 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, when he had once learnt a song, he sang ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... I heard the sound of a piano, somewhere in the building, and I consigned the inventor of pianos to hideous torment as scales were pursued endlessly up and down the keys. Two girls passing through the hall made a pretext of looking for a book and came in and exclaimed over their ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... for the most part of one room and a small kitchen: on the walls of the former the horses' saddles and harness, and the husband's working clothes, manufactured often by the delicate hands of his lady; in one corner, a harp or a piano; on the table, perhaps, a few numbers of the North American or Southern reviews, and some Washington or New York papers. A strange mixture of wild and civilized life. It is thus that our Johnsons, our Livingstons, and Ranselaers, and hundreds, ay, thousands of families, our Jeffersons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... they lay in wait for him, until at last he gained the broad gravel path, at the end of which—oh, how far away they seemed!—were the three lighted windows of the drawing-room. He could see the interior quite plainly, and the group round the piano where the shaded lamp made a spot of brilliant colour. What were they all doing? Were they huddled together, waiting, watching in an agony of suspense? Nothing of the kind: it will be scarcely credited, perhaps, but this heartless domestic circle were positively passing the time with ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... she centered on the child's head all her shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed of high station; she already saw him, tall, handsome, clever, settled as an engineer or in the law. She taught him to read, and even, on an old piano, she had taught him two or three little songs. But to all this Monsieur Bovary, caring little for letters, said, "It was not worth while. Would they ever have the means to send him to a public school, to buy him a practice, or start him in business? Besides, with cheek ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... sesta di sotto. "Disposizione 2/5 o 1/5. Leonardo osservo probabilmente soltanto la prima" (UZIELLl).]; the second is that two third ones above are over the two third ones below [Footnote 10: terze di sotto: "Intende qui senza dubbio parlare di foglie decussate, in cui il terzo verticello e nel piano del primo" (UZIELLI).]; and the third way is that the third above is over the third below [Footnote 11: 3a di ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... lower. But the youth was very happy with her elder brother. The two men spent afternoons together on the land or in the loft doing carpentry, when it rained. And they talked together, or Paul taught Edgar the songs he himself had learned from Annie at the piano. And often all the men, Mr. Leivers as well, had bitter debates on the nationalizing of the land and similar problems. Paul had already heard his mother's views, and as these were as yet his own, he argued for her. Miriam attended and took part, but was all the time waiting until it should ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... of service; further, within a very few days, he came to return his visit. The colonel, who had just dined, was comfortably stretched out upon his sofa, and very nearly asleep. His daughter was singing at a broken-down piano; Orso was turning over the leaves of her music, and gazing at the fair singer's shoulders and golden hair. The prefect was announced, the piano stopped, the colonel got up, rubbed his eyes, and introduced the prefect ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... Macklin, the sculptor—up from his atelier in the basement—buried in a chair and a book, pipe in mouth, before Gregg's fire—had been there for hours when Phil entered. Again he would catch the sound of the piano as he mounted the stairs, only to discover Putney, the landscape painter, running his fingers over the keys, while Adam stood before his easel touching his canvas here or there; or he would interrupt old Sonheim, who kept the book-shop ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... bore. The small Flemish and French towns offer few amenities; in 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
... large and brilliantly lighted parlor, along the four sides of which are women sitting solemn and stately, in rows three deep, with a man dropped in here and there, about as thick as periods on a page, very young or very old or in white cravats. A piano or a band or something that can make a noise makes it at intervals at one end of the room. They all look as if they were waiting for something, but nothing in particular happens. Sometimes, after the mountain has labored awhile, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... thought. "Here are roses on the porch, a piano, or at least a melodeon, by the parlor-window, and they are insured in the Mutual, as the Mutual's plate announces. Now, if that nice-looking person in black I see setting a table in the back-room is a widow, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... perfumed billet paper, without making any orthographical or grammatical mistakes, had taken three quarters' lessons of a French barber, could work worsted lapdogs and embroider slippers, danced like a sylph, and played on the piano indifferently well. She had visited the Catskills on a matrimonial speculation, and made a dead set at poor Brandon. Of course with his experience in the ways of women, he fell a ready dupe to the fascinating wiles of Miss Manners. She kept him in an agony ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... education, and rendered what would have been wearisome tasks, "labors of love." How often have I found them in the library with heads bent over the same page, and eyes expressive of the same enthusiasm; or at the piano, with voices and hands uniting to produce what was to my ears exquisite harmony. Agnes' love-requiring heart, "like the Deluge wanderer," has at last found a resting-place, and on her daughter, and on her noble, beautiful boys, the whole rich tide of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... looked a little grave, and said, "Oh, it's your nose that's tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he nose a great deal." I said, "No; it isn't the nose. Perhaps it's the hair." Then he looked rather grave, and said, "Now I understand: you've been playing too many hairs on the piano-forte." "No, indeed I haven't!" I said, "and it isn't exactly the hair: it's more about the nose and chin." Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, "Have you been walking much on your chin lately?" I said, "No." "Well!" he said, "it puzzles ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... was living amid the solitude of the island, brought them tea, in a rustic sitting-room, furnished with a couple of chairs, a table, a piano, and a sofa. The panelling was mildewed, the planks of the flooring had started. Felicie looked out of the window at the lawn and the ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... of musicians, consisting of three drummers and four performers on the piano, went round the kotla several times, regaling us with their music. Their drums are neatly carved from the trunk of a tree, and have a small hole in the side covered with a bit of spider's web: the ends are covered with the skin of an antelope pegged on; and when they wish ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... tissues. He saw things made—those famous wings that were one day to carry him up into the blue—with their longitudinal spars of ash or hickory, their ribs of light wood, their interior bracing of piano wire, their other bracing wires, and their wing covering. He saw the workmen prepare all the material for mortise and tenon work, saw them attach the tension wires, fit in the ends of poles, and finally connect ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... when it is entered, is just what it should be,—quiet, small,—with everything she wishes, and nothing more than she wishes. The sun strikes it in the happiest possible way; the piano is the sweetest-toned in the world; the library is stocked to a charm;—and Madge, that blessed wife, is there, adorning and giving life to it all. To think even of her possible death is a suffering you class with the infernal tortures ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... am eight years old. My sister Fannie and I have a pet cat. We were all at tea one evening, when we heard the piano in the other room. We ran in there, and kitty was sitting on the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... her little brother of three years old, who at once gave tokens of a degree of genius far surpassing all experience, and really bordering on the marvellous. In his fourth year he could play all sorts of little pieces on the piano. He only required half an hour to learn a minuet, and one hour for a longer movement; and in his fifth year he actually composed some pretty short pieces, several of which ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... again. I began to consider which lady of those whom I knew would suit me best, and I found one who was exactly the person I wanted. She was about thirty-five years old, was cheerful, fond of going out (I never was), a good housekeeper, played the piano fairly well, and, as the daughter of a retired major in the Army, had a certain air and manner which distinguished her from the wives and daughters of our set and would secure for me an acquaintance with the country gentlefolk, from which, ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... head, and covered her eyes with her hand. Mothers!—English mothers! who bring your daughters abroad to finish their education—do you well to expose them to scenes like these, and force the young bud of early feeling in such a precious hot-bed as this? Can a finer finger on the piano,—a finer taste in painting, or any possible improvement in foreign arts and foreign graces, compensate for one taint on that moral purity, which has ever been (and may it ever be!) the boast, the charm of Englishwomen? But what have I to do with all this?—I came here to be amused ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... down the hill to where Granny lived. It was a tiny little house, not much larger than a piano box, but it was plenty large enough for Granny, for Granny was only two feet high. Some people even thought Granny ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... were not filled to their capacity—the room occupied by that sea monarch, the captain, and that which, from having been the "Ladies' Boudoir," had been fitted up for the accommodation of the General. The piano had been wheeled out on deck, the writing table stowed away, and a fine new wide brass bedstead, with dainty white curtains and mosquito bar, a large bureau and a washstand had been moved in, and these, with easy-chairs, electric fans, electric lights and abundant air, made it the most desirable ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... really is good," interrupted Amy. "Boys, you should hear him play! He has a guitar hung over his shoulder, a harmonica strapped to his head, a piano near by to which he makes sudden dashes, and all the while he dances the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... How can I get along now! My piano is gone and how can I give lessons without it! I will have to go ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... had gathered and garnered antique pieces of furniture, ill-drawn family portraits, and chairs covered with the worsted-work and beadwork of fifty or sixty years ago. She looked regretfully at the piano and the old, neatly bound folios of music with 'M. A.' upon the covers, and she wondered how it was that no one cared to hear her 'pieces' now. She went over to the music-stand and fingered them in a contemplative way. How ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... impression at all to her mind. Observe your favourite pussy curled up in the arm-chair at such time as she knows the dishes have been cleared away, and there is no more chance of wheedling a titbit from you. You may play the piano, or the violin, or knock with a hammer, or shout your loudest, she will take no notice, no more than if she actually had no ears at all. Are you, therefore, to conclude she does not hear you? As well conclude that people do not hear the thunder ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... to country beach or village levee, wherever business can be had; floating theaters and opera companies, with large barges built as play-houses, towed from town to town by their gaudily-painted tugs, on which may occasionally be perched the vociferous "steam piano" of our circus days, "whose soul-stirring music can be heard for four miles;" traveling sawyers, with old steamboats made over into sawmills, employed by farmers to "work up" into lumber such logs as they can from time to time bring down to the shore—the product ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... while this young lady was getting more noise out of Mrs. Dunmaw's red silk and rosewood piano than had been shaken out of it during the last thirty years, that the lawyer brought his cup of coffee to Miss Betty's side, and said, suavely, "I here wonderful accounts of Lingborough, dear ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... festivity of such a gathering. There was a general feeling of gratitude and acquiescence when good-natured Rachel Klammerstein suggested that there should be an hour or two's respite from "the game" while they all listened to a little piano-playing after dinner. Rachel's love of piano music was not indiscriminate, and concentrated itself chiefly on selections rendered by her idolised offspring, Moritz and Augusta, who, to do ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... 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 ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... few letters passed between them. 'He was a true musician; not that he was a great performer on any instrument, but that he so truly appreciated all that was good and beautiful in music. He was a good performer on the piano, and could get such full harmonies out of the organ that stood in one corner of his entrance room at Little Grange as did good to the listener. Sometimes it would be a bit from one of Mozart's Masses, or from one of the finales of some one of his or Beethoven's Operas. And ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... "grisly Jaggs" was later than usual. Lydia heard him shuffling along the passage, and presently the door of his room closed with a click. She was sitting at the piano, and had stopped playing at the sound of his knock, and when Mrs. Morgan came in to announce his arrival, she closed the piano and swung round on the music stool, a look of ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... 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 ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... the dining room. The tables had been moved to one end where they were piled on top of one another; the chairs were arranged in a row along the wall; the floor, newly waxed, shone like glass. A small upright piano manipulated by an elderly female in glasses; a tremendous bass viol in charge of a small man, and a violin played by a large man represented ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... two tiny rooms for the hired help. At the other bungalow Ben and his friends occupied three little rooms, while Mr. and Mrs. Basswood had a large apartment off to one side. At this bungalow there was an extra large living-room in which was placed, among other things, a small upright piano, somewhat out of ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... trying time, when she had very little money and was alone and friendless in London. Mrs. Dent recommended her to some people in the country who would look after her child. She allowed her to pay her rent by giving lessons to her daughter on the piano. One thing led to another; the lady who lived on the drawing-room floor took lessons, and Miss Glynn is earning now, on an average, thirty shillings per week, which little income will be increased if I can appoint her to the post of organist in my church, my organist having been obliged to ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... and re-twisted before our friend found that he had twisted them enough; how many discordant scrapes gave promise of the coming harmony. How much the muslin fluttered and crumpled before Eleanor and another nymph were duly seated at the piano; how closely did that tall Apollo pack himself against the wall, with his flute, long as himself, extending high over the heads of his pretty neighbours; into how small a corner crept that round and florid little minor canon, and there with skill amazing found room ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... coffins set on end. It has been a good day, he says cheerfully, putting up the shutters; and his mind is easy. But the "good days" of The Bend are over, too. The Bend itself is all but gone. Where the old pigsty stood, children dance and sing to the strumming of a cracked piano-organ propelled on wheels by an Italian and his wife. The park that has come to take the place of the slum will curtail the undertaker's profits, as it has lessened the work of the police. Murder was the fashion of the day that is past. Scarce a knife has been drawn since the sunlight ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... ordered the ladies to provide them with refreshments, while one was commanded to sit at the piano and entertain them with music. No one was allowed to leave the room except under the escort of a bushranger, for fear that word would ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... with somewhat of Mrs. Curtis's feeling that it was a backsliding in Lady Temple, suddenly grew absent in a conversation that he was holding with young Mr. Keith upon—of all subjects in the world—lending library books, and finally repaired to the piano, where Grace was playing her mother's favourite music, in hopes of distracting her mind from Fanny's enormity; and there he stood, mechanically thanking Miss Curtis, but all the time turning a melancholy eye upon the game. Alick Keith, meanwhile, sat ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a violin sang its very soul out upon the summer night, weaving its plaint into the soft, adagio rippling of a piano's chords. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Manner, New York city.—This invention consists in placing the strings of an upright piano in an inclined position in the frame instead of a perpendicular one, as heretofore, for the purpose of enabling the hammer handle to be pivoted so near the strings that when the hammer head is driven up against them, it shall ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... time I've set into a saloon listening to that Lady that sings high up—higher than any piano can go. I've set and listened till I didn't know where I was settin'—of course I had to buy a drink, you understand, or I ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... were as delicate as any he had ever seen enmeshed in silken hose. Her hands, long, slender, taper-fingered, actually dainty, although brown and roughened by hard labor, were, it seemed to him, better fitted for the fingering of a piano's keys than for the coarse and heavy tasks to which he knew they must be well accustomed. He gazed at her in veritable wonder. How had she blossomed, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... am! Suppose Bunty comes to see why the piano's silent? Well, I can't help it! I'm going! Do the best you can for ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... King Billy was not a big mind; it would no more have taken in an abstract idea than his gunyah would have accommodated a grand piano. He was as simple as sunlight, and to resolve his intellect into seven colours would want the most ingenious spectroscope. But he could make an inference from a positive fact, and, having made it, he did not allow more remote deductions ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... mean 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
... enjoys is the fact that he has bought the brougham, and that the brougham belongs to some one else. Mrs. John Brown-Smith, who presides at our tubs from week to week, and who comes to us in a brilliant silk waist (removed for business), has just bought a piano to play Hold the Fort on, with one finger, when the neighbours are passing by—a fact which is not without national significance, which sheds light upon schools and upon college catalogues and learning-shows, and upon educational ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... dramatic perception, did it in fact with such earnestness that she had no time to have an eye to the gallery at all, she simply contemplated herself and her own vigorous accomplishment. When she played the piano as she frequently did, (reserving an hour for practice every day), she cared not in the smallest degree for what anybody who passed down the road outside her house might be thinking of the roulades that poured ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... again in the window seat. Her other guests faded here and there. For a time there were shadowy fancies from the piano, then the house was stilled. But outside an April rain was falling. It pelted the windowpanes as softly as driven petals. It made a fairy swish as of far-off waves, and we sat together in a dim light. Isabel's eyes were closed. Her head ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... are called among you—he was killed and robbed, and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in a box and sent from Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage van, and while they were nailing him up, the harlots sang songs and played the harp, that is to say, the piano. So this is that very von Sohn. He has risen from the ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... lips wiry and distinct from much practice, the words of the song coming in a vehement nasal falsetto and in a brogue acquired in the Bowery. The white face of the man who accompanied the singer on the piano was raised for a moment in a tired gesture that was also a protest; in the eyes of the singer as they met those of the accompanist was an expression of cynical Celtic humour; in the smouldering gaze of the pianist was ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... the same country-house, a week later. The scene represents a large dining-hall. The table is laid for tea and coffee, with a samovr. A grand piano and a music-stand are by the wall. Mary Ivnovna, the Princess and Peter Semynovich ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... Leigh proceeded with the turning of an old merino dress; Miss Opie adjusted her spectacles, and read Good Words. Bluebell sat down to the piano and executed a selection from Rossini's 'Messe Solennelle' with ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... exactly right place for each mirror, bowl, vase and incense holder, were rarely fine. Yet in the airy rooms there was no dreary look of the museum. On the contrary, they had an intimate, almost a homely air, in spite of their beauty. Books and magazines were allowed their place, and on a grand piano, almost in the middle of the largest room, which opened by long windows into an adroitly tangled rose garden where a small fountain purred amongst blue lilies, there was a quantity of music. The whole house was strongly scented with flowers. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Annunciations now, and are hanging Gambler Bolton's new Hippopotamus in the place of it. This Hippopotamus is to be the correct thing in pictures this year, and no woman with any claim to be considered smart will fail to have it over her piano. Marcus Stone's new engraving will also be rather chic. Watts's Hope is now considered a little dowdy.' And so forth. This gregarious admiration is the very antithesis of artistic appreciation, which I tell you, simply must ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... strictly defined as in England, where the village grocer's daughter at Valmond no longer could speak to a school friend, a little general servant who came to fetch treacle at the shop, when Pappa Grocer bought a piano! So you see, Mamma, it is in human nature, whether you are English or American, if you haven't a sense of humour. I suppose you have to be up where we are for it all to seem nonsense and not to matter; and, who knows? If there were another grade beyond us we might be just the ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... use of one arm in the carrying of weights, the habit of resting on one leg more than the other, or the assumption of a faulty attitude in writing or in playing the piano or violin, doubtless, determine the seat and direction of the curvature, and, when it has once commenced, tend to aggravate and to ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... the day Elsie was at the piano in the music- room practising, when a sudden feeling that some one was in the room caused her to turn ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... married, you know, it's not so easy, keeping up with a job. I only wish I could.... I don't like being merely a married woman. Rodney isn't merely a married man, after all.... But anyhow I'll find something to amuse my old age, even if I can't work. I'll play patience or croquet or the piano, or all three, and I'll go to theatres and picture shows and concerts and meetings in the Albert Hall. Mother doesn't do any of those things. And she is so unhappy ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... inland, come flocking once a year to the Piedigrotta fete only to see the blessed King's Volanti, or livery servants all in their best; as though heaven opened; and would not I engage to bring the whole of the Piano (of Sorrento) in likeness to a red velvet dressing gown properly spangled over, before the priest that held it out on a pole had even begun his story of how Noah's son Shem, the founder of Sorrento, threw it off ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... gone; now for the surprise. At a signal from the Duchess, the author of Roxelane took his place at the piano and swept his beard over the keys as he struck two penetrating chords. Immediately at the far end of the rooms the curtains were drawn from the door, and down the vista of brilliant apartments, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... influenced opinion even in Neck-or-Nothing Hall, albeit though "against the grain." Gustavus had sometimes heard, from the lips of the idle and ignorant, Edward sneered at for being "cruel wise," and "too much of a schoolmaster," and fit for nothing but books or a boudoir, and called a "piano man," with all the rest of the hackneyed dirt which jealous inferiority loves to fling at the heights it cannot occupy; for though —as it has been said—Edward, from his manly and sensible bearing, had escaped such sneers better than most men, still some few there were to whom his ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... materials in the top rooms. The fire broke out, as one witness described it, "almost like an explosion." Orming must have perished in this. The roof blazed up, and the sparks carried across the yard and started a stack of light timber in the annexe of Messrs. Morrel's piano-factory. The factory and two blocks of tenement buildings were burnt to the ground. The estimated cost of the destruction was one hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The casualties amounted to seven killed ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... appearance, upset all conventional ideas of what a kite should be, resembling in its simplest form a mere box, minus the back and front. Nevertheless, these kites, in their present form, have carried instruments to heights of upwards of two miles, the restraining line being fine steel piano wire. ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... their places on the funny little place back of a brass rail. Then came the delicious thrills of the squeaking violins as they were tuned, the tap-tap of the drum, the tinkle of a piano, and the soft, low ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... certainly not skillful. All I have ever been able to do in that way is to net and do the simpler forms of needlework; but it seems more natural to me to do, or try to do, everything of that sort, and to play on the piano, rather than to shoot or play games. I may add that I am fonder of babies than many women, and am generally considered to be surprisingly capable of holding them! Certainly I enjoy doing so. As a youth, I used to act in charades; but I was too shy to do so ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the threshold, he touched the switches of the electric lights. One realised then that this was a man of taste. The furniture and appointments of the room were of dark oak. The panelled walls were hung with a few choice engravings. There were books and papers about, a piano in the corner. A door at the further end led into what seemed to be a sleeping-apartment. Quest drew up an easy-chair to the wide-flung window, touching a bell as he crossed the room. In a few moments the door was opened and closed noiselessly. A young woman entered with a little bundle of papers ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have got to be taken up with other things," Mr. Eberstein went on. "Here you are going to school in a few days; then your head will be full of English and French, and your hands full of piano keys and harp strings, from morning till night. How are you ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... snorted like a colt. "Huh! Just try this on your piano." And seemingly improvising, he waved his arm toward ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... contrary, leaning his elbows on the grand piano, facing her, was devouring her with his eyes and saying in an undertone every ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... mind. Perhaps you have fallen to Miss Pennycuick's piano? Did you hear it going as we ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... to speak. He swayed back a half step with a flicker of change crossing his face then stood steady and smiling again. That brief grimace touched Bryce's nerves with a sensation that was like the jangle of something heavy dropped inside a piano, a sound he had heard once. But the numbness did not lift from his feelings. He was still smiling. The third bullet would be ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... bungalow, when he passed it on his way to the bunk house, came the measured thump-thump of a piano playing the same old tune with a stress meant to mock him and ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... and lay their hands on it in the darkest night. I'll bet they could in our house. From end to end it is kept looking as if we had shut it up and gone to Europe,—not a book, not a paper, not a glove, or any trace of a human being in sight; the piano shut tight, the bookcases shut and locked, the engravings locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first place it smells like a vault, and ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... piano when the men entered; and Leroy, who was passionately fond of music, and a musician of no mean order himself, came straight over to her. At his request, Constance sang song after song; while Vermont sat a ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... holes had been burnt here and there in the flooring, cupboards and bureaus had been broken open and their contents scattered, apparently in a search for money or valuables; many small articles of value were missing, pictures were slashed and torn, poor Dona Isolda's grand piano had but one leg left and was otherwise a complete wreck, and some priceless china vases and bowls that had been the glory of the drawing-room were lying on the floor, shivered to atoms. But a little closer inspection revealed that while ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... lies on his knee; his soft felt hat is bent and crumpled; he has yielded to the heat and is slumbering. The blinds are partly down the window, but a glimpse can be obtained of a luxurious carpet, of tables in valuable woods and inlaid, of a fine piano, of china, and the thousand and one nicknacks of highly civilised life. The reverend gentleman's suit of black, however, is not new; it is, on the contrary, decidedly rusty, and the sole of one of his boots, which is ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... that her programme is filled. So there are never any wallflowers the first night. No, Allison, it isn't a dance. The programmes are for progressive conversation. Somewhere in the background there's a piano playing waltzes and two-steps, and so forth, but you talk out the numbers instead of dancing them. Changing partners so often keeps you from getting bored, and strangers can tell who is talking to them, for there are the ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... or for any thing else that was agreeable to any one else, consistently with the dye of his coat, the Reverend Mr Larynx was at all times equally ready. When at Nightmare Abbey, he would condole with Mr Glowry,—drink Madeira with Scythrop,—crack jokes with Mr Hilary,—hand Mrs Hilary to the piano, take charge of her fan and gloves, and turn over her music with surprising dexterity,—quote Revelations with Mr Toobad,—and lament the good old times of feudal darkness with ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... and went into the house. It was deliciously cool in the hall, and for a moment peace descended on him. But the distant sound of a piano in the upper regions ejected it again by reminding him of his mission. He bounded up the stairs and knocked at the door of his sister's ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... which followed, was as irresistible as the playing of the Piper of Hamelin. The beautiful clear light came into her eyes; her lips quivered with emotion; she forgot herself, rose, and crossed the room to the piano, where she asked eagerly for song after song. The sisters begged her to come and see them the next morning, when they would sing as long as ever she liked; and she promised gladly and thankfully. But on reaching the house her courage failed. We walked some time up and down the street; ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... every one was able to come down. The house was furnished in the easy unpretentiousness that prevailed in the South in other days. Cool matting covered all the floors, the hallways, and bedchambers. The dining-room opened into a drawing-room, where Kate and Olympia took turns at the big piano. The day was divided, English fashion, into breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper, the latter as late as nine o'clock in the night. Jack being unprovided with regimentals, Vincent wore civilian garb, to spare the "prisoner" (as Jack jocosely called himself) ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... reunion of forty or fifty people with whom the family were well acquainted, several of them living in our immediate neighborhood. There was a goodly proportion of young folk, and there was to be dancing; but the music was limited to a single piano played by the German exile usual on such occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable gaiety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... of several acres in extent, surrounded by lovely little villas and summer houses, these all hurriedly deserted by the necessities of war—the furniture and fixtures left all in place as the owners took their hastened departure. In one house we visited was left a handsome piano, on which those who could perform gave the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... To Dick's astonishment, he answered that he did a little. It was accordingly proposed that they should enter the next room, where there was a piano. The young lady played some well-known melodies, and Fosdick accompanied her with his voice, which proved to be quite sweet ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the first act in that shadow fight, for I too was brought up by the strictest of parents, and, indeed, was myself, as a boy, a veritable prodigy of piety. What would you think of me as a preacher expounding the gospel over a piano-stool for pulpit to a rapt congregation of three? I could show you a sermon of that precocious Mr. Pound-text printed in the New York Observer when he was as much as nine years old—and ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... compliment very modestly, and then tried to persuade Milly to sing or play; but the girl declined resolutely. Nothing could induce her to touch the piano ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... accomplishments. Two years later, he was left an orphan and almost a beggar. For all active and industrious pursuits, Harry was unfitted alike by nature and training. He could sing romantic ditties, and accompany himself with discretion on the piano; he was a graceful although a timid cavalier; he had a pronounced taste for chess; and nature had sent him into the world with one of the most engaging exteriors that can well be fancied. Blond and pink, with dove's eyes and a gentle smile, he had an air of agreeable tenderness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the shadow of the past hang over us. Even as children forget, were we forgetting. Outside the winter's day was waning fast. The ruddy firelight danced around us. It flickered on the walls, the open piano, the glass front of the bookcase. It lit up the Indian corner, the lounge with its cushions and brass reading-lamp, the rack of music, the pictures, the lace curtains, the gleaming little bit of embroidery. Yes, to me, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... enamels; introduce me, Mary, please. Yes, they are very nice. By the way, I picked up some old point for you at Genoa, only I have not unpacked it yet. But the Gustave Moreau, where is that? Ah, I see you have shifted it over the piano. Yes, it is exactly the same; you are all precisely the same; it's delightful, such constancy—delightful! I take it as a personal compliment. But where are all the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... the piano, and there was no more said at that time. While the children were singing, David went out, and, in a little, called Philip from the window. Philip rose and went out also, and they passed down the garden together. By and by they had enough of music, ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... playing on the piano as we entered. It was a curious composition—very rhythmic, with a peculiar thread of monotonous melody running ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... hand in the kitchen if any extra cookery was required. At two she made a little toilette for dinner, and was employed on numberless household darnings and mendings in the long evenings while her sisters giggled over the jingling piano. Mamma lay on the sofa, and Gann was at the club. A weary lot, in sooth, was yours,—poor little Caroline. Since the days of your infancy, not one hour of sunshine, no friendship, no cheery playfellows, no mother's love! Only James Gann, of all the household, had a good-natured ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the Agent-in-Charge said sourly. "Had to chase all over town and pull more wires than there are on a grand piano. But they turned up, brother. Two seats. Do you know what ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Daisy, now quite warm and dry, lay down, and after tucking the afghan over her, Patty went to the piano. She played a few soft chords, and then sang, softly, a crooning lullaby. It is not surprising that under the influence of the soothing music, the warm fire, and her own fatigue, ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... of the room stood an American piano, and beside it a harp of surpassing richness. Here Carlton and Florinda were seated at this time in all the confidence and enjoyment ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... as graceful as a Roe Slips from the mountain in the month of June, And opening her Piano 'gan to play Forthwith—"It was a Friar of Orders ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... hung up like a trophy between two foxes' tails, which served the purpose of bell pulls. At this moment, my topographical observations were disturbed by the arrival of the scout with candles, and two strange-looking fellows in smock frocks, bringing in, as I supposed, a piano forte, but which, upon being placed on the table, proved to be a mere case: the top being taken off, the sides and ends let down in opposite directions, and the cloth pulled out straight, displayed ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... education by which her character had been formed. Save a sketch book which lay open on a desk at hand, and which showed talent exquisitely taught (for in this Riccabocca had been her teacher), there was nothing that spoke of the ordinary female accomplishments. No piano stood open, no harp occupied yon nook, which seemed made for one; no broidery frame, nor implements of work, betrayed the usual and graceful resources of a girl; but ranged on shelves against the wall were the best ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... if it brought topsy-turvydom in politics, like its great forerunner '89 brought the apogee of song. The popular young lyrist, ballader and minstrel, for Nadaud accompanied himself on the piano, now made a curious compact, agreeing to write songs for twenty years, a firm named Heugel paying him six thousand francs yearly ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... could not get in that way. No softening, no refining influence came into my life. My one pleasure even then was music. I had a passion for it. Miss Vincent, the vicar's daughter, taught me to play the piano, and I used to spend hours in the deserted drawing-room, playing what I knew, and picking out tunes by myself, while my father was shut up in his study. We had no near relation, no one who cared enough to take pity on an unruly, troublesome, little girl, with a drunken father. When I was between ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... and our boat steady, we had more "God save the Queen" after dinner, besides "Rule, Britannia" and other patriotic songs, several of the passengers playing the piano very well. Some one also played a violin, and the men, clearing the saloon of sofas and superfluous chairs, danced a double set of quadrilles, after having tried in vain to persuade some of the emigrant girls to become their partners. They were an amusing group—from the grinning steward, who, cap ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... babies rollicked on the floor of the piazza. Through the open door of the kitchen the colored wife could be seen directing the servants and cooks who were preparing the evening meal. In the parlor, however, was the most enchanting feature, for at a grand piano was poised the belle of the household, and beside the piano where she was playing stood her colored lover, devouring her with his eyes while he abstractedly turned the leaves of her music. Just to one side ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... with it, without its ever attempting to bite. It is larger than Mamma's grey parrot." A little later, "I sat between my dear cousins on the sofa and we looked at drawings. They both draw very well, particularly Albert, and are both exceedingly fond of music; they play very nicely on the piano. The more I see them the more I am delighted with them, and the more I love them... It is delightful to be with them; they are so fond of being occupied too; they are quite an example for any young person." When, after a stay of three weeks, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... 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 been a night ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... hat with an angry vehemence, and, seating herself at the piano, literally stormed the keys, while the Doctor re-entered his carriage and quietly proceeded to his evening round ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden) |
