"Grand piano" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... obliged to you," observed Charley Roy, who had joined the Empress, and was now senior mate on board. "I suspect that they would rather remain comfortably on shore. Perhaps you'd like a grand piano, a ball-room, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... life came two bad hours each day. One was the dinner hour, when she ate under her mother's pitiless eyes. The other was the hour after dinner, when, alone in the white drawing-room beyond the boudoir, with the sliding doors open, she sat at the grand piano, which was white and gold, like the room, and as cold, and played to her ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Johannes Spinctus, Venice, 1500. It was a harpsichord with a square case, the strings running diagonally instead of lengthwise. When the spinet was of very small dimensions it was called a virginal; when it was in the shape of our modern grand piano, it was, of course, a harpsichord; and when the strings and sounding board were arranged perpendicularly, the instrument was called a clavicitherium. As early as 1500, then, four different instruments were in general use, the larger ones having a compass ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... the room where the grand piano stood, for Mrs. Mumbray had gone to pass the day with friends at a distance. Serena ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... he could live without his wedded wife and her gold and her brocade, and the silk and the Persian rugs, and the grand piano and the carriages and the high silk hat from Piccadilly. Her husband had had the luxuries of wealth, and here he was living like a Spartan on his hill— and alone; though he had a wife whom men had beseiged both before and after marriage. A feeling of impotent indignation suddenly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of a perfectly consistent medievalism. And there were some effects that were really magnificent. The view of the drawing-room, for instance, from the recessed dais at the far end of it, where the grand piano stood—a piano that contrived to look as if it might have been played upon by the second wife of Henry VIII,—down toward the magnificent stone chimney at the other; the octagonal dining-room with the mysterious audacity of its lighting; the kitchen with its flag ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... were deep and comfortable. A large davenport stood before the fireplace, which had been rebuilt for logs. There was a victrola in one corner, for Miss Dwight was amenable if her guests were seized with the desire to jazz, and a grand piano stood near the lower windows. The only evidence of sheer femininity was a tea table furnished with old pieces of silver she had picked up in France. The dining-room below was a trifle gayer in effect; the walls and curtains were a ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... or papier-mache bust Revivify the failing pressure-gauge? Chop up the grand piano if you must, And burn the ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... of a house, as we all do. But De Pretis is well-to-do, and he has a marble door plate, engraved in black with his name, and two sitting-rooms. They are not very large rooms, it is true, but in one of them he gives his lessons, and the grand piano fills it up entirely, so that you can only sit on the little black horsehair sofa at the end, and it is very hard to get past the piano on either side. Ercole is as broad as he is long, and takes snuff when he is not smoking. But it never hurts ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... Willielm Bachaus, was comfortably seated in his spacious apartments at the Ritz, New York, when this question was asked. A grand piano stood close at hand, and the pianist ran his fingers lightly over its keys from time to time, or illustrated some ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... admiring a pretty little slate-coloured kitten belonging to the house, which was calmly sitting upon the grand piano after dinner, when the ladies were alone in the drawing-room. After the gentlemen joined us, I was deep in conversation with my host (a remarkably interesting and intelligent man), when I noticed a small black kitten ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... instrument was forthcoming, but the result of the inquiries I had instituted at that time ultimately brought one forward, which has been secured by the curator of the Brussels Museum, M. Victor Mahillon. This instrument, with Stein's action and two unison scale, is dated 1780. Mozart's grand piano, preserved at Salzburg, made by Walther, is a nearly contemporary copy of Stein, and so also are the grands by Huhn, of Berlin, which I took notes of at Berlin and Potsdam; the latest of these ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... bearskins covered the floor; the furniture was dark, formal, much of it carved; here and there on the white panelling of the walls were black Wedgwood plaques; black Wedgwood china stood audaciously upon and inside cabinets. A large grand piano and the cheerful blaze of a wood fire mitigated the severity of ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... piano fully possesses the tone of a grand—it sounds really marvelously; the ample sound, the extension, the even tone, the sweetness, the power, are combined in these pianos as in no piano I have ever seen. The grand piano unites in itself all the qualities which you can demand of a concert piano; in fact, I do not hesitate to say that this piano is far better than all the English pianos which I have seen ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... growl and mutter of the rising storm. The leaves of the garden began to tremble. And then, ere that roll of distant thunder had died away, another sound came through the darkness—a sound that was almost terrifying in its suddenness, and the grand piano began ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... lady's brother was showing a visiting lady some old relics near the front door they came upon the head housemaid who was cleaning the church pew chairs (they were carried in while the church was being repaired), and she was near a very old grand piano. The lady asked in such a jeer, "And is this the housemaid's piano"? The gentleman looked very hard at the housemaid, for we were sure that he was very annoyed at her, but we did not hear his answer; but the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... him; and he spent his pennies for catgut, and he learned to mend fiddle-strings; and finally came a proud Wednesday afternoon when there were visitors in Madame's school, and he stood on the platform, with Miss Acton playing an accompaniment on the baby grand piano, and he managed a feeble but true tune on his violin. It was all for little Lucy, but little Lucy cared no more for music than his mother; and while Jim was playing she was rehearsing in the depths of her mind the little poem which later she was to recite; for this adorable little Lucy was, as ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... writing-table opposite the door was littered with maps, books and journals; there was a secretaire book-case in Chippendale by the side of the enormous fire-place, in which a great coal fire burned; and above this was an ivory overmantel of exquisite work. A grand piano, open and bearing music, was the chief ornament of the left-hand corner; while another Chippendale cabinet, filled with a multitude of rare curiosities, completed an apartment which had many of the characteristics of a salon and not a ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... place." Down-stage, about a yard from the left wall, stands DAVID'S roll-desk, open and displaying a medley of music, a quill pen, etc. On the wall behind the desk hangs a book-rack with brightly bound English books. A grand piano stands at left centre back, holding a pile of music and one huge Hebrew tome. There is a table in the middle of the room covered with a red cloth and a litter of objects, music, and newspapers. The fireplace, in which a fire ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... brill we've been eating, for they hadn't got an ounce of turbot, which I wanted, a luggage-train was standing at Riseholme station, and they had just taken out of it a case that could have held nothing but a grand piano. And if that's not enough for you, Colonel, there were two big dress-baskets as well, which I think must have contained linen, for they were corded, and it took two men to move each of them, so ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... was the source of all wealth. That was to say, whether it was a sack of potatoes, a grand piano, or a seven-passenger touring car, it came into being only by the performance of work. Where the bunco came in was in the distribution of these things after labor had created them. He failed to see the horny-handed sons of toil enjoying grand pianos or riding in automobiles. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... this illusion, I saw many things that were eloquent of these vanished people—glimpses through shattered windows and beyond demolished house-fronts; here a table set for dinner, with plates and tarnished cutlery on a dingy cloth that stirred damp and lazily in the wind, yonder a grand piano, open and with sodden music drooping from its rest; here again chairs drawn ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... into an inner room in the centre of which stood an open grand piano. Keineth went straight to it and began to play. He listened through to ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... was the brilliant and picturesque hall I have before described to you. It looked more picture-like and dreamy than ever. The piano was on the flat stairway just below the broad central landing. It was a grand piano, standing end outward, and perfectly banked up among hot-house flowers, so that only its gilded top was visible. Sir George Smart presided. The choicest of the elite were there,—ladies in demi-toilet and bonneted. Miss Greenfield stood among the singers ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... Louis liked the apartments there. Luxurious. Quiet. Residential. Circassian walnut or mahogany dining room? Alma should decide. A baby-grand piano. Later to be Alma's engagement gift from, "Mama and—Papa." No, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Mlle. Catrina to play. He opened the grand piano in the inner drawing-room with such gallantry and effusion that the sanguine countess, post-prandially somnolescent in her luxurious chair, began rehearsing different modes of ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... gracefulness like that of a graceful woman at a grand piano. There is a swimming loveliness of line that seems to merge with the running of the sound, and you seem, as you watch her, to see what you are hearing and to ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put "people about to marry" up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... pacify my friend Fischer by my readiness to abbreviate the score, which was excessively lengthy. His intentions in the matter were so honest that I gladly sat down with him to the wearisome task. I played and sang my score to the astonished man on an old grand piano in the rehearsing- room of the Court Theatre, with such frantic vigour that, although he did not mind if the instrument came to grief, he grew concerned about my chest. Finally, amid hearty laughter, he ceased to argue about cutting down passages, as precisely where he thought something ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the subject instantly and decidedly. This puzzled him, for he did not understand that looks could be painted, but not words. The latter were of no use to her. But she led him on skilfully, and, from the unbounded power his love gave her, played upon his feelings as adroitly as she touched her grand piano. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... controlling motive could have been any reverence for works of art. The explanation was obvious enough. The pictures were of value, and were the loot of some superior officer. A large cabinet had evidently been smashed with the butt-end of a musket, but the beautiful china it contained was intact. The grand piano stood uninjured, presumably because it afforded entertainment. The floor was thick with ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... from time to time a rapid survey of the faces of all the guests, without even distinguishing them, and then stared obstinately at his own feet. When at last a stray musician with a worn face, long hair, and an eyeglass stuck into his contorted eyebrow sat down to the grand piano and flinging his hands with a sweep on the keys and his foot on the pedal, began to attack a fantasia of Liszt on a Wagner motive, Aratov could not stand it, and stole off, bearing away in his heart a vague, painful impression; ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... and trudged along under its weight like a woman. With her free hand she caught hold of me and led me along the wet streets, proudly home. Ninette's home! Poor little Ninette! It was colder and barer than these rooms of mine now; it had no grand piano, and no thick carpets; and in the place of pictures and bibelots, its walls were only wreathed in cobwebs. Still it was drier than the streets of Paris, and if it had been a palace it could not have been more welcome to me than ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... a dinner-party that day, as was testified by the appearance of lights in the drawing-room windows, the sound of an improved grand piano, and an improvable cabinet voice issuing therefrom, and a rather overpowering smell of meat which pervaded the steps and entry. In fact, a couple of very good country agencies happening to come up to town, at the same ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... he had a penchant for Daisy, who teased him, and was as uncertain as an April shower. She and Hanny were inseparables. Jim took them round to Dolly's, or down to Ben's, or to Mrs. Hoffman, who had a new grand piano, and had refurnished her parlor, quite changing the simplicity of her first wedded life. Through the winter, she had given fortnightly receptions, that had an air and grace of the highest refinement. You always met some of the best and the ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the lyre, was not a mere fancy; for the first stringed instrument of which we have any trace in ancient sculpture differed from an ordinary bow only in having more than one string. A two-stringed bow was, perhaps, the first step towards the grand piano of to-day. Additional strings involved the strengthening of the bow that held them; and, accordingly, we find the Egyptian harps, discovered in the catacombs by Wilkinson, very thick and massive in the lower part of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... young folk popped corn beneath a mantelpiece surmounted by a Gainsborough. Two portly men, half hidden by a cased harp, discussed, over sheaves of typewritten documents, the terms of some contract. A knot of matrons talked servants—Irish versus German—across the grand piano. A youth ravaged an old bookcase, while beside him a tall girl stared at the portrait of a woman of many loves, dead three hundred years, but now leaping to life and warning under the shaded frame-light. In a corner half-a-dozen girls examined the glazed ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... the pile of rugs amid which he sprawled by the table, and of Sir Lucien Pyne nothing was to be seen but the outstretched legs and feet which projected grotesquely from a recess. Seated, oriental fashion, upon an improvised divan near the grand piano and propped up by a number of garish cushions, Rita beheld Mrs. Sin. The long bamboo pipe had fallen from her listless fingers. Her face wore an expression of mystic rapture like that characterizing the ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... wasn't peculiar to the Brule Indians, but was equally true of those in the Oklahoma reservation who boomed the luxury trades when oil was discovered on their land. There it was no uncommon sight to see a gaudy limousine parked outside a tepee and a grand piano ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... features. "Now what is it, father?" Then with a sigh which her quick ear detected As one that masked a pleasurable thought, He said: "Poor little Linda!"—"And why poor?" "Because she will not be so rich again In wishes unfulfilled. That grand piano You saw at Chickering's—what was the price?" "Twelve hundred dollars only."—"It is yours! That painting you admired so—that by Church— What did they ask for it?"—"Two thousand dollars." "'Tis cheap at that. We'll take it. Whose turn-out Was it that struck your ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... a neighbouring squatter, and a couple of bicycle tourists turned up at Five-Bob that evening, and we had a jovial night. The great, richly furnished drawing-room was 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 ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... aproned nurse-maids and bonneted mammas. Mrs. Bird was among them, lovely and serene as an angel still, though she has had her troubles. There was a great fireplace in the room, but it was banked up with purple and white lilacs. There was a bowl of the same flowers on the grand piano, and a clump of bushes sketched in chalk on a blackboard. Just then a lovely young girl walked from the piano and took a low chair in ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... while the children and babies rollicked on the floor of the piazza. Through the open door of the kitchen the colored wife could be seen directing the servants and cooks who were preparing the evening meal. In the parlor, however, was the most enchanting feature, for at a grand piano was poised the belle of the household, and beside the piano where she was playing stood her colored lover, devouring her with his eyes while he abstractedly turned the leaves of her music. Just to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... on the evening following, she was at the grand piano in the big drawing-room, her fingers lazily following the score of "Babes in Toyland," which Ella had left open upon the rack. Susan felt tired and subdued, wearily determined to do her duty, wearily sure that life, for the years to ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... A grand piano was so placed that the light from either window or candles would fall comfortably upon the music-desk; and on a stool beside ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... the entrance of some one from the anteroom beyond the grand piano, then a few chords, struck by hands that loved the ivory keys and evoked a reciprocal tenderness every time they ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... come of age, she made it her boudoir. Flowers and silks and silver lit up its stateliness. Beneath the influence of a grand piano and the soft-toned cretonnes upon the leather chairs, the solemnity of the chamber melted into peace. The walls of literature, once so severe, became a kindly background, wearing a wise, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... and thick that it yielded like moss to the footstep. Crimson velvet curtains, lined with white satin and fringed with gold, draped the windows and excluded every breath of the wintry blast. Many costly pictures, rare works of art, covered the walls. A grand piano-forte, a fine harp, a guitar, and a lute were at hand. Rich inlaid tables were covered with the best new books, magazines, and journals. Indian cabinets were filled with antique shells, minerals, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... over the shining surface of the grand piano and looked remarkably like an owl, an owl that had ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... border running round the room, or rather two rooms, which are divided, but not separated, by crimson curtains. The furniture is crimson, and everything is so comfortable—such a contrast to German bareness and stiffness generally. A splendid grand piano (he receives a new one every year,) stands in one window. The other window is always open and looks out on the park. There is a dovecote just opposite the window, and doves promenade up and down upon the roof of it, and fly ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... salon dimly lighted by a poor little petroleum lamp. The salottino, in its severe, ecclesiastical simplicity, held nothing of interest, save a canvas by Morone—the fine portrait of a man; two small panels with angels' heads, in the style of Luini; and a grand piano, loaded with music. The Abbot, passionately fond of pictures, music, and snuff, dedicated to Mozart and Haydn a great part of the scant leisure he enjoyed after the performance of his duties as priest and ruler. He was intelligent, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... hand of Odalite, and leading her up to Mrs. Force, who stood before the grand piano, putting away the sheets of music before closing the instrument—"aunty, dear, I am not ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... design was littered with proofs and copies of the Pilgrim, and the stamped velvet was two shades richer in tone than the pale dead-red of the floorcloth. Small pictures in light frames harmonized with a green paper of long interlacing leaves. On the right, the grand piano and the slender brass lamps; and the impression of refinement and taste was continued, for between the blue chintz curtains the river lay soft as a picture of old Venice. The beauty of the water, full ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... words came stumbling from her lips. She crossed the threshold and entered a large salon, divided by curtains from a room beyond. There was a grand piano in the corner of the salon, and about the walls were shelves piled high with music; propped against the ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... on a visit to Antwerp with my mother and my youngest sister, Clara. Wherever my father took up his abode, even temporarily, a grand piano would in the natural course of events gravitate towards him, and a select circle of art lovers would soon be grouped around it. Amongst the friends in the Antwerp circle were—Van Lerius, Tadema, Baron Leys, Heyermans, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... floor before an old-fashioned Mexican fire-place built into one corner of the room; in another corner was a smaller table on which was a graphophone; a rocker and several chairs were set about the room and against the north wall; between two doors, evidently opening into twin bedrooms, was an upright grand piano—. ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... that wore trimmed dresses and rolled about in handsome carriages. Just in the centre and height of the thoroughfare Mme. Ricard's establishment looked over it. We went in at a stately doorway, and were shown into a very elegant parlour; where at a grand piano a young lady was taking a music lesson. The noise was very disagreeable; but that was the only disagreeable thing in the place. Pictures were on the walls, a soft carpet on the floor; the colours of carpet and furniture were dark and rich; books and trinkets and engravings in profusion gave the ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... take care of the Schombergs' goods, which, to tell the truth, were not likely to oppress her either in number or value, with the exception of one cherished article, one relic of former days—a good semi-grand piano, which M. Schomberg had purchased for his daughter, about a year before his death. Miss Webster looked very much confused as Emilie bade her good-bye, and said—"Miss Schomberg, you have not, I see, left ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... hurriedly completed his optical round. A set of walnut chairs were dreadfully upholstered in faded tapestry; but a deep, worn one looked comfortable enough, and a still more redeeming feature was the semi-grand piano. There were books, too, and in the far corner by the bow-window a glass door leading into a conservatory as minute as Pocket's study at school, and filled with geraniums. On the walls hung a series of battle engravings, one representing a bloody advance ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... as if she understood, and advised me to keep a sharp watch. 'I must go in,' I said to myself, and, without knowing what I did, I opened the door. He was sitting at the piano and making arpeggios with his long, white, curved fingers. She was standing in the angle of the grand piano, before the open score. She saw or heard me first, and raised her eyes to mine. Was she stunned, was she pretending not to be frightened, or was she really not frightened at all? In any case, she did not tremble, she did not stir. She blushed, ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... acceded to by acclamation, and while one gentleman led her to the grand piano which stood between the front windows of the drawing-room, and another opened a music-book which she named, a set was quickly formed in the long apartment, the soberer portion of the crowd ranging themselves along the walls ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... I pressed her no further regarding the handsome but insidious Frenchman, the woman at once ushered me into the adjoining room—a small but well-furnished one—where at the grand piano sat the girl whose eyes were fixed, though not sightless as I had believed ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... children knew not that the writing was their parents'. The little ones walked carefully over the polished floors; but there seemed nothing in all they saw to tell them they were welcome. They lifted the grand piano that maintained its station in one of the unoccupied rooms of the house; but the keys were yellow with age, and many of them soundless—when at last one of them answered to the touch of Ellen's little hand, it sent forth such a ghostly cry that the ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... must have been in the Adirondacks," went on the determined interlocutor. "Were you at——" But the girl interrupted her. She could not afford to discuss the Adirondacks, and the sight of the grand piano across the room had given her ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... thought to refuse, but somehow the pride that was in her came to the rescue, and the feeling that she would show her friend that she was not a timid country girl gave her the needed courage, and she arose and stepped across the room to the grand piano that stood in one corner. Her cheeks were flushed, and a defiant curl was on her lips, and then without a moment's hesitation she seated herself and sang "The Last Rose of Summer." She had sung it many, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... A Grand Piano underneath the Bough, A Gramophone, a Chinese Gong, and Thou Trying to sing an Anthem off the Key - Oh, ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... bedsteads, with their bedding, wardrobes, dressing and other tables, chests of drawers, domestic utensils of every kind, cutlery, china and glass, carpets, a huge pier glass, and, to Flora's infinite delight, a magnificent Kaps grand piano. Then there was more clothing—enough to last them both for the remainder of their lives—a case of repeating rifles and revolvers, another case containing ammunition for the same, and a quantity of ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... take the honor of turning Paula's music, but saw in time that Dar Hyal had already elected to himself that office. Graham glimpsed the scene with quiet curious glances. The grand piano, under a low arch at the far-end of the room, was cunningly raised and placed as on and in a sounding board. All jollity and banter had ceased. Evidently, he thought, the Little Lady had a way with her and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... amputate your leg, once in a while than to risk getting too close to the outer edge of the trail in all this snow. He's an old warrior, is Spoons! He could carry a grand piano down this trail and never scrape the varnish. Look up, Enoch! We'll soon reach a broad bench where I'll ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... and I was wasting time in displaying my plans and projects before her. She was keenly interested in knowing which would be her room, what paper she would have in the room, why I had an upright piano instead of a grand piano, and so on. She examined carefully all the little things on my table, looked at the photographs, sniffed at the bottles, peeled the old stamps off the envelopes, saying she wanted ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... sweetest girl I've seen in England," said Lady Angleford to her neighbor, who happened to be the dowager duchess. Her grace put up her eyeglasses, with their long holder, and surveyed the slim, girlish figure on its way to the grand piano. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... leading pianists of my time, I have never heard one who seemed to interpret the masterpieces of music more worthily. At Ann Arbor I now came to know him intimately. Once or twice a week he came to my house, and, as mine was the only grand piano in the town, he enjoyed playing upon it. His extemporizations were flights of genius. At these gatherings he was inspired by two other admirable musicians, one being my dear wife, and the other Professor Brunnow, the astronomer. Nothing could be more delightful ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... luxuries of civilisation; when he pours a jug of water over himself instead of lying in ecstasy in an enamelled bath; eats a meal of two undefined courses instead of one of five or six; twangs a banjo to the moon instead of ravishing his ear with a sonata upon the grand piano; rolls himself in a blanket instead of sitting over the library fire; turns in at 9 P.M. and rises ere the sun has topped the hills instead of keeping late hours and lying abed; sleeps on the ground or upon a narrow camp-bed (which occasionally ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... door ahead of her. They went through the hall to a long high room that had a grand piano and many old high- backed chairs, and in front of the French windows that opened on the garden, a round table of black mahogany littered with books. Two tall girls in muslin dresses stood beside ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the tempest, and repeat Coleridge's "Ode to Schiller." He can, lying on a twilight hill, with twilight mountains darkening into night around him, and twilight fields and rivers glimmering far below, and one cataract, touching the grand piano of the silence into melancholy music, turn round and see in the north-east the moon rising in that "clouded majesty" of which Milton had spoken long before. He can take the "Lady of the Lake" to the same summit, while afternoon, the everlasting autumn of the day, is shedding its thoughtful and ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the cool, hyacinth-scented drawing-room by now, and Chloe drew the girl towards the grand piano which stood by one of the big latticed windows. "Sing to us at once, Iris, before you have your ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... short look at him was fond, her voice not faltering; she laid her hand under his arm and walked round the spacious room, praising the general design, admiring the porcelain, the ferns, friezes, hangings, and the grand piano, the ebony inlaid music-stands, the firegrates and plaques, the ottomans, the tone of neutral colour that, as in sound, muted splendour. He told her it was a reception night, with music: and added: 'I miss my . ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a bunch light on the stage, a dirty backdrop of Corinthian pillars and esplanade and no wings, one or two stage hands moving about, and finally a concert grand piano dragged down. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... room was a grand piano, open, and covered with the latest music, and sometimes played on in a surprisingly graceful manner by the fat fingers of Matthew Maltboy. On the walls hung some pictures, that were not unpleasant to look at. There were two portraits of danseuses, with little gauzy wings, and wands tipped with ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... came to the sofa and gingerly smoothed a velvet pillow; whispering and pointing, the others scattered—to look up at a painting of a bishop of the Anglican Church, which hung above the mantel, to open the Bible on the small mahogany table that held the center of the room, to touch the grand piano with moist and marking finger-tips, and to gaze with awe upon two huge and branching candlesticks that flanked a marble clock ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... half-a-dozen steps into the house. Then, off a wide passage, a door was opened, and they found themselves in a great saloon with polished oak floor. There was hardly any furniture—three or four chairs, some benches against the walls and a grand piano. The mantelpiece was covered with photographs, and there were life-sized photographs in frames on the walls. Owen pointed to one of a somewhat stout woman in evening-dress, and he whispered ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... Queen Elizabeth of England, and by some authorities is supposed to have been named in honor of the Virgin Queen, as she was called. The harpsichord, much in use during the last century, was shaped almost exactly like a modern grand piano. The honor of having invented the hammer which plays upon the strings of the piano now in use is claimed by several nations, but the credit is probably due to Italy, although the first pianos are said to have been made in Germany, probably in the city of ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... second-hand baby grand piano in Jordan's living room. Daniel played on it in the evening, and the sisters listened. Gertrude was like a woman wrapt in peaceful slumber, her every wish having been fulfilled, with kindly spirits watching over ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... of luxuries then began to arrive—antique furniture, matchless refrigerators, a grand piano and a billiard table—cases of pictures and bundles of rare rugs. So great was the accumulation of luxuries at Big Shanty that little else ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... Music appealed to her, for Toni was emotional, with the quick, facile emotionalism of the South; but she was no musician herself, and the grand piano in the drawing-room was silent through these sunshiny days. She had rather a talent for housekeeping, and in a smaller establishment would doubtless have been a success; but at Greenriver there was ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... blessing on the new life, and there was something like a tear in his eye and a suspicious huskiness in his voice as he called out "Come in" in answer to a hurried knock at the door and flung open the lid of a grand piano which was littered with music and songs, running his hands over the keys ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... however, the device of flying ribbons is a most clever one, which, besides giving the effect of motion, causes an interruption in these clean-cut outlines, as also in the formal spaces on either side. The horizontal accent of dark through the centre of the canvas, suggesting a grand piano in the dim recesses behind, fulfills a like obligation from the linear as ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... in a hotel. Entrance from the corridor in the centre; also side doors. In front to the right a window with heavy closed curtains. To the left a grand piano. Behind the piano a Japanese screen covering the fireplace. Big open trunks are standing around. Enormous laurel wreaths on several upholstered armchairs. A mass of bouquets are distributed about the room, some of them being piled up on ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... it to the full during the few days she was there. And one thing more, the grand piano in the music-room. The first evening of their arrival she was drawn by the far-off sounds, and Mrs. Carleton seeing it, went immediately to the music-room with her. The room had no light, except from ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... musical taste tends to grow better and not worse, know also that any music is better than no music. A mechanical instrument which goes is better than a new concert grand piano that remains shut. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... promising of our recent English school"—vigorous entrance of the drums, etc.—the whole character of Jimson and his music arose in bulk before the mind of Gideon. What more likely than Jimson's arrival with a grand piano (say, at Padwick), and his residence in a houseboat alone with the unfinished score of Orange Pekoe? His subsequent disappearance, leaving nothing behind but an empty piano case, it might be more difficult to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... respectable attainments and previous good character; and winning a favourable verdict, I dropped back into my dream, letting the violin wail unheard through the other movements, and the Grand Piano tinkle. ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... how sorry they all were when I parted from them at Wiesbaden!!" At Frankfort, one morning, he writes: "I felt an extraordinary longing to play on a piano. So I calmly went to the nearest dealer, told him I was the tutor of a young English lord who wished to buy a grand piano, and then I played, to the wonder and delight of the bystanders, for three hours. I promised to return in two days and inform them if the lord wanted the instrument; but on that date I was at Ruedesheim, drinking Ruedesheimer." In another place he gives an account ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... amount she had earned, but expenses increased greatly. Some of the deficit was made up by borrowing, but there is a limit to the amount that can be obtained in this manner. That limit was reached before the last $150 was paid on the grand piano which Doris required for her work. As a result, the piano was taken back ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... a sofa near the Steinway grand piano, which stood on a low dais, looked up at Max Elliot, and added, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... The grand piano stood out from the grey-green background of the walls beyond, there was a bronze statuette of Orpheus with his lute on a twisted Byzantine column of white and gold mosaic, and a long cushioned divan set on one side ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... protruded on to the stage—three on either side—while benches and palms were scattered here and there to properly balance the picture. Then, as if to force into the scene an incongruity of some sort, a grand piano was pushed out of the darkness in the rear of the stage, to a place in the garden, where it stood, seemingly the one blot ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... had given us an invitation to visit his curious house we did not fail to go, and Mary was especially attracted by the famous grand piano, inscribed inside with the signatures of the renowned musicians who had performed upon it. Knowing that our daughter was seriously studying music, Mrs. Alma Tadema generously expressed the hope of seeing sometime ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Sometimes Sam Pardee made sudden thousands. Mrs. Pardee would buy silver, linen, and other household furnishings ranging all the way from a grand piano to a patent washing machine. The piano and the washing machine usually were whisked away within a few weeks or months, at the longest. But she cannily had the linen and silver stamped—stamped unmistakably and irrevocably with a large, flourishing capital P, embellished with floral wreaths. Eventually ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... heavy Persian rugs. The corners were filled with palms, and there was the unmistakable odor in the air of Russian cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to the bazaars of Vladivostock. Near the front windows was a grand piano, and at the other end of the room a heavily carved screen of some black wood, picked out with ivory. The screen was overhung with a canopy of silken draperies, and formed a sort of alcove. In front of the alcove was spread the white skin of a polar bear, and set on that was one of those ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis |
