"Guitar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... requested, sent me a letter of introduction to a friend of hers, a Monsieur Gironac, who lived in Leicester Square. He was a married man, without family. He obtained his livelihood by giving lessons on the flute, on the guitar, and in teaching French during the day, and at night was engaged as second violin in the orchestra of the Opera House; so that he had many strings to his bow, besides those of his fiddle. His wife, a pretty little lively woman, taught young ladies to make flowers in wax, and mended ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... about her fanciful apartment. She had dozens of birds of all gay colors,—paroquets from Brazil, cockatoos, ring-doves, and canaries; fresh flowers, in vases on the mantel-pieces, and a blue-ribboned guitar in the corner. No books, no pictures. A great many scarfs, bonnets, and drapery generally, fell about on the chairs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... In polite and affectionate intercourse they are very extravagant, addressing letters to each other in terms of elaborate and delicate expressions of affection, and neat turns of thought. As a result of this, they are much given to musical practice; and although the guitar that they use, called cutyapi, is not very ingenious or rich in tone, it is by no means disagreeable, and to them is most pleasing. They play it with such vivacity and skill that they seem to make human voices issue from its four metallic cords. We also have it on good authority that by merely ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... houses. There was a really fair amateur brass band. Night after night serenaders would be going about the street, sometimes in a company and with several instruments and voices together, sometimes severally, each guitar before a different window. It was a strange thing to lie awake in nineteenth-century America, and hear the guitar accompany, and one of these old, heart-breaking Spanish love-songs mount into the night air, perhaps in a deep baritone, perhaps in that high-pitched, pathetic, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thoughtfully, and when Pancho finished he sighed a little and made a soft little "ting-ting-a-ting-ting" on his guitar-strings. Then he jumped up and began to sing and dance, playing the guitar all the while. It was a song about the little dwarfs, ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... countless stars, large and luminous and beaming with a softer, stronger light than in the North. A brooding silence hung over the town—the silence of the desert. The hush was broken only by the droning notes of a song, accompanied on a guitar, which came from off in the distance on the outskirts of the little settlement. The music emphasized rather than ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... smiles and caresses; the scene where I had taken leave of their mother; the occasional chit-chat with the old smith, who had his forge there; the joyous songs of one of the captains accompanied by his guitar; and last not least, the innocent badinage of a young Hungarian fruiteress—the corporal's wife, who flirted with my companions—were among what we had lost. She had, in fact, taken a great fancy ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... ranks; the animal is spoiled by sheer drink. Having been drunk every day in Khartoum, and now being separated from his liquor, he is plunged into a black melancholy. He sits upon the luggage like a sick rook, doing minstrelsy, playing the rababa (guitar), and smoking the whole day, unless asleep, which is half that time: he is sighing after the merissa (beer) pots of Egypt. This man is an illustration of missionary success. He was brought up from boyhood ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... roared against each other; Bajazzo growled; a couple of hoarse girls sang and twanged upon the guitar: it was comic or affecting, just as one was disposed. The evening approached, and now the crowd became greater, ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... honor of our traveler. During the day they ride around the neighborhood and personally invite to the entertainment the guests to the number of seventy-four, of whom seventy are young women, some of them very handsome. The music is of the modest kind that might be expected from a clarionet and a guitar. The majority of the participants come to the house with their chairs on their heads. The dances are the polka, the waltz, quadrilles, including the Lancers, and two or three native dances called La Polomila, the Dondon Karape and La Santa Fe, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... might more easily entrap the Senator Edmunds and Oscar Wilde types of Adam's sons. Suppose at our next convention all of us dress in pale green, have a faint and subdued gaslight with pink shades, write our speeches in verse and chant them to a guitar accompaniment. Ah me! alas! how can we ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... made by Lord God whose mouth is in his belly; he has one arm and his fingers are in his back; and his intestines are outside. Guitar ...
— A Little Book of Filipino Riddles • Various
... difficult. He will inherit at least half of the largest royal fortune in Europe. The Infanta Eulalie is of lively manners and agreeable physiognomy. She was educated by the Countess Soriente, a lady of New England birth, and is an accomplished player on the harp and guitar. Her instructor was the gifted Cuban negress, who used to perform at Queen Isabella's concerts at ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... more and more embellished the farther they spread. In the foreign papers they were garnished out of all recognition. Certain French articles having told how in his poverty he had transposed music for the guitar, Christophe learned from an English newspaper that he had played the guitar in the streets. He did not only read eulogies. Far from it. It was enough for Christophe to have been taken up by the Grand Journal, for him to be taken to task by the other papers. They could not as a matter ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... chirped in the hedges; now and then a firefly flashed before them; the trees seemed wrapped in silent awe at the majesty of the bewildering heavens. As they approached the river, the faint susurra came to them, mingled with the sound of a guitar and some one singing in ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... child it had an immense attraction for me, and no wonder, for it was original to actual eccentricity. It depicted a dark young woman of dazzling beauty standing at break of day among mountain scenery, holding a musical instrument of the guitar kind, but shaped like a violin, upon the lower strings of which she was playing with the thumb of the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... stockings with blobs, like the fruit of plane trees, dependent from elaborate "tops," and shoes with a cascade of leather frilling covering the laces. He might almost equally well be about to play golf over putting-holes on the lawn as the guitar. He made a gesture of polished, polite dissent, not contradicting, yet hardly accepting this tribute, remitting it perhaps, just as the King when he enters the City of London touches the sword of the Lord Mayor and tells him to ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... had been retuning an old guitar, took alarm and was alert on the instant. Striking it quickly, insistently, she came to the door of the dining-room, which framed her ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... a repetition of the first—for Henty; but not for his companion. They made a trip to Vancouver at Christmas and sent bundles of presents home. A. P. loaded up with novels, and, to Evan's consternation, bought a guitar. But he learned to strum it, although it took him ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... the door opened and fresh people came in, those already in the room shifted slightly; those who were standing looked over their shoulders; those who were sitting stopped in the middle of sentences. What with the light, the wine, the strumming of a guitar, something exciting happened each time the door opened. Who was ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... returned," answered Blanch, opening the door and leading the way across the patio in the direction of the garden. The tinkle of a guitar attracted their attention to a group of peons and women squatted on their heels on one side of the court, in the shade of the arcades, smoking and chatting. A little beyond them, in the shadow of the doorway, stood the major-domo, Juan Ramon ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... inferior in education, in culture, in fine instinct, in mental development. You chatter in a dozen languages to your sisters: my French appals a Paris cabman; you play any instrument I ever heard of: the guitar is my limit, the fandango my repertoire. As for alert intelligence, artistic comprehension, ability to appreciate, I can not make the running with you; I am outclassed—hopelessly. Now, if this is all true—and I have spoken the wretched truth—what ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... One-half of the officers did not know their duty, and the other half did not do it; and the men did just what they liked. They smoked and sang and danced the best part of the day, while the officers played the fiddle or the guitar, or gambled with cards and dice, and very often danced and smoked with the men, which at all events was not the way to gain their respect. The captain was a very gentlemanly man, but had not been to sea since the war, and could not then have known ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... smiling on the breast of its mother. The poet went and caressed it, and the child threw its arms about Antonio's neck and turning to its mother cried, "Mother, Antonio, he of the songs, is a blind man who sees."[3] The poet continues: "I am a blind man who sees: that angel told the truth. With my guitar resting on my loving heart, you may see me wandering from the city to the valley, from the cabin of the poor to the palace of the great, weeping with those who weep, singing with those who sing, for my rude guitar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... from God knows where, and landed in the very spot where I happen to be living! I may tell you that, no matter how many carriages I possessed, I should gamble the lot away. Recently I went in for a turn at billiards, and lost two jars of pomade, a china teapot, and a guitar. Then I staked some more things, and, like a fool, lost them all, and six roubles in addition. What a dog is that Kuvshinnikov! He and I attended nearly every ball in the place. In particular, there was a woman—decolletee, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a treat, after a hard day's work, to go at nightfall to one of these fandangos. The merry notes of the guitar and the violin announce them to all comers; and a motley enough looking crowd, every member of which is puffing away at a cigar, forms are applauding circle round the dancers, who smoke like the rest. One cannot help being struck by the picturesque costumes and ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... throughout his career. With the fair sex he had more than one romantic episode. At one time a lady of high rank fell in love with him and led him captive to her castle in Tuscany. Here the lovers solaced themselves with duets on the guitar, and the violinist attained a proficiency, on that instrument, equal to the expression of the tenderest passion. This adventure brought retribution in after days, and in a most unexpected manner, for as his genius began to excite the wonder of the world, sundry malicious stories ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... a guitar out of a case and commenced to strum lightly on it, while he rendered the old song in a voice roughened by ill usage but still strong and true. A knock at the door interrupted him at the climax of his song, and he glared toward ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Pauline Augusta to Hunk Granby, the town barber, to have her hair cut Dutch. Her lip quivered and she gave every indication of an outbreak, for she was mortally afraid of that strange man and his still stranger clipping-machine. But I spotted a concert-guitar on a bench at the back of Hunk's emporium and as it was the noon-hour and there was no audience, I rendered a jazz obbligato to the ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... suddenly, halting in front of the little glass door of the cupboard, "what do you think has happened? That dear little china man with the guitar has tumbled over and broken ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... her chair closer. From somewhere out in the darkness, from the direction of the men's quarters, came the soft tinkle of a guitar and a voice droning a ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... write verses himself. He occasionally composed little Ballads in Spanish, his compositions were but indifferent, I must confess; yet they were pleasing to me from their novelty, and hearing him sing them to his guitar was the only amusement, which I was capable of receiving. Theodore perceived well enough that something preyed upon my mind; But as I concealed the cause of my grief even from him, Respect would not permit him to pry into ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... he met with mines, with agriculture, including pears, plums, peaches, almonds, grapes, pomegranates, rice, and wheat. The inhabitants were dressed in silk and woollen materials. There were musicians in the chief cities who played on the flute and the guitar. Buddhism was the prevailing religion, but there were traces of an earlier worship, the Bactrian fire-worship. The country was everywhere studded with halls, monasteries, monuments, and statues. Samarkand formed ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... called Uspensky came in from Zvenigorod, a small town fourteen miles away. "Look here," he said to Chekhov, "I am going away for a holiday and can't find anyone to take my place.... You take the job on. My Pelageya will cook for you, and there is a guitar there...." ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... some of the best works of the Venetian school, eighteen of its best pictures, and was lately in treaty for a still larger number. He has already secured Titian's portrait of Ariosto, Giorgione's portrait of a woman with a guitar, and other works by these masters, by Palma Vecchio, Giovanni Bellini, and other chief Venetian painters. We trust that he may bring to England (if it must leave Venice) Bellini's St. Jerome, a picture of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... base, insolent, and infernal rascals. Go, the northern star points your path through the dim twilight of the night; go, and vent your spite upon the lonely hills; pour forth your love, you poor, weak-minded wretch, upon your idleness and upon your guitar, and your fiddle; they are fit subjects for your admiration, for let me assure you, though this sword and iron lever are cankered, yet they frown in sleep, and let one of you dare to enter my house this night and you shall have the contents and the weight of these instruments." "Never ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she sang to a sparkling guitar, With silver chords stretch'd over Derbyshire spar, And she smiled on the Knight, Who, amazed at the sight, Soon found his astonishment merged in delight; But the stream by degrees Now rose up to her knees, Till at length it invaded her very chemise, While the heavenly ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the same place as before, why not in the other seat. At last he felt very depressed—depressed by suspense and uncertainty. But he had not sat there more than a quarter of an hour, when he suddenly heard the thrum of a guitar somewhere quite close. People were sitting, or had only just sat down, somewhere in the bushes not more than twenty paces away. Alyosha suddenly recollected that on coming out of the summer-house the day before, he had caught a glimpse of an old green low garden-seat among the bushes on ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... you have a guitar, or is playing one in a dream, signifies a merry gathering and serious love making. For a young woman to think it is unstrung or broken, foretells that disappointments in love are sure to ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... undergone a new interruption, might not well be foreseen. The sash of one of the apartments of the building devoted to the family was suddenly thrown up, and a soft and plaintive voice, accompanying the wandering and broken strains of a guitar, rose sweetly ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... pots, the gold and silver fish, fat and wonderfully shaped, which glided about in the tanks and ponds, and then led us into a kind of arbour, where, beneath a kind of wooden eave, an instrument was hanging from a peg. It was not a banjo, for it was too long; and it was not a guitar, for it was too thin, and had not enough strings; but it was something of the kind, and evidently kept there for the ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... came upon a group of red-capped coral fishers assembled round a portable stove whereon roasting chestnuts cracked their glossy sides and emitted savory odors. The men were singing gayly to the thrumming of an old guitar, and the song they sung was familiar to me. Stay! where had ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... You mutter maledictions on the infernal noise and caterwauliug. I hear no caterwauliug, but the river-god of Arno ripples soft songs in the summertide to the lilies that bend above him. It is the guitar of the cantatrice that murmurs through the scented, dewy air,—the cantatrice with the laurel yet green on her brow, gliding over the molten moonlit water-ways of Venice, and dreamily chiming her well-pleased lute with ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... working as a day-laborer with obscure and ignorant peasants. Then there are tales told of how he was taken captive by a titled lady of great wealth and beauty, who carried him away to her bower, where he eschewed the violin and tinkled only the guitar the livelong day. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... no chance of being chilled. The 17th June, 1865, was a Saturday. The violin is not an easy instrument to learn, and requires a good ear; but we should recommend it in preference to the banjo or the concertina. The guitar is also unsuited for ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... arranged the compositions of the great European masters in such a grotesque manner. The executants are five in number; one plays the tambourine, Mr. Germon, who is the leader; another the bone castanet; the third, the accordion; and the two others, the banjo, or African guitar. The castanet player does not sing; but his four colleagues have good voices, and, in glees, harmonize charmingly. In a quartet, the parody on the Phantom Chorus, from Bellini's 'Sonnambula'; and in a glee, 'You'll See Them on the Ohio,' nothing can be more ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... all sides to one point above the centre. In each house a hall some twenty feet by fifty, and in the hall,—what is not in the hall?—maybe a piano, maybe a fish-rod, maybe a rifle or a telescope, a volume of sermons or a volume of songs, a spinning-wheel, or a guitar, or a battledore. You might ask widely for what you needed, for study or for play, and you would find it, though it were a deep divan of Osiat or a chibouque from Stamboul—you would find it in one ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... manly, generous way. With his perfect manners, stately and stiff, or genial and engaging, as occasion might demand, Mr. Walthall was just such a romantic figure as one reads about in books, or as one expects to see step from behind the wings of the stage with a guitar or a long dagger. Indeed, he was the veritable original of Cyrille Brandon, the hero of Miss Amelia Baxter's elegant novel entitled "The Haunted Manor; or, Souvenirs of the Sunny Southland." If those who are fortunate enough to possess a copy ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... river, underneath The flower-like maple leaves that bloom alone In autumn's silent revels of decay, We said farewell. The host, dismounting, sped The parting guest whose boat rocked under him, And when the circling stirrup-cup went round, No light guitar, no lute, was heard again; But on the heart aglow with wine there fell Beneath the cold bright moon the cold adieu Of fading friends — when suddenly beyond The cradled waters stole the lullaby Of some faint ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... evening, however, was the minstrel show. On a raised wooden platform sat the performers with blackened hands and faces. They wore grotesque garb and each one fingered a guitar, ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... installments of a dollar or two. The Filipinos are very fond of music, and the cheap gramophones appeal to them strongly. Nearly every Filipino plays some instrument by ear, and many boys from the country are expert players on the guitar or mandolin. On large plantations the hands are fond of forming bands and orchestras, and often their playing would do credit to professional musicians. The Constabulary Band, recognized as the finest in the Orient, has been drilled by ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... across the boulevard and into the tent colony, for after a while we were rolling around among tent-pegs and tangling up in guy-ropes, and all the time our audience was growing. Dave, those tent-ropes sounded like guitar strings." ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... occasion. One of the count's sons had brought his violin, his cousin had a balalaika, a triangular peasant guitar, and one of the lackeys had his harmonica, to play for the dancing. The young men sat on a rough improvised bench; the servant stood beside them. The peasants seemed shy. They hesitated and argued a good deal over beginning each song. Finally they joined hands ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... number of twenty, and put me in mind of the pictures of the ancient nymphs. I did not think all nature could have furnished such a scene of beauty. She made them a sign to play and dance. Four of them immediately began to play some soft airs on instruments between a lute and a guitar, which they accompanied with their voices, while the others danced by turns. This dance was very different from what I had seen before. Nothing could be more artful.... The tunes so soft!—the motions so languishing!—accompanied with pauses and dying ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... tender and fair complexion, with little beard, save a slight blush on his upper lip. He was not ill-favoured, but there was altogether something boyish and effeminate throughout his appearance, which seemed not of the hue to win a lady's love. He could twang the guitar, and had at times made scraps of verse, which he trolled to many a damsel's ear, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... aunt Celia has been feeing the vergers altogether too much, and I wrote a song about it called "The Ballad of the Vergers and the Foolish Virgin," which I sang to my guitar. Mr. Copley says it is cleverer than anything he ever did with his pencil, but of course he says that only to ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... shaped like some of our long-necked squashes, hollowed out through two vents cut in one side, and the surface over half the perimeter slashed or furrowed so as to offer a file-like resistance to a metal trident, which is scraped over it in time to the music made by the guitar, or whatever other instrument or instruments make up the orchestra. There are times when the result is suggestive of the couchee-couchee music ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... Hamilton, the painter, to whom he had been introduced by Mr. Robinson, took him to a coffee-house, the usual resort of the British travellers. While they were sitting at one of the tables, a venerable old man, with a guitar suspended from his shoulder, entered the room, and coming immediately to their table, Mr. Hamilton addressed him by the name of Homer.—He was the most celebrated Improvisatore in all Italy, and the richness ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... district who could not spell their own names, there were those who reminded you of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Esau and Joseph and his brethren, and even of David the passionate psalmist, with perhaps a guitar for ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... understand! Consider the surroundings, the moonlight, the water rippling against the rocks, the soft breeze—a little music, too, such as a pair of mandolins and a guitar, which we could send over—all these things ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... a pleasant home to visit, and to sit upon the veranda and smoke a cigarro with the good old gentleman and look out toward the mountains, while the young ladies laughed and talked, or played upon the guitar and sang. And oftentimes so it was strongly upon Barnaby's mind to speak to the good gentleman and tell him what he had beheld that night out in the harbor; but always he would think better of it and hold his peace, falling to thinking, and smoking away upon his cigarro ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... also speaks, in his West Indian travels, of another musical instrument, very popular among the Martinique slaves of his time—"a sort of guitar" made out of a half-calabash or cou, covered with some kind of skin. It had four strings of silk or catgut, and a very long neck. The tradition or this African instrument is said to survive in the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... their pipes, and even while keeping up a semblance of talk, had an eye and an ear on the bungalow—the "Old Man's" quarters not three hundred feet away. The boom of his jovial laughter still rang out upon the air, and presently the tinkle of guitar, the swish of feminine garments, the rasp of chairs and the merry mingling of voices told that the little dinner party, the first the camp had ever known—for what is a dinner party without women—had ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... flowers? That building yonder is the convent of St. Isidore; and that eminence with the cypress-trees and pines upon it, the top of Mt. Quirinal."[45] "The Neapolitans work till evening: then take their lute or guitar and walk about the city, or upon the sea shore with it, to enjoy the fresco. One sees their little brown children jumping about stark naked and the bigger ones dancing with castanets, while others play on the cymbal to them."[46] ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and took my arm affectionately and conducted me to the big drawing-room. Two of the ladies were singing as one played the guitar. I looked in vain for the Misses de Lambert. The others were all there, but they had gone. I felt a singular depression at their absence and went to my room shortly to get my rest, for I had to be off early in the morning. Before going ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... appointments had been changed in position somewhat, so that the chamber seemed strange to me. There were numerous novel objects scattered through the rooms as well. A Spanish guitar which I had never seen before stood beside the old piano. There were several elegantly bound books, new to me, on the table; on the mantel-shelf were three miniatures, delicately painted, depicting a florid officer in ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... finished right there. Got married that night. Never came on board again. I looked him up next day. Found him in a straw house in the bush, barelegged, a white savage, all mixed up with flowers and things and playing a guitar. Looked like a bally ass. Told me to send his things ashore. I told him I'd see him damned first. And that's all. You'll see her to-morrow. They've got three kiddies now—wonderful little rascals. I've a phonograph down below for him, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... great Georgian poet Rustavelli, and translate it line by line. I confess to you, that I'm not much of a pedagogue: I tried to be a tutor, but they politely chased me out after only the second lesson. Still, no one can teach better playing on a guitar, mandolin, and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Cyril was composing, and I remember him as a perfect bear if anybody so much as whispered when he was in one of his moods. I never forgot the night Bertram and I were up in William's room trying to sing 'When Johnnie comes marching home,' to the accompaniment of a banjo in Bertram's hands, and a guitar in mine. Gorry! it was Hugh that went marching ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... have massacred all one's relations, and set a price upon the heads of one's family generally. He had made a vow never to accept the hospitality of Don Symposio—not if he died for it. So he pervaded the romantic dells, and the sunless jungle was infected with the sound of his guitar. He rose in the morning and laved him in the limpid brooklet; and the beams of the noonday sun fell upon him in the ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... women are usually too plain and too busy and too tired to depart from the ways of virtue. On such occasions Lena, attired in a pink wrapper and silk stockings and tiny pink slippers, would sing to him, accompanying herself on a battered guitar. It gave him a delicious sense of freedom and experience to be with a woman who, no matter how, had lived in big cities and knew the ways of town-folk, who had never worked in the fields and had kept her ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... shan't get lost. I'll bind her fast with a silken chain. Really, children, my heart is set on your coming. My house is full of things that make a noise—a canary, a paroquet, a mocking-bird, a harp, a piano, and a guitar. And—" ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... songs—and Jim Pink had composed a good many—the minstrel instinctively avoided humor. He always improvised them to the sobbing of a guitar, and they were as invariably sad as the poetry of adolescents. It was called "Tump Pack's Lament." The negroes of Hooker's Bend learned it from Jim Pink, and with them it drifted up and down the three great American rivers, and now it is sung by the roustabouts, stevedores, and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... tiny instrument, beautifully grained and richly brown, which resembled a guitar save that it bore four strings. She swept them back and forth with rhythmic forefinger and lifted a voice, thin and mellow, in a fashion of melody that was strange, and in a foreign tongue, warm-voweled, all-voweled, and love-exciting. Softly throbbing, voice and strings arose on sensuous ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... under the canopy of purple night studded with flashing, silvery points, as the soft winds carried to them the notes of a guitar softly thrummed in the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... The walls were of wood, often ill-hewn, but several pieces of beautifully-woven tapestry hung upon them. Some of the floors were entirely bare, others were covered partly by Eastern rugs. Carved and curved weapons of many lands adorned the walls, and in one room were a mandolin and guitar. ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... humming sound, realizing the idea of the harp and plectrum in their simplest forms. Others accompanied the musician on Jews' harps of bamboos, as accurate as those of the Mintras on the Malay Peninsula; and there was one who played on a guitar, which he had himself made, but after a European pattern. The hut contained no utensils besides bows, arrows, and a cooking pot. The possessor of clothes bore them on his person. I found the women as decently clad as the Filipino Christian women, and carrying, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... steps of the veranda, fell to contemplating the dull, blurred windows of the Archpriest's house on the other side of the square, and to watching how black shadows kept flitting to and fro behind their panes as the faint, lugubrious notes of a guitar made themselves heard. And a high-pitched, irritable voice kept repeating at intervals: "Allow me. Pray, permit me to speak," and being answered by a voice which intermittently shot into the silence, as into a bottomless sack, the words: "No, do ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... and sofa, and large accountant's desk with ledgers; the large Pleyel grand piano, a bookcase, in which all the books were rare copies or priceless MSS. of old-fashioned operas; hanging against the wall an inlaid guitar and some faded laurel crowns; moreover, a fine engraving of a composer, twenty years ago the most popular man in Italy; lastly, an oil-colour portrait, by Winterman, of a fascinating blonde, with very bare white shoulders, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... round the fire and sing the old year out," suggested Rose gaily. "Myrna, get the banjo and the guitar. Shall I play on the piano, Papa ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... for she played the guitar and sang sweetly, but kept that talent to herself on this occasion. Finally Alice was persuaded to open the piano, and then out upon the still night air there floated many an old-time ballad. After ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... yet gazing on the drawing, when a faint stream of music stole through the air beneath her window, and it gradually rose till the sound of a guitar became distinct and clear, suiting with, not disturbing, the moonlit stillness of the night. The gallantry and romance of a former day, though at the time of our story subsiding, were not quite dispelled; and nightly ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... love-songs, always provided that they were sung "with great sadness"; and Ferragut would devour her with his eyes while she plucked the guitar, chanting the song of Malek-Adhel and other romances about "Roses, sighs and Moors of Granada," that from childhood the doctor had heard sung by the Berbers of his country. The simple attempt at taking one of her hands always provoked her modest resistance.... ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a straw ride. There's no new straw, of course, so we had a wagon filled with straw from one of the barns and we drove to Lake Gentian and Querida was glorious in the moonlight with his guitar. ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... of a guitar came like little gold butterflies out of the twilight, and then a woman's voice rose like a silver bird on the air. It was a gay wooing measure to which she sang. I listened with ears and heart. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... I know; she wrote to me about it. King Cophetua is the name, isn't it? I am very curious indeed, for I have set Tennyson's ballad to music myself. I sing it to the guitar, and if life were not so hurried I should have sent it to you. However—however, we are all going home to-morrow. I have promised to take charge of Cecilia, and Mrs. Scully is going to ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... the “affections.” Sometimes he would imagine that he had a marital aptitude, and his fancy would sketch a graceful picture, in which he appeared reclining on a divan, with a beautiful Greek woman fondly couched at his feet, and soothing him with the witchery of her guitar. Having satisfied himself with the ideal picture thus created, he would pass into action; the guitar he would buy instantly, and would give such intimations of his wish to be wedded to a Greek, as could not fail to produce great excitement in the families, of the beautiful Smyrniotes. ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... crossing point of the poles. Music, in which string instruments figure most conspicuously, should be selected, as this lends itself best to the weird effect which should be sought. Three or four pieces will generally be sufficient and they may consist of a violin, guitar, banjo and snare drum or the drum may be omitted if not convenient. The committee appointed to gather the refreshments must have the assistance of all the other women of the club, for its work is very ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... silver, but when she sings one forgets mask and every thing else to give one's-self up to an ecstacy of perfect enjoyment. She knows a vast deal of Italian, French, and Spanish music, languages that she speaks with the utmost purity, and she accompanies herself alternately on piano, guitar, or mandoline, of which instruments she is a perfect mistress. Her dancing is no less admirable than her singing; and, at every ball to which she goes, crowds collect around her to watch the sylph-like grace with which she glides through the dance. In ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... spark of it remains, in forgotten places, For I saw a blinded boy strumming a guitar, Playing with his face a-smile, with the arts and graces Of a troubadour of old. He had ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... of a cabbage-palm, and about two feet, or two feet and a half, in length. A hole was cut in it slantwise, and six fibres of the stem were kept up in an elevated position at each end, by means of a small bridge. The fingers played upon these as upon a guitar, drawing forth a very low, harsh, and disagreeable tone. The dance, thus pleasingly accompanied, was called the Dance ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... our people, all in wreaths of flowers, and a number of guests were there to witness the festivities. Well, we fed our sailors, who were all very red and hot and smiling, and the way they dipped into the lemonade was a caution. Then, to a guitar accompaniment, one of them sang a song with a melodramatic story running through it about a poor fellow going to a house and sitting on the door-step wan and weary, and seeing on the doorplate the name of Jasper. Soon Jasper comes out, and though the poverty-stricken one pleads for a bit ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... sempstresses in the next room to her own, she was struck by the resemblance between the mode of life and thought their talk betrayed, and that of the same class of girls at La Chatre; and how in the midst of Venice, to the sound of the rippling waters stirred by the gondolier's oar, of guitar and serenade, and within sight of the marble palaces, her thoughts flew back to the dark and dirty streets, the dilapidated houses, the wretched moss-grown roofs, the shrill concerts of the cocks, cats, and children of the little French ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the young lawyer of the place, as I am the young doctor, and is advancing about as fast in his profession. He is considered a good-looking fellow, though I don't see it, and has undoubtedly a fine voice, upon which pretext he spends about half his time twanging away upon Dora's guitar, and waking Col. Marston from his afternoon nap. It would look better, I must say, for a young man in his position, to be at home, waiting for practice; but I have heard that he says the same of me, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the Cowles flat, Ray's stories about Plato and business, and the sentimental things Gertie played on the guitar. He suddenly determined to go off some place and fly an aeroplane; as suddenly knew that he was not yet ready to return to the game. He read the Evening Telegram and cheerlessly peered out of the window at the gray snow-veil ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... own smart mule, his great hat turned against the sun, an expression of blissful vacancy on his long face, humming day after day a love-song in a plaintive key, or, without a change of expression, letting out a yell at his small tropilla in front. A round little guitar hung high up on his back; and there was a place scooped out artistically in the wood of one of his pack-saddles where a tightly rolled piece of paper could be slipped in, the wooden plug replaced, and the coarse canvas nailed on again. When in Sulaco it was his practice to ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... very droll, as he extracted very strange noises from his instrument. Sometimes his bow would be on the wrong side of the bridge, sometimes down at the keys; besides which he produced sounds by thumping the fiddle as well as by touching its strings as a guitar; indeed, he could imitate in a certain way almost every instrument and most of the noises made by animals. He had one fault, for which he used to be occasionally punished, which was, he was too fond of the ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... since address and practice are required in order so to make and adjust the machines described by me as not to overlook the smallest particular, I should not be less astonished if they succeeded on the first attempt than if a person were in one day to become an accomplished performer on the guitar, by merely having excellent sheets of music set up before him. And if I write in French, which is the language of my country, in preference to Latin, which is that of my preceptors, it is because I expect that those who make use of their unprejudiced ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... acquaintances at Santa Barbara had evidently modified very much their ideas of living. We found them with bare floors; a great bunch of pampas grass, and a guitar hanging against the wall, in true Spanish fashion; the room being otherwise ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... an ancient metal arrangement—not unlike a Pompeian lamp—with a wick soaked in oil profusely smoking. In the dim light I could just distinguish in the background, reclining against the wall, a youth with a guitar, from which two chords—always the same two chords—were strummed. The boy seemed in a trance over this musical composition, and even our appearance had not disturbed his efforts. He had taken no notice whatever of us. Dinner was prepared—it took a long time—the musician all the time ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... bow to power and pomp, You've learned to know the worth of gold. O merry maids who shared our cheer, Your eyes are dim, your locks are gray; And as you scrub I sadly fear Your daughters speed the dance to-day. O windmill land and crescent moon! O Columbine and Pierrette! To you my old guitar I tune Ere I forget, ere I forget. . ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... stepping from the tent, passed swiftly from fire to fire, issuing commands in low guttural. Lapierre rolled a cigarette, and taking a guitar from its case, seated himself upon his blankets and played with the hand of a master as he sang a love-song of old France. All about him sounded the clatter of lodge-poles, the thud of packs, and the splashing of water as the big canoes were pushed ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to me—that she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments, knowing something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery German thing so called, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... How is the best rosin, used on violin bows, prepared?—W.F. asks: What is a simple method for washing clay for brick and tile making?—E.S.D. asks: What is the best kind of wood to construct a guitar? ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... little old man, buried in fat and completely bald, wearing a short reefer jacket and lilac waistcoat and carrying a guitar, walked into the room. He made an idiotic face, drew himself up, and saluted like ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... feeling the wall as he went, and all at once his fingers came to a slight break in the smooth wood, and the voices became slightly clearer and Jim was positive that he heard the thrum, thrum of a guitar. He ran his fingers up and down near the minute break, until they touched a small wooden button. He hesitated a moment before pressing it, not knowing what might happen nor what might possibly be on the ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... was leaving the room, when the balconies of the house across the way lighted up. They opened wide and soon there came the strains of a tender prelude from a guitar. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... to collect ten cents—one real for rent and another for the candle. It was the first lodging I had paid since leaving Guatemala City. As I doubled up in my ill-hung hammock, the dull thump of a distant guitar and the explosion of a rare firecracker broke the stillness of New Year's eve, while now and then there drifted to my ears the sound of a band in the main plaza that tortured the night at intervals ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... of the back wall is represented, in the same precious stones, and in a graceful attitude, a European in a kind of Spanish costume, playing upon his guitar, and in the character of Orpheus charming the birds and beasts which he first taught the people of India so well to represent in this manner. This I have no doubt was intended by Austin de Bordeaux for himself. The man from Shiraz, Amanat Khan, who designed all the noble Tughra characters ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of this town and its needs. You can appear as the owner; we will make a monthly division of profits. Besides, concerning a question that interests us both very much, namely, your social improvement, it occurs to me that you play the guitar quite well. In view of the recommendations I could give you and in view of your training as well, you might easily be admitted as a member of some fraternal order; there are several here which would bring ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... hand upon the adobe wall hung a willow cage imprisoning a tropical bird of gaudy plumage; but the feathered beauty did not seem to have any spare notes with which to greet us. From another cabin came the pleasant sound of a guitar, accompanied by a human voice. So this people love birds, flowers, and music. The half-effaced image of God must be still upon their hearts! The little town has four or five broad, unpaved streets, and is as primitive as nature herself in all ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... bedroom. From the faces of the footmen, I surmised that something extraordinary had taken place.... I did not dare to cross-examine them, but I had a friend in the young waiter Philip, who was passionately fond of poetry, and a performer on the guitar. I addressed myself to him. From him I learned that a terrible scene had taken place between my father and mother (and every word had been overheard in the maids' room; much of it had been in French, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... their usual lethargy, dance the fandango and the bolero with a perfection of grace and agility, even in the villages. The colonel offered them the use of his band, but they, quite rightly, preferred the guitar, the castanets, and a woman's voice; an accompaniment which gave the dance its national characteristics. These improvised dances, in the open air, engaged in by the working class in the towns as well as in the country, gave us so much pleasure, even ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... morning till night comes a succession of organ-grinders, playing interminably under your window; and a man with a bassoon and a monkey, who takes your pennies and pulls off his cap in acknowledgment; and wandering minstrels, with guitar and voice; and a Highland bagpipe, squealing out a tangled skein of discord, together with a Highland maid, who dances a hornpipe; and Punch and Judy,—in a word, we have specimens of all manner of vagrancy that infests England. In these ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the inhabitants of the villa. When he succeeded to his perfect satisfaction, he was wont to indulge in immoderate fits of laughter; and we, who were in the adjoining room, would run in to know his reason, when he showed us his spirited sketches. He drew a caricature of me with a guitar, one of Carmini (the painter), and one of the Guarda Roba, who was lame of the gout; and of the Sub-guarda Roba, a most ridiculous figure—to prevent our being offended, he caricatured himself. These portraits are now preserved ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... whither he had again been carried, he thought that a little music would relieve his pain. Calling a friar who had formerly been clever at playing the guitar, he begged him to borrow one; but the friar was afraid of the scandal which this might cause, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... river, of which expedition Redworth was Lady Dunstane's chief writer of the records. His novel perceptiveness and shrewdness of touch made them amusing; and his tenderness to the Beauty's coquettry between the two foreign rivals, moved a deeper feeling. The German had a guitar, the Frenchman a voice; Diana joined them in harmony. They complained apart severally of the accompaniment and the singer. Our English criticized them apart; and that is at any rate to occupy a post, though it contributes nothing to entertainment. At home ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his compatriots—this was a suspicious fact. After closely watching this doubtful infidel, this amateur barbarian, I began to suspect civilization and Europeanism.... One of the musicians asleep near the window, turned over and his long guitar—a guzla, I think it is called—caught in the curtain and drew it a little open; the sunlight streamed in the room and an accusing ray fell upon the face of the spurious young Turk.... It was Edgar de Meilhan! A little cup filled with a greenish conserve ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... charming gift of singing little French and English ditties, comic or touching, with his delightful fresh young pipe, and accompanying himself quite nicely on either piano or guitar without really knowing a note of music. Then he could draw caricatures that we boys thought inimitable, much funnier than Cham's or Bertall's or Gavarni's, and collected and treasured up. I have dozens of them now—they make me laugh ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... out, walking unhurriedly, gently waving a fan decorated with paintings. Behind him walked his little slave, Clear-Lute, who carried over his shoulder a mantle in case the weather should freshen, and a long guitar with which to accompany the ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... in Fleet Street, or take rooms above some barber's shop. At this period, indeed, the barber-surgeon was a man of considerable importance. His shop was the gathering-place of idle gallants, who came to have their sword-wounds dressed after street frays. The gittern, or guitar, lay on the counter, and this was played by a customer to pass away the time until his turn came to have his hair trimmed, his beard starched, his mustachios curled, and his love-locks tied up. We give a picture of a barber's shop at ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... together with this kind of fit. He just lay there full length on a mat, while a ragged, bare-legged boy that he had picked up in the street sat in the patio, between two oleanders near the open door of his room, strumming on a guitar and singing tristes to him from morning to night. You know tristes—twang, twang, twang, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... you another story, traditional in our family from my great-grandmother, a Spanish woman,' she said. 'A cavalier serenaded his mistress, and rascal mercenaries fell upon him before he could draw sword. He battered his guitar on their pates till the lattice opened with a cry, and startled them to flight. "Thrice blessed and beloved!" he called to her above, in reference to the noise, "it was merely a diversion of the accompaniment." Now there was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... look at everything. He looked. A troop of dancers poured into the open space before the Emir's tent. Different Tartar instruments, the "doutare," a long-handled guitar, the "kobize," a kind of violoncello, the "tschibyzga," a long reed flute; wind instruments, tom-toms, tambourines, united with the deep voices of the singers, formed a strange harmony. Added to this were the strains of an aerial orchestra, composed of a dozen kites, ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... not infrequently meets some roughly-dressed muleteer at the head of his string of heavily-laden animals, caroling forth luscious notes in a fine tenor voice which a Brignoli might envy. A taste for music is born in the people, few of whom are too poor to own and play upon a guitar or some musical instrument. The only difference between Spain and Italy in this respect is that here one does not recognize the music, while in Italy we usually hear the strains ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... to see me squatting under an avocado tree, singing the 'Spanish Cavalier' to a guitar accompaniment. Listen: I'll prove it without the accompaniment." And ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a guitar looking very glum. He stops beside the step for a moment. Takes off his ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... A piano and a guitar, too." Baxter passed into the dining room. "Real silver on the table. Flapp, ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... Spanish music, and the subtle picturesqueness which makes the Spanish people unique among the other Latin nations of Europe, came, not from her Gothic, nor her Roman, nor her Phenician ancestry, but from the plains of Arabia; and the guitar and the dance and the castanet, and the charm and the coquetry of her women, are echoes from that far-off land of poetry and romance. Not so the bull-fight! Would you trace to its source that pleasant pastime, you must not go to the East; the Oriental was ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... happening as I felt it was happening. I just tell how it felt. . . . Farrell and I were ranging arm-in-arm through a quarter that had mysteriously hushed and hidden itself at our approach. There were pianos tinkling from upper storeys: there were muffled choruses with banjo or guitar accompaniments humming up from the bowels of the earth: there were chinks of light between blinds, under doorways, down areas. There was even a flare of light, now and again, blaring to gramophone accompaniment across the street from a gin-palace or ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... way to rid ourselves of your wit is to make you sing! Let us go into Vovo's room, his guitar is there. Come, Mrya Konstantnovna, come! [Exeunt Betsy, ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... her to mould; and she was dabbling in clay and plaster of Paris all the morning. George painted beautifully in water-colors, and taught her to sketch from Nature, which she often did now, in their rides, when the days were pleasant enough. George not only thrummed a Spanish guitar, but liked singing; so music went on with wonderful force and improvement. Nothing that George liked better than botany, metaphysics, and micrology. And now Lulu was screaming at dreadful dragons' heads on a pin's point, or delighted with diamond-beetles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... filing with braying of trumpets and flutter of crimson damask into conquered towns, of court ladies dancing and the noise of pigeons in the eaves drew together like strings plucked in succession on a guitar into a great wave of rhythm in which his life was sucked away into this one poem in ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... I act Constance, and Saturday Isabella, which is all I know for the present of the future. I have just bought A—— a beautiful guitar; I promised her one as soon as my play was out. My room is delicious with violets, and my new blue velvet gown heavenly in color and all other respects except the—well, unheavenly price Devy makes me ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... a terrace. In front of it a garden. In an avenue of trees, under an old poplar, stands a table set for tea, with a samovar, etc. Some benches and chairs stand near the table. On one of them is lying a guitar. A hammock is swung near the table. It is three o'clock in the ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... left this very strange place with our minds occupied by a variety of reflections: but at any rate highly pleased and gratified by the agreeable family which had performed the part of guides on the occasion. In the evening, a professor of music treated us with some pleasing tunes upon the guitar—which utterly astonished the Count—and it was quite night-fall when we returned homewards, towards our quarters at the hotel ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... copying. There is a pretty illumination of two women sitting down. A table cloth, with dinner upon it, is spread upon the grass between them:—a bottle is plunged into a running stream from a fountain, with an ewer on one side in the fore-ground. One woman plays upon the guitar while the other eats her dinner. The second volume has a fine illumination divided into four parts, with a handsome border—not quite perhaps so rich as the preceding. Among the subjects, there is a singular one of Lancelot du Lac helping a lady out of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... we often gently glide over those placid waters, when Evening darkens our mountain home with the shadow of her wing, and when the moon gilds our liquid path with soft radiance. Then, while my Francis guides the little vessel, I touch my guitar and sing some simple melody; and as we approach the dark, mysterious shore, my imagination oft conjures up a troop of fairy beings with bright wings, stealing away into the dim recesses of the shadowy forest. And often, when the noon-day sun renders the air ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... you walk not near yon corner-house by night; for, to my certain knowledge, there are blunderbusses planted in every loop-hole, that go off constantly of their own accord, at the squeaking of a fiddle, and the thrumming of a guitar. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... music, I wish I could see in such places the guitar rather than the piano, and good vocal ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... was subordinate to his study of syllabic movement in versification; and it was with reference chiefly to poetic measure, I have been told, that he acquired what mastery he had over the accordion and guitar. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... tears himself away out of her arms, and goes. The COUNTESS accompanies him. THEKLA follows him with her eyes at first, walks restlessly across the room, then stops, and remains standing, lost in thought. A guitar lies on the table, she seizes it as by a sudden emotion, and after she has played a while an irregular and melancholy symphony, she falls gradually into the music ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Not trudging like a man forespent with toil, But frisking like a child at holiday, With light steps. The pilgrim watched him come, And found him scarcely older than a child, A large-mouthed earthen pitcher in his hand, And a guitar upon his shoulder slung. A wide straw hat threw all his face in shade, But doffing this, to catch whatever breeze Might stir among the branches, he disclosed A charming head of rippled, auburn hair, A frank, fair face, as lovely as a girls, With great, soft eyes, as mild ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... and after awhile there came plaintively up to Starr the sound of a guitar, and mingling with it the voice of Luis singing a Spanish song. La Golondrina, it was, that melancholy song of exile which Mexicans so love. Starr listened gloomily, following the words easily enough in ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... yesterday has gone and it is forgotten. Lukewarm breaths pass through the air, vivifying, healthier than those of May, having the odor of hay and the odor of flowers. Two singers of the highway are there, leaning on the graveyard wall, and they intone, with a tambourine and a guitar, an old seguidilla of Spain, bringing here the warm and somewhat Arabic gaieties of the ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... built over the water, and after storing the children—for your true Creole never leaves the small folks at home—and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young folks go up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you ever heard. For what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar, a cornet, and a bass viol to trip the quadrille to at ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... impotently dislocates her slender arms, or pounds insanely on a cracked tomtom, or jangles her clumsy cymbals, while the squatting bearers cry, "Wah wah!" and clap their sweaty hands,—our poor old glee-maiden of Cossitollah strums her two-stringed guitar, letting the baby slide, and creaks corkscrewishly her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... authority of Byzantine writers, that the Greeks being at war with the Avars, about A.D. 590, took prisoners three Slavi, who were sent from the Baltic as ambassadors to the Khan of the Avars. These envoys carried, instead of weapons, a kind of guitar. They stated, that, having no iron in their country, they did not know how to manage swords and spears; and described singing and playing on the guitar as one of the principal occupations of their peaceful life.[3] The general prevalence of a musical ear and taste among all Slavic nations is indeed ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... in which sound is produced by the vibration of stretched strings, as in the piano, violin, guitar, mandolin. ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... the surrounding houses had been induced by the fineness of the night to prolong their promenade; and the light laugh, and the sound of pleasant voices, added to the touching and simple charm of the scene. A group had stopped round a player on the guitar, with which we made a tolerable accompaniment to some foreign songs. My ear was caught by a chorus which I had often heard among the French peasantry, and I joined in the applause. The minstrel was ragged and pale, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... is a guitar with muga silk strings, which is played with a little wooden key held in the hand. Ka maryngod is an instrument much the same as the last, but is played with a bow like a violin. Ka marynthing is a kind of guitar with one string, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... Cartoon. Cascade. Cavalcade. Charlatan. Citadel. Colonnade. Concert. Contralto. Conversazione. Cornice. Corridor. Cupola. Curvet. Dilettante. Ditto. Doge. Domino. Extravaganza. Fiasco. Folio. Fresco. Gazette. Gondola. Granite. Grotto. Guitar. Incognito. Influenza. Lagoon. Lava. Lazaretto. Macaroni. Madonna. Madrigal. Malaria. Manifesto. Motto. Moustache. Niche. Opera. Oratorio. Palette. Pantaloon. Parapet. Pedant. Pianoforte. Piazza. Pistol. Portico. Proviso. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... and with her dreams, Josephine would spring up from the hammock, dart into the house with all the lightness of the gazelle to enliven the family with her own joyousness, her merry pleasantry, and accompanied by her guitar to sing unto them with her lovely youthful voice the songs of the Creoles. As the glowing sun was at its setting, away she hastened with her slaves into the garden, directed their labors, and with her own hands tended her own cherished flowers, which commingled together ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... PUNCHINELLO.] As we passed the house of the Moslem, all was gloomy silence; but on nearing a Greek village, the enlivening sound of the song, the guitar, and followed by bursts of merriment, broke upon the ear; and the frequent clapping of hands, and the strain of the romaika, or the Italian waltz, which came floating over the water, told of the merry joyous inmates, who are ever seen to prefer the dance and song, to the ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... delighted to have my mistake explained to me—consists of measurements and the power of observing and following an outline with remorseless precision. Now Degas in his early manner was frequently this. His portrait of his father listening to Pagan singing whilst he accompanied himself on the guitar is pure Holbein. Whether it is worse or better than Holbein is a matter of individual opinion; but to affect to admire Holbein and to decline to admire the portrait I speak of is—well, incomprehensible. The portrait of Deboutin in the picture entitled "L'Absinthe" ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... dervish says beggar, and who says beggar evokes the completest type of filth and laziness. But with what an extraordinary combination of gestures, with what attitudes in the management of the long-stringed guitar, with what acrobatic swingings of the body do they accompany their singing of their legends and poetry which could not be more profane. The instinct of the old actor was awakened in Caterna. He could not keep still; it ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... high colour and high spirits. She was a fearless and familiar little thing, who asked disconcerting questions, made precocious comments, and possessed outlandish arts, such as dancing a Spanish shawl dance and singing Neapolitan love-songs to a guitar. Under the direction of her aunt (whose real name was Mrs. Thorley Chivers, but who, having received a Papal title, had resumed her first husband's patronymic, and called herself the Marchioness Manson, because ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... admirably. Against one of the short walls stood the green sofa, the appointed place for the mother; and against the opposite one the piano, and the harp, which was Sara's favourite instrument, together with a guitar, whose strings were touched by Eva, as she ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... fidelity of this representation; but it cost me a pang to learn that the picture was utterly delusive. It has been no part of my experience in Venice to see an Italian sitting upon the ground, and strumming the guitar, while two gayly dressed peasants danced to the music. Indeed, the indolence of Venetians is listless and silent, not playful or joyous; and as I learned to know their life more intimately, I came to understand that in many cases they are idle from despair of finding work, and that indolence ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... commerce, in spite of newspaper, Stock Exchange, or Cortes. The cloaked figures moved silently, swiftly, seldom in pairs, without speech, with footfall scarcely audible. Now and again Manvers heard the throb of a guitar, now and again, with sudden clamour, the clack of castanets. But such noises stopped on the instant, and the traffic was resumed—whatever it ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... few matrons who visited her called upon her, instead of finding her in the kitchen or the cellar, they found her lying upon the sofa with a book or her guitar in her hands, or perhaps playing with her little boy, and the amiable ones among them explained it by her pale face and delicate air, but the severer ones said that such idleness was the Italian custom ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rough bench, their backs to the door; and the Chinaman was perched on a smaller, higher seat, in front of a rack hung with several odd, brightly painted Chinese musical instruments. He was playing solemnly and delicately on an object like a guitar gone mad—so thought Angela—bringing forth a singing sound, small and crystalline; but, glancing over his shoulder as the newcomer appeared, at once he snatched up another curious object, smiling at Angela, as much as to say the change was a compliment ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Mandolin and Guitar Fests Fireside and Joke Nights Spelling Bee History Bee Geography Quiz Hallowe'en Night Pop-corn Festival Masked Partners Library Party Supper or Banquet Father and Son Spread Class Guest of Class Calendar Exhibit Coin Exhibit Stamp Exhibit Arts and ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander |
