"Singer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nevertheless, and the subject is well worth your while—you can depend upon that. Haven't you ever noticed that most of the women who have gone in for vocal culture have round, pretty waists? Almost invariably the singer is a woman of fine figure, well-poised head, firmly-set shoulders and easy carriage. And the reason is simple. She has learned from the beginning that she must breathe properly, that every breath must come from the abdomen and not from the chest, and ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... singer lying upon bear-skins and fragrant boughs: Cheiron, the ancient centaur, the wisest of all things beneath the sky. Down to the waist he was a man, but below he was a noble horse; his white hair rolled down over his broad shoulders, and ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... this bird's strain is in its freedom from all plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a cockerel ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... joy or sorrow, hate or love. Whether a thought is behind these alluring rhythms, with their sensuous swing or their rush of sound, is immaterial so long as the ear has satisfaction; thus Swinburne and his school fill the place of Spenser and the elder poets, and many an "idle singer of an empty day" jostles aside the masters, who can wait, knowing that sooner or later, return ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... noddin' as she drove by. Most of her neighbors was a lot younger, folks who barely remembered that there had been such a party as Clara Belle Kinney, and who couldn't have told whether she'd been a singer or a bareback rider. They only knew her as a dumpy freakish dressed old girl whose drugged hair was ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... out of doors, so she visited the "art" and "culinary" departments of the fair, and records in her diary: "I have just put an extra paragraph in my speech on bedquilts and bad cooking." Her stage was a big lumber wagon, and her desk the melodeon of James G. Clark, the noted singer and Abolitionist, who held an umbrella over her head to keep off the rain. The diary says: "More than 2,000 feet were planted in the mud, but I had a grand listening to the very end." The speech was a great ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... mischievous; yet a trainer of athletes often lays more restrictions on his ward as to when and how he shall practise, and exercises more supervision over it, than do some teachers of singing, in spite of the fact that the apparatus the singer or speaker uses is much more delicate, and wrong habits much ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... the other will be clearer for us. In that hour that earlier form of absolution will reverse itself on his lips into one of commination. Did they sing?—yet they sinned here and here; and as a man soweth, so shall he reap, singer or sot. Lo! his songs are stars in heaven, but his sins are snakes in hell: each shall bless ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... pleasure which she received from the performance in general, were faint, cold, and languid, compared to the strength of those emotions when excited by Signore Pacchierotti in particular; and though not half the excellencies of that superior singer were necessary either to amaze or charm her unaccustomed ears, though the refinement of his taste and masterly originality of his genius, to be praised as they deserved, called for the judgment and knowledge of professors, yet a natural love of music in some measure supplied the place of ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... to the footlights. The words of the song swept over the audience like a bugle call. The singer wore a white silk gown draped in perfect Grecian folds. She wore the large black Alsatian head dress, in one corner of which was pinned a small tri-colored cockade. She has often been called the most beautiful woman in Paris. The description was too limited. With the next lines she threw her ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... be owned not to be monopolized, but to be shared, as a song is owned not to be hushed, but to be sung; and the wide giving of its flowers is but one of several ways in which a garden may sing or be sung—for the garden is both song and singer. At any rate it cannot help but be a public benefaction and a public asset, if only its art ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... reason why we may not find his mummied body in perfect preservation, if he was embalmed after the Egyptian fashion. I suppose the tomb of David will be explored by a commission in due time, and I should like to see the phrenological developments of that great king and divine singer and warm-blooded man. If, as seems probable, the anthropological section of society manages to get round the curse that protects the bones of Shakespeare, I should like to see the dome which rounded itself over his imperial brain. Not that I am what is called a phrenologist, but I am ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... her husband told her that the yacht had gone without him. It was a fact—as Mat Mogmore had stated—that an excursion train left Boston at eleven o'clock for Portland. Many of the people of Rockport had gone to the city to hear a great singer, and were to return in this train. Levi knew of it, or he might have doubted Mat's story. Mr. Watson was a man of action. He ordered his fastest horse to be brought to the door; and he drove, at a furious pace, to Ipswich, which was a little nearer ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... over the broad scene, the pictures of human life associated with his own experience, the hurried, survey of his village years—all these pictures float before his vision; and then, with an abruptness which is like the choking of the singer's voice with tears, there wells up the thought of the little life which held as in one precious drop the love and ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... He was on his hands and knees, just his dark face peering by the corner stake of his commoosie, so as to see better the little singer on my tent.—"Have better weather and better luck now. Killooleet sing on ridgepole," he said confidently. Then we spread some cracker crumbs for the guest and turned in ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... these works, I set out in the summer on my first journey as a musician. My sister Clara, who was married to the singer Wolfram, had an engagement at the theatre at Magdeburg, whither, in characteristic fashion, I set forth upon my adventure ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... thrilling, it symbolized for Ethel that mysterious force which she could feel on every side, driving the throngs of humanity—in this city where so many things she had once deemed important were fading rapidly away. That hungry hope of a singer's career, that craving for work and self-education, trips to Paris, London, Rome, books, art and clever people, "salons," brilliant discussions of life; and deeper still, those mysterious dreams about having children and making a home—all ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... too weak to journey Up the mountain steep and high, You can stand within the valley, While the multitudes go by; You can chant in happy measure, As they slowly pass along; Though they may forget the singer, They will not ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... a melancholy smile, and the eyes of Bertalda's foster-parents were filled with tears. "Yes, so it was on the morning that I found you, my poor sweet orphan," said the duke, deeply agitated; "the beautiful singer is certainly right; we have not been able to give you ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... thanks are due from us To the dear Lord who made her thus, A singer apt to touch the heart, Mistress of all my dearest art. To God she sings by night and day, Unwearied, praising Him alway; Him I, too, laud in every song, To whom all ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... hardly see that Mrs. Chepstow is a famous woman. She is not a writer, a singer, a painter, an actress. She does nothing that I ever heard of. I shouldn't call such a woman famous. I daresay her name is known to lots of people. But this is the age of chatterboxes, and ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... "Derry down" of this last verse, a messenger from the Secretary of State's Office rushes on, and the singer (who, luckily for the effect of the scene, is the very Tailor suspected of the mysterious fragments) is interrupted in the midst of his laudatory exertions and hurried away, to the no small surprise and consternation of his comrades. The Plot now hastens rapidly in its ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... singer; and then some one asked a question, and some one struck a light for his pipe, and the singer droned on and on about the bold Captain Glen, and the ship which met with ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... to this subject,—the wonderful Song to David of Christopher Smart,—"a person of importance in his day," who owes it chiefly to Browning's enthusiastic advocacy of a poem he was never weary of declaiming, that he is a poet of importance in ours. Smart's David is before all things the glowing singer of the Joy of Earth,—the glory of the visible creation uttering itself in rapturous Praise of the Lord. And it is this David of whom we have a presentiment in the no less glowing songs with which Browning's shepherd-boy seeks to ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... been sent to school in Paris. There, as Norman and Roy could see, he had received a more than ordinary education, part of which, as the boys afterwards learned, was devoted to music. They also learned later that although not a great singer he had ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... Arbutus," went on to "The Little Red Lark" and "The Low-Backed Car," so that Appleton, his head thrown back in the easy-chair, the smoke wreaths from his pipe circling in the air, the Balkans forgotten, decided that the singer was Irish. ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... good-night the men rowed on, and the singer forward at once began another song. For a quarter of an hour they could hear the sound of the oars growing fainter and ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... his voice slid down on the word wick-ud made a queer thrilly feeling run down the boy's back, and all of a sudden the day grew wonderfully interesting, and this old seaport town one of the nicest places he had ever been in. The singer stopped at the steps and Georgina, disconcerted at finding the boy at such close range when she expected to see him far above her, got no further in her introduction to Captain Kidd than ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... been achieving a brilliant success in "Les Huguenots." The first act, interpreted according to the taste of the Quiquendonians, had occupied an entire evening of the first week of the month.—Another evening in the second week, prolonged by infinite andantes, had elicited for the celebrated singer a real ovation. His success had been still more marked in the third act of Meyerbeer's masterpiece. But now Fiovaranti was to appear in the fourth act, which was to be performed on this evening before an impatient public. Ah, the duet between Raoul and ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... nervously started as he heard the wailing whistle and clanging bells of the through train for Constance. He forgot the faded complexion, the worn face, the chemically tinted hair and haggard eyes of the broken-down Austrian blonde concert singer, in the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... in her "Thraliana" under July, 1780, being then at Brighton, "I have picked up Piozzi here, the great Italian singer. He is amazingly like my father. He shall teach Hesther." On the 25th of July, 1784, being at Bath, her entry was, "I am returned from church the happy wife of my lovely, faithful Piozzi. . . . subject of my prayers, object of my wishes, my ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... his manure-fork as soon as Cully had moved on again, and dodging behind the fence, followed him toward the post-office, hoping to hit the singer ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... its place on a silken cushion close to the Emperor's bed. All the presents it had received, the gold and precious stones, lay all round it, and it had been honored with the title of High-Imperial-Bed-Room-Singer—in the first rank, on the left side, for even the Emperor considered that side the grander on which the heart is placed, and even an Emperor has his heart on the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... her thoughts from her appearance. The turn of her wrist, the still sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the lines of her body, fell in tune with her grave and gentle words, like the accompaniment that sustains and harmonises the voice of the singer. Her influence was one thing, not to be divided or discussed, only to be felt with gratitude and joy. To Will, her presence recalled something of his childhood, and the thought of her took its place in his mind beside that of dawn, of running water, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... instrumental accompaniment to their vocal performance, but although it is a practice which is wearing off, there is a great deal too much of it left. Nourrit had none of it, his voice was firm and sweet, and few men have I ever heard sing with so much feeling. Duprez is also a singer of no common stamp, and of whom any nation might be proud, and I have often met men in society sing together most delightfully, either duets, trios, or quartettos, and totally devoid of the nasal twang, or, as the reader will observe, delightful ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... the singing powers and also the friendliness of this sweet singer is recorded by Rev. S.B. James, D.D., in his Frances Ridley Havergal, a Lecture Sermon.[1] "After a garden-party in Somersetshire where she had almost exhausted herself, she happened to overhear her hostess's regret that the servants had not been present. ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... text alludes; for the Psalmist has just been speaking of 'paying his vows' (that is, sacrifices which he had vowed in the time of his trouble), and to partake of these he invites the meek. The sacrificial dress is only a covering for high and spiritual thoughts. In some way or other the singer of this psalm anticipates that his experiences shall be the nourishment and gladness of a wide circle; and if we observe that in the context that circle is supposed to include the whole world, and that one of the results of partaking ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gentleman's marriage with an eminent singer[1104], and his determination that she should no longer sing in publick, though his father was very earnest she should, because her talents would be liberally rewarded, so as to make her a good fortune. It was questioned whether the young gentleman, who had not a shilling ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... baby's gone!" Apprehensive at this, I stole softly up the stairs and had but reached the door of my own room when I heard Mrs. Effie below. I could fancy the chilling gaze which she fastened upon the singer, and I heard her coldly demand, "Where are your feet?" Whereupon the plaintive voice of Cousin Egbert arose to me, "Just below my legs." I mean to say, he had taken the thing as a quiz in anatomy rather than as the rebuke it was meant to be. As I closed my door, I heard him add that he could ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... was checked by the entrance of a gentleman, who was introduced to Alfred as Mr. Fitzgerald from Savannah. His handsome person reminded one of an Italian tenor singer, and his manner was a graceful mixture of hauteur and insinuating courtesy. After a brief interchange of salutations, he said to Floracita, "I heard some notes of a lively little French tune, that went so trippingly I should be delighted to ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... the Marchese, unable to master his rage. He added spitefully: "Do you know, Lorenzi, we, or rather my wife, had counted so definitely on your leaving, that we had invited one of our friends, Baldi the singer, to stay with ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... level of its day but they must lop it with a crooked criticism, who kept indomitably planting in the defile of fame the "established canons" that had been spiked by poet after poet. But we decline to believe that a singer of Shelley's calibre could be seriously grieved by want of vogue. Not that we suppose him to have found consolation in that senseless superstition, "the applause of posterity." Posterity! posterity which goes to ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... more in revery When he at eventide is calling. Nor muse: Who may this singer be Whose song about my heart is falling? Know you by this, the lover's chant, 'Tis ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce
... whole thing from her box, which was just above where Raoul was standing. She raised her voice in crying bravo to some singer, which caused Nathan to look up to her; he bowed and received in return a gracious ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... foreign savant at her conversazione, and begged him to favor the company with a little music, because, having heard that he was virtuous, she had no other association with the word than its technical use in Italy to indicate a professional singer as a virtuoso. A father of a family who kept no abbate for the education of his children ingeniously taught them himself. "Father," asked one of his children, "what are the stars?" "The stars are stars, and little things that shine as thou seest." "Then they are candles, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the Yakuts of the present day. Now, as in former times—as when Artaman of Chamalga "so sang with his whole soul that the trees shed their leaves and men lost their reason"—the Yakuts sing, and their songs disturb the "spirits," who crowd around the singer and make him unhappy. But he sings on, nevertheless; though the whole order of nature be disturbed, still ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... between man's poetry and woman's poetry, charging considerably in favour of the latter. We show that to appeal to the affections is after all the true office of the bard; to decorate the homely threshold, to wreathe flowers round the domestic hearth, the delightful duty of the Christian singer. We glance at Mrs. Hemans's biography, and state where she was born, and under what circumstances she must have at first, etc. etc. Is this a correct account of Sir Barnes Newcome's lecture? I was not ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... forward that public attention she has so long merited; her qualifications as an actress are uncommonly general—whether we see her in genteel comedy, or in the English opera, we are equally gratified with the diversity of her talents. As a singer, her voice and judgment are equally conspicuous, and those who have seen her in the character of Ophelia, will readily admit her ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... declared that it would be possible to take any one of Mozart's arias, and set words of quite different meaning to them. This may be true of many of Mozart's arias, which were often composed more with regard to the organ of a particular singer than to the text before him, but is assuredly not true of his great dramatic scenes ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... the merry summer-tide!' as a Minnisinger and many another singer have sung. As we write, summer is losing its last traces in the peach-time of September. Bartlett pears are dead ripe—like the engagements formed at Newport and Saratoga—and china-asters and tuberoses tell of coming frosts. Well, 'tis over—the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the extent of the wires, &c. connected with the gold leaves, another improvement resulted. So that in fact the gold leaves became, in this manner, as delicate a test of specific inductive action as they are, in Bennet's and Singer's ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... indrawn, but whether or no there was ever an outlet for the same remained a question with the audience. A woollen cap was deftly and unexpectedly thrust between the malevolent lips and several pair of hands held it there until the little singer left the stage. ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... of God came down, And I drank it out of the air. (Fair is the serpent-cup, But the cup of God more fair.) The wine of God came down That makes no drinker to weep. And I went back to battle again Leaving the singer asleep. ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... doubt there may be some monster-elm or other, vegetating green, but inglorious, in some remote New England village, which only wants a sacred singer to make it celebrated. Send us your measurements,—(certified by the postmaster, to avoid possible imposition,)—circumference five feet from soil, length of line from bough-end to bough-end, and we will see what can be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... time it was discovered that the offender wore a leaden lining to his periwig. Louis XIV. never ceased to take a most paternal interest in his opera company. He went so far as to regulate and write out with his own hand, the salaries allowed to the performers. Those were not days when a singer was better paid than the general of an army, or a minister of state; when each note of a tenor's voice was worth a corresponding one, and of no small figure, issued from the Bank of France. The salary of a first rate tenor or barytone, was then less than is now given to a chorister or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... course of time. Words and music have been altered, but the version given here is from an old source, and, owing to the irregularity of the metre of the lines, as in all traditional songs, a considerable amount of ingenuity is called for on the part of the singer to fit the words of the second and subsequent verses—particularly of the Day Song—to the tune. But ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... the wind gone round to that quarter? Well, I thought better of you than that you would like a fellow that can do nothing but draw, never shoots over his own moors, and looks like a German singer! But do put the room tidy; and if you must have the nursery down here, put it into the back ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the celebrated singer and composer, Michael Kelly, the following interesting anecdotes are given: "I had the pleasure to be introduced to my worthy countryman, the Rev. Father O'Leary, the well-known Roman Catholic priest; he was a man of infinite wit, of instructing and ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... into the following wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. We would beg to call particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those points, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Raj, in the Province of Chorasan in Persia. He seems to have had a liberal early education in philosophy and in philology and literature. He did not take up medicine until later in life, and, according to tradition, supported himself as a singer until he was thirty years of age. Then he devoted himself to medical studies with the ardor and the success so often noted in those whose opportunity to study medicine has been delayed. His studies were made at Bagdad, where Ibn Zein el-Taberi ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... undertook the part of Armida was Madame Saint Huberti. The Queen was very partial to her. She was principal female singer at the French opera, was a German by birth, and strongly recommended by Gluck for her good natural voice. At Her Majesty's request, Gluck himself taught Madame Saint Huberti the part of Armida. Sacchini, also, at the command of Marie Antoinette, instructed her in the style ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... Yes, but the voice was human, and the song articulate. I started, and rose upon my elbow to listen. The voice was human beyond a doubt—sweetly human: it was that of a girl singing. But where? I looked around and saw nobody. Yet the singer could not be far off, for the words, though softly and gently sung, dwelt clearly and distinctly upon my ear. Still half asleep, I ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... good things are done for some one else, and then after a while a standard of excellence is formed, and the artist works to please himself. But paradoxically, he still works for others—the singer sings for those who hear, the writer writes for those who understand, and the painter paints for those who would paint just such pictures as he, if they could. Antonio painted just such pictures as Veronica liked—she fixed the standard and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... the Lord is Lord of might; In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight; The plough, the spear, the laden barks, The field, the founded city, marks; He marks the smiler of the streets, The singer upon garden seats; He sees the climber in the rocks: To him, the shepherd folds his flocks. For those he loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven's top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides. Those he approves that ply the trade, That rock the child, that wed the maid, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a little village in the County of Essex. Having a good voice, he came early in life to be installed as singer at Wallingford College; and showing here a great proficiency, he was shortly after impressed for the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral. Afterward he was for some time at Eton, where he had the ill-luck ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... not live on passion alone. In our time, when art, through an admirable evolution, has conquered all domains, music should express all, from the most perfect calm to the most violent emotions. When one is strongly moved the voice is altered, and in moving situations the singer should make his voice vibrate. Formerly the German female singers sang with all their voice, without any vibration in the sound and without any reference to the situation; one would say they were clarinets. Now, one must vibrate all the time. I heard the Meistersingers' ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... now. She had been a mere child five years ago, scarcely old enough to distinguish right from wrong. You couldn't blame her for writing sentimental verse at that age. Why, at a similar stage in his own career he had wanted to be a vaudeville singer. Everything must be excused to Youth. It was with a tender glow of affectionate forgiveness ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... bridge in the town of K. I must tell you that the dullness of that scurvy little town was terrible. If it had not been for women and cards I believe I should have gone out of my mind. Well, it's an old story: I was so bored that I got into an affair with a singer. Everyone was enthusiastic about her, the devil only knows why; to my thinking she was—what shall I say?—an ordinary, commonplace creature, like lots of others. The hussy was empty-headed, ill-tempered, greedy, and what's more, she ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Malone, in the uncertainty on this point, could only adduce the following passage of Dekker's Guls Horne-booke, 1609, from which, he says, "it may be presumed"[ix:3] that Kemp was then deceased: "Tush, tush, Tarleton, Kemp, nor Singer, nor all the litter of fooles that now come drawling behinde them, neuer plaid the Clownes more naturally then the arrantest Sot of you all."[ix:4] George Chalmers, however, discovered an entry ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... by our own island, instead of being imported from a country which, I boldly assert, does not produce either superior voices, or better educated musicians than our own—nay, so well educated. Has Italy ever furnished us with such a tenor singer as Braham; the Braham that I am, per mia disgrazia, qualified, by age, to remember; the Braham of 1801? Has Italy ever sent us a prima donna, considered as a singer only, like Billington? On the contrary, do we not, in gauging our progressive musical importations, subject them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... in Mulvaney, "ye'd no chanst against the maraudin' psalm-singer. They'll take the airs an' the graces instid av the man nine times out av ten, an' they only ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... and sang. He sang how once a king of the Ultonians, having plunged into the sea-depths, there slew a monster which had wrought much havoc amongst fishers and seafaring men. The heroes attended to his song, leaning forward with bright eyes. They applauded the song and the singer, and praised the valour of the heroic man [Footnote: This was Fergus Mac Leda, Fergus, son of Leda, one of the more ancient kings of Ulster. His contest with the sea-monster is the theme of a heroic tale.] who had done that deed. Then the champion struck the table with his clenched hand, and ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... all the vast audience were hypnotized by the unknown and unheralded singer, whose stage name was Al'mah. At the moment of the opera's supreme appeal the eyes of three people at least were not in the thraldom of the singer. Seated at the end of the first row of the stalls was a fair, slim, graciously attired man of about thirty, who, turning ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... place compared to the New York of to-day, but it had all the effervescence and glitter of the entire country even then. I shall never forget the excitement when on September 1st, 1850, Jenny Lind landed from the steamer "Atlantic." Not merely because of her reputation as a singer, but because of her fame for generosity and kindness were the people aroused to welcome her. The first $10,000 she earned in America she devoted to charity, and in all the cities of America she poured forth her benefactions. Castle Garden was then the great concert ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... redemption, the words that he had often read in the Bible, "Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him?" came forcibly to his remembrance, and he felt the appropriateness of that sentiment which the sweet singer of Israel has expressed in the words, "Praise ye him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... mother was opposed to this plan—she did not care to make a human butcher of her boy. He paused some time at Lyons, on his return from school, and afterward he traveled over Italy. He here met a young man who was an excellent singer, and became quite intimate with him, so much so, that he often slept upon his shoulder. When the two friends had arrived at Rome, Lamartine was called down to the breakfast-room one morning, to behold—not his male companion, but a young woman ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... He sang long hours, and it seemed but a brief moment. The very church bells sounded sweet no longer; the folk left the choir songs of the priests and ran to hear him. All who heard his voice were heart-sick after the singer, so grand and sweet was ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... not great music, surely; but it was sung by the greatest living singer, singing alone in the dark, as calmly and as perfectly as if all the orchestra had been with her, singing as no one can who feels the least tremor of fear; and the awful tension of the dark throng relaxed, and the breath that came was a great sigh of relief, for it was not possible to be frightened ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... glimpse of the singer, a young man clad in a brown habit of penance with the cord of purity girt about him. His eyes looked once into the eyes of the man with the dead soul. They were the eyes of the one to whom he had left his legacy of hate and wealth and evil—his own ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... he exclaimed, under his breath. "An opera singer! Herbert to marry an opera singer! The granddaughter ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... an idealist on the subject of boarding houses, advertises as about to open a cozy, comfortable home for members of her down-trodden sex. The applicants, including a suffragist, a demonstrator, an actress and a singer, are of such different classes that great scope is given for character impersonations. Jennie, the waitress, and Mammy Sue, the colored ...
— Three Hats - A Farcical Comedy in Three Acts • Alfred Debrun
... out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day. MORRIS, ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... to think this a very funny song and at the end of the second verse they all joined in the chorus. The Ballad Singer sang louder than all the rest of the ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church; A thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch. "Happy be! for fair are ye!" the gentle singer told them; But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them. "Vanity, oh, vanity! Young maids, beware of vanity!" Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee, Half ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... theologians (Druids), diviners, and bards, as do also Strabo and Timagenes, Strabo giving the Greek form of the native name for the diviners, [Greek: ouateis], the Celtic form being probably vatis (Irish, faith).[1018] These may have been also poets, since vatis means both singer and poet; but in all three writers the bards are a fairly distinct class, who sing the deeds of famous men (so Timagenes). Druid and diviner were also closely connected, since the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy, and the diviners ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... at Leipzig was that of Professor Froege. He was a rich man, and had married a famous singer, Fraeulein Schlegel. One evening the Sonnambula was performed in their house, which had been changed into a theatre. She acted the Sonnambula, and her singing as well as her acting was most finished and delightful. Mendelssohn was much in their house, and made her sing his songs as ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... pause. The splashing ceased. The singer could hardly have been drowned in a hip bath, but Mr. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... wonderfully clear and ringing, and it has a certain incisiveness of sound which gives it great carrying power. Pius the Ninth had as beautiful a voice, both in compass and richness of quality, as any baritone singer in the Sixtine choir. No one who ever heard him intone the 'Te Deum' in Saint Peter's, in the old days, can forget the grand tones. He was gifted in many ways—with great physical beauty, with a rare charm of manner, and with a most witty humour; and in character he was one of the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... 'samples,' as you call them, my lamb," she chatted on. "Of course you must take lessons and be a legitimate something some day—a singer, I fancy, but in the meantime we must utilize ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... decide to be an opera singer?" Miss Farrar smiled. "Let me see. At least as early as the age of eight. This is how I remember. At school I used to get good marks in most of my studies, but in arithmetic my mark was about sixty. That made ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... the road for a mile or two, looking and listening. Just after leaving the house it was possible to hear three kinds of thrushes singing at once,—gray-cheeks, olive-backs, and hermits. Of the three the hermit is beyond comparison the finest singer, both as to voice and tune. His song, given always in three detached measures, each higher than the one before it, is distinguished by an exquisite liquidity, the presence of d and l, I should say, as contrasted with the inferior t ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... if she found herself caught in a trap; but, as Tim burst off loudly into a hymn tune, in which Stephen joined at the top of his voice, she had no time to make any objection. Martha and the old grandfather, who had been a capital singer in his day, began to help; and little Nan mingled her sweet, clear, childish notes with their stronger tones. It was a long hymn, and, before it was finished, Bess found herself shyly humming away to the tune, almost as if it had been the chorus of one of the pit-bank ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... passage of Coed Grono, {66} and at the entrance into the wood, he dismissed him and his attendants, though much against their will, and proceeded on his journey unarmed; from too great a presumption of security, preceded only by a minstrel and a singer, one accompanying the other on the fiddle. The Welsh awaiting his arrival, with Iorwerth, brother of Morgan of Caerleon, at their head, and others of his family, rushed upon him unawares from the thickets, and ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... the Penitentiary, with a frank laugh, approaching the two young people and bowing to them, "are you giving lessons in horticulture? Insere nunc Meliboee piros; pone ordine vites, as the great singer of the labors of the field said. 'Graft the pear-tree, dear Meliboeus, trim the vines.' And how are we now, Senor ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... Black Death (1361 and 1369), and a few years earlier the poet of the "Vision" had given voice to the sufferings of the poor. It was not, however, the mothers of the people crying for their children whom the courtly singer remembered in his elegy written in the year 1369; the woe to which he gave a poetic expression was that of a princely widower temporarily inconsolable for the loss of his first wife. In 1367 the Black Prince was conquering Castile (to be lost again ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... singer, and he is singing about cherries all right!" said the hired man, "and if I knew as much as he does about what became of those cherry pits, I could go right to 'em, ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... part of ideal autobiography, says so little of singers, although the song which moves us, rummaging among our old memories and, to our surprise and delight, bringing back clear pictures, is generally linked to the sweet singer who sang it, who interpreted it for us and made it a part of our imaginative possessions? Heroines of novels are rarely singers, or, if they sing, abstain from effective music, and have soft, soothing voices, "as if they only sang at twilight." Heroines of course have to be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... little canary-bird. He is quite young, but is a beautiful singer, and almost always when he sings he says, "Pretty, pretty," so plain you could not mistake it. He is also very tame, and when I let him out of his cage he comes and stands on my shoulder, and hops around me. If I put my finger in his cage, he gets very cross, and waves his wings ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... for we seemed to feel that it was full of the very shout and ring of battle inside our circle of foes, and we were as men who looked on and saw our own deeds over again, only made more glorious by the hand of the poet and the voice of the singer. ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... dangling from a rear pocket; a red cotton umbrella with a brass ring on one end and a glass hook on the other; light blue shapeless trousers; a flaming orange—colored vest; a huge standing collar, and in his buttonhole a ridiculous artificial flower. This type of comic singer is unknown in American concert-halls of any grade, though he is sometimes seen at the German concerts in the Bowery of the lowest class. Here he is very cordially esteemed. The ladies behind him yawn in a furtive manner under cover of their bouquets, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... and magistrates to enliven their dinner-parties with chanting and music. They are generally drawn from the very poorest classes, and good looks and a certain amount of wit and musical talent is what must be acquired to be a successful singer. They improvise or sing old national songs, which never fail to please the self-satisfied and well-fed official, and if well paid, they will even condescend to pour wine into their employer's cups and pass sweets ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... therefore just that he should be judged with a knowledge of some of these peculiarities of his class. He is not a Roman of the people like Giovanni Cardegna, the great tenor, and few of his ideas have any connection with those of the singer; but he has, in common with him, that singular simplicity of character which he derives from his Roman descent upon the male side, and in which will be found the key to many of his actions both good and bad—a simplicity which loves peace, but cannot ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the sombre hoods of beshliks.... The songs ranged from gay to grave; the former mood in the ascendency. But occasionally there was sung a ditty, the associations with which brought it about that there came something strangely like a tear into the voice of the singer, and that a yearning wistfulness fell upon the faces of the listeners. The bronzed troopers in the background shaded with their hands the fire-flash from their eyes; and as the familiar homely strain ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... loudly, in a voice audible to himself alone, challenged the American to make good his words. Then, as this gentleman took no notice, with one clean straight thrust Greddon ran him through the heart, shouting "Die, you damned psalm-singer and traducer! And so die all rebels against King George!"* Withdrawing the blade, he wiped it daintily on his cambric handkerchief. There was no blood. Mr. Oover, with unpunctured shirt-front, was repeating "I say he was not a white man." And Greddon remembered himself—remembered ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... foremost, the great right of doing anything which God and Nature evidently have fitted her to excel in. If she be made a natural orator, like Miss Dickinson, or an astronomer, like Mrs. Somerville, or a singer, like Grisi, let not the technical rules of womanhood be thrown in the way of her free use of her powers. Nor can there be any reason shown why a woman's vote in the state should not be received with as much respect as in the family. A state is but an association of families, and laws relate to ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... failure of the unfortunate limb is only temporary, owing to severe weather. We dined at John Murray's with the Mansfield family. Lady Caroline Murray possesses, I think, the most pleasing taste for music, and is the best singer I ever heard. No temptation to display a very brilliant voice ever leads her aside from truth and simplicity, and besides, she looks beautiful ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... "to appear a knight, and in such a guise; but it behoves me to tell you to take warning from me, lest the same evil, in his kind, overtake the singer that has befallen the knight. Hast thou ever read the story of Sir Percival and the"—(here he shuddered, that his armour rang)—"Maiden of ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... beholding! For now are the days of my agony past, The lust that famished my soul now eats and drinks its desire, And they that encompassed my son shrivel alive in the fire. Tenfold precious the vengeance that comes after lingering years! Ye quenched the voice of my singer?—hark, in your dying ears, The song of the conflagration! Ye left me a widow alone? - Behold, the whole of your race consumes, sinew and bone And torturing flesh together: man, mother, and maid Heaped in a common shambles; and already, borne by the trade, The smoke ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were shut, save those frequent ones which added the sale of liquor to that of more innocent commodities. In one a smart-looking schoolboy was reading the Weekly Freeman aloud to a group of frieze-coated hearers. At the door of another a ballad-singer was plaintively piping the "Mother's Farewell," with its ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... of any kind in music—singer, pianist, violinist, conductor—considers himself as established until he has appeared in London and received its award of merit; and whatever good things may be going in other continental cities we know that, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... not recall his gentle yet heroic life amid drawbacks almost unparalleled; for it is even sadder than it is beautiful. It is my deliberate judgment that, while, as the poet says in his 'Life and Song', no singer has ever wholly lived his minstrelsy, Lanier came so near it that we may fairly say, in the closing lines of the poem, "His song was only living aloud, His work, a singing with his hand." And, for my part, ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... "Oh, dear, I could sing so much better if somebody would listen!" she complained aloud to the birds and the baby and the world at large. "It takes two to make real music, a singer and a listener." ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... was gotten in drink: is not the humor co[n]ceited? Fal. I am glad I am so acquit of this Tinderbox: his Thefts were too open: his filching was like an vnskilfull Singer, he ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... I lighted our cigars and "railroaded" for awhile, then "Her Eyes" went to the piano and sang a dozen songs as only a trained singer can. Her voice was wonderfully sweet and low. They were old songs, but they seemed the better for that, and while she sang Hopkins's cigar went out and he just gazed at her with pride and joy in every lineament of ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... our right was a ruined village called Khuldah. This was at the entrance of woods of the evergreen oak, with hawthorn, many trees of each kind twined round with honeysuckle. There Shaikh Yusuf, (the Moslem of Es-Salt,) who is a fine singer, entertained us with his performances, often bursting into extemporaneous verses suitable ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... after my mother had announced the visit of penance, Harry Morton made his appearance in our drawing-rooms, as usual, with the other morning visiters. Every one was talking of a new singer who was to make her debut on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... a singer favoured her, and an aptitude for teaching enabled her to maintain, for many years, a distinguished position in the musical world. Mr. Innes's abilities contributed to their success, and he might ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... melodious Singer; loftiest Serene Highness; nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rose-bloom Maiden, worthy to glide sylphlike almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as a divine Presence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, she is,—has descended, like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... for the utility of forks was at that time a matter undreamt of. After the meal was over, the host brought a ewer of water with a napkin, and each dipped his fingers into the water, an operation necessary even for the most dainty feeder. Presently a glee singer came in, and for an hour amused the guests with songs, for the most ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... which had been approaching, ceased, and was succeeded by a heart-breaking and equally melodious whistling to finish the bar of the singer's song. And the next moment Jack Hamlin appeared in ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... about which I have lately had many troubles, and am therefore rejoiced to hear in your last note that your faith keeps staunch. That is a curious fact about the bullfinches all appearing to listen to the German singer (441/1. See Letter 445, note.); and this leads me to ask how much faith may I put in the statement that male birds will sing in rivalry until they injure themselves. Yarrell formerly told me that they would sometimes even sing themselves to death. I am sorry to hear that the painted ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... I sent for the singer and asked him where he had learned his songs. His answer was, "Boss, I made 'em up myself." To this I answered, "Quite likely, some of them; but not 'The Seven Glories of Mary.'" He thought a moment, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... "You may have wriggled out of this," he said furiously, "but if you don't get a move on and quit looking at me like that, I'll knock you over the Singer ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... be a concert before the distribution. Four of the best pianoforte players in the school were to hammer out an intensely noisy version of the overture to Zampa, arranged for eight hands on two pianos. The crack singer was to sing 'Una voce,' and Ida Palliser was to play the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... in Paris Mr. Bauer, unable to secure engagements as a violinist, went on a tour of Russia as an accompanist of a singer. In some of the smaller towns Bauer played an occasional piano solo. Returning to Paris, he found that he was still unable to secure engagements as a violinist. His pianistic opportunity came when a celebrated virtuoso ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... or duel for rescue of dames, but the sharp clash of bloody conflict between English and Scots borderers, the best fighting men of our island. Of course the genuine account, given in Froissart, is very different; but the ballad-singer knows his art; and whereas from history we only learn that a Scottish knight, Sir Hugh Montgomery, was slain in the medley, in the ballad an English ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... prefer to think of Mrs. Walters as a singer, owing to her unaccountable powers of reminiscential vocalization, I have upon occasion classified her among the waders; and certainly, upon the day when my engagement to Georgiana transpired, she waded not only all around the town but all over it, sustained by a buoyancy of spirit ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... a great singer. Sometimes, when Hakadah wakened too early in the morning, she would sing to him something like ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... she was not an accomplished artiste he knew. He did not haunt opera houses for naught, and, like all fat men who wear red ties in the forenoon, he was a trifle dogmatic in his criticism. The young woman had the making of an opera singer. What a Fricka, Brangaene, Ortrud, Sieglinde, Erda, this clever girl might become! She was musical, she was dramatic in temperament—he let his imagination run away with him. She only sang an Oberbayerische yodel, and, while her voice was not very high, she contrived ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... presently a sandalled peasant leaps upon it lightly, and stands there—with an open paper umbrella above his head. Nevertheless it is not raining. That is the Ondo-tori, the leader of the dance, who is celebrated through all Izumo as a singer. According to ancient custom, the leader of the Honen-odori [8] always holds an open umbrella above ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... there like a shy singer invited to strike up. "I told you everything at Mrs. Brookenham's. It comes over me now how I ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... singer is here to offer that?" said the bishop, insolently turning his great rubicund ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... a summary of all present knowledge of the voice. First, the insight into the singer's vocal operations is considered, which the hearer obtains by attentive listening to the tones produced. This empirical knowledge, as it is generally called, indicates a state of unnecessary throat tension as the cause, or at ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... stifled the impulse to mother this kindred and hapless young being, averred to be the beggar's daughter. She placed a golden louis on the palm of the singer, saying: ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... or secrecy to his wife: she could have her freedom if she wished. He was a fledgling barrister, with his future in front of him, the child of "strolling players"; she, the beautiful Miss Linlay, was a singer of note. Her father was the leader of the Bath Orchestra, and had a School of Oratory where young people agitated the atmosphere in orotund and tremolo and made the ether vibrate in glee. Doctor Linlay's daughter was his finest pupil, and with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... psalms of praise upon a ten-stringed lute. But Stumfold is always singing aloud, and his lute has twenty strings." Here the voice of the twenty-stringed singer was heard across the large room asking the ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... hard, and so it is, To live in such a row; And here's a ballad-singer come To aggravate my woe; O take away your foolish song And tones enough to stun— There is 'nae luck about the house,' ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... have I seen blossom, Many a bird for me will sing. Never heard I so sweet a singer, Never saw I ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... not sing hymns day by day? Do not our mouths, each according to their measure, sound forth day by day the praises of God? And what is it we praise? It is a great Thing that we praise, but that wherewith we praise is weak as yet. When does the singer fill up the praises of Him Whom he sings? A man stands and sings before God, often for a long space; but oftentimes, whilst his lips move to frame the words of his song, his thoughts fly away to I know not what desires! And so, too, our mind has sometimes been fixed on praising ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... Offenbach's comic opera (opera bouffe) of that name. She was originally a street-singer of Lima, the capital of Peru, but became the mistress of the viceroy. She was not a native of Lima and offended the Creole ladies by calling them, in her bad Spanish, pericholas, "flaunting, bedizened creatures," and they, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... polite literature. Just as learning and philosophy were fostered by the seclusion of the cloister, so were poetry and romance fostered by the open and joyous hospitalities of the baronial hall. The castle door was always open to the wandering singer and story-teller, and it was amidst the scenes of festivity within that the ballads and romances of mediaeval minstrelsy and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... "Johnnie," as he was familiarly styled by his associates, stood a good two inches over six feet, was straight as a fir and tough as a young oak. He had just turned his twentieth year, and was as fleet of foot as the stags that he guarded. Dark-eyed and handsome, light-hearted and jovial, a good singer of a good song, he was as jolly a companion as one might meet on ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... can it be No memory dwells with thee Of Grecian lore and the sweet Grecian singer? The legions' iron tramp, The Goths' wide-wandering camp, Had these no fame that by thy shore might linger? Nay, then must all be lost indeed, Lost too the swift pursuing might That cleft with passionate speed Aboukir's ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... quacks, vagrants, mimics, blackguards; all this set is sorrowful and dejected on account of the death of the singer Tigellius; for he was liberal [toward them]. On the other hand, this man, dreading to be called a spendthrift, will not give a poor friend wherewithal to keep off cold and pinching hunger. If you ask him why he wickedly consumes the noble ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... somewhere in the eighth century B.C. Fortunately these difficulties do not interfere with our enjoyment of the two poems; if there were two Homers, we may be grateful to Nature for bestowing her favours so liberally upon us; if Homer never existed at all, but is a mere nickname for a class of singer, the literary fraud that has been perpetrated is no more serious than that which has assigned Apocalyptic visions of different ages to Daniel. Perhaps the Homeric poems are the growth of many generations, like the English parish churches; ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... no singer to please me comparable to Malibran: there is something positively electrical in the effect she produces on my feelings. Her acting is as original as it is effective; Passion and Nature are her guides, and she abandons ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... types of musicians] accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer[obs3], trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. vocalist, melodist; singer, warbler; songster, chaunter[obs3], chauntress[obs3], songstress; cantatrice[obs3]. choir, quire, chorister; chorus, chorus singer; liedertafel[Ger]. nightingale, philomel[obs3], thrush; siren; bulbul, mavis; Pierides; sacred nine; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... feelings formed; I knew no other. As I thought and felt, so have I written. Of all poetical compositions, songs, especially those of the affections, should be natural, warm gushes of feeling—brief, simple, and condensed. As soon as they have left the singer's lips, they should be ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... shorn of half their glory. It wouldn't surprise me to see an American woman on the throne of England one of these days. 'Gad, sir, you know what happened in Axphain two years ago. Her crown prince renounced the throne and married a French singer." ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... these islands are the tops of a submerged continent, or land bridge, which stretches its crippled body along the floor of the Pacific for thousands of leagues. A lost land, whose epic awaits the singer; a mystery perhaps forever to be unsolved. There are great monuments, graven objects, hieroglyphics, customs and languages, island peoples with suggestive legends—all, perhaps, remnants of a migration from Asia or Africa a hundred ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... little and came to a handsome cage, than which there was no goodlier there, and in it a culver, that is to Say, a wood-pigeon, the bird renowned among the birds as the singer of love-longing, with a collar of jewels about its neck, wonder-goodly of ordinance. He considered it awhile and seeing it mazed and brooding in its cage, shed tears and repeated ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... because they do not move. They are like... They are like no tangible thing in all the world. They are like faint, beautiful songs of an unseen singer; they are like temptations to some unknown sin. They make me think of the tigers that slip through the ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... the Duke of Suffolk from the king, and lay his commandment spoke these words with a stout and an hault countenance, 'It was never merry in England,' quoth he, 'whilst we had cardinals amongst us!'"—Cavendish's Wolsey, pp. 232, 233, Singer's edition. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... and bring me a pen and paper," said he; and then started in his turn, as all had started at him; for the two Englishmen looked round, and, behold, to his disgust, the singer was none other than Naylor; the actor ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... promising but passionless cantatrice—"She sings well, but she wants something, and in that something everything. If I were single, I would court her; I would marry her; I would maltreat her; I would break her heart; and in six months she would be the greatest singer ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... in those of happy idleness. Linking the most varying associations with the melody, they were again and again carelessly hummed when traveling through forests, or ploughing the deep in ships; perhaps they were listlessly upon the lips when some startling emotion has suddenly surprised the singer; when an unexpected meeting, a long-desired grouping, an unhoped-for word, has thrown an undying light upon the heart, consecrating hours destined to live forever, and ever to shine on in the memory, even through the most distant and gloomy recesses ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt |
