"Minstrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you remember, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, the song of Albert Graeme, which has something about Carlisle's wall in ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... his silence was eloquent of the inherent generosity of the man, even as his poetic outburst of a few minutes before had been eloquent of the minstrel in him. She rode in silence, regarding him critically from time to time, and when they came to the tree where the panther hung he gave her the calf to hold while he deftly skinned the dead marauder, tied the pelt ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... against him. As I was swimming alongside, I heard all that went on. 'Since your minds are made up,' says Arion, 'at least let me get my mantle on, and sing my own dirge; and then I will throw myself into the sea of my own accord.'—The sailors agreed. He threw his minstrel's cloak about him, and sang a most sweet melody; and then he let himself drop into the water, never doubting but that his last moment had come. But I caught him up on my back, and swam to ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... as football, cricket, tennis and quoits, for which there was plenty of room, and the British authorities provided recreation huts, and goal posts and other implements. The Boers also amused themselves with amateur theatricals, club-swinging, and even formed a minstrel troup called ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... toying with a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; Chiefs, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings of ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... have ever had the extremest sympathy for Walter Scott, that it would delight me to see his place. When he was dying I was saying prayers (whatever they were worth) for him continually, thinking of Keble's words, 'Think on the minstrel as ye kneel.' (Dr. Newman to J. R. H. from Edgbaston, Birmingham, Oct. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... brushed it, she had tenderly stroked with her hands; often kissing the bronzed face ardent and friendly to the world and thinking to herself of the double blue in his eyes, the old Saxon blue of battle and the old Saxon blue of the minstrel, also. ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... a good practical joke; as the garland adorning The hair of a maiden it shines, as the balm that is shed On the brain of a wandering minstrel; it comes without warning, Transmuting to gold an existence that once was as lead. It glads, it rejoices the soul; recollecting it after One well-nigh explodes; but I say there are seasons for laughter, And, like other great men, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... disposed of it in the manner and for the purpose I have shown you. As I still believed you capable of remorse and confession, I twice allowed you to see I was on your track: once in the garb of an itinerant negro minstrel, and the second time as a workman looking in the window of the pawnshop where ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... actor in the scenes of fateful love and deathless grief which he has fixed for ever in the memory of men of his race and blood. There are passages in which, in the light and heat of battle, or in agony of terror or sorrow, we are made to see something of the minstrel as well as his theme. But by no research are we likely at this late date to recover any clew to the birthplace or to the lineaments of the life and face of the grand old poet who wrote the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens; nor do towns contend for the honour of having ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... and bending their way towards it, marched a party of falconers with their well-trained birds, whose skill they had been approving upon their fists, their jesses ringing as they moved along, while nearer still, and almost at the foot of the terrace wall, was a minstrel playing on a rebec, to which a keeper, in a dress of Lincoln green, with a bow over his shoulder, a quiver of arrows at his back, and a comely damsel ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and straight a tree sprang up on its root: It cast forth branches and throve and flourished with many a shoot. The birds, when the wood was green, sang o'er it, and when it was dry, Fair women sang to it in turn, for lo, 'twas a minstrel's lute! ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... of Europe to cut the trees; to build and launch boats; to sail them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell. None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great, impressive picture of its past. Yet does William seem by ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... me, that for many years of my life Milton was to me incomparably the first of English poets; though at this time of my earliest acquaintance with him, Walter Scott had precedence over him, and was undoubtedly in my opinion greatest of mortal and immortal bards. His "Marmion" and "Lay of the Last Minstrel" were already familiar to me. Of Shakespeare at this time, and for many subsequent years, I knew not ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... wrapt in age's weeds, Whose blood, if time have touched it not and stilled, The sun's own fire must once have kindled,—thou Sing praise of soft-lipped women? doth not shame Sting thee, to sound this minstrel's note, and gild A girl's proud face with praises, though her brow Were bright as dawn's? And had her grace no name For men to worship ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a minstrel out in the crowd, and pretty soon he struck up his fiddle and his lay, and he did not exactly sing the virtues of Billy Bayhone. Evidently some partisan thought he ought, for he smote him on the ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... character of Fenella in his "Peveril of the Peak." Scott began his career as a writer with a translation of Buerger's "Ballads." His most successful metrical pieces, "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake," for the most part appeared during the opening years of the Nineteenth Century. Then came the great series of the "Waverley Novels," named after the romance of "Waverley," published anonymously in ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... he outlived reaction against his genius; he died in the fulness of a happy age and of renown. This full-orbed life, with not a few years of sorrow and stress, is what Nature seems to intend for the career of a divine minstrel. If Tennyson missed the "one crowded hour of glorious life," he had not to be content in "an age ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... the Minstrel quell— He by the Minstrel is confounded; From Saul was cast the spirit fell, When David's harp ...
— The Tale of Brynild, and King Valdemar and his Sister - Two Ballads • Anonymous
... amusing specimens of the MISAPPLICATION of the style and meter of Mr. Scott's admirable romances."—Quarterly Review. "'A Tale of Drury.' by Walter Scott, is, upon the whole, admirably execuated; though the introduction is rather tame. The burning is described with the mighty minstrel's characteristic love of localitics. The catastrophe is described with a spirit not unworthy of the name so ventureously assumed by ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... The Minstrel-boy to the war is gone, By the Belfast road he's coming; His Party sword he has girded on And his wild harp loud he's thrumming. "Land of bulls!" said the warrior bard, "Though GLADSTONE'S gang betrays thee, One sword, at least, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... "'Bring me,' (said Elisha), 'a minstrel'; and it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him." Here is the farce of the conjurer. Now for the prophecy: "And Elisha said, [singing most probably to the tune he was playing], Thus saith the Lord, Make this ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... has become of this minstrel who sang the Minnelieder of the Car-barns? Like Homer, like Omar, like Sappho, like Shakespeare, he is a Voice singing out of the mists. He was but a Name to his employers; and his friends, if he has friends, remember him not. These Sonnets, written ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... Hastings the minstrel Taillefer, as we have elsewhere told, rode before the advancing Norman host, singing the "Song of Roland," till a British hand stilled his song and laid him low in death. This ancient song is attributed, though doubtfully, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... the great pianists of the second quarter of this century has been felicitously characterised by an anonymous contemporary: Thalberg, he said, is a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a sibyl, and Doehler ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... pleasure for his future damnation, and from himself lays all the fault upon his Maker; and from His decree fetcheth excuses of his wickedness. The inevitable necessity of God's counsel makes him desperately careless; so with good food he poisons himself. Goodness is his minstrel; neither is any mirth so cordial to him, as his sport with God's fools. Every virtue hath his slander, and his jest to laugh it out of fashion; every vice his colour. His usualest theme is the boast of his young sins, which he can still joy in, though he cannot commit; and (if it may be) ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... strolling Longfellow minstrel," he continued, ignoring or not hearing my remark, "with his dreary hurdy-gurdy to cap the climax. Heavens! what a nasal twang the whole thing has to me. Not an original or cheerful note! 'Old Hundred' ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... one of the purest of names, encountered the rebels with a considerable force, composed entirely of his own men; these the rebels were the less able to withstand, as they knew that still more troops were on the march. As the ballad of a northern minstrel says, the gold-horned bull of the Nevilles, the silver crescent of the Percies, vanished from the field: the chiefs themselves fled over the Scotch border, their troops dispersed, their declared partisans underwent the severest punishments. Many who knew ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... half filled with old rubbish. I found rooms where an amateur minstrel entertainment had been given. Rude lettering upon the walls recorded the fact in lampblack, and a monster hand pointed with index finger to its temporary bar. Burnt-cork debris was scattered about, and there were "old soldiers" enough on ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... monotony of soiled tent houses, tumble-down huts and oblong, flat-roofed buildings stretching their disorderly array along the road. Coming closer he saw the name, "Pipesville," printed on the door, and knew that this must be the "summer home," as it was called, of San Francisco's beloved minstrel, Stephen Massett, otherwise "Jeems Pipes of Pipesville," singer, player, essayist and creator of those wondrous one-man concerts dear to all ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... such an accomplished poet as Raymond of Toulouse must be admitted to the contest. "But, at all events," she told her sisters, "that renowned minstrel shall bring no polished work of long study to match against the untutored outpourings of my favourite's heart. Already have I ordained, with my assistant judges, that since some one of the contestants may be tempted to present a poem not his own, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... seized and removed a tall, blonde young man with a mild, vacuous face. For the past few minutes this young man had been sitting bolt upright on a chair with his hands on his knees, so exactly in the manner of an end-man at a minstrel show that one would hardly have been surprised had he burst into song or asked ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Minimum minimumo. Minister (religious) pastro. Minister (polit.) ministro. Ministry ministraro. Minor (age) neplenagxa. Minor (mus.) molo, mola. Minority (age) neplenagxo. Minority malplimulto. Minstrel bardo, kantisto. Mint mento. Minute menueto. Minuet (time) minuto. Minute (note) noto. Minute malgrandega. Minuti detaleto. Miracle miraklo. Miraculous mirakla. Mire sxlimo, koto. Mirror spegulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... writing; one is given a certain thing to say, and the power to say it; it does not come by effort, but by a pleasant felicity. After all, I reflect, the book is only a good story, well told. I do not feel like a benefactor of the human race, but at the best like a skilful minstrel, who has given some innocent pleasure. What, after all, does it amount to? I have touched to life, perhaps a few gracious, tender, romantic fancies—but, after all, the thoughts and emotions were there to start with, just as the harmonies which the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... who had attuned them gave way to musicians of loftier aspect and simpler garb; in whom might be recognized, not indeed the genuine Spartans, but their free, if subordinate, countrymen of Laconia; and a minstrel, who walked beside them, broke out into a song, partially adapted from the bold and lively strain of Alcaeus, the first two lines in each stanza ringing much to that chime, the two latter reduced into briefer compass, as, with allowance for the differing laws ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... often copious and energetic language: but they have no scientific grammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declensions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies have versification, and often versification of great power and sweetness: but they have no metrical canons; and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated solely by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would himself be unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before prosody, so government may exist in a high degree of excellence long before ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bare in bitter grudge The slights of Arthur and his Table, Mark The Cornish King, had heard a wandering voice, A minstrel of Caerlon by strong storm Blown into shelter at Tintagil, say That out of naked knightlike purity Sir Lancelot worshipt no unmarried girl But the great Queen herself, fought in her name, Sware by her—vows like theirs, ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... for Bob and Abbott now just any minute." She added, eying the crowd—"I saw Fran on the street, long and merry ago!" Her accent was that of condemnation. Like a rock she sat, letting the fickle populace drift by to minstrel show and snake den. The severity of her double chin said they might all go thither—she would not; let them be swallowed up by that gigantic serpent whose tail, too long for bill-board illustration, must ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Froda, his eyes sparkling with happiness. "For well I know that she scorns not my service; she has even deigned sometimes to appear to me. Oh, I am in truth a happy knight and minstrel!" ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... o'er," said all; "Silent now the bugle's call. Love should be the warrior's dream,— Love alone the minstrel's theme. Sing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the sunlight, of the world he would live in when he grew up. He had planned so many lives for himself: a general, like Caesar, he was to conquer the world and die murdered in a great marble hall; a wandering minstrel, he would go through all countries singing and have intricate endless adventures; a great musician, he would sit at the piano playing, like Chopin in the engraving, while beautiful women wept and men with long, curly hair hid their faces in their hands. It was only slavery ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... breweries, and does a considerable trade in wine. It is immortalized in the Nibelungenlied in the person of "Volker von Alzeie,'' the warrior who in the last part of the epic plays a part second only to that of Hagen, and who "was called the minstrel (spilman) because he could fiddle.'' It became an imperial city in 1277. In 1620 it was sacked by the Spaniards and in 1689 burnt by the French. Annexed to France during the Napoleonic wars, it passed in 1815 to the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 'The minstrel's song has charmed you: but I must remember what is right, for songs cannot alter justice; and I must be faithful to my name. Alcinous I am called, the man of sturdy sense; and Alcinous I will be.' But for all that Arete besought him, until she won ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... them came from American negro sources. The songs heard on Venetian gondolas must have had their effect, as many examples show. There are also distinct traces of folk-songs which the sailor would have learnt ashore in his native fishing village, and the more familiar Christy Minstrel song was frequently pressed into the service. As an old sailor once said to me: 'You can make ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... by the fire when feasters roared And minstrels waited turns, Of the might of the men that Troy adored, Of the valor in vain of the Trojan sword, With the love that slakeless burns, That caught and blazed in the minstrel mind Or ever the age of pen. So maids and a minstrel rebuilt Troy, Out of the ashes they rebuilt Troy To live in the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... still sung in the taverns of the Main. He gave a verse of it, a wild, sad thing, with tears in it and the joy of battle. After that we all sang, all but me, who have no voice. Bertrand had a lay of Normandy, about a lady who walked in the apple-orchards and fell in love with a wandering minstrel; and Donaldson sang a rough ballad of Virginia, in which a man weighs the worth of his wife against a tankard of apple-jack. Grey sang an English song about the north-country maid who came to London, and a bit of the chanty of the Devon men who sacked Santa Fe and stole the Almirante's daughter. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... had told them many such tales which Stevenson wove into stories. The "Beach of Falesa" and the "Isle of Voices" are probably the two most famous, while "the strange story of the loss of the brigantine Wandering Minstrel and what men and ships do in that wild and beautiful world beyond the American continent" formed a plot for the story called "The Wrecker," which he and Lloyd Osbourne ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... just take this pleasing minstrel by the scruff of his neck and say to him, 'Nice little ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Meistersingers, or minstrel tradesmen of Germany. An association of master tradesmen to revive the national minstrelsy, which had fallen into decay with the decline of the minnesingers, or love minstrels (1350-1523). Their subjects were chiefly moral or religious, and constructed according to rigid rules. The three ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the accustom'd place That minstrel ply'd his art, Though its soft symphony of words Convulsed with pain the broken chords Within a ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... life of extreme austerity St. Modan, finding his end approaching, retired to the solitude of Rosneath, where he died. Devotion to him was very popular in Scotland. Scott alludes to it in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel": ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... Oriental scholar, who was styled by his friend Ben Jonson 'a monarch in letters,' and 'vir omni eruditionis genere instructissimus' by Archbishop Laud, was born on the 16th of December 1584 at Salvington, near Worthing, in Sussex. His father was John Selden, a farmer, known as the 'Minstrel' on account of his proficiency in music. Aubrey describes him as 'a yeomanly man of about forty pounds a year, who played well on the violin, in which he took much delight.' Selden was first educated at the free grammar school ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... Shall we pause in our strain, Now the months bring again The pipe and the minstrel to gladden the folk? Rather strike on the ear With a note strong and clear, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... older "Spielmannsdichtung", or minstrel poetry, in the terseness and vigor of its language and in the lack of poetic imagery, but it is free from the coarseness and vulgar and grotesque humor of the latter. It approaches the courtly epic in its ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... imaginative) of the time, so far from forming a barrier between the two sexes, were a bond of union. The song of the minstrel was devoted to the praise of beauty, and paid by her smile. The spirit of the age, as imbodied in these effusions, is the best proof of the beneficial influence exercised over that age by our sex. In them, the name of woman is not associated in the degrading catalogue ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... as a super in the sensational drama She, by H. Rider Haggard. Two Englishmen were penetrating the mysterious jungles of Africa, and I was their native guide and porter. They had me all blacked up like a negro minstrel, but this wasn't a funny show, it was a drama of mystery and terror. While I was guiding the English travelers through the jungle of the local stage, we penetrated into the ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... breathe the ozone that rises from the line of breakers, without the necessity of making detours to avoid fruit-stalls and bathing-saloons. Fortunately the fine sands around Newquay have not yet become a mart for sweetmeats and cocoanuts, nor are they the happy hunting ground of the negro minstrel and other ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... human element of the changed and modernised city. The twang of double-stringed lutes, the tinkle of metal tubes, and the elusive melody of silvery gongs, echo from the ages whence dance and song descend as an unchanged inheritance. An itinerant minstrel recites the history of Johar Mankain, the Una of Java, who shone like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought. In the intricate ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... heath now moon-tide horrors hung, And night's dark pencil dimm'd the tints of spring; The boding minstrel now harsh omens sung, And the bat spread his ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... Homilies in Verse. Prick of Conscience. Minot's Poems. Barbour's Bruce; with an extract. Great extent of the Old Northern dialect; from Aberdeen to the Humber. Lowland Scotch identical with the Yorkshire dialect of Hampole. Lowland Scotch called "Inglis" by Barbour, Henry the Minstrel, Dunbar, and Lyndesay; first called "Scottis" by G. Douglas. Dr Murray's account of the Dialect of the Southern ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... which opened with the line, "Is there a county to compare with Notts?" The county of Derby was jealous of its neighbour in other things besides sport, and considered itself to have scored when its own tame minstrel ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... that mouldering long hast hung On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, Till envious ivy did around thee cling, Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,— O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep? Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring, Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep, Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... a hearty assent; adding, at the same time, a hope that her want of practice since she left Edinburgh would be no obstacle to her success. To which Miss Devine replied, by asking him to name the window out of which she was to present her compliments to the English minstrel. "As to that, Betty," said he, "I leave you to select your own ground; but take care that you don't miss fire"—an observation which took the stable-boy, Bill Mack, by the greatest surprise, as, from ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... to herself, "Ah! if I only had a friend to love best!" She almost learned "Lalla Rookh" by heart; and she pictured herself as the Persian princess listening to a minstrel in Oriental costume, but with a very German face. It was not that the child was in love, but her heart was untenanted; and as memories walked through it, it ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... as a bird's, and no bird was fonder of green woods and waving branches. He had lived since his birth in the hut in the forest, and had never wished to leave it, until one winter night a wandering minstrel sought shelter there, and paid for his night's lodging with songs of love and battle. Ever since that night Fergus pined for another life. He no longer found joy in the music of the hounds or in the cries of the huntsmen in forest glades. He yearned for the chance of battle, and the ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... Handel is almost a contemporary. Paintings and busts of this great minstrel are scattered everywhere throughout the land. He lies in Westminster Abbey among the great poets, warriors, and statesmen, a giant memory in his noble art. A few hours after death the sculptor Roubiliac took a cast of his face, which he wrought into imperishable ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... the mountain-streams, Most tuneful minstrel of the forest-choirs, Bird of all grace and harmony of soul, Unseen, we hail thee ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... bluish grey—they laughed more than his lips did at a humorous story. His tower-like head and thin, white hair marked him out among a thousand, while any one might swear to his voice again who heard it once, for it had a touch of the lisp and the burr; yet, as the minstrel said, of Douglas, 'it became him wonder well,' and gave great softness to a sorrowful story: indeed, I imagined that he kept the burr part of the tone for matters of a facetious or humorous kind, and brought out the lisp part in those of tenderness or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... his clever audience. Yet it must be acknowledged that much even of his wit is the mere filth-throwing of a naughty boy; or at best the underbred jocularity of the "funny column," the topical song, or the minstrel show. There are puns on the names of notable personages; a grotesque, fantastic, punning fauna, flora, and geography of Greece; a constant succession of surprises effected by the sudden substitution of low or incongruous terms in proverbs, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the universe more seriously than himself. To him wickedness was a matter of imps and monsters rather than of villains, and of imps and monsters that could be exorcized by music. He was the Orpheus of the world who might tame the beast in all of us if we would listen to him, the wandering minstrel whom the world left to play out in the street. And yet his ultimate seriousness and the last secret of his beauty is pity, not for himself and his own little troubles, but for the whole bitter earnestness of mortal children. And in this pity he seems not to weep ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... "Mr Wandering Minstrel," in such a tone, jarred upon him, and a peculiar trembling came over him as he felt that he had forgotten everything. The table, with its plate and glass, looked misty, too, and there was a singing in his ears as his fingers played nervously ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... but I don't care! I've put our names down for a mandoline and guitar duet, and said we'd be ready to help with any accompaniments they like. Meg Howell just jumped at that. It seems Patricia Marshall and Clarice Nixon are going to sing a Christy Minstrel song, and she thought our instruments would add to the effect no end. I tell you we shall score. Did ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... as it was important to know how numerous those pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, King Alfred, being a good musician, disguised himself as a gleeman or minstrel, and went, with his harp, to the Danish camp. He played and sang in the very tent of Guthrum, the Danish leader, and entertained the Danes as they caroused. While he seemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... him to Lausanne, where the Emperor Rudolph was then holding his court to discuss with Pope Gregory—the tenth of the name—arrangements for a new crusade. But nothing had yet been said about Biberli. On the evening before the young noble's departure, however, a travelling minstrel came to the castle, who sang of the deeds of former crusaders, and alluded very touchingly to the loneliness of the wounded knight, Herr Weisenthau, on his couch of pain. Then the Lady Wendula remembered her eldest son, and the fraternal tendance ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... window, erst, In hopeless mood, A minstrel stood. As, passionate, he smote my first, From his sad lips my second passed, And from my first ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... delight in odd numbers); and to this may be added seven bonnet-pieces of Scottish gold, and a broadsword and spear, which their ancestor had wielded with such strength and courage in the battle of Dryfe Sands, that the minstrel who sang of that deed of arms ranked him only second to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... lovely, And a golden crown to crown him. While the empyrean minstrels rising, All in flowing garments vested, Some with harps and some with timbrels, Some with lutes and some with trumpets, All in goodly order mingled, In the skill of gay perfection; Far the minstrel band extendeth Like a wilderness of grandeur. As a sea of flowing white waves Mingled up with diamond ripples; As the moon on sparkling waters, Comes the light from glowing beacons, Dancing on their crowns of glory, Far and near redounding, flowing In a thousand dazzling colors, Like ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... the Spring? Or are the birds all wrong That play on flute and viol, A thousand strong, In minstrel galleries Of the long deep wood, Epiphanies ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... of literature. The greater part of his early life was an unconscious preparation for writing. He had been writing prose romances for several years with considerable success, when in January, 1805, he published "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." It at once became extremely popular. It sold more widely than any poem had ever sold before. This led him to decide that literature was to be the main business of his life. "Marmion," which appeared in 1808, and "The Lady of the Lake," in 1810, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... did not consider, as her cousin had hoped she would have done, what were the words set to the air, which he imagined she would remember, and which would have told her so much. For, only a few years before, Adam's opera of Richard le Roi had made the story of the minstrel Blondel and our English Coeur de Lion familiar to all the opera- going part of the Parisian public, and Clement had bethought him of establishing a communication with ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... offices and the stables were all represented by a row of penthouses and sheds behind the main building. Here lived Charles the page, Peter the old falconer, Red Swire who had followed Nigel's grandfather to the Scottish wars, Weathercote the broken minstrel, John the cook, and other survivors of more prosperous days, who still clung to the old house as the barnacles to some wrecked ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... such stories are very closely connected with the simple life of a simple people—there is much of their thought about Nature, much of their love of the land where they live. Next, notice that he got his knowledge of these songs from a "sweet singer," a minstrel. All simple tribes have had such singers, who went about from place to place telling in verse what the people wanted to hear. There were no books, both boys and girls learned their stories from older people, or from wandering ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... silent and gathered to hear, for Aladdin's fame as a maker of songs had spread over the whole army, and he was called the Minstrel Major. He felt his audience and sang louder. The very sick man turned a little so that he, too, could hear. Only the occasional striking of a match or the surreptitious drawing of a cork interrupted. The stately tune ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... moon-of-my-delight—the probables, the possibles, the highly unlikelies, and the impossibles. Never an echo to the minstrel's wooing song. No, my dear, we have got to take to the boats this time. Unless, of course, some one possessed at one and the same time of twenty thousand pounds and a very confiding nature happens to drop from ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... unsophisticated, free to find in all things matter for wonder, and to work out his mental processes unprejudiced by a restraining knowledge of other men's past achievements. In his eighteenth year he taught himself to read, choosing as his text-books Henry the Minstrel's Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace and the Gentle Shepherd of Allan Ramsay. Not until his twenty-sixth year did he acquire the art of penmanship, which he learned "upon the hillside by copying the Italian alphabet, using his knee as his desk, and having the ink-bottle ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... summit, merchant-vessels from the trunk, towns from the roots, rowing-boats from the branches, and children's boats from the chips. What remained was used to make shelters for weak old men, sick widows, and orphan children, and the last branches left were used to build a little room in which the minstrel could sing his songs. Strangers who came now and then across the bridge stopped before the minstrel's hut to ask the name of the city with the magnificent palace; and the minstrel replied that there was nothing there but his poor hut, and all the splendour they beheld was the light of his ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... dubious. In the English, and in all Scots versions, men "win their hay" at Lammastide. In Scotland the hay harvest is often much later. But if the English ballad be NORTHUMBRIAN, little can be made out of that proof of Scottish origin. If the English version be a southern version (for the minstrel is a professional), then Lammastide for hay-making is borrowed ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... in the morning. Punch was too sweet, you see. Sweet punch is sure to make your headache. He! he! But I'm done with clubs and Delmonico's, you know. I'm going to settle down and be a steady family man." Walking to the door, he sang in capital minstrel style: ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... institution of feudalism that helped to make this common subject and spirit of mediaeval literature was the minstrel, who was attached to every well-appointed castle. This picturesque poet—gleeman, trouvere or troubadour sang heroic stories and romances of love in the halls of castles and in the market places of towns. He borrowed ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... not unworthy of note that Wrangham, whose French stanzas on "The Birth of Love" Wordsworth translated into English, was in the same year—1789—third Wrangler, second Smith's prizeman, and first Chancellor's medallist; while Robert Greenwood, "the Minstrel of the Troop," who "blew his flute, alone upon the rock" in Windermere,—also one of the characters referred to in the second book of 'The Prelude',—was sixteenth Wrangler in Wordsworth's year, viz. 1791. William Raincock was at St. John's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... in that island only one day and one night, and yet, when he came home to his kingdom, he found all changed, his friends dead, his family dethroned, and not a man who knew his face; until at last, driven hither and thither like a beggar, a poor minstrel had taken compassion of his sufferings and given him all he could give—a song, the song of the prowess of a hero dead for hundreds of years, the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... and slaved from morning till night, made him get his lessons and be careful of his clothes, and kept him out of bad company; and now I'm not allowed to say a word, but just stand by while you let him go to ruin. The next thing we'll have him in a nigger minstrel band, or playing ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Even as his song the willowy scent of spring Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing, And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun, In strains that ever delicately run; So musical and wise, page after page, The sage a minstrel grows, the bard a sage. The dew of youth fills yet his late-sprung flowers, And day-break glory haunts his evening hours. Ah, such a life prefigures its own moral: That first "Last Leaf" is now a leaf of laurel, Which—smiling not, but trembling at the touch— Youth gives ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... Thou soaring minstrel! winged bard! Whose path is the free air, Whose song makes sunshine seem more bright, And ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul. If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, Spring with her birds, or children with their play, Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart,— Turn to the record where his years are told,— Count his gray ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Any man, any husband, who, knowing it, dares to disregard it, has committed an outrage.... In the final combination of man and woman, the positive element, the husband, has the initiative and the responsibility for the conjugal life. He is the minstrel who will produce harmony or cacophony by his hand and his bow. The wife, from this point of view, is really the many-stringed instrument who will give out harmonious or discordant sounds, according as she is well or ill handled" (Guyot, Breviaire, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... be bare, Though snowflakes fledge the summer's nest, And in some far Ausonian air The thrush, your minstrel, warm his breast. Come, sunshine's treasurer, and bring To doubting flowers their faith in spring, To birds and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of the minstrel, the treasure of time; [10] A rainbow of rapture, o'erarching, divine; The God-given mandate that speaks from above,— No place for earth's idols, but hope ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... minstrel heavenly gifted, 2125 To one whom fiends enthral, this voice to me; Scarce did I wish her veil to be uplifted, I was so calm and joyous.—I could see The platform where we stood, the statues three Which kept their marble ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... morning how best to track the outlaws, who had dared to commit this insolent deed, when Etienne appeared to announce that several of their people had not returned home from the fire, and amongst them his own fellow page, the minstrel of the previous night, ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... We go to the theatres to see the mime; in their days the mime made his theatre in the great man's hall. He played the fiddle and the harp; he sang songs, he brought his daughter, who walked on her hands and executed astonishing capers; the gleeman, minstrel, or jongleur was already as disreputable as when we find him later on with his ribauderie. Again, we play chess; so did our ancestors. We gamble with dice; so did they. We feast and drink together; so did they. We pass the time in talk; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best: They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... a minstrel To wander far and wide, Weaving in song the merciless wrong Done by a perjured bride! Or I would be a soldier, To seek in the bloody fray What gifts of fate can compensate For ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers, Raise a flame in the breast, for the war laurell'd wreath, Near Askalon's Towers John of Horiston[1] slumbers, Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel by death. ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... didn't he, and consented to being blacked up like a negro minstrel, in order to pose as a prince?" asked Ned. "I reckon, however, that the credit does not all belong to the lad. He seems to ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the Hobby Drive, the bracken was like elfin plumes; each stone, wrapped in moss, was a lump of silver coated with verdigris; distant cliffs seen between the trees were cut out of gray-green jade, against a sea of changing opal; and in the high minstrel-galleries of the latticed beeches a concert of birds ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... plan. If he could have made a fortune with his great inventions in 1876, what might he not accomplish by the same means in 1598! He pictured to himself the delight of the ancient worthies when they heard the rag-time airs and minstrel jokes produced ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... pretty fledgling," he said, half jesting, half in scorn. "But knowest thou, to fight in very earnest is something different than to read and chant it in a minstrel's lay? Better hie thee back to Florence, boy; the mail suit and crested helm are not for such as thee—better shun them now, than after ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... stuff, absolutely poetic, original, imaginative, passionate, and spiritual. Those who do not consider it crazy may well consider it inspired. Coming after the trite and decorous verse of most of our decorous poets, this poet seems like a minstrel of Provence at a suburban musical evening.... The unseizable magic of poetry is in the queer paper volume, and words are no ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... the other, for his teeth were rattling together in a way that reminded Hugh of the "Bones" at the end of a minstrel line; if he had ever seen a Spanish stage performance he would have said they made a sound like castanets in the hands of the senorita who gave the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... of the south of Scotland, blended with the graceful expression of those melancholy remembrances, we doubt not deeply felt, which must ever cast a dark shadow over the minds of the surviving associates of the Great Minstrel. Alas! where can we turn ourselves without being reminded of the transitory nature of this our low estate, of its dissevered ties, its buried hopes, and lost affections! How many bitter endurances, reflected from the bosom of the past, are ever mingling with all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... had left little except a burglar's tool or two here and there to mark its operations, and, with the aged and infirm General Scott at the head of a little army, and no encouragement except from the Abolitionists, many of whom had never seen a colored man outside of a minstrel performance, the President stole incog. into Washington, like a man who had agreed to ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... on the Saviour's dying head Her spikenard drops unblamed may pour, May mount His cross, and wrap Him dead In spices from the golden shore; Risen, may embalm His sacred name With all a Painter's art, and all a Minstrel's flame. ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... of George Clark, the celebrated negro minstrel, that, being examined as a witness, he was severely interrogated by the attorney, who wished to break down his evidence. "You are in the negro minstrel business, I believe?" inquired the lawyer. "Yes, sir," was the prompt reply. "Isn't that rather a low calling?" demanded ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... you," said Roy; "but you'd better trot down to the river now and wash your face. You look like the end man in a minstrel show. Then come on back and we'll reel ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... there are several second and third class theatres, many negro minstrel halls, concert rooms, and other places of amusement for all grades and classes. The majority advertise in the daily journals, and by consulting these monitors, one can always find the means of passing a pleasant evening in ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... instinct-urged To fly their native wastes sad winter's realm; So thronged on southern slopes when, far below, Shone out the plains of promise. Bright they came! No summer sea could wear a blithsomer sheen Though every dancing crest and milky plume Ran on with rainbows braided. Minstrel songs Wafted like winds those onward hosts, or swayed Or stayed them; while among them heralds passed Lifting white wands of office. Foremost rode Aileel, the younger brother of the prince: He ruled ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... fame, no less immortal than thy soul, Shall shine when yon proud sun is darkened. Thee, now, methinks, I see, O bard divine! Where ripen no fair joys that are not thine, And God's full love is pleased on thee to shine, Still by the heavenly Muses fired, And starred among the angelic minstrel band, The sacred lyre thou sway'st with sovereign hand, While seraphs, in awed rapture, round thee stand, As one by God ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... that are caught up with avidity, even by fastidious judges. But what a difference between their popularity and that of the Scotch Novels! It is true, the public read and admired the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, and so on, and each individual was contented to read and admire because the public did so: but with regard to the prose-works of the same (supposed) author, it is quite another-guess sort of thing. Here every one stands forward to applaud on his own ground, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... Nightingale (Vol. vii., p. 397.; Vol. viii., pp. 112. 475.).—One poet, not so well known as he deserves, has escaped the observation of those who have contributed to your valuable pages the one hundred and seventy-five epithets which others of his craft have applied to the "Midnight Minstrel." I allude to the Rev. F. W. Faber, in his poem of the Cherwell Water Lily. This poem his now become scarce, so I send you the lines to which I refer, as the "summary of epithets" which they contain, as {652} well as their intrinsic beauty, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... hills he often said to me: "Oh, my little brother,[28] if I only had had you in our troupe we could have got up a splendid performance." This would open up to me a tempting picture of wandering as a minstrel boy from place to place, reciting and singing. I learnt from him many of the songs in his repertoire and these were in even greater request than my talks about the photosphere of the Sun or the many ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... with unusual vigilance. Hitherto visitors have been allowed to pass hours in the ruin, at their leisure, and read the wizard scene of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' in the very locality where it is supposed to have occurred. At present, however, a sable widow, of the most unimpeachable respectability, casts a melancholy gloom over the place by the dejected yet resigned manner in which she unlocks the wooden gate and ushers strangers ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... cuckoo must be a graceful minstrel in our green hedges in July, though I am ashamed to admit I never was lucky enough to meet him. The oriole, blue jay, officer-bird, summer red-bird, indigo-bird and golden-winged woodpecker form a group of striking beauty; a most excellent idea, I would say, to thus ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... ropes out of sand was a device by which Michael Scot baffled a devil for whom he had to find constant employment. (Cf. Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," and notes.) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... BALLADS. Mignon The Minstrel Ballad of the banished and returning Count The Violet The Faithless Boy The Erl-King Johanna Sebus The Fisherman The King of Thule The Beauteous Flower.. Sir Curt's Wedding Journey Wedding Song The Treasure-digger The Rat-catcher The Spinner Before a Court ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... to her countrymen at home Wild din of spear and shield and ships of war, And bringing, as her dower, To Ilion doom of death, Passed very swiftly through the palace gates, Daring what none should dare; And many a wailing cry They raised, the minstrel prophets of the house, "Woe for that kingly home! Woe for that kingly home and for its chiefs! Woe for the marriage-bed and traces left Of wife who loved her lord!" There stands he silent; foully wronged and yet Uttering no word of scorn, In deepest woe ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... of battles and drums, just as he had said he would; and the youngest minstrel sang of ladies and their fair faces, which pleased the ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... any minstrel say, In his sweetest roundelay, What is sweeter, after all, Than black haws, in early Fall— Fruit so sweet the frost first sat, Dainty-toothed, and nibbled at! And will any poet sing Of a lusher, richer thing Than a ripe ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... a minstrel sang before him a song in which he named oft the devil. And the king, who was a Christian, when he heard him name the devil, made anon the sign ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... attention was attracted to a small densely-grown swamp, hedged in with eglantine, brambles, and the everlasting smilax, from which proceeded loud cries of distress and alarm, indicating that some terrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored minstrel. On effecting an entrance, which, however, was not accomplished till I had doffed coat and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to the thorns and brambles, and, looking around me from a square yard of terra firma, I found myself the spectator of a loathsome ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... depression. I say to you that the most buoyant, happy, hopeful, confident crowd of men in the wide world is the American army in France. If you could see them back of the lines, even within sound of the guns, playing a game of ball; if you could see them putting on a minstrel show in a Y. M. C. A. hotel in Paris; if you could see a team of white boys playing a team of negro boys; if you could see a whole regiment go in swimming; if you could see them in a track meet, you would know that, in spite ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... "and at the best they'd be soaked through and through. It's no fun to feel that way all night. You start to shivering, and then like as not your teeth rattle together like you've heard the minstrel end-man shake his bones when he sings. I've had a little experience, and I know ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... chapel tombs in Winchester Cathedral. Taken in connection with the fine ruins, and the finer natural scenery around, no spot can be supposed more suitable for the resting-place of the remains of the great minstrel and romancer, who so delighted in the natural, historic, and legendary charms of the neighborhood, and who added still ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey |
