"Brass band" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fellow-countrymen, but because they were noisy and obtrusive, obliterating with their big limbs and tweed clothing all the quieter tints of the day that brought him satisfaction and enabled him to melt into insignificance and forget that he was anybody. These English clashed about him like a brass band, making him feel vaguely that he ought to be more self-assertive and obstreperous, and that he did not claim insistently enough all kinds of things that he didn't want and that were really valueless, such as corner seats, windows up or ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... acacias and adorned by a fountain representing a desperate-looking character in the act of firing a finely executed revolver at an imaginary oppressor. Pigs were not allowed within the limits of the town, and the uniforms of the municipal brass band were perfectly new. Could civilisation do more? The bank of which Del Ferice was a director bought the octroi duties of the town at the periodical auction, and farmed them skilfully, together with those of many other towns ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... the journals, one after the other, or watched the sparrows fly about and peck up the grains in the sand. Children ran here and there, playing at ball; and, above the noise of the promenaders, arose the music of the brass band. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... understood the true function of the magnificent orchestra that dominated the scene. It was the function of a brass band at a quack-dentist's booth in a fair,—to drown the cries of the victims of the ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... so," said Minard, "and so should I, but we shouldn't have done it with a brass band; we should have paid our money quietly, like gentlemen. But this electoral manager, how is he going to pay it? Out of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... usually held in the open air, in some good ground, in which a brass band should be playing, and plenty of good flowers displayed, embellished by the best dressed people it is possible to assemble together. There are not any introductions; people amuse themselves as best they ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... I would have to take my chance," he said. "I didn't expect you to be waiting on the bank with a brass band and a wreath ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... home from Sunday-school he had paused at a corner to listen to a brass band, which was returning from a funeral, playing a medley of airs from "The Merry Widow," and as the musicians came down the street, walking so gracefully, the sun picked out the gold braid upon their uniforms and splashed fire from their polished instruments. Penrod marked ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... Quirinale a brass band was playing in front of the royal palace. Great waves of metallic music spread through the glowing air. The obelisk, the fountain, the statues looked enormous and seemed to glow as if impregnated with flame. Rome, immense and dominated ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... some other instrument of brass. It is poor music at the best, and it cannot go far beyond marking time for the marching. But is it not better than the simple drum and fife of a common training-day? The "full brass band," we must recollect, is too expensive a luxury except for the most extraordinary occasions, and even then we run the risk of hearing "Highland Mary" repeated all day long, so scant is the repertoire. The regiment, headed by the cavalry and the music, passes the colonel and his staff. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... the brass band in front of the Hotel struck up the Dastur march in honour of the Sheikhs who come to escort the Unionist Deputies and the speaker ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Brighton and the south coast with the Riviera, for the spending money of the American Trusts. What is all this growing love of pageantry, this effusive loyalty, this officious rising and uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast from a brass band? Imperialism: Not a bit of it. Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity roused by the prevailing smell of money. When Mr Carnegie rattled his millions in his pockets all England became one rapacious cringe. Only, when Rhodes (who had probably been reading ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... suppose I would have ridden into your town on a white horse and registered at your head-quarters and then ordered four rooms at the principal hotel and accommodations for seven servants, nine coolies, and nineteen animals? Is that the way a Russian spy works? Does he go around with a brass band?" ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... wait till daylight. You can do it easily enough with thirty men, as it lies at the foot of the mountain, and there is no escape for the beggars unless they break through you and get into the bush. Be guided by the Fiji boy; and, as the Yankees say, 'no one wants a brass band with him when he's going duck-hunting,' so try and surround the village as quietly as possible. I'll see that none of them get away in their canoes. I'll work up abreast of the harbour ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... cross-light where the usual forest growth should adumbrate, a flash of wings at a time of day when feathered creatures ordinarily rest quiet—these, and hundreds of others which you and I should never even guess at, force themselves as glaringly on an Indian's notice as a brass band in a city street. A white man looks for game; an Indian sees it because ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and blare of the big brass band is cheering to my heart And I like the smell of the trampled grass and elephants and hay. I take off my hat to the acrobat with his delicate, strong art, And the motley mirth of the chalk-faced clown drives all ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... marched on, but hearing nothing of General Williams, and knowing the strength of the position, did not attack. He had a brass band with him, which he made play "Dixie," in the hope that it would lure the enemy out; but this strategical banter was treated with profound indifference. General Williams had marched on the north side of the Holston river to Rogersville, and thence ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... hundred and fifty yards wide, the dark, rocky bluffs, slashed with numerous ravines, ascend sharply from the flood; at the quarried base, a wagon road and the customary railway; and upon the stony beach, two or three rough shelter-tents, housing the Black Diamond Brass Band, of Monongahela City, out on a week's picnic to while away the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... of the day. In fact, no visitor troubled him until one o'clock, when, in the lull between the starts of the sailing and the rowing races, and while the Regatta Committee was dining ashore to the strains of a brass band, a farm labourer in his Sunday best, crowned with a sugar-loaf hat, entered, flung himself into a chair, and demanded ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the play-rooms behind the backs of the gamblers, whose eyes are only cast upon rakes and rouleaux, and red and black; or on the broad walk in front of the conversation rooms, where thousands of people are drinking and chattering, lounging and smoking, whilst the Austrian brass band, in the little music pavilion, plays the most delightful mazurkas and waltzes. Here the widow plays her black suit and sets her bright eyes against the rich bachelor, elderly or young as may be. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... been warned at the Dumont Estate that a brass band had been sent to the Riberao Preto station, where some notabilities were awaiting my arrival in order to greet me with the usual speeches of welcome. As I particularly dislike public speaking and publicity, I managed to mix unseen among the crowd—they expecting to see an ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... curiously attractive folk-songs. During these concerts a certain Englishman solemnly sang some new Russian songs, learnt by heart, of which he did not understand a word. A young Russian used to make up into a delightful girl, who, with a partner, danced a cake-walk, accompanied by the blare of their new brass band. Mandolines were soon in vogue and most rooms could boast of several. As we were mostly beginners the resulting noise is best left to the imagination. Whist drives, bridge tournaments, etc., helped to pass the time, and a good many of us improved the shining hour by learning ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... touches upon a new field. The hero is a youth with a passion for music, who, compelled to make his own way in the world, becomes a cornetist in an orchestra, and works his way up, first, to the position of a soloist, and then to that of leader of a brass band. He is carried off to sea and falls in with a secret-service cutter bound for Cuba, and while in that island joins a military band which accompanies our soldiers in the never-to-be-forgotten attack on Santiago. A mystery connected with the hero's inheritance adds to ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... by the Kingston Brass Band, producing throbbing martial melodies, and followed (we are not going to believe the State Tribune any longer) by a jostling' and cheering crowd. The band halts before the G.A.R. Hall; the candidate alights, with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... he tip'd and he tar'd, and he charged like the grand entry at a circus. 'Peared to me that all the gas in the house was turned on at once, things got so bright, and I hilt up my head ready to look at any man in the face, and not afear'd of nothin'. It was a circus, and a brass band, and a big ball, all going on at the same time. He lit into them keys like a thousand of bricks; he gave 'em no rest, day nor night; he set every livin' joint in me a-goin', and not bein' able to ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... circus," admitted the Writer. "That is to say, a very great deal of gilt and highly coloured horses, soldiers, and inevitably one brass band playing, probably ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... soul. When he reached the Cross he would tell the Deacon blithely of the "fine one he had given him," and the Deacon would lie in wait to give him a fine one too. In Barbie, at least, your returning student is never met at the station with a brass band, whatever may happen in more emotional districts of the North, where it pleases them to shed ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... a regular brass band when he gets started—from the big trombone down to the tin whistle," ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... name, and got the position for him. He was spotted, tried before a jury who found him guilty, and was sentenced to six months in jail. The day he was discharged, an admiring crowd of his constituents escorted him from prison with a brass band and tendered him a banquet. Yesterday he was chosen an alderman by the ballots of the people of this city. A self-convicted falsifier and cheat! A man who snaps his fingers in the face of the laws of the country! Isn't that a commentary on the workings of universal suffrage?" This was a caustic ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... exercises a wider and a more potential influence over the welfare of mankind than any other institution of its kind in existence." This assurance leaves you dumb. You might as well argue with a brass band as with a citizen of Chicago; and doubtless you would wave the flag yourself if you stayed long enough in ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... in Honey Tone's objections appealed to the Wildcat. His imagination painted a contest between the Horn Department of the brunet brass band and three or four hundred stampeding mules. "I guess yo' says sense," ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... caretaker away from there," whispered Will. "If we don't, he'll notify the hold-up men that we're getting ready to do something! I've heard that about three-fourths of the people in the world object to doing anything unless they can take a brass band along, and I guess ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... of a distant but steadily approaching brass band. With it came a confused but ever louder medley of shouts, handclapping, raucous voices, and the higher tones of delighted children. As Kathrien came running in at one door, followed by Marta, and Frederik sauntered in from the office, ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... experiment at the Middlesex County truant school at North Chelmsford has shown it to be a truth, that wickedness takes flight at martial strains; for a full-fledged brass band, in which the delinquent youths are the musicians, has fairly revolutionized the discipline of the school, and many a lad who did not have half a chance has been started "right" on the road ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... Noble he had been unhappy and his condition had been bad; now he was happy, but his condition was worse. In truth, he was much, much too happy; nothing rational remained in his mind. No elfin orchestra seemed to buzz in his ears as he went down the street, but a loud, triumphing brass band. His unathletic chest was inflated; he heaved up with joy; and a little child, playing on the next corner, turned and followed him for some distance, trying to imitate his proud, singular walk. Restored ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... a temporary ball-room built at one side of the house, and lighted it with a thousand wax candles. She had a brass band from Springfield and a string band from Worcester. She had a caterer from Boston, whom with her usual happy form of expression she called a "canterer." She had colored waiters in white gloves in such profusion that they stumbled over ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... some hours when one of them began to cloud up for a sneeze. He tried to sidetrack it, but it would not be sidetracked. The rest of us, looking on, seemed to hear that sneeze coming from a long way off. It reminded me of a musical-sketch team giving an imitation of a brass band marching down Main Street playing the Turkish Patrol—dim and faint at first, you know, and then growing louder and stronger, and gathering volume until it bursts ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... they went. The good of this display cannot be reckoned in figures. Even a funeral is comparatively dull without the military band and the four-and-four processions, and the cities where these resplendent corteges of woes are of daily occurrence are cheerful cities. The brass band itself, when we consider it philosophically, is one of the most striking things in our civilization. We admire its commonly splendid clothes, its drums and cymbals and braying brass, but it is the impartial spirit with which it lends itself to our varying ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... I started to say was that once the first wild outburst is over, the Yaquis will keep mighty quiet. They won't go about with a brass band, ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... the Allied diplomats came, my Lords and Ladies came, one hundred wounded American (Canadian) soldiers came—the pick of the Kingdom; my Navy and Army staff went in full uniform, the Stars and Stripes hung before the altar, a double brass band played the Star Spangled Banner and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and an American bishop (Brent) preached a red-hot American sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the benediction; and (for the first time in English history) a foreign ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... be desired. It was the remnants of a Canadian Battalion returning from this fighting in the Salient shortly after midnight on one occasion, whilst we were back at Locre, which made us think we must have had more than an ordinary nightmare, for we awoke with a start to hear the strains of a brass band coming along the pave,—at 1 a.m. such a proceeding seemed decidedly strange. It was not long, however, before we found that all was well, and that it was our own Brigade Band playing the Canadians through the village. This was evidently ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... finding himself among them, felt invincible disgust. Crowded, by the reflux of the mob, against the wall of one of the wine shops, which swarm on these boulevards, through the open window from whence escaped the deafening sound of a brass band, the Slasher saw, against his will, a strange spectacle. In a long low room (one end of which was occupied by the musicians), surrounded by benches and tables covered with the remains of a repast, broken plates, and overturned bottles, a dozen men and women disguised, half drunk, were dancing La ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... which light still filtered through three little round arches high up on one side. In a corner were some hogsheads of wine, in another small tables with three-legged stools. From outside came the distant braying of a brass band and racket of a street full of people, laughter, and the occasional shivering jangle of a tambourine. Lyaeus had dropped onto a stool and spread his feet out before him ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... sheets in them, drawers hurriedly searched for articles that could be taken away, disconsolate wandering dogs. A few days before it had been arranged that the major-general, his Divisional Staff, Ordnance, the Divisional brass band, and all the usual appurtenances of a Divisional Headquarters, should come and make this village a Divisional rest area. Few even of the first preparations for visitation were left now. D.A.D.O.S., blue-tabbed and business-like, was in the main street, bewailing ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... orchestras (in all of those in the United States, in fact, except the Boston and Chicago Orchestras and the Symphony Society of New York) the word trumpet is merely a euphemism for cornet, the familiar leading instrument of the brass band, which, while it falls short of the trumpet in the quality of its tone, in the upper registers especially, is a more easily manipulated instrument than the trumpet, and is ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... regular time, struck his ear and diverted his attention. Next moment the head of a regiment, accompanied by a crowd of juvenile admirers, swept round the corner of the street. At the same instant a forest of bayonets gleamed upon the youth's vision, and a brass band burst with crashing grandeur upon his ear, sending a quiver of enthusiasm into the deepest recesses of his soul, and stirring the very marrow in ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... so attached to the activity and excitement of array life that he regretted to give it up, but his business required attention, so he resigned his commission and came home. He was met at the station by a brass band ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... he sang it all over again. Perhaps he had been associating with people who were used to circuses. The afternoon was hot, and the boys with Japanese fans and trays of lemonade did a remarkable business for so late in the season; the brass band on the other side of the tent shrieked its very best, and all the young men of the region had brought their girls, and some of these countless pairs of country lovers we watched a great deal, as they "kept company" with more or less ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... was buried, all the villages within twenty miles turned out to his funeral. He was the last revolutionary hero of the county. An oration was delivered in the meeting-house; and the brass band of Welbury played "My country, 'tis of thee," all the way from the meeting-house to the graveyard gate. After the grave was filled up, guns were fired above it, and the Welbury village choir sang an anthem. The crowd, the music, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... Here was a man who bred rattlesnakes and turned them loose by thousands, and had driven everybody away from the North Carolina estate of one of the Wallings. Here was a man who was building himself a yacht with a model dairy and bakery on board, and a French laundry and a brass band. Here was a million-dollar racing-yacht with auto-boats on it and a platoon of marksmen, and some Chinese laundrymen, and two physicians for its half-insane occupant. Here was a man who had bought a Rhine castle for three-quarters of a million, and ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... would have been too painful for the Catholic workmen's feelings, especially as they hoped for a benediction! As soon as word arrived of the approach of "Monseigneur's" carriage, the cure and chief dignitaries of the town, accompanied by a brass band, a detachment of firemen, and a small regiment of women—decked in hoods of blue or red or white—passed down the muddy street, bearing banners, and a gilded canopy with white plumes. In a few moments they returned, the band playing, ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... the shade and pretend to sip at his foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pretend, because I only pretended to sip, without really sipping. That is the polite way; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at a draught. There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music every afternoon. Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied, every table filled. And never a rough in the assemblage—all nicely dressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and children; and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rate," said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her thin forefinger at him. "There is more music in my father than there is in a brass band." ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... us to kiss. I dont care nothin for baby's enyway, but I had to submit to a lot of slobberin for the sake of inflooensin votes, for my Candydate. At Fishkill we stopped for refreshments, and was waited on by a brass band and the Mayor and more baby's. Mr. Gilley spoke a few wurds and thanked the crowd for their curtesies, and named a few babies. Jest as we was steemin outer the depot, he dropt his red bandanner handkerchef; you'd dide to see them yung gals tumbel over each other and scrambel for it. Before ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... mooned away to the poop-deck, from the rail of which he watched the guests arriving. As Sir Felix's gig was descried putting off from the shore, the boys swarmed up the ratlines and out on the yards, where they dressed ship very prettily. A brass band in the waist hailed his approach with the strains of "Rule, Britannia!" At the head of the accommodation-ladder a guard of honour welcomed him with a hastily rehearsed "Present Arms!" and the boys aloft accompanied it with three shrill British cheers. ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wanted a clear concise Narrative beyond all other merits; and if you ask here (except in that half-volume) about any fact, you are answered (so to speak) not in words, but by a symbolic tune on the bagpipe, symbolic burst of wind-music from the brass band;—which is not the plan at all!—What can have become of Mazzini's Letter, which he certainly did write and despatched to you, is not easily conceivable. Still less in the case of Browning: for Browning and his Wife did also write; I myself in the end of last July, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... public men are constantly being surprised with serenades, I concluded I'd be surprised in the same way, so I made arrangements accordin. I asked the Brass Band how much they'd take to take me entirely by surprise with a serenade. They said they'd overwhelm me with a unexpected honor for seven ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... down," wrote Irish Freedom (the organ of Mr P. H. Pearse and his friends), "of Nationalism to the members of one creed is the most fatal thing that has taken place in Irish politics since the days of the Pope's Brass Band," and the Ancient Order was further referred to as "a job-getting and job-cornering organisation," as "a silent, practical riveting of sectarianism on the nation." The Irish Worker was equally emphatic. "Were it not for the existence of the Board of Erin the Orange Society ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... So enormous had the crowds in Astor Place become that, although the hour was early, Colonel Sneekins had wisely concluded to wait no longer, but at once to let them in. They poured through the wide doorways in abundant streams, while Colonel Sneekins led the superb brass band of the 7th Regiment, done up in startling uniforms and carrying along with it a tremendous battery of horns and drums, to ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... kettle on, an' git the tea, an' I'll be ready in no time," said Mrs Yabsley. "W'en I was your age, I used ter take 'arf a day ter doll meself up, an' then git down the street with a brass band playin' inside me silly 'ead; but now, gimme somethin' new, if it's only a bit o' ribbon in me 'at, an' I feel ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... 'is kind throughout the land, They ain't been 'eralded with no brass band, Or been much thought about; but, take my tip, The war 'as found 'em with a stiffened lip, 'Umpin' a load they thought they'd dropped for good, Crackin' reel 'ardy, ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... incidents provin' that the great folks of the past had held a good many of my idees in regard to wealth. I reminded him of Mr. Cincinnatus who did so much to make Rome glorious, when the public sought him out for honors (he not a-prancin' through the country with torch-light processions and a brass band, talkin' himself hoarse, and lavishin' money to git it), no indeed, when they sought him for a candidate for public honors they found him a not fixin' up the primarys and buyin' bosses, but ploughin' away, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... afternoon was very still, and by and by through the open window floated a strain of music; it was from the brass band of the Salvationists who were marching through the next village, about two miles away. We listened, then Caleb remarked: "Somehow I never cared to go with them Army people. Many say they've done a great good, and I don't disbelieve ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... for us to see Giovanni, his son. There was a village band performing up the street, in front of the house of a colonel who had come home wounded from Tripoli. Everybody in the village was wildly proud about the colonel and about the brass band, the music of which ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... the destinies of the Metropolitan Opera House after one year of warfare with the Academy of Music had put Henry E. Abbey hors du combat for a while. Abbey came out of the ranks of theatrical managers, like Heinrich Conried, his only practical experience in music being as a cornet player in a brass band in ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a good, bloody murder story, say, it would tone up my style to have a phonograph about ten feet away grinding out The Last Ravings of John McCullough. Anyway, I am sure it wouldn't do any harm. A brass band playing a John Philip Sousa march makes fine accompaniment to write copy to. I've done it before now, covering parades and conventions, and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... intoxicating thing it was for her to see a new world every day, and have nothing to do from morning, till night. The poor child could hardly believe in an existence without Czerny's scales being played on three or four pianos at once, and a barrel organ and brass band in the street. "Oh, Tom!" she would say to me, a dozen times a day, "I've got C scale and 'Wait for the Wagon' on my brain, and can't get rid of them;" so that I verily believe to my beautiful Vittoria Colonna Mary's present well-being is due as ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... of the hotel was a large apartment decorated with a sort of stage scenery to represent trees and lakes, the room itself being filled with little tables, around which were seated men smoking and drinking beer, while a thin-toned brass band discoursed popular ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... at Silver's and a brass band to dance to. It was great! The girls never lacked partners, and they made some very ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... no destination; they just went "out walking" until ten o'clock, when both girls had to be home—and the boys did, too, but never admitted it. On Friday evenings there was a "public open-air concert" by a brass band in a small park, and the four were always there. A political speechmaker occupied the bandstand one night, and they stood for an hour in the midst of the ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... produced on Tuesday last, when were added to the usual passe-temps, a flower and fruit show. Wild beasts in cages; flowers of all colours and sizes in pots; enormous cabbages; Brobdignag apples; immense sticks of rhubarb; a view of Rome; a brass band; a grand Roman cavalcade passing over the bridge of St. Angelo; a deafening park of artillery, and an enchanting series of pyrotechnic wonders, such as catherine-wheels, flower-pots, and rockets; an illumination of St. Peter's; blazes of blue-fire, showers of steel-filings, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... crowd of coolies that filled the street. The gate and outside walls were gayly decorated with bunting and Japanese lanterns, all ready to be lighted as soon as the sun went down. A native orchestra was playing doleful music in one of the courts, and a brass band of twenty pieces in military uniforms from the barracks was waiting its turn. A hallway which leads to a large drawing-room in the rear of the house was spread with scarlet matting, the walls were hung with gay prints, and Japanese lanterns were suspended from the ceiling ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... so whole-hearted as I used to. You spoke of a surprise, didn't you? I've had one surprise this afternoon that's liable to stay with me for a spell. I'm an unsuspectin' critter, generally speakin', but after that—Say, you ain't got a brass band nor fireworks hitched to ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... thanked Cephalus for his attentions, and entered the carriage. A brass band of a hundred and twenty pieces struck up an inspiring march, and, preceded and followed by the Amazons, I was conveyed in state to the ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Earthen Mound in Edinburgh many caravans of wild beasts belonging to the famous Mr. Wombwell, around which there clustered a large crowd of idle folks listening to the dulcet strains of his most harmonious brass band. The news of the Tory victory was first made known in the parliament house, and, as can well be believed, the excitement that ensued was intense. Under its influence that eager and eccentric judge, Lord Hermand, making for his home, espied a friend among the Wombwell crowd, and shouted aloud ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... the merrier. What's to be done now? We'd better charter a coach and four and a brass band and go and fetch them home in state. If they'd wait till to-morrow we would have up a triumphal ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... make-believe crowns. The big hall, with its stage flanked by gilded boxes, was crowded with a shifting throng of maskers in costumes of flaunting discord. Above the noisy laughter and popping of corks, rose the blaring strains of a brass band. Through the odor of flowers came the strong scent of musk, which, in turn, was routed by the fumes of beer and tobacco which were already ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... you take notice you will find that their sand-structures differ widely from those of children in America: you may even see a perfect model of a feudal castle grow into shape, with barbacan, gate, moat, drawbridge, towers, bastions, donjon-keep and banqueting-hall complete. A brass band—the members in full uniform of bright colors, with little rimless red-and-gold caps—is playing under the battlemented garden-wall which backs the sands in one place. Listen to the tunes! Heard you ever these peculiar airs before? The "Bells of Aberdovey" jangle their sweet chime over the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... board I was not aware, was passed up to the hurricane-deck. Landy Perkins played on this instrument, which had been purchased at St. George. I knew that Ben Bowman had formerly played in the Montomercy Brass Band, and I saw him mount the ladder with his cornet. In a few minutes our band was playing "There's music in the air," though the first attempts were evidently not entirely satisfactory to the musicians. After an hour's ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... The Cottonton Brass Band was now stationed in the hall, and a short concert closed the evening's entertainment, which was allowed, by all, to be the most high-toned affair ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... and there were the usual fines for those who came late, or missed a practice, for inattention to the leader, or for a dirty instrument, the heaviest fine of all being for intoxication. But long after this there was a Tideswell Brass Band which became famous throughout the country, for the leader not only wrote the score copies for his own band, but lithographed and sold them to other bands all over ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... in America, and we are not ashamed to show them to any one. They are not only smart, but they are well behaved and know how to appear in company. We generally read selections from our own works, and can have a brass band to play between the selections, if thought best. For myself, I prefer to have a full brass band accompany me while I read. The audience also ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... description, from the humble costermonger's to the handsome broughams bearing their wealthy owners to their offices for the day; the prettily-dressed children who toddled beside their busy mothers to their early shopping; and, above all, the strains of a brass band which was enlivening the morning hours with its familiar repertoire. Each and all were a revelation of delight to the simple peasant. Straight from the gorse and heather, a woman exceptionally endowed with the instincts of a refined nature, one whose only glimpses of the world had been gathered ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... river-barge, loaded down to her gunwale with long gaily painted spreet and tanned canvas which gleamed a rich ruddy brown in the rays of the setting sun. Here, again, came a swift excursion steamer, her decks crowded with jovial pleasure-seekers, and a good brass band on the bridge playing "A Life on the Ocean Wave," whilst behind her again appeared a clumsy but picturesque-looking "billy-boy" or galliot from the Humber—the Saucy Sue of Goole—with a big brown dog on board, ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... nodded Miss Briggs. "I was wondering why, while we are about it, we don't hire a brass band. We at least would not be obliged to listen to the same tune all the time. Does any one know of a way to put a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... sunshine was playing on the rhododendrons and on the green leaves of the trees in Hyde Park. A brass band had struck up in the distance. The riders were cantering up and down the Row, to the admiration of the well-dressed crowds that sauntered under the trees or lingered by the railings. Carriages were passing and repassing. A four-in-hand drove past us, followed by ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... singing of the choir seemed to me at least as fitting an accompaniment to the expression by the sovereign people of their sovereign will through bits of white paper—Mr. Whittier's 'noiseless snowflakes'—as the braying of a brass band, or the hoarse shouts of a ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... exhibition, when an effort is made to bring together in a spirit of holiday the nine thousand people who come to the House every week during duller times. Curiously enough the central feature at the annual exhibition seems to be the brass band of the boys' club which apparently dominates the situation by sheer size and noise, but perhaps their fresh boyish enthusiasm expresses that which the older people take ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... America, then, everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free; we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many pieces, soon after our ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... cornet, in fact practically a saxhorn. Before long, horns in E flat, tenor horns in B flat, euphoniums and bass tubas were added, all made of copper, and in 1869 the name of "bugle band" was changed to R.A. Brass Band, and in 1877 it was merged in the Mounted Band. The bugle with its double development by means of keys into Royal Kent bugle and ophicleide, and by means of valves into saxhorns and tubas, formed the nucleus of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... you how big he was. Even if you think of elephants it will not help you at all. Luckily there was only one of him, and he was always asleep. Otherwise I don't think the Rotundians could have borne with him. As it was, they made him a house, and it saved the expense of a brass band, because no band could possibly have been heard when the dormouse was ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... he gives striking likenesses of the friends assembled to celebrate the festive occasion. They had come together in the evening, much in the same spirit that had led them under my windows in the morning, with a brass band and an enormous bouquet of cabbages, carrots, and cauliflowers. There, on the left, is Van Lerius with his hands in his pockets, next to him du Maurier; then Heyermans, Bource, and all the other chums, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... Whatever those three things mean, how or why they co-exist; whether they can be reconciled or perhaps are reconciled already; the three sounds I heard then by an accident all at once make up the French mystery. For the brass band in the Casino gardens behind me was playing with a sort of passionate levity some ramping tune from a Parisian comic opera, and while this was going on I heard also the bugles on the hills above, that told of terrible loyalties and men always arming in the gate of France; and ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... adjourned, one man ventured to remark that Bill had gone about the investigation like a colt approaching a brass band, prancing and dancing, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... also dull. Lynching, after all, is not an American institution, but a peculiarly Southern institution, and even in the South it will die out as other more seemly recreations are introduced. It would be quite easy, we believe, for any Southern community to get rid of it by establishing a good brass band and having concerts every evening. It would be even easier to get rid of it by borrowing a few professional scoundrels from the Department of Justice, having them raid the "study" of the local Methodist archdeacon, and forthwith trying him publicly—with a candidate for governor as prosecuting ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... There was no brass band to meet him. At the hotel the clerk read his name without emotion. When he required the best two rooms in the hotel, and a bath at ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... out Puss at the wheel, and I'm almost sure it was Sandy with him. They must have slipped into the country without giving their secret away. Trust sly Puss for knowing how to do that sort of thing. He never goes around with a brass band, telling what big things he ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... was a tender flower for such a life as this. Depend upon it, it is better as it is. Heaven is a home-like place for such little ones as she, and the angels' singing will be sweeter to her ears than the music of your brass band." ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... drake and his mate, with the strange, inimitable cry of the whooping crane, combined to form a sylvan orchestra, the music of which thrilled us with more pleasurable sensations than were ever awakened by the household organ or the town brass band ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the train—the girls were in school, and Dad not yet home from the office. My kid brother hadn't been told, for fear he'd cut school altogether. Mother had the roadster—and it was shining like a brass band. She looked just as she always does—tailored out of sight, little close hat over her smooth black hair, and black eyes shining through a trim little veil that keeps all snug. No loose ends about Mother, I can tell you, from the top of her stunning little hat to the toes ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... orders that a chair should be mounted on a table for Duncan; and the young hinds and fishermen were soon dancing zealously with the girls of their company to his strathspeys and reels. The other divisions of the marquis's guests made merry to the sound of a small brass band, a harp, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... just before you did," said Hardy. "Brass band playing you in and all that sort of thing, I suppose," said the other. "Alas, how the wicked prosper—and you were wicked. Do you remember how you used ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the lips into a reed and the mouth into a pipe. The tension of the lips and the shape of the mouth cavity decide the note. The lips are also used as a reed for blowing the flute, piccolo, and all the brass band instruments of the cornet order. In blowing a coach-horn the various harmonics of the fundamental note are brought out by altering the lip tension and the wind pressure. A cornet is practically a coach-horn rolled ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... great antiquity resound in the walls of the temple at Jerusalem, in which respect the opera recalls Goldmark's "Queen of Sheba." Curved Roman trumpets mix their loud clangors with the instruments of the modern brass band and compel us to think of "Aida." There are dances of Egyptians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians, and if the movements of the women make us deplore the decay of the choreographic art, the music warms us almost as much ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... over, an' ye niver see th' like in ye'er born days. Th' las' I see iv th' band it was goin' down th' road towards th' slough with a mob behind it, an' all th' polis foorce fr'm Deerin' Sthreet afther th' mob. Th' la-ads collected th' horns an' th' dhrums, an' that started th' Ar-rchey Road brass band. Little Mike Doyle larned to play 'Th' Rambler fr'm Clare' beautifully on what they call a pickle-e-o befure they sarved a rayplivin writ ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... received this uniform, I think, by the steamer on which I came down, and it was become somewhat greasy and louse-seamed by this time; nevertheless, their appearance was much more soldierlike and respectable than when I first saw them. After the exercise was ended, the men gathered around a small brass band, of half a dozen Germans, which began to play in front of General Walker's quarters. The little General himself sat in his door, and looked out with impassible countenance upon the crowd in the street. It was an excellent conglomerate to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of the 22nd of February a very singular spectacle was got up on the Serpentine. Late in the evening a fine "brass band," attended by near a thousand torchbearers, suddenly marched on to the ice on the ornamental water in Kensington Gardens, and struck up popular airs; as by a signal, large fires were lighted on the ice, tents were erected, and barrels of beer were broached. Suddenly, several hundred skaters, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the custom for the emigrants to make a halt, and wash and dress themselves, so as to enter proper. Such a meeting! the kissing and the greeting drownding the noise of the music, and the old men and the little children dancing. The prophet himself came out, and shook hands with 'em all, his brass band blowing in front of him, and he standing up in his carriage. Where else would you travel to, I'd like to know, and find such a welcome at the end of your journey? Houses, and friends, and plenty, all got ready aforehand; and gentlemen waiting ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Sunday, 25th August, 1901, every one on Monte San Giuliano was up early and at 7.30 a brass band began to perambulate the town to announce that the festa had begun. At 8.30 the band entered the Matrice, and before Mass the sacred picture was unveiled, the band saluting it with a burst of music. Much ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... of fact," said I, "those two sentries on the wall will be too busy staring at the fire, if the Greeks really make a big one, to see anything else unless we march by under their noses with a brass band." ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... North-West listen to music and have tea and iced drinks through straws. And the local Parsis seem quite content eating the air in the dusk—one or two of their menkind pay visits on foot from carriage to carriage—they have at least a share in the pom pom of the brass band—and welcome. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... herself, that she did not; that if he had her backache he wouldn't hear a brass band, and that her next walk would be ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... welcomed, for Christmas comes but once a year, after all, and "the more the merrier" should be our motto at this time. So from villages three and four miles away came bands of children to sing the old, old songs. The brass band, including old grey-haired men who fifty years ago with strings and wood-wind led the psalmody at Chedworth Church, come too, and play inside the hall. We do not brew at home nowadays. Even such old-fashioned Conservatives as old Mr. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... licks to get away from a big can of strawberry ice cream that was trundling after him and trying to empty itself on his collar, whenever a bigger wave lifted it. He was followed by what was left of the brass band; the big drum just humpin' itself to keep abreast o' the ice cream, mixed up with camp-stools, music-stands, a few Chinamen, and then what they call in them big San Francisco processions 'citizens generally.' The hull thing swept up the canyon ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... looked different—the whole plant looked different—the men, the tools, the materials, the very smoke from the big chimney, all took on a kind of glory. The rows of machines looked like a parade and the mingled roar and grinding of them sounded like a brass band at a picnic. The dull routine of a daily schedule was suddenly changed to a ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... how they always do. There were men shouting for people to come and see their shows for a dime, ten cents, and there were shooting galleries and everything. Sandwiches were thirty cents and the bread on them was stale, because Wig bought one. There was a brass band playing, too. ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... met with still further enticements to become a sailor boy. The building yard being in close proximity to the 'Impregnable', I could hear the brass band every morning, and what is so enticing as music? Then, again, hundreds of boys came ashore in large pinnaces, landing within a few yards from me, each carrying a rifle. This was more than I could bear by way of temptation, ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... frum the Bottum of my Sole do I thank the Baldinsville brass band fur givin up the idea of Sarahnadin me, both on that ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... thing I am good at!" Clio laughed in sheer relief. "If talking were music, I'd be a full brass band!" and she kept up a flow of inconsequential chatter, until Costigan told her that it was no longer necessary; that ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... they ever organized a brass band thereabout, I should have the big French horn to play, for I seemed to have the makings of a tremendous lip. All these little incidents of my first few days at the farm are enduringly ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... score of squat barges are high and dry upon the flats. Opposite, on the embankment, the lights are beginning to blink, and from the little hollow behind Charing Cross comes the faint, far-away braying of a brass band. ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... fatuity, patience, and good-nature, to take their wives and families to see any new variation of a world's 'Punch and Judy' play, particularly if there is a savour of Royalty about it, accompanied by a brass band, well-equipped soldiers, and gilded coaches. Though they take no part in the pageant, beyond consenting to be hustled and rudely driven back by the police like intrusive sheep, out of the sacred way of a Royal ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... cypress trees, and down the dark alleys where the morning twilight had not penetrated. We were ushered into the great outer court-yard of the Seraglio, leading to the Sublime Porte. A double row of marines, in scarlet jackets and white trowsers, extended from one gate to the other, and a very excellent brass band played "Suoni la tromba" with much spirit. The groups of Pashas and other officers of high rank, with their attendants, gave the scene a brilliant character of festivity. The costumes, except those of the secretaries ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... wailing was peculiarly harmonious and rhythmic, and it was accompanied by the music of stringed instruments, violins, guitars, ukuleles, and banjos. Also, the wailing was of various sorts. The leper brass band wailed, and two singing societies wailed, and lastly a quintet of excellent voices wailed. So much for a lie that should never have been printed. The wailing was the serenade which the glee clubs always give Mr. McVeigh when he returns from a trip ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... at one, and dreamed of shattered locomotives, human beings lying still with blankets over them, rows of cells, and banks of beautiful flowers nodding their heads to the tunes of the brass band in the gallery. He decided when he awoke the next morning that he had entered upon a picturesque and exciting career, and as one day followed another, he became more and more convinced of it, and more and more devoted to it. He was twenty then, and he was now twenty-three, ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... is, if you harden your heart when the man comes round with the tin pail!—everyone has a spade or a pail at the seaside—all the latest London successes, from TOSTI to "Ta-ra-ra," accompanied by a strong contingent of the Salvation Army Brass Band!—and there is a lot of "brass" about the Army still unaccounted for! What an enervating part of the world this is! One quite realises what "lotus-eating" means, even though there are no lotuses about!—(I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various |
