"Violin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most astonishing part of all; for they say in Strasbourg that his performance upon the violin was far finer than Paganini's; but there seems some secret in it, after all: for Madame Baptiste swears that he is Meerberger; and in fact the matter is far from being cleared up —nor can it ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... doing this boy an injustice. He has but little mathematical sense, it is true, and he will never be able to add more than one column of figures with speed and correctness. Nature intended him for something different from a bank cashier. Give this boy a good violin, place him under competent instructors, spend seventy-five dollars on his musical education and he will display such magnificent talent that you will be willing ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... consulting-room, a little below your level, where the Doctor sat at his big writing-table that was heaped with notebooks and papers and had a telephone on it, and all sorts of mysterious instruments in shining brass and silver, as brightly polished as the gleaming thing with a lid, shaped like a violin-case and with a spirit-lamp underneath it, in which all sorts of wicked-looking knives and forceps were boiled when they were taken out of the black bag; or into Mrs. Saxham's bedroom, that was on the floor above, and was done up in the loveliest style you ever! "Not that Missis W. Keyse ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... for one drink before going to a much-touted boxing-match in Jersey. Through the evening she deliberately avoided seeing Banneker alone for so much as the space of a query put and answered, dividing her attention between an enraptured master of the violin who had come after his concert, and an aged and bewildered inventor who, in a long career of secluded toil, had never beheld anything like this brilliant creature with her intelligent and quickening interest in what he had ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... quadrille, etc., are suggested, and when this question has gone the round, the grasshopper asks what music he can dance to, and the ants suggest the music of the violin, the piano, cornet, etc. Then the grasshopper says he is tired of dancing and wishes for a bed, and the ants offer him moss, straw, grass, and so on, to ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... world is the practice of music more universally extended and at the same time the science so little understood as in America. Almost every house included between the Delaware and Schuylkill has its piano or harpsichord, its violin, its flute, or its clarinet. Almost every young lady and gentleman from the children of the Judge, the banker, and the general, down to those of the constable, the huckster, and the drummer, can make a noise upon some instrument or other, and charm their ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... before quitting port, an expedient we would recommend to all who have a regard for the instrument that extends beyond its outside, or even for their own ears. John Effingham executed brilliantly on the violin; and, as it appeared on inquiry, the two younger gentlemen performed respectably on the flute, flageolet, and one or two other wind instruments. We shall leave them doing great justice to Beethoven, Rossini, and Mayerbeer, whose compositions Mr. Dodge did not fail to sneer at in the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... holyday. The people were all dressed in their best; the men riding about on horseback among the houses, and the women sitting on carpets before the doors. Under the piazza of a "pulperia," two men were seated, decked out with knots of ribbons and bouquets, and playing the violin and the Spanish guitar. These are the only instruments, with the exception of the drums and trumpets at Monterey that I ever heard in California; and I suspect they play upon no others, for at a great fandango at which I was afterwards present, and where they mustered all the music ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... like playing lately, but I do now," and Dorothy stood up and swept the bow over the strings. Doctor of Music in violin, an accomplished musician, playing upon one of the finest instruments the world has ever known, she was lifted out of herself by relief from the dread of the Fenachrone invasion and that splendid violin expressed every ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... Susan knew in a happy instant that he had gone to find her at her aunt's, and had followed her here, and during the meal that followed, she was the maddest of all the mad crowd. After dinner they had Josephine's violin, and coaxed Betsey to recite, but more appreciated than either was Miss Brown's rendition of selections from German and Italian opera, and her impersonation of an inexperienced servant from Erin's green isle. Mrs. Carroll ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... of the most interesting. He is said to love music, and to show great delight in hearing a person sing. "Traveling some years since," says a gentleman whose statements may be relied on, "I met a bevy of about twenty stags, following a bagpipe and violin. While the music continued, they proceeded; when it ceased, they ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... savagely, but nevertheless communicated the order to the orchestra, and as the music waned to a mere wailing of the violin, the little dancer, rosy, hot, tired, whirled slower, slower,—then sank on her bed of green, and like her companions feigned sleep with the cunning ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... melody which he composed for a song of his own at the age of about twenty-three, and this melody displeased him so much that he destroyed it and never attempted another. In the same way, although he practised the violin, he did not attain to excellence in execution, his playing being confined to