"Viol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hush the melancholy fiddlers. If this comedy can stir the croaking bass-viol to any show of mirth, our work tops Falstaff. Glum folk with beards had best withdraw. Only the young in heart will catch the slender meaning of our play. Let's light the ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... evening the singers met in the vestry, to practise the tunes for the Sabbath. We all sat in the singing-seats. I played the small bass-viol. Jamie sang counter, and the girls treble. Margaret had a sweet voice,—not very powerful. She sat in the seats because the other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... land, I know not where, Ere viol's sigh, or organ's swell, Had made the sons of song aware That music is a potent spell, A shepherd to a city came, Play'd on his pipe, and rose to fame. He sang of fields, and at each close Applause ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Mrs. Rand and the equally lovely Miss Dandridge, to both of whom he had been presented at an evening entertainment. The church was now filled and the bell ceased ringing. From the gallery came the deeper growl of the bass viol and the preliminary breath of a flute. A moment more and the minister walked up the aisle and, mounting the tall old pulpit, invoked a blessing, then gave out in a fine mellow voice with a ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... young John the Baptist looks up to you from the pavement. Their own postilion reminded the whole party of the Suonatore di Violino of Raphael—whose fiddlestick, by the way, being that of a bass viol, might at first sight be mistaken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... folks at home—and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young folks go up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you ever heard. For what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar, a cornet, and a bass viol to trip the quadrille to ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... contrapuntal than The Maids, this canvas, with its brilliant broken lights, its air that circulates, its tender yet potent conducting of the eye from the rounded arm of the seductive girl at the loom to the arched area with its leaning, old-time bass-viol, its human figures melting dream-like into the tapestried background, arouses within the spectator much more complicated etats d'ame than does Las Meninas. The silvery sorceries of that picture soothe the spirit and pose no riddles; The Spinners is a cathedral crammed ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... anonymous informant, perhaps Deborah Clarke, who libelled her as "a termagant." She was pretty, and had golden hair, which one connects pleasantly with the late sunshine she brought into Milton's life. She sang to his accompaniment on the organ and bass-viol, but is not recorded to have read or written for him; the only direct testimony we have of her care of him is his verbal acknowledgment of her attention to his creature comforts. Yet Aubrey's memoranda show that she could talk with her husband about Hobbes, and she treasured ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... the wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by." Squire.—"You may hold the manse in fee, You may wed my spouse, my children's memory of ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! (11.) Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them! (12.) And the harp and the viol, and tabret and pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. (18.) Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope. (20.) Woe unto then that call evil good, and good evil; ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... birds, bees, and butterflies dance in the air; the leaves have the gloss of varnish—there is no dust there,—and everything is cleanly, cheerful and reposeful. From the hotel veranda float the strains of harp and viol; at intervals during the day and night music helps us to lift up our hearts; there is nothing like it—except more of it. There is not overmuch dressing among the women, nor the beastly spirit of loudness ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... low farces are performed, and a tall Punch and Judy box occupies a conspicuous position. Benches and chairs are scattered about, and a raised platform is provided for the "orchestra," which consists of a piano, violin, and a bass viol. The centre of the room is a clear space, and is used for dancing. If you do not dance you must leave, unless you atone for your deficiency by a liberal expenditure of money. The amusements are coarse and low. The songs are broad, and are full of ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... his father and mother had not come, and he had learned a little Greek and more Latin, could carve a box with the arms of his house on the lid, and make that lid fit; could bow like a courtier and speak like a gentleman, and play a simple air on the viol that hung in the parlor for guests to amuse themselves with while they waited to see the master ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... who had assisted in his capture accosted him with polite expressions of regret at his want of appetite. During the interchange of courtesies which ensued, one of the bandits took a lute, another a viol, and the party began to amuse themselves with music. The advocate was then invited to walk into a neighboring room, where he perceived a considerable number of mantles ranged in order. He was desired to select his own, and to count out the thirty pistoles ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... moves his feet, Or with the tingling plectrum of the sleet In winter keen beats out his thrilling scores. Leave me the reed unplucked beside the stream. And he will stoop and fill it with the breeze; Leave me the viol's frame in secret trees, Unwrought, and it shall wake a druid theme; Leave me the whispering shell on Nereid shores. The God of Music ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... on and clapped like mad, Aunt Mary beat the front of the box with her ear-trumpet, and when Clover suggested that she throw some flowers to the heroine she threw the orchids and came near maiming the bass viol for life. Burnett rushed out between acts and bought her a cane to pound with, Jack rushed out between more acts and bought her a pair of opera glasses, Mitchell rushed out between still further acts and procured her one of those Japanese fans which they use ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... management, as for the ostentatious caparison of their horses. Among the troops brought out from Spain by Ovando, one horseman had disciplined his horse to prance and curvet in time to the music of a viol. [208] The joust was appointed to take place of a Sunday after dinner, in the public square, before the house where Ovando was quartered. The cavalry and foot-soldiers had their secret instructions. The former were to parade, not merely with reeds ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... yes. Why, Sunday morning, when the sea was all still, I used to hear the bass-viol a-soundin' down under the waters, jist as plain as could be,—and psalms and preachin'. I've reason to think there's as many hopefully pious mermaids as there be folks," ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... pentameters. He also made instruments of music, and taught the Levites to sing hymns to God, both on that called the sabbath day, and on other festivals. Now the construction of the instruments was thus: The viol was an instrument of ten strings, it was played upon with a bow; the psaltery had twelve musical notes, and was played upon by the fingers; the cymbals were broad and large instruments, and were made of brass. And so much shall suffice to be spoken by ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... not been idle. Dearest Agnes, wilt thou not speak for me? the viol hath not been mute, nor the fond harp unstrung; and deeper, dearer lessons have thy lips instilled, than could have flowed from fairest lips and sweetest songs of Provence. Nay, blush not, dearest. Mary, thou must love this gentle girl," he added, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... pictures, that was placed on the little table. Agnes was first, clothed with her beautiful hair, having on her finger the ring of betrothal to the Priest Paulin. Then all the others came in turn. Barbara with her tower; Genevieve with her sheep; Cecilia with her viol; Agatha with her wounded breast; Elizabeth begging on the highways, and Catherine triumphing over the learned doctors. She did not forget the miracle that made Lucy so heavy that a thousand men and five yoke of oxen could not carry her away: nor the Governor who became ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... and constantly reminded his audience of what he himself had done in the way of excavations and reparations. He described himself as the brother of the architect of the work actually going forward (that which has been done since the death of M. Viol- let-le-Duc, I suppose he meant), and this fact was more illustrative than all the others. It reminded me, as one is reminded at every turn, of the democratic con- ditions of French life: a man of the people, with a wife en bonnet, extremely ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Vinia and Manlius, and the Parcae in that of Peleus and Thetis. Sir Richard laid great stress on the following in his notes, headed "Compare with Catullus, the sweet and tender little Villanelle, by Mr. Edmund Gosse," for the Viol and Flute—the XIX cent. with ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... a typical one—he "could dance admirably well, but neither in youth nor riper years made any practice of it; he had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman; he had great love to music and often diverted himself with a viol, on which he played masterly; he had an exact ear and judgment in other music; he shot excellently in bows and guns, and much used them for his exercise; he had great judgment in paintings, graving, sculpture, and ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... bench where he has been mending his viol). Because, Captain, 'tis a property knaves and fools have in common—to stand in their own light, as 'tis of soldiers to talk bad logic. That knave, now—he with the red nose and the black eye—the ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... slight and repeated contact, so that the mind is attentive to constantly recurring impressions, and readily learns to discern their variations. This difference is clear in the use of musical instruments. The harsh and painful touch of the 'cello, bass-viol, and even of the violin, hardens the finger-tips, although it gives flexibility to the fingers. The soft and smooth touch of the harpsichord makes the fingers both flexible and sensitive. In this respect the harpsichord ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Edward Walpole, brother to the Baron of Strawberry Hill. A flourish and a sliding bow, and you know one another! Sir Edward, who resembles not Horry in his love for the twittle-twattle of the town, is a passable performer on the bass viol, and a hermit—the Hermit of Pall Mall. But the rules of that Hermitage are not too severe, child. 'Tis known there were ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... and abandon himself to the delight of reading the Izaak Walton of music. It is a most quaint and curious treatise upon "the Noble Lute, the best of instruments," with a chapter upon "the generous Viol," by Thomas Mace, "one of the clerks of Trinity College in the University of Cambridge." Master Mace deigns not to mention keyed instruments, probably regarding keys as old sailors regard the lubber's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... entered the service of the Duke of Moreto, and this lord having been appointed, some years afterwards, to the Scottish embassy, Rizzio followed him to Scotland. As this young man had a very fine voice, and accompanied on the viol and fiddle songs of which both the airs and the words were of his own composition, the ambassador spoke of him to Mary, who wished to see him. Rizzio, full of confidence in himself, and seeing in the queen's desire a road to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... After landing, the shepherdesses I have mentioned before received the company in separate troops, with songs and dances, after the fashion and accompanied by the music of the provinces they represented,—the Poitevins playing on bagpipes; the Provencales on the viol and cymbal; the Burgundians and Champagners on the hautboy, bass viol, and tambourine; in like manner the Bretons and other provincialists. After the collation was served and the feast at an end, a large troop of musicians, habited ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... he made of a vineyard, with clusters of grapes that showed black, and with the vines hanging from silver poles. And he showed maidens and youths in the vineyard, gathering the grapes into baskets, and one amongst them, a boy, who played on the viol. Beside the image of the vineyard he made images of cattle, with herdsmen, and with nine dogs guarding them. But he showed two lions that had come up and had seized the bull of the herd, and the dogs and men strove to drive them ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... decorative value, while in simple raiment of beautiful design knights and ladies wandered in rich flower gardens, and rode with hawk on wrist through long green arcades, and sat listening to lute and viol in blossom- starred bowers or by cool gracious water springs. Upon the other hand, when the Gothic feeling died away, and Boucher and others began to design, they gave us wide expanses of waste sky, elaborate perspective, posing nymphs and shallow artificial treatment. ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... itself, or for itself, but purgatorial, remedial, and preparatory. She hated all devices of pleasure as her ancestors did the abominations of popery. A fiddle she could tolerate only in the shape of a bass-viol; and dancing, if practised at all, must be called "calisthenics." The drama was to her an invention of the Enemy of Souls—and if she ever saw a play, it must be at a museum, and not within the walls of that temple of Baal, the theatre. None but "serious" conversation ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... Very dreary looks the gray, bare moorland. Do they call that foliage on the stunted fir-trees? It is only the ghost of a forest. The trim parterres have no beauty or fragrance for one that has lingered in more glorious gardens and plucked redder roses. Tabret and viol jangle harshly in the ears that have rioted in melodies made by fairy harpers. The village maidens may be comely, but they are somewhat clumsy withal; the earthen floor trembles under their feet when they lead their simple dances; very different from ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... this matter more fully when we approach the study of the musical apparatus of the first lyric dramas. It may be noted, however, in passing that the Italian word "violino" was used as late as 1597 to designate the tenor viol. This instance of uncertainty in terminology warns us to be careful in accepting ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... I have learned these forty years, My native English, now I must forego; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, Or being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... well-combed beard and placid, vacant gaze, seated in well-ordered masses, holy with the purity of inanity; of divine dolls with pallid flaxen locks, floating between heaven and earth, playing upon lute and viol and psaltery; raised to faint visions of angels and blessed, moving noiseless, feelingless, meaningless, across the flowerets of Paradise; of assemblies of saints seated, arrayed in pure pink, and blue and lilac, in an atmosphere ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... had practiced for months, and almost everything was represented. There were violinists prancing along, violists and a crew of long-haired gentlemen and ladies playing the viol da gamba and the viol d'amore; there were guitarists plunking madly away, banjo players strumming and ukelele addicts picking at their strings, somehow all chorusing together. In a special pair of floats ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... May dedicate humbly To her grower the beauty Wherewith she is comely; If the mine to the miner The jewels that pined in it, Earth to diviner The springs he divined in it; To the grapes the wine-pitcher Their juice that was crushed in it, Viol to its witcher The music lay hushed in it; If the lips may pay Gladness In laughters she wakened, And the heart to its sadness Weeping unslakened, If the hid and sealed coffer, Whose having not his is, To the loosers may proffer Their finding—here this is; Their lives if all livers To the ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... we moan For loss that doth enrich us yet With upward yearnings of regret? Bleaker than unmossed stone Our lives were but for this immortal gain Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain! As thrills of long-hushed tone Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine With keen vibrations from the touch divine Of noble ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... went to help a neighbouring clergyman in the old days when all kinds of music made up the village choir. Unfortunately some difficulty arose in the tuning of the instruments. The fiddles and bass-viol would not accord, and the parson grew impatient. At last, leaning over the reading-desk and throwing up his arms, he shouted out, "Hark away, Jack! Hark ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... this, as a diversion, is it to have some department of natural history or art to which you may turn, a case of shells or birds, or a season ticket to some picture gallery. If you do nothing but play on one string of the bass viol, you will wear it out and get no healthy tune. Better take the bow and sweep it clear across in one grand swirl, bringing all four strings and ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... Baron. But if yeux dont comme tu us, Ile go to ure house and se oncle, and se houe he does; for mi dame se he bean ill; but deux comme; mi dire yeux canne ly here yeux nos; if yeux love musique, yeux mai have the harp, lutte, or viol heere. Adieu, ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... years for an illustrious career. William soon learned all that his master could teach him in the ordinary branches of knowledge, and by the age of fourteen he was already a competent performer on the oboe and the viol. He was engaged in the Court orchestra at Hanover, and was also a member of the band of the Hanoverian Guards. Troublous times were soon to break up Herschel's family. The French invaded Hanover, the Hanoverian Guards were ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... he just turned his head away. Mother sat down. Aunt Clara looked straight ahead, and her old-fashioned bonnet hid her face; but I could discover that something more than usual was working under her cap. I looked at every one of the singers, and then at the players, from the big bass-viol down to the tenor, and not a bit of reason could I perceive for the twitter the heads of our pew had certainly got themselves into. There's a pattern old lady, Prudence Clark, presidentess of the Dorcas Society,—a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... right,' the Earl said, 'but let us away to our supper, it must needs be served, and afterwards you shall take the viol, and chase away any needless fears by your ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... a Story in some Authors, that having put Human Seed into a Viol close stopp'd, and plac'd it for some time in a Dunghill that was moderately hot; they observ'd that the Particles drew up themselves in such Order, as to assume the Form of a Child. This (say they) comes to pass after the same manner ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... ancient times the banquets, which immediately followed sacrifices, were attended with instrumental music. For we read in Isaiah, v, 12: "And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts." And in the households of wealthy Roman citizens, instruction was given in the art of carving, to the sound of music, with appropriate gestures, under the direction of the ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... alms-people living in Clement-Dane's Church-Yard; whose pensions I in his absence paid weekly, to his and the parish's great satisfaction. My master was no sooner gone down, but I bought a bass-viol, and got a master to instruct me; the intervals of time I spent in bowling in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, with Wat the cobler, Dick the blacksmith, and such like companions: We have sometimes been at our work at six ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well, and in fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute; speaks good remnants, notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco; swears tersely, and with variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity; a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another man's horse to praise, and backs him as his own. Or, for a need, on foot can post himself into credit with ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... skill, Exclude each one that would disturb The fairy architects, or curb The wild creations of their mirth, All that would wake the soul to earth. Choose ye the softly-breathing-flute, The mellow horn, the loving lute; The viol you must not forget, And take the sprightly flageolet And grave bassoon; choose too the fife, Whose warblings in the tuneful strife, Mingling in mystery with the words, May seem like notes ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... Christian counsel—I doubt as how I've steered by a wrong chart, d'ye see—as for the matter of the sciences, to be sure, I know Plain Sailing and Mercator; and am an indifferent good seaman, thof I say it that should not say it. But as to all the rest, no better than the viol-block or the geer-capstan. Religion I han't much overhauled; and we tars laugh at your polite conversation, thof, mayhap, we can chaunt a few ballads to keep the hands awake in the night watch; then for chastity, brother, I doubt that's not expected in a sailor just come ashore, after ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... aura viol une des mesures provisoires prescrites par le Conseil pendant la priode de procdure, vises l'article 7 du ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... played his tune so well because their natures had unblunted edges, and were keen for bliss, confiding in it as natural food. To gentlemen and ladies he fine-draws upon the viol, ravishingly; or blows into the mellow bassoon; or rouses the heroic ardours of the trumpet; or, it may be, commands the whole Orchestra for them. And they are pleased. He is still the cunning musician. They languish, and taste ecstasy: but it is, however sonorous, an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... road and to their companions they came, and showed them what they had done. Now when Feeble-mind and Ready-to-halt saw that it was the head of Giant Despair indeed, they were very jocund and merry.[269] Now Christiana, if need was, could play upon the viol, and her daughter Mercy upon the lute; so, since they were so merry disposed, she played them a lesson, and Ready-to-halt would dance. So he took Despondency's daughter, named Much-afraid, by the hand, and to dancing they went in the road. True, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... unusual, I mean, that as early as midnight he did not know whether he was boy or girl, and took the starry firmament for a bass-viol. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... a large garden in the rear and spacious rooms where they entertained a great deal. Not long ago, I saw a fascinating drawing of a party in Georgetown in the fifties. It represented four musicians intent upon playing a bass viol, a cello, a violin, and a flute; a few of the company standing near by with curls and puffed coiffures, and among them a tiny man, side-whiskered, so short that he barely reached the shoulders of the ladies. He must, of course, have been Prince ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... his tone warned her of a crisis, and she put forth her cunning to avert it. "And, you—you will not love me less?" her voice vibrant as the string of a viol. "I am a princess, but yet a woman. In me there are two, the woman and the princess. The princess is proud and ambitious; to gain her ends she stops at nothing. As a princess she may stoop to trickery and deceit, and step back untouched. But the woman-ah, well; for this fortnight I have ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... discussed the sermon, dissecting it, weighing it, as above or below the average—the general tendency being to regard it as a scientific feat or performance which had no relation to their own lives, except as between critics and the thing criticized. The bass-viol player and the clerk usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account of their official connection with ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Athens and her beauty. The images stamped so carefully on his sensitive brain became his most precious treasures. Over and over he dwelt on them. Ever in memory his feet climbed the steps to the Acropolis or walked beneath stately orange-trees, beating a soft rhythm to the sound of flute and viol. For Achilles was by nature one of the lightest-hearted of children. In Athens his laugh had been quick to rise, and fresh as the breath of rustling leaves. It was only here, under the sooty sky of the narrow street, that his face had grown a ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... to himself, he smelt the perfume of myrtles and roses, and looking out of window saw a garden that descended in successive declivities to the sea. Signora Loreta, standing at his bed's head, took up her viol and ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... Or are the birds all wrong That play on flute and viol, A thousand strong, In minstrel galleries Of the long deep wood, Epiphanies Of bloom ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... moment, in a rainbow-shimmer of joy, or a sudden lightning-flare of passion, this exquisite mystery we call Amor, comes, to some rapt visionaries at least, not with a song upon the lips that all may hear, or with blithe viol of public music, but as one wrought by ecstasy, ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a tondo in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be interesting to know whether a rumour ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... now, in veil on veil of evening The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far; A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol In the heart of the hollow where the dark pools are; The primrose has opened her pale yellow flowers And heaven ...
— Flame and Shadow • Sara Teasdale
... made to the platform at the further end of the hall; when this was reached, a little old man staggered into the hall, bearing on his shoulders a bass viol. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... is this: Singing folk alone travel whither they will. We will go as jongleurs, then. I can yet manage a song to the viol, I dare affirm. And you must pass as ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... [Footnote 168: Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a faire qu'a prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une fille? (Hist. Generale, c. xxvi.) His ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... beauty, peerlessly blonde, her mass of hair elaborately coifed and bound about her pale brow with a fillet of sable velvet. He saw her first in the dance, sumptuously gowned, regal, yet blithe, yielding as might a goddess to the mortal embrace of Bill Bardin as they fox-trotted to the viol's surge. He was stricken dumb until the dance ended. Then he gripped an arm of Spike Brennon, who had stood by him against the wall, "looking 'em over," as Spike ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... between the fore and main masts, serving to stretch a rope, heave upon the jeers, and take the viol to. Very seldom used. It is indeed deemed the spare capstan, and is frequently housed in by ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... introduced the bass viol into the services of the Church, and thus began to break down the ancient Puritanical prejudices against musical instruments. He was also the first to use the pitch-pipe in order to ensure some degree of certainty in "striking up ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... grouped the stops which imitate the tones of such stringed instruments as the Viola, the Violoncello, the Double Bass, and more especially the old form of Violoncello, called the Viol di Gamba, which had six strings and was more ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... a small town, when sick o' my roaming, Whare ance play'd the viol, the tabor, and flute; 'Twas the hour loved by labour, the saft smiling gloaming, Yet the green round the cross-stane was empty ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... capturing a two-foot space twirled around on it and tried to make up by shouting for what was lacking in motion. The orchestra was brilliant, the first violinist as a recognized artist drowned out the second, and a great bass-viol with three strings was sounded ad libitum by dilettantes, whiskey and coffee flowed in abundance, all the guests were dripping with perspiration—in short, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... in the Company who belongs to the gallery, and that's Uncle Issy Spettigew: and he plays the bass-viol. I doubt if you can play the Dead March on a bass-viol, and I'm morally certain you can't play it and walk with it too. I suppose we can't borrow a band from ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... her voice melodious as a viol. "Can sorrow burden thine and mine go light?" she wooed him. "Is happiness possible to me when thou art downcast? In there I felt thy melancholy, and thy need of me, and I am come to share thy burden, or to bear it all for thee." Her arms were ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... Joy's ecstatic trial; He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best: They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... Yankee, had a twang like a cracked viol; and Shorty (as his comrade called him), clipped the aspirate from every word beginning with one. The latter, though not the tallest man in the world, was a good-looking young fellow of twenty-five. His cheeks ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Ann, the first he painted, showed her as Saint Cecelia hearkening to music which sounds from Heaven in her ears. Two sweet angel babes floated on thin clouds above her head, singing hymns to a mandoline and viol. Thus had my lord Cardinal commanded, and the work was so excellent that, if the Saint herself vouchsafed to look down on it out of Heaven, of a certainty it was pleasing in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... sounds of a suffering world. "Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph." So do opulent and selfish men still seek ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... in woman. Each native seemed to the strangers sadly alike in looks, dress, manners, and pursuits, to every other native. Of Art they were absolutely ignorant. They built their temples on the same model as their barns. Poetry meant Psalms sung through their noses to the accompaniment of a bass-viol. Of other musical instruments, they knew only the Jews-harp for home delectation, and the drum and fife for training-days. Doctrinal religion furnished them with a mental relaxation which supplied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... uncouth ancient psalmody, which I believe is still retained in use to this day. I was seasoned to that kind of poetry in my early days by the verses of Tate and Brady, which I used to hear "entuned in the nose ful swetely," accompanied by vigorous rasping of a huge bass-viol. No wonder that Scotland ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... recognition. He confessed to me that he was apt to go astray when intent on rhyme. With so much to abstract him from outward life, he could hardly be said to live in the world that was bustling around him. Almost the only relaxation that he allowed himself was an occasional performance on a bass-viol which stood in the corner of his study, and from which he loved to elicit some old-fashioned tune of soothing potency. At meal-times, however, dragged down and harassed as his spirits were, he brightened up, ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said Strings, musingly, as he lifted the old viol close against his cheek and tenderly picked it. "The old fiddle is true to me yet, though there is but one string left to its dear old neck." There was a sob in his voice as he spoke. "I tell you, a fiddle's human, Dick! It laughs at my jokes alone now; it weeps at my sorrows." He sighed deeply ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... tone is produced, especially in the upper ranges of the instrument. In the middle register, passages played forte or fortissimo will have a richness comparable to the G string of a violin. The effect is analogous to that of a viol d'amour which has, as is well known (stretched underneath the strings, which produce the actual tone) a set of additional strings, freely vibrating. Although this "una corda"[220] pedal may be used in a dynamic sense to reduce, as it were, the size of the instrument, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?" said the tranter. "Never such a man as father for two things—cleaving up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass his life between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... strains to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay! For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay, Once more the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms thou sport'st thy merry night, Trail'st the long mop, or ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... and almost certainly written for a picture,[5] which seems to place the whole world of ancient pastoral before our eyes. The grouping of the figures is like that in the famous Venetian Pastoral of Giorgione; in both alike are the shadowed grass, the slim pipes, the hand trailing upon the viol-string. But the execution has the matchless simplicity, the incredible purity of outline, that distinguishes Greek work from ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... are for killing 'wild cats, greys [badgers], and hedge hogs ... salaries of dog-whipper ... fox-hunter, etc., and repairs to the base viol.' ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... why the name attached itself, in many instances, to the bravest work of other men. The Concert in the Pitti Palace, in which a monk, with cowl and tonsure, touches the keys of a harpsichord, while a clerk, placed behind him, grasps the handle of the viol, and a third, with hat and plume, seems to wait upon the true interval for beginning to sing, is undoubtedly Giorgione's. The outline of the lifted finger, the trace of the plume, the very threads of the fine linen, which fasten themselves on the memory, in the moment before they are ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... ranches and come to town in piles; The ladies, kinder scatterin', had gathered in for miles. And yet the place was crowded, as I remember well, 'Twas gave on this occasion at the Morning Star Hotel. The music was a fiddle and a lively tambourine, And a viol came imported, by the stage from Abilene. The room was togged out gorgeous—with mistletoe and shawls, And the candles flickered festious, around the airy walls. The wimmen folks looked lovely—the boys looked ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... says he, "take care to regulate the whole regimen of the patient's life for joy and happiness by promising that he will soon be well, by allowing his relatives and special friends to cheer him and by having someone to tell him jokes, and let him be solaced also by music on the viol or psaltery. The surgeon must forbid anger, hatred, and sadness in the patient, and remind him that the body grows fat from joy and thin from sadness. He must insist on the patient obeying him faithfully in all things." He repeats with approval the expression of Avicenna ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... wisest men with mirth do seem stark mad, And cannot choose—their hearts are all so glad. Then let's be merry in our God and King, That made us merry, being ill bestead. Southampton, up thy cap to Heaven fling, And on the viol there sweet praises sing, For he is come that grace ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... know this my ancestor was not only of a a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court; you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the tilt-yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of honour, and the greatest beauty of her time; here she stands the next picture. You see, Sir, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... that of cembalist of the orchestra. The duty of the cembalist is to preside at the piano. Only a good musician would be capable of filling such a position, as all the accompaniments were played from the score. He held this for two years, afterward playing viol in the orchestra for several years more. This work in the orchestra was later of the greatest possible benefit to him in composing. There was no salary at first, but the post had an important bearing ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... sir, it behoves me shift my ground, Like him that makes the sprightly viol ring, Who often changes chord and varies sound, And now a graver strikes, now sharper string: Thus I: — who did to good Rinaldo bound My tale, Angelica remembering; Late left, where saved from him by hasty flight, She had encountered with ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Breakfast done, the tables were removed, and the queen bade fetch instruments of music; for all, ladies and young men alike, knew how to tread a measure, and some of them played and sang with great skill: so, at her command, Dioneo having taken a lute, and Fiammetta a viol, they struck up a dance in sweet concert; and, the servants being dismissed to their repast, the queen, attended by the other ladies and the two young men, led off a stately carol; which ended they fell to singing ditties dainty ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... hospitality of the olden time; and, reluctantly as he otherwise endured even any thing unusual in the house, he yet practised hospitality, especially towards artists and virtuosi. Thus gossip Seekatz always had his quarters with us; and Abel, the last musician who handled the /viol di gamba/ with success and applause, was well received and entertained. With such youthful impressions, which nothing had as yet rubbed off, how could I have resolved to set foot in an inn in a strange city? Nothing would have been easier than ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass—this green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the "crown," and the Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right Whale; ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... head of the bass-viol has air and character: by the band under the chin, it gives some idea of a professor, or what is, I ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... certainly; nevertheless during the heat and tedium of the days that followed, certain cadences of that dulcet voice returned to him like a haunting melody, suggesting visions of a garden, fresh with splashing fountains, where Bianca wandered in company with other fair women playing on the viol and singing as in a vignette of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... in one of the midland counties; the building was in a most deplorable state of dilapidation, and the communion-rail formed a music-stand, while inside were placed an orchestra of two fiddles and a bass-viol. The minister received, for the first three years he officiated, the exorbitant remuneration of thirty pounds a year; since which time he has taken the duties of parish schoolmaster, the salary of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... passing by. Thus here[2] are seen, straight and athwart, swift and slow, changing appearance, the atoms of bodies, long and short, moving through the sunbeam, wherewith sometimes the shade is striped which people contrive with skill and art for their protection. And as a viol or harp, strung in harmony of many strings, makes a sweet tinkling to one by whom the tune is not caught, thus from the lights which there appeared to me a melody was gathered through the Cross, which rapt me without understanding of the hymn. Truly was I ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... brief note in that wonderful hymn, And to us its Oneness is hazy and dim; We hear the few sounds from the viol we play, But all the full chorus floats far and away: Our poor little pipe of an instant is drown'd In the glorious rush of that ocean of sound; The player hears nothing beyond his own bars, Whilst all that grand symphony ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... great palace at Esterhaz, where there was a theater, in which opera was given, and a smaller one where there was a marionette company, the machinery of which had been brought to great perfection. There were frequent concerts. The prince was a great amateur of the peculiar viol called the barytone, and it was one of Haydn's duties to provide new compositions for this instrument. Here for thirty years he continued in service, with few interruptions, and always on the very best of terms ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... the music man could make There they heard in plenty; Timbrel, psaltery, lyre, and lute, Harp and viol dainty; Voices that in part-song meet Choiring forte, lente; Sounds the diatesseron, ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... gone in again, and candles had been lit in his fresh and narrow chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I begged a ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... lute, and even "songes make and well indite." From the same source it appears that then, as now, one of the favorite accomplishments of a young lady was to sing well, and that her prospects for marriage were in proportion to her proficiency in this art. In those days the bass-viol (viol-de-gamba) was a popular instrument, and was played upon by ladies,—a practice which in these modern times would be considered a violation of female propriety, and even then some thought it "an unmannerly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Music, in which heavenly art he was a most excellent master, and did himself compose many Divine Hymns and Anthems, which he set and sung to his lute or viol: and though he was a lover of retiredness, yet his love to Music was such, that he went usually twice every week, on certain appointed days, to the Cathedral Church in Salisbury; and at his return would say, "That his time spent in prayer, and ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... of Germany. They used it with a skill and delicacy which was generally far superior to the style of the Troubadours. In performing their works, they did not, like their western brethren, have recourse to hired accompanists, or Jongleurs, but supported the vocal part by playing on a small viol. The Jongleurs were essentially a French institution, and no class of musicians similar to them existed in Germany. The Minnesingers, like the Troubadours, were amateurs, and aimed to keep free from the taint of professionalism. Men of the highest rank were proud to belong to this order of musicians, ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... "More respectfully, a violin. More correctly a viol-din. (The joke is not new.) What you are listening to with such evident delight are the sweet strains of Penny Durkin's violin." Amy looked at the alarm clock which decorated a corner of his chiffonier. "Penny is twelve minutes ahead of time. He's not supposed to play during study-hour, ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... melody. Seems to me nowadays some of the trained high-falutin' voices has just got that left out. Seems so to me—seems so. All the Farnhams just sung natural, just like birds. Old Doctor Kingsley played the bass viol so it was soul stirrin' too. Margaret Farnham, the president of our first aid society married a Hildreth—Julia ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... pantings that accompanied the action, from the beginning to the end; the sound and sight of which thrilled to the very soul of me, and made every vein of my body circulate liquid fires: the emotion grew so viol-lent that it almost ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... bass piccolo, seven oboes, one English horn, three clarinets in D flat, one clarinet in G flat, one corno de bassetto, three bassoons, one contra-bassoon, eleven horns, three trumpets, eight cornets in B, four trombones, two alto trombones, one viol da gamba, one mandolin, two guitars, one banjo, two tubas, glockenspiel, bell, triangle, fife, bass-drum, cymbals, timpani, celesta, four harps, piano, harmonium, pianola, phonograph, and ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... and "appropriate instrumental music by the band," which consisted of a drum and a bass-viol, the people dispersed to amuse themselves as they saw fit, till dinner ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... tune ended, a fine DD rolling forth from the bass-viol with the sonorousness of a cannonade, and Gabriel delayed his entry no longer. He avoided Bathsheba, and got as near as possible to the platform, where Sergeant Troy was now seated, drinking brandy-and-water, though the others drank without exception ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... divine service. At their national celebrations, in their homes, at their diversions, even on their journeys and their pilgrimages to the sanctuary, their hymns were at once religious, patriotic, and social.[109] They had the viol and the cithara, flutes, cymbals, and castanets, and, if our authorities interpret correctly, an organ (magrepha), whose volume of sound surpassed description. When, on the Day of Atonement, its strains pealed through the chambers of the Temple, they were ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... life, I assure you."—Adams was going to answer, when a most hideous uproar began in the inn. Mrs Tow-wouse, Mr Tow-wouse, and Betty, all lifting up their voices together; but Mrs Tow-wouse's voice, like a bass viol in a concert, was clearly and distinctly distinguished among the rest, and was heard to articulate the following sounds:—"O you damn'd villain! is this the return to all the care I have taken of your family? This the reward of my virtue? Is this the manner in which you behave to one ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Do again, and that is Mi, this Do, and that Fa; and that, boys, is a part of what we call a scale." Then turning to a tall, thin, shabby-looking man, very much out at the elbows, whom I had not seen before, he said—"Mr. Smith, how is your base viol? Hav'nt you got it ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... all right," he assured, his voice still low, but so resonant and harsh that it sounded like the thrumming of a viol string. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... had learned, was an extraordinary fine musician. We had, of course, no music such as was possible in town; but she had taught a maid to play upon a fiddle, and herself played upon the bass-viol; and the two together would play in the Great Chamber after supper for an hour or two, when the dishes were washed. In this manner we had many a corrant and saraband; and I was able to prick down for them too some Italian music I remembered, which ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... petticoat that he bought for his wife, of the 'good hog's hars- let,' and the 'pleasant French fricassee of veal' that he loved to eat, of his game of bowls with Will Joyce, and his 'gadding after beauties,' and his reciting of Hamlet on a Sunday, and his playing of the viol on week days, and other wicked or trivial things. Even in actual life egotism is not without its attractions. When people talk to us about others they are usually dull. When they talk to us about themselves they are nearly ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... pure high notes of a woman's voice, sustained by the sound of the viol on which she accompanied her song, rose above the rattle of the storm against the casements, and floated up to the chamber of death. Don Juan stopped his ears against the barbarous ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... not of his own invention. It was a bit of mediaeval phrasing written for the pipe and the viol. It made the piano seem a ponderous, nerve-wracking steam-roller of noise, and the violin, as we know it, a ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... mind of many a boy with religious associations to this day. There was often an odor of sassafras in the afternoon service. It used to stand in my mind as a substitute for the Old Testament incense of the Jews. Something in the same way the big bass-viol in the choir took the place of "David's ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... disapprovingly, while viewing with wonder the great lumbering coach, its passengers inside and out, and, behind, the large wagon with its load of miscellaneous trappings. Now on the stage throne lolled the bass viol player, even as Jacques assumed the raiment of the Duke of Aranza, reclining the while in his chair of state. Contentment was written upon his face, and he was as much a duke or a king, as Jacques when he swelled like a shirt bleaching ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... probably the most complete and exhaustive study of "that triumph of genius over matter" written. And besides being a master of his own instrument he plays the viola d'amore, that sweet-toned survival, with sympathetic strings, of the 17th century viol family, and the Hungarian czimbalom. Nor is his mastery of the last-named instrument "out of drawing," for we must remember that Mr. Hartmann was born in Mate Szalka, in Southern Hungary. Then, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... as are commendable, where there be trumpets, let them sound: where there be lutes and harpes, let them strike vp: where there be loud Cymbals and well tuned Cymbals, let them ring, let them sing the praises of God for this our most happy deliuerance; let trumpet and tongue, viol & voice, lute & life, witnes our hartie reioycing in the Lord. If our true zeale were more fierie within, it would doubtlesse break forth into moe publike workes, then it doth, against that bloody brood of the Gun-powder crue. ...
— An Exposition of the Last Psalme • John Boys
... been spending the summer amusing people, had no place to go, and a sympathetic monk took him into the monastery to live. Barnabas was happy for a time; but after a while, as he saw everybody else worshiping the Beautiful Mother with lute and brush, viol, drum, talent, and prayer, he began to feel that his ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... all this, the gentleman you would go to see is very agreeable and good humoured.(1044) He has some very Pretty children, and a sensible, learned man that lives with him, one Dr. Thirlby,(1045) whom, I believe you know. The master of the house plays extremely well on the bass-viol, and has generally other musical people with him. He knows a good deal of the private history of a late ministry; and, my dear George, you love memoires. Indeed, as to personal acquaintance with any of the court beauties, I can't say you will find your account ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... nankeen pantaloons which were said to have come down as an heirloom in his family from a remote generation. He was addicted to rather a pompous style of speech. He was very fond of playing the bass-viol, of which he was by no means a very skilful master. He had, as a subject for his mock part, "The Base Violation of all Rules of Harmony." One Sunday evening he had a few friends with him who were singing psalm ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... verses by so just a curse That were ill made, condemned to be read worse: And how (impossible!) he made yet more Absurdities in them than were before: For his untun'd voice did fall or raise As a deaf man upon the Viol plays, Making the half-points and the periods run Confus'der than the atoms in the sun: Thereat the poet swell'd ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... mortal influence came, (The mingled malice of their flame,) A skilful angel did the ingredients take, And with just hands the sad composure make, And over all the land did the full viol shake. Thirst, giddiness, faintness, and putrid heats, And pining pains, and shivering sweats, On all the cattle, all the beasts, did fall; With deformed death the country's covered all. The labouring ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... if the objects are in alcohol, or on thin pieces of lead marked with a knife. When several plants are put in the same jar, a label, thus marked, should be attached to each. Without this precaution, the collection is useless. Flowers of the different species should not be put in the same viol. If it is ever necessary, a label should be attached to each. Or they should be put in paper pasted together, with the ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... 1469. The classic instrument of the minstrel was the vielle or viol, a sort of violin, which only true artists knew how to use well (one is reproduced in "English Wayfaring Life," p. 202). Therefore many minstrels early replaced this difficult instrument by the common tabor, which sufficed to mark the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... chummy after that, and he told me all his crimes. He said he had lived next door once to a young lady who was learning to play the guitar, while a gentleman who practised on the bass- viol lived opposite. And he, with fiendish cunning, had introduced these two unsuspecting young people to one another, and had persuaded them to elope with each other against their parents' wishes, and take their musical instruments ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... capitals, on the cornice, sits a figure on each side; one represents Poetry, crowned with laurel, holding a scroll in one hand, the other with a pen in it, and resting on a book; the other, Painting, with a pallet and pencils, &c.: on the sweep of the arch lies one of the Muses, playing on a bass-viol; another of the Muses, on the other side, holding a trumpet in one hand, and the other on a harp. Between these figures, in the middle of the sweep of the arch, is a very large pannel in a frame of gold; ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Pipe and viol call the dances, Torch-light through the high halls glances; Waves a mighty shadow in; With manner bland Doth ask the maiden's hand, Doth with her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the small manual organ in the Independent church was played by a Mr Clark, who was organist at the Parish church in the morning and at the chapel in the afternoon and evening. Before this time the Independents had contented themselves with violins and a bass viol, and for a time ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... she replied, "I cannot rest because of the sweet song of the nightingale, whose music has cast a spell upon my heart. No tune of harp or viol can compare with it, and I may not close my eyes so long as his song continues ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... the most of it, we ordered another magnum of strong red wine, and procured from the neighbourhood a blind fiddler, who had acquired a local reputation. His instrument, the favourite one of Servia, is styled a goosely, being a testudo-formed viol; no doubt a relic of the antique, for the Servian monarchy derived all its arts from the Greeks of the Lower Empire. But the musical entertainment, in spite of the magnum of wine, and the jovial challenges of ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Very. You must have three voices: a treble, a counter-tenor, and a bass; which must be accompanied by a bass-viol, a theorbo lute, and a harpsichord for the thorough-basses, with two violins to ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)
... understand thee! the first crowd was made of a horse-head. 'Tis true, the finding of a dead horse-head Was the first invention of string instruments, Whence rose the gittern, viol, and the lute: Though others think the lute was first devis'd In imitation of a tortoise-back, Whose sinews, parched by Apollo's beams, Echo'd about the concave of the shell: And seeing the shortest and smallest gave shrill'st sound, They found out frets, whose sweet ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Coulanges, Sevigne, in a garden of the hotel de Conde; there were water-works, bowers, terraces, six hautboys, six violins, and the most melodious flutes; a supper which seemed to be prepared by enchantment, an admirable bass-viol, and a resplendent moon, which witnessed all our pleasures." Of her own garden, formed by her own pure taste, M. de Coulanges thus speaks: "I have spent a most delightful fortnight here. It is impossible sufficiently ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... undertakes any kind of manual labour, as holding the plough, driving the team, thatching the barn, using the flail; but her chief avocation is breaking horses at a guinea per week. She is fond of Pope and Shakespeare, is a self-taught and capable instrumentalist, and supports the bass viol ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... called them cannibals and German pickpockets, he cannot have had much respect for their personal character. At their love-feasts, he said, their chief object was to squeeze money from the poor. At some of their services they played the bass viol, and at others they did not, which plainly showed that they were unsteady in their minds. And, therefore, they were a ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Robert Danforth, his strong voice filling the shop as with the sound of a bass viol, "I consider myself equal to anything in the way of my own trade; though I should have made but a poor figure at yours with such a fist as this," added he, laughing, as he laid his vast hand beside the delicate one of Owen. "But what then? I put more main strength into one blow of my sledge hammer ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and led her to the castle with great honor, as a king's daughter. And they would have given her to her lord a king of Paynim, but she had no mind to marry. There dwelt she three days or four. And she considered by what device she might seek far Aucassin. Then she got her a viol, and learned to play on it; till they would have married her one day to a rich king of Paynim, and she stole forth by night, and came to the seaport, and dwelt with a poor woman thereby. Then took she a certain ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in an octogenarian treble, that seemed to come from high up in the head of Uncle Issy, the bass-viol player; "But cast your eyes, good friends, 'pon a little slip o' heart's delight down in the nave, and mark the flowers 'pon the bonnet nid-nodding like bees in a bell, with ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the players formed a very good band—almost as good as the Mellstock parish players that were led by the Dewys; and that's saying a great deal. There was Nicholas Puddingcome, the leader, with the first fiddle; there was Timothy Thomas, the bass- viol man; John Biles, the tenor fiddler; Dan'l Hornhead, with the serpent; Robert Dowdle, with the clarionet; and Mr. Nicks, with the oboe—all sound and powerful musicians, and strong-winded men—they that ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... to the conference, observing, that all these parties were sitting down on the deck, and that Jemmy Ducks had his fiddle in his hand, holding it with the body downwards like a bass viol, for he always played it in that way, and that he occasionally fingered the strings, pinching them as you do a guitar, so as to send the sound of it aft, that Mr Vanslyperken might suppose that they ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in its present condition, was intended as a text or handbook for the Rawi or professional story-teller, who would declaim the recitative in quasi-conversational tones, would intone the Saj'a and would chant the metrical portions to the twanging of the Rababah or one-stringed viol. The Reviewer declares that the original has many such passages; but why does he not tell the reader that almost the whole Koran, and indeed all classical Arab prose, is composed in such "jingle"? "Doubtfully pleasing in the Arabic," it may "sound the reverse of melodious in our own tongue" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... was so animated by the music, that she began to waltz with him, and the two babes whirled round and round, hugging and kissing each other, as if the music had made them mad. There were two fiddles and a bass viol. The fiddlers,—above all, the bass violer,—most Hogarthian phizzes! God love them! I felt far more affection for them than towards any other set of human beings I have met with since I have been in Germany, I suppose because ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... nineteenth century we have again risen a third, yes, an entire octave above the eighteenth century! Our great-grandfathers called the bass flute flauto d'amore, the alto oboe, oboe d'amore, a bass viol, viola d'amore, because their ear found preferably in the deep middle tones the character of the tender, the sweet, and the languishing. Now we can scarcely play on the violin or wind instrument a love melody which does not rise two or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various |