strathspeys and other slow airs of the pathetic kind. On the other hand, his perception and his love of music are undeniable. For example, he possessed copies of the principal collections of Scottish vocal and instrumental ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... platform, which was now and then used as a stage; and there was a pianist from Gnesen, not at all a bad player, who was supported by a violin and a double-bass. The musicians played with a good deal of rhythm, a fiery rhythm that carried the dancers away. People danced well in Gradewitz. Schmielke's dancing was nothing special here, although it had been considered exceedingly good at home. The girls were as light ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... the youths, with their soft beardless faces framed in combed-out hair, with their daggers on their hips and their plumed hats between their fingers; and the serious bearded men, in silken robes; drawing nearer the poet, letting go lute or violin or music-book as they listen on the villa terrace or in some darkened room, where the sunset sky turns green-blue behind the pillared window, and the roses hang over the trellise of the cloister. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... the Philosopher, "as though it were a known quantity. After all, to say that a man loves is like saying that he paints or plays the violin; it conveys no meaning until we have witnessed his performance. Yet to hear the subject discussed, one might imagine the love of a Dante or a society Johnny, of a Cleopatra or a Georges Sand, to be precisely ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... musicians' instruments, followed this tilted wagon. Some members of the orchestra would not part with theirs, and behind the saddle of many a mounted virtuoso or attendant was fastened a violin case or a shapeless bag which concealed some ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of his senses. Why, in the carriage was Margari's own brand-new mantle, for which he had paid nine and twenty gulden. The vagabond would be sure to lay his hands upon it. No, he would rather go to look for the fiddle himself. So he found the violin case at last somehow, and handing it to the baron through the csarda window (for he durst not trust himself inside), he retired again beneath the coach-house, although the rain was now splashing ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... the kind in question. Paganini was the founder of this school. He might have played on four strings till he was tired, without causing any particular sensation; but the single string made his fortune. Sivori is one of the cleverest artists of the present day, who resorts to tricks with his violin, and wonderfully does he perform them. At a concert last season, he imitated the singing of a bird with the strangest and happiest skill. The 'severe' shook their heads, but smiled as they did so, and owned that the trick was clever enough, and withal ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... less something he saw than something he was writing, and he altered it to make it more dramatic. "I woke up." How awful that was! but in this new scene she uttered no words. Lady Pippinworth was in his arms when they heard a little cry, so faint that a violin string makes as much moan when it snaps. In a dread silence he lit a match, and as it flared the figure of a girl was seen upon the floor. She was dead; and even as he knew that she was dead he recognized her. "Grizel!" he cried. The other woman who had lured him from his true ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... upon it, in which he playfully remarks that he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" and "The Auld Wife ayont the Fire." The title of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle of the room ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... brought the affectionate greetings of the women of Utah, and Mrs. Chapman Catt referred to the loving testimonials which had been sent by the Idaho women.[133] Then after an exquisite violin solo by Mr. Douglass, she said: "The liberties of the citizens of the future will be still more an outgrowth of this movement than those of the present," and to the delighted surprise of the audience the following scene occurred, as described by ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... is used in those conversational passages with other instruments that lend such a charm to orchestral music. The lower notes are not powerful. Mr. Henry Carte has, however, designed an alto flute in A, descending to violin G, with excellent results. There is a flute which transposes a minor third higher than the ordinary flute; but it is not much used in the orchestra, although used in the army, as is also a flute one semitone higher than ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... he had a veritable passion, and to have a passion for a thing means that you excel in it—excellence is a matter of intensity. One of the players in the band was a Frenchman, and William made an arrangement to give the "parlez vous" lessons on the violin as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... the shape of a bow that its elastic force may keep tense the strings that are stretched upon it. These strings, three in number, were originally of sinnet, later after the arrival of the white man, of horsehair. At the present time it is the fashion to use the ordinary gut designed for the violin or the taro-patch guitar. Every ukeke seen followed closely a conventional pattern, which, argues for the instrument a historic age sufficient to have gathered about itself some degree of traditional reverence. One end of the stick is notched or provided with holes ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... poor sort of painting; she noticed it herself. But she seemed to think that, if she talked a lot about it, and thought of nothing else, that somehow it would all come right. The second girl played the violin. She played it from early morning till late evening, and friends fell away from them. There wasn't a spark of talent in the family, but they all had a notion that a vague longing to be admired was just the ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... our organs as so many musical instruments. You have, probably, sometimes been at a concert. Each of the instruments in the orchestra performs its own part, does it not? The little flute pipes through all its holes; the double-bass pours thunder from its chords: the violin sighs with his; the cymbals clash; the Chinese bells dance to their own tinkling; all go at it in their own fashion, each independently of the other. And yet, when the orchestra is in good tune together, and well played, you hear but one sound; and to you the result of all these various noises, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... its bright light made the day longer; and when everybody had eaten a last piece of sponge-cake, and the heap of strawberries on a great round India dish had been leveled, what should be heard but sounds of a violin. Betty had discovered that Seth Pond,—the clumsy, good-natured Seth of all people!—had, as he said, "ears for music," and had ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... bottles, or beer out of stone or pewter "krugs." At the end of the long, narrow room stood two huge casks, one on either side of a small stage where three men in the costumes of Tyrolese peasants played a zither, a 'cello, and a violin, for a gaily dressed boy ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the one instrument which they know and understand, and it has been in use among the Norwegians for hundreds of years. Their most famous violin-player, Ole Bull, who died some few years ago, was looked on as a great composer and musician. But all over the country there are to be found men who can play after a fashion; and a century or so ago, when the people were still very superstitious, they fully ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... him mad,—the poor, old man, Whose white hair, worn and thin, Fell o'er his shoulders, as he played His cherished violin, Forever drawing to and fro O'er silent strings ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... uttered by a human voice will creep around its curves repeating and repeating itself like the vibrations of the gongs of Burmese temples, until it is lost in a whisper at the apex of the dome. I should like to hear a violin there or a hymn softly sung by ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... on the words till it trailed away into nothing, like the vanishing note of a violin which seems still to pulse faintly after the sound ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Black Cricket. Indeed the mistake would certainly be made by any one who did not know that, by the time the very hot weather comes, the true Cricket, the chorister of spring, has disappeared. His pleasant violin has been succeeded by another more pleasant still and worthy of special study. We shall return to him ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... the Poet returned home. He had been at a concert, had heard a celebrated violin player, and was quite enchanted with his wonderful performance. It had been a complete gush of melody that he had drawn from the instrument. Sometimes it seemed like the gentle murmur of a rippling stream, sometimes like the singing ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... wings spread was like a scarlet pomegranate blossom flying. Palma had asked him why he had run away from the bridal supper of Griffeo, the coppersmith's son,—just in the midst of his music; run away home, he and his violin. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... offerings. Ranger Winess brought us love songs. He doted on John McCormack's ballads, and I secretly applauded his choice. Of course I had to praise the Harry Lauder selections that Ranger Fisk toted in. White Mountain favored Elman and Kreisler. The violin held him spellbound. But when Pat came we all suffered through an evening of Grand ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... dipped her wrist into a spring; and her heart, at that ethereal shock, began to move more soberly. The sun that sails overhead, ploughing into gold the fields of daylight azure and uttering the signal to man's myriads, has no word apart for man the individual; and the moon, like a violin, only praises and laments our private destiny. The stars alone, cheerful whisperers, confer quietly with each of us like friends; they give ear to our sorrows smilingly, like wise old men, rich in tolerance; and by their double scale, so small to the eye, so vast ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... increased and perfected their output until they became ambitious to make larger pieces. Potters began turning out small foot-stoves, vases, candlesticks, and dinner sets. One of the most amusing relics of this old Delft is now in one of the foreign museums. It is a violin perfectly modeled and exquisitely decorated. The story goes that it was one of four such instruments which were made as wedding gifts for the four daughters of a rich Dutch pottery manufacturer. It is even asserted ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... called, is neither striking for magnificence nor for beauty; and we were all so dull and languid, that I was extremely glad when we were summoned to the orchestra, upon the opening of a concert; in the course of which I had the pleasure of hearing a concerto on the violin by Mr. Barthelemon, who to me seems a player of ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... become one of noisy revel. Many of the soldiers had gathered around a huge bonfire, amusing themselves with a variety of games; and, at a little distance, a few females, their wives and daughters, were collected on a plat of grass, and dancing with the young men, to the sound of a violin. The shrill fife, the deep-toned drum, and noisy bag-pipe, occasionally swelled the concert; though the monotonous strains of the latter instrument, by which a few sturdy Scots performed their national dance, were ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... with illustrations of old Sunday newspapers and county-fair posters. To its side was fastened an improvised lever, made from a broken cart-wheel. Under this barrel, concealed so that no one could see within, were placed three most prominent musicians of the village, Ivan with his violin, Semen with his concertina and Nicholas with his drum. As soon as the conductor outside pulled a string, the lever began to turn around and the musicians in the barrel had to start to play. In the corner of the house this strange instrument looked ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... I said, is of my mother's playing. I see myself, sitting on a great black book, the family Bible. I must have been very small, and it was a large Bible, and lay on a table in the sitting-room. I see my mother standing before me, with her violin on her arm. She is light, young, and very graceful; beauty seems to flow from her face in a kind of dark brightness, if I may use such an expression; her eyes are soft and deep. I have seen no other eyes like my mother Marie's. She ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... with clanking music making din as they go. One of the negroes will add something to change the monotony. Fumbling beneath the seats for some minutes, he draws forth a little bag, carefully unties it, and presents his favourite violin. Its appearance gladdens the hearts of his comrades, who welcome it with smiling faces and loud applause. The instrument is of the most antique and original description. It has only two strings; but Simon thinks wonders ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... beneath his roof I've been On eves of wintry blight, And heard his magic violin Make musical ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... watch R., for example, steadily filling his six-pound creel from that unlikely stream, is like watching Sargent paint a portrait. R. weighs two hundred and ten. Twenty years ago he was a famous amateur pitcher, and among his present avocations are violin playing, which is good for the wrist, taxidermy, which is good for the eye, and shooting woodcock, which before the days of the new Nature Study used to be thought good for the whole man. R. began as a fly-fisherman, but by dint of passing his summers ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... brilliantly lighted, and the magnificent Erard grand piano sang and rang again with music, now martial and loud, now soft and solemn, now gay and sparkling. I made the very pleasant discovery that Harold Beecham. was an excellent pianist, a gifted player on the violin, and sang with a strong, clear, well-trained tenor, which penetrated far into the night. How many, many times I have lived those nights over again! The great room with its rich appointments, the superb piano, the lights, the merriment, the breeze from ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... ... broken Cremona. Swift (as Lamb explained in the original essay in the New Monthly Magazine), seeing a lady's mantua overturning a violin (possibly a Cremona), quoted Virgil's line: "Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae!" (Eclogues, IX., 28), "Mantua, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... every nerve in her body twanging like a plucked violin string; and her eyes met the clear eyes ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... first arrival they seemed surprised, but not alarmed, and we soon became intimate by means of smoking and our favorite entertainment for the Indians, the violin. They gave us fruit, roots, and root-bread, and we purchased from them three dogs. The houses of these people are similar to those of the Indians above, and their language is the same; their dress also, consisting ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that, far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... Day's New Year's party. They would as soon have thought of having supper without trifle, tipsy-cake, and syllabub, in those days, as of finishing the evening without Sir Roger. Dancing had begun at seven-thirty. The lady at the piano was drooping with weariness. Violin and 'cello yawned over their bows; only spasmodically and half-heartedly the thrum and jingle of the tambourine ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... tension, with pulse and head throbbing powerfully like a racing engine. Still there was satanic keenness in his mind to-night, a capacity for concentration that surprised him. Somewhere in his head, taut like an overstrung ligament or the string of a great violin, something sinister droned and hummed and subtly threatened. For the hundredth time he made a systematic list of recurrent symbols, noting again the puzzling similarity of the twisted signs, but no sign appeared frequently enough ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... lofty dome, there to blend and wreath, and fall again. At one extremity of music's hall was an organ; at the other a grand piano, built by a German composer. Ranged on carved slabs, at intermediate distances, was placed almost every instrument that may claim a votary. Of viols, from the violin to the double bass,—of instruments of brass, from trombones and bass kettledrums even unto trumpet and cymbal,—of instruments of wood, from winding serpents to octave flute,—and of fiddles of parchment, from the grosse caisse to the tambourine. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... flax-blue. His great golden head involved a long search in the stores to find the vast steel-blue tureen that bonnets him. Fouillade, the boatman from Cette, rolls his wicked eyes in the long, lean face of a musketeer, with sunken cheeks and his skin the color of a violin. In good sooth, my two neighbors are as unlike ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... in the proper place to furnish the wedding processional—or perhaps some musical friend may be found to play the violin. ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... minuet with a plump Faenza jar; a tall Dutch clock was going through a gavotte with a spindle-legged ancient chair; a very droll porcelain figure of Littenhausen was bowing to a very stiff soldier in terre cuite of Ulm; an old violin of Cremona was playing itself, and a queer little shrill plaintive music that thought itself merry came from a painted spinet covered with faded roses; some gilt Spanish leather had got up on the wall and laughed; ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... finished their feast, and betook themselves to dancing in an alley smoothed for a croquet-ground, and to the sound of a violin played by the old grandfather of one of the party. While Mrs. Braefield was busying herself with forming the dance, Kenelm seized the occasion to escape from a young nymph of the age of twelve who had sat next him at the banquet, and taken so great a fancy to him that he began to fear she ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... speak: "It came from up-stairs! Somebody's playing a violin up-stairs. I'm going up-stairs to find out who ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... amount to much but it was blowing at quite a lively rate closer to the earth and doubtless the broad palmetto leaves must be making a considerable slashing as they struck one another, dead and withered ones sawing like some giant violin bow. ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... the time with a metrical fluency, he scraped a little jig on the violin, while Dummer led off a procession which solemnly capered round the room in sundry stages of conscious awkwardness. Mr. Bultitude shuffled along somehow after the rest, with rebellion at his heart and a deep sense of degradation. "If my clerks ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... battle to the All. If the least evil could stop anywhere indefinitely, it would sink deep and cut into the very roots of existence. As it is, man does not really believe in evil, just as he cannot believe that violin strings have been purposely made to create the exquisite torture of discordant notes, though by the aid of statistics it can be mathematically proved that the probability of discord is far greater than that of harmony, and for one who can play the ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... stood, violin in hand, while, at the piano, Betty Chase was playing the prelude. Lina Danford handled the bow cleverly, and played her little solo with ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... store door the place was empty; but from the rear came the quavering notes of a violin. Being drawn from the wailing strings was a new harmony—new, that is, for Hopewell Drugg. He was fond of the old tunes; but for the most part his musical tastes ran to cheerful ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... like to try your voice," he said, turning pointedly away from her companion. "I am interested in voices. Can you sing to the violin?" ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... but the boy had one way to amuse himself that served to pass many an hour when he would not otherwise have known what to do. He was very fond of music, and his father one day brought him from the town a small fiddle, or violin, which he soon learned to play upon. I don't suppose he was a very fine musician, but the tunes he played pleased himself; as well as his father and mother, and Bobby's fiddle soon became his ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... Paris, in addition to the general subjects and the lectures at the Sorbonne, Nelka also studied music, in particular the violin, and at a time was quite proficient in it, though she did not keep it up, as she did with painting, which she continued for a ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... of new and wonderful things that the pirates must have stolen from other ships: Kashmir shawls as thin as a cobweb, embroidered with flowers of gold; jars of fine tobacco from Jamaica; carved ivory boxes full of Russian tea; an old violin with a string broken and a picture on the back; a set of big chess-men, carved out of coral and amber; a walking-stick which had a sword inside it when you pulled the handle; six wine-glasses with turquoise and silver round the rims; ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... seldom wrote but out of pique; and he probably owed his origin as an author to a circumstance of this nature. Middleton when young was a Dilettante in music; and Dr. Bentley, in contempt, applied the epithet "fiddling Conyers." Had the irascible Middleton broken his violin about the head of the learned Grecian, and thus terminated the quarrel, the epithet had then cost Bentley's honour much less than it afterwards did. It seems to have excited Middleton to deeper studies, which the great Bentley not long after felt when he published proposals ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... fill; Gold-cradled meats the menials bear From gilded chair to gilded chair: Now roars the talk like crashing seas, Foams upward to the painted frieze, Echoes and ebbs. Still surges in, To yelp of hautboy and violin, Plumed and bedazzling, rosed and rare, Dance-bemused, with cheek aglow, Stooping the green-twined portal through, Sighing with laughter, debonair, That concourse of the proud and fair— And lo! 'La, la! Mamma ... ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... a violin in dreams, foretells harmony and peace in the family, and financial affairs ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... joy I felt in hearing an orchestra play quite close to me still remains one of my most pleasant memories. The mere tuning up of the instruments put me in a state of mystic excitement; even the striking of fifths on the violin seemed to me like a greeting from the spirit world— which, I may mention incidentally, had a very real meaning for me. When I was still almost a baby, the sound of these fifths, which has always excited me, was closely associated in my mind with ghosts and spirits. I remember that ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the instrument, in the intervals of the figures described, is covered with elaborate carvings. Groups of musical instruments, standing out almost detached from the background, occupy the panels. Ancient and modern, clustered with careless grace and quaint variety, from the violin down to a string of sleigh-bells, they call up all the echoes of forgotten music, such as the thousand-tongued organ blends together ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... nothing, after all, remarkable in Haldane's experience—save for him; nothing very far removed from the commonplace. His father—a simple-hearted musician—had trained his son in music since the days when the lad could first hold a violin under his little chin. He had died when the boy was twenty, and Haldane had gone on, contentedly enough and absorbed, to take his father's place among the violins of an orchestra, and to teach music. As he grew older his father's friends told him ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... One of the count's sons had brought his violin, his cousin had a balalaika, a triangular peasant guitar, and one of the lackeys had his harmonica, to play for the dancing. The young men sat on a rough improvised bench; the servant stood beside them. The peasants seemed shy. They hesitated ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... a bird." Yes! and that is exactly the difficulty with her. We want one who sings like a woman. The popular criticism of the mere musical expert that he has no soul, is profound and true. It is soul we want; for the piano, the organ, the violin, the orchestra, are only instruments for the transmission of soul. This is also the reason why the most flawless conductor is not always the best. He must have a soul capable of reading the soul of the composer; and the orchestra must receive the life of the composer as that is interpreted to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... who had unconsciously lured her into the church the evening before by the power of his playing. No; she was conscious of nothing but her singing and the sweet, long notes she was drawing with her bow from the strings of her beloved violin. ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... are the same to her; but that accomplishment has become so common in Britannula that but little is thought of it. I do not know whether she ravished our ears most with the old-fashioned piano and the nearly obsolete violin, or with the modern mousometor, or the more perfect melpomeneon. It was wonderful to hear the way with which she expressed herself at the meeting held about the rising buildings of the college when ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... unwonted tidiness, but the old landmarks were all in their place. There were the chemical corner and the acid-stained, deal-topped table. There upon a shelf was the row of formidable scrap-books and books of reference which many of our fellow-citizens would have been so glad to burn. The diagrams, the violin-case, and the pipe-rack—even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco—all met my eyes as I glanced round me. There were two occupants of the room—one Mrs. Hudson, who beamed upon us both as we entered; the other the strange dummy which ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... quicksilver. The curve of his nose presented an aquiline silhouette, which suggested the Oriental or Jewish type. His hands—thin, slender, full of nerves which projected like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and armed with claws like those on the terminations of bats' wings—shook with senile trembling; but those convulsively agitated hands became firmer than steel pincers or lobsters' claws when they lifted any precious article—an onyx cup, a Venetian glass, or a dish ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... do my thoughts turn now and then to London. I should like to hear the long note of a master's violin, or the faultless cadence of an exquisite voice, and I should like to see pictures. Music and painting have always meant much to me; here I can enjoy ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... most pleasing euphonic words, especially in the realm of music, have been given to us directly from the Italian. Of these are piano, violin, orchestra, canto, allegro, piazza, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... usual time, very little work, for I was tired, and had a job for the evening—to write parts for a new instrument, a violin. Lunch, chat, and up to my place to practise; but there was no practising for me—my flageolet was gone wrong, and I had to take it all to pieces, clean it, and put it up again. As this is a most intricate job—the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had whirled her through many a fairy maze and turn of captivating dance-music, or in some less heated and crowded room, or cool conservatory, listened to the voice of the siren who walked by his side, "while the sweet wind did gently kiss the flowers and make no noise," and the strains of "flute, violin, bassoon," and the sounds of the "dancers dancing in tune," coming to them on the still air of night, seemed like the sounds from another and a far-off world,—listened, listened, listened, while his silver-tongued enchantress ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... to the Mother Superior that the mistake about the hour had been no fault of hers—and the Mother Superior, alas! would be sure to make inquiries as to the friends whom she had visited—the magic violin of M. Szmera played its first notes, accompanied by Madame Odinska on the piano, and by a delicious little flute. They played an overture, the dreamy sweetness of which extorted cries of admiration ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... a crude materialistic fancy. Body, on the contrary, is the substance or instrument of mind, and has to be looked for beneath it. The mind is itself ethereal and plays about the body as music about a violin, or rather as the sense of a page about the print and paper. To look for it within is not to understand what we are ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... or Norse,—the songs were received with generous applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very spiritedly rendered in a powerful Scottish accent, varied the proceedings; and once we sought in vain to dance a quadrille, eight men of us together, to the music of the violin. The performers were all humorous, frisky fellows, who loved to cut capers in private life; but as soon as they were arranged for the dance, they conducted themselves like so many mutes at a funeral. I have never seen ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lively, thoughtless, light-hearted son of the soil, who was very slow to understand sorrows of any kind; and least of all, those which lie in the fancy of a dreaming and a doubtful lover. At this moment, when the possession of a new violin absorbed all his thoughts, his mind was particularly obtuse on the subject of sentimental grievances, and the almost voluptuous delight which filled his eyes when William entered his chamber, entirely prevented him from seeing the heavy shadow which overhung the ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... take it, is what the author of the Annals means. "Tibicen" was, of course, not a violin, but species of pipe among the ancients; the Egyptians were not famous for their performances upon this instrument, if they were acquainted with the "tibicen" at all. The question then arises,—Was the author of the Annals cognizant ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... lies Charles Claudius Phillips, Whose absolute contempt of riches and inimitable performances upon the violin made him the admiration of all that knew him. He was born in Wales, made the tour of Europe, and, after the experience of both kinds of fortune, Died ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... themselves with a zest all the greater for the dullness of the weeks which had gone before. The floor had been sponged with milk until it was quite smooth and slippery, a table supplied with such refreshments as lemonade, ginger-beer, and sweet biscuits, was placed outside the door, and the violin pupils took it in turns to accompany the piano, so that nothing was lacking to enhance the grandeur of the occasion. Pretty little programmes were distributed around the room; blue for the ladies, pink for the "gentlemen," and after each dance the couples marched round and round ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... instruments; band; string-band, brass-band; orchestra; orchestrina^. [Stringed instruments], monochord^, polychord^; harp, lyre, lute, archlute^; mandola^, mandolin, mandoline^; guitar; zither; cither^, cithern^; gittern^, rebeck^, bandurria^, bandura, banjo; bina^, vina^; xanorphica^. viol, violin, fiddle, kit; viola, viola d'amore [Fr.], viola di gamba [It]; tenor, cremona, violoncello, bass; bass viol, base viol; theorbo^, double base, contrabasso^, violone^, psaltery [Slang]; bow, fiddlestick^. piano, pianoforte; harpsichord, clavichord, clarichord^, manichord^; clavier, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... maid is depicted as saying, "If you please, sir, here's the printer's boy called again;" again, in January, 1847, where we find him playing the clarionet as one of the orchestra at Mr. Punch's Fancy Ball. Other performers are—Mayhew, cornet; Percival Leigh, double bass; Gilbert a Beckett, violin; Richard Doyle, clarionet; Thackeray, piccolo; Tom Taylor, piano; while Mark Lemon, the conductor, appeals to Jerrold to somewhat moderate his assaults on the drum. Another hand portrays him seven years later, as armed with a porte crayon he rides his hobbyhorse at ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... of course, adding its vocal melody to the dulcet tones of the blacksmith's violin. Even the cats of the settlement were present, including that celebrated kitten which had been reduced to a state of drivelling imbecility by the furious advent of the Wild Man. Owls and other sagacious birds ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Poons, who couldn't hear. But the men at the violin desks down front were rising and putting away their instruments, and the others ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... affair which was narrated in our last chapter. The two young men were at the house of the speaker, or rather at his mother's house; where, a favorite and only son, he had almost supreme dominion. He was putting his violin in tune, and the sentences were spoken at intervals with the discordant scraps of sound which were necessarily elicited by this unavoidable musical operation. These sounds might be said to form a running ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... at nine, and soon we heard the clarionet of Pfifer-Karl and the violin of big Andres resounding through the streets. They were playing the "March of the Swedes," an air to which thousands of poor wretches had left old Alsace for ever. The conscripts danced, linked arms, ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... to Interlachen! Ho for Lucerne and the Righi! Dined at Thun in a thunder storm. Stopped over night at Langnau, an out-of-the-way place. H. and G. painted Alpine flowers, while I played violin. This violin must be of spotless pedigree, even as our Genevese friend, Monsieur—, certified when he reluctantly sold it me. None but a genuine AMATI, a hundred years old, can possess this mysterious quality, that can breathe almost inaudible, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sniff. But the ragged little "poh white" used to sit beside her piano by the hour and try to get in an alto with one of those kazoos that boys hum through. Before he was thirteen he was picking up a living teasing ragtime out of a battered violin in little cafes round Nashville. Eight years later the ragtime craze hit the country, and he took six darkies on the Orpheum circuit. Five of them were boys he had grown up with; the other was the little mulatto, Babe Divine, ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... chanced that Oglesby could play a violin splendidly. A man came along with one in his hands, and Oglesby asked if he might borrow it for the evening, to which the man consented. He commenced playing in order to attract the crowd from Robinson, ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... The 'cello and the violin came next. The latter ran his bow across his stringed waistcoat in perfect time, while the former twanged the strings that covered his happy face in a jolly fashion. The rest of the band played on themselves beautifully, and the Gnome, with his baton, proved a most capable leader. ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... Padua, whom Viotti pronounced the last great improver of the practice of the violin. Several of Tartini's compositions are particularized in that amusing little volume, "The Violin and its Professors," by Mr. Dubourg, who has recorded in quaint verse the well-known story of the "Devil's ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... then, a little later, the music once more signalled the dancers to take their places on the floor. Hour after hour it went on. After midnight another supper was served; but still "the band"—consisting of a violin and a concertina—played on, and still the moccasined feet pounded the floor without intermission. At the very height of the fun, when the Free Trader's charming daughter was being whirled about by a scarlet tunic, Mrs. Spear turned ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... evening, had suddenly demanded a popular song from Mr. Nokes, he (Triplet), seeing the orchestra thinned by desertion, and nugatory by intoxication, had started from the pit, resuscitated with the whole contents of his snuff-box the bass fiddle, snatched the leader's violin, and carried Mr. Nokes triumphantly through; that thunders of applause had followed, and Mr. Nokes had kindly returned thanks for both; but that he (Triplet) had hastily retired to evade the manager's acknowledgments, preferring to wait an opportunity like ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... great Romans, too, we have many words. If we describe a person as a Nero, every one knows that this means a cruel tyrant. Nero was the worst of all the Roman emperors, and the story tells that he was so heartless that he played on his violin while watching the burning of Rome. Some people even said that he himself set the city on fire. Again, the name of Julius Caesar, who was the first imperial governor of Rome, though he was never called emperor, has ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... his violin, which he had clung to through all their mad drive, and struck up "Money Musk," which he played as correctly and in as good time as was possible under the circumstance. Soon collecting his nerve and coolness as he went on, he scraped out his whole rpertoire of dancing tunes, "St. Patrick's ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Handel's "Largo," and the suite from "Peer Gynt" with the frown of a man not to be taken in and unwilling to be influenced by the approbation exhibited by people round him. A song follows, and he remarks to Gertie that a recitation would be more in keeping with the style of the entertainment. A violin solo with a melody that cries softly about love, the love of two people, with anxieties at first, at ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... for a hollow bony vessel about the size of a large walnut, situated under the root of the tongue, and having an opening into the windpipe by which the animal can force air into it. This increases the power of its voice, acting something like the hollow case of a violin, and producing those marvelous rolling and reverberating sounds which caused the celebrated traveler Waterton to declare that they were such as might have had their origin in the infernal regions. The howlers are large and stout bodied monkeys, with bearded faces, and very strong and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... religious solemnity which struck every observant onlooker. No profusion of superlative adjectives can avail to reproduce such scenes, any more than words, no matter how skilfully chosen, can convey the tone of a violin in the hands of a master. Even the mere number of those who took part in the demonstration cannot be guessed with any real accuracy. There was a procession of men, whose fine physique and military smartness were ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... perceive them; nevertheless, it may have been perfectly plain that the player was not attending to what he was doing, but was listening to conversation on some other subject, not to say joining in it himself. If he has been playing the violin, he may have done all the above, and may also have been walking about. Herr Joachim would unquestionably be able to do all that has here ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... yet so dark with the white swans upon them. On the borders of the forest, amidst three or four houses, was erected a pole as high as a mainmast, and around it hung wreaths and ribbons. This was the Maypole. Girls and young men danced round it, and sang to the accompaniment of the fiddler's violin. All went on merrily till after the sun had set, and the moon had risen, but I took no part in the festivity; for what had a little mouse to do with a forest ball? I sat down amidst the soft moss, and ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen |
