"Musical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Thomas had been the last conductor; his orchestra the last musical expression fit for a cultivated society; the Academy of Music remained their last symphonic temple, Wallack's the last refuge of a ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... laughed Anstruther, "such a rose as the peerless Nadine Johnstone must have a duenna." He deftly caught an impassioned glance from the softly shining brown eyes, and hastily went on. "She was educated right here in this emporium of watches, musical boxes, correct principles, and scientific research. Mesdames Justine and Euphrosyne Delande, No. 122 Rue du Rhone, conduct an institute (justly renowned) where calisthenics, a view of the lake, a little music, a great deal ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... esteem only of the handful of people who think for themselves. I should say that no first-class modern French author is more perfectly unknown and uncared-for in England than Henri Becque. I once met a musical young woman who had never heard of Ibsen (she afterwards married a man with twelve thousand a year—such is life!), but I have met dozens and scores of enormously up-to-date persons who had never heard ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... dwelt, with the painful industry of grief, over each minute circumstance connected with the bereavements she had sustained, her voice softened to those accents of quiet mournfulness, which make impressive the most simple words, and render musical the most unsteady tones. It seemed as if those tenderer and kinder emotions, which the attractions of her offspring had once generated in her character, had at the bidding of memory become revivified in her manner while she lingered over the recital ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... furniture, including the piano-forte (which, at one perilous moment, threatened to remain for the rest of its life at the turn of the staircase), transferred from the shop parlour. Bulpert announced his intention of taking charge of the musical and dramatic part of the entertainment. Bulpert no longer considered himself a visitor at Praed Street, and on one occasion he entered a stern protest when he found Mr. Trew's hat there, resting upon the peg which he considered his own. Twice he had suggested that Gertie should lend him half a sovereign, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... the publication of Johnson's "Scots Musical Museum" was going on in Edinburgh; and Burns, being enlisted as a contributor, furnished many of his best songs to that work. From his youth upwards he had been an enthusiastic lover of the old minstrelsy and music of his country; but he now studied both subjects with better opportunities and appliances ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... can distinguish betwixt his opposition to our interest and real villainy or baseness. But this hinders not, but that the sentiments are, in themselves, distinct; and a man of temper and judgment may preserve himself from these illusions. In like manner, though it is certain a musical voice is nothing but one that naturally gives a particular kind of pleasure; yet it is difficult for a man to be sensible, that the voice of an enemy is agreeable, or to allow it to be musical. But a person of a fine ear, who has the command of himself, can separate ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... dahlia, hollyhock, and sunflower. It was a substantial and hardy efflorescence, and they fancied that fainter- hearted plants would have pined away in that garden, where the little fountain, leaping up into the joyless light, fell back again with a musical shiver. The consciousness of this latent cold, of winter only held in abeyance by the bright sun, was not deeper even in the once magnificent, now neglected Governor's Garden, where there was actually a rawness ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... youngest. Mr. Edwards kindly consented and we were at once put in school there. I was also fond of music and after learning that Snow Hill Institute had such an efficient music teacher, I was very much pleased to attend school there. So in the year of 1900 I entered. I was enabled to develop my musical talent to the extent that I was selected to play for my home church, and that inspired other students to ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... the musical critic of The Daily Mail in the issue of February 25th has created a sensation in the political world fully equal to that caused by the announcement of Mr. ASQUITH'S return for Paisley. Scientific and artistic circles have also been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... is valuable in furnishing an excellent insight into the musical history of the period, and to the astonishing standard which the musician had to attain before even recognition was assured by the extremely critical music-loving class of that ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... three times she turned on him and asked him in the directest way why he had wished to see her so very much; then, anticipating that the answer would be that it was because of what he had heard of her charm, her linguistic, musical and various other accomplishments, and so on, she made ready to administer a nice little snub, when he made ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... statue in a low musical voice, "far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... with a clutch which frayed my gloves, while Poor Jr. leaned back against the side of the basket and gazed upward at the great swaying ball, with his hands in his pockets, humming the strange ballad that was his favourite musical composition: ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... life was spent as was that of other boys belonging to his class and period. He must have added to his natural abilities and quickness, rare talents for attaining such knowledge as was possible, knowledge of all woodcraft and of nature, knowledge of musical instruments, and acquaintance with arms. Clean of limb and sure of foot, ready of repartee, fearless and alert, he was, even as a boy, something of what he was to become in maturity, one of the greatest men of his own or any age. Unique in some capacities, versatile and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... of popular amusement and instruction—the theatres, the story-teller's booths, the preacher's dais, the musical recitations, the novels—have taken for their chief theme the stories of the samurai. The peasants round the open fire in their huts never tire of repeating the achievements of Yoshitsune and his faithful retainer ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... the Empire and the Alhambra, the generous will attribute our eccentricity to an overdeveloped moral sense. To be frank, we do not believe that Prof. Reinhardt or M. Bakst has more to say than the creators of our best musical ballets. But, while the latter modestly pretend to nothing more than the flattery of our senses by means of form and sound and colour, the wizards of "the new art" claim to express the most profound and subtle emotions. We prefer "1830" to The Miracle, because it ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... prominent feature of all his literary work, and especially noticeable in his educational schemes, as, for example; the report on a proposed Munich school of music, with its text: "The business of a Conservatory is to conserve." On his musical diction the testimony of Prof. S. Jadassohn will probably be considered sufficient by most people. He writes: "Wagner's harmonies are clear and pure; they are never arbitrary, nor coarse nor brutal, but throughout conscientious and clean according to the strict rules of ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... Table Rock, formerly one of the most celebrated points about Niagara, that Mrs. Lydia Huntley Sigourney wrote her spirited eulogy on Niagara, which commences with the musical rhymes: ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... the last Seven Sephiroth constituted ATIK YOMIN, the Ancient of Days; and these, as well as the Seven planets, correspond with the Seven colors separated by the prism, and the Seven notes of the musical octave. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... when shall I again hear the voice of Nala, gentle and deep as that of the clouds, that voice, sweet as Amrita, of the illustrious king, calling me Vidharva's daughter, with accents distinct, and holy, and musical as the chanting of the Vedas and rich, and soothing all my sorrows. O king, I am frightened. Do thou, O virtuous one, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... knowing whether the owner was a millionaire or a day laborer. But if he wanted a home the case was different. "I desire then to know his antecedents, how he made his money, the size of his family, the number of his servants, and how his daughters spend their time: whether they are domestic, musical, literary or stylish. I want to know the number and quality of his guests, whether he drinks wine with his dinner, and his views on sanitary questions; for this home-building is not mere spending, it is the shaping of ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... never, heard. As Victoria entered, up went the standard of England, and never before did its folds wave over such a scene. The entrance of majesty was the signal for the organ to play; the vitreous roof vibrates as the sounds fly along the transparent aisles; and we had musical glasses on a large scale. It would require the pen of our favorite Christopher North to describe the magnificent scene when the queen ascended the throne, surrounded by all the elegance and nobility of her kingdom. Her husband reads an address; she replies; the venerable archbishop ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... dresses of honour bestowed upon her instructor: for she hath learned calligraphy and syntax and etymology; the commentaries of the Koran; the principles of law and religion; the canons of medicine, and the calendar and the art of playing on musical instruments."[FN8] Said the Wazir, "Bring me her master." So the broker brought him at once and, behold, he was a Persian of whom there was left only what the days had left; for he was as a vulture bald and scald and a wall trembling to its fall. Time had buffetted him with sore smart, yet was ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... were thronging to the midnight service. The bells were ringing with a musical chime, and the painted windows of the church glittered with rainbow hues. The organist was playing some Christmas carol, and the waves of sound rolled out solemnly on the still air. With salutation and curtsey the villagers passed by the young squire. He waited ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... mutual support. Some of them, like the broods of young birds of different species which come together in the autumn, are entirely given to share in common the joys of life. Every village in this country, in Switzerland, Germany, and so on, has its cricket, football, tennis, nine-pins, pigeon, musical or singing clubs. Other societies are much more numerous, and some of them, like the Cyclists' Alliance, have suddenly taken a formidable development. Although the members of this alliance have nothing in common but the ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... been haunted by a musical idea, which gradually developed as she improvised into a Nocturne, full of plaintive minor passages; and this first complete musical composition, written out by her own hand, she had dedicated to her mother. It was ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... places in the country had inspired Mme. de Bargeton with a taste for music and reading. During the Revolution one Abbe Niollant, the Abbe Roze's best pupil, found a hiding-place in the old manor-house of Escarbas, and brought with him his baggage of musical compositions. The old country gentleman's hospitality was handsomely repaid, for the Abbe undertook his daughter's education. Anais, or Nais, as she was called must otherwise have been left to herself, or, worse still, to some coarse-minded servant-maid. The Abbe ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... and he was going toward Uncle Daniel and home just as fast as possible. He sang "Old Hundred" through five or six times by way of showing his happiness. It is quite likely that he would have sung something a little more lively had he known anything else; but "Old Hundred" was the extent of his musical education, and he kept repeating that, which was quite as satisfactory as if he had been able to go through with every opera that was ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... to a musical comedy which by some fortunate chance was well written, well sung, and well done. And they were in excellent spirits as they left the theatre and stood waiting for his small limousine car, she in her pretty furs held close to her throat, humming under her breath a ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... story had interested me; and I often thought it would make a pleasing subject for an Opera or musical drama. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... water's edge; in one hand he held the green branch of a tree, and in the other he grasped his beard, which he pressed to his bosom; in this attitude he made a long oration, or rather song, for it had a musical cadence which was by no means disagreeable. We regretted infinitely that we could not understand what he said to us, and not less that he could not understand any thing which we should say to him; to shew our good-will, however, we threw him some trifling ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... complacent with the knowledge that her daughter daily devoted four hours to her music, looked up from her knitting to say, "If I had had your opportunities when I was young, my dear, I should have been a very happy girl. I always had musical talent, but such training as I had, foolish little songs and waltzes and not time for half ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... well they love, who live At the light's limit, passing careless hours, Most like the gods; and they have gifts to give, Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers, And song, and if they will, swift ships, ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... is a normal, healthy boy, this feeling arises within him just as naturally and spontaneously as the feeling which comes to a sensitive soul in the presence of a sunset, or musical harmonies and tells it they are beautiful. It is quite apart from any far-sighted calculations of the intellect concerning the practical use which those qualities may, or may not, have in ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... just then Lorenzo wished to send a present to Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, and the gift he chose was a marvellous musical instrument which ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... your'—when suddenly a low moaning noise was heard, on which he instantly stopped, threw his arm over his breast, and covered his eyes, in an attitude of deep devotion, as if oppressed by the presence of the spirit. The voice after ejaculating three 'Oh's,' one rising above the other, in tones very musical, burst into a flow of unintelligible jargon, which, whether it was in English or in gibberish I could not discover. This lasted five or six minutes, and as the voice was silenced, another woman, in more passionate ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... bell was rung a strangely sweet, musical voice fell on her ear, and arrested her movements. "Pardon me for intruding," said the stranger, "and suffer me to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Carter, who not long since removed to the village. I have heard of your illness, and wishing to render you any assistance in my power, I have ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... with foliage, bright with blooming flowers, and musical with singing birds and purling brooks, it was beautiful! But in winter, bound in ice, mantled with snow, and gemmed with frost, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... But Mat was not always so studious: he would be sliding with the Rector's boys, or helping them to make a snow man; sometimes he would be having tea at the Rectory, or with his master, or even with the curates. One of the curates was musical, and Mat had an angelic voice. One could imagine the danger to the precocious, clever boy, and how perhaps, on his return, he would gibe a little in his impertinent boyish fashion at thickheaded, clumsy Tom among his cornbins and sacks of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... on the officers' roll are well-known Britishers who have given their lives for their country. There was Rupert Brooke, the poet; Denis Browne, formerly musical critic of The Times; F. S. Kelly, holder of the Diamond Sculls record, who also was an exceptionally clever composer and pianist; and Arthur Waldene St. Clair Tisdall, a great scholar and poet of Cambridge. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his valour on the 25th of April, at ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... Julius Caesar is less monotonously regular than that of the earlier plays; it is more flexible and varied, more musical and sonorous, but it lacks the superb movement of the verse in Othello, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. End-stopped, normally regular iambic pentameter lines often occur (as, for instance, I, i, 37, 41, 44, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... his door open a little way, and the boys could see him quite plainly. They saw him take off the wrapper, and disclose a small white box. This he opened and, as he took the cover off, there dropped out something that gave a musical clang. ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... people: now melancholy shepherds with their flocks; now swine-herds and swine-herdesses with herds of wild black pigs of the Italian breed; now men driving asses that brayed and woke long, loud, and most musical echoes in the hills; now whole peasant families driving cows, horses, and mules to the plains below. On the way down, fragments of autobiography began, with the opportunities of conversation, to come from the Count ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... musical sound of the falls, and was reminded of the dancing mill-stream, of the silver fox and of her own dear "Bounce." Every hour since her arrival at Aunt Prissy's had been so filled with new and strange happenings that the little girl had not had time ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... Indian girls were seated on the grass, Wauska in the centre, her merry musical laugh echoed back by all but Wenona. The leaves of the large forest tree under which they were sheltered seemed to vibrate to the joyous sounds, stirred as they were by a light breeze that blew from the St. Peter's. Hark! they laugh again, and "old John" wakes up from ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... YOUNG PEOPLE No. 44 can be translated by substituting for the musical signs the following words ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sigh!" said Miss Hunter, who was perfect, to use a musical term, in her lessons, pour observer les soupirs: "What a sigh! I hope it was for my ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... October, 1811, Franz Liszt, the greatest pianist of the last half century, was born at Raiding, in Hungary, and the entire musical world was united in celebrating his seventieth birthday, which took place ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... existed, in comparison with the number of readers in the present age. These had the advantage over Marot's of being set to tunes of greater spirit. Beza, in his preface, says, that "these Psalms are admirably suited for the violin and other musical instruments;" and our readers will learn, not without surprise, that through the instrumentality of the gloomy Calvin, these compositions were set to most beautiful and simple airs. He wisely took advantage of popular feeling to spread ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... the drawing-room, from whence I heard some chords. Captain Nemo was there, bending over his organ, and plunged in a musical ecstasy. ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... and by night the men off duty would gather about the forecastle lantern to play with greasy, well-thumbed cards, or warble tender ditties to black-eyed Susans far across the Atlantic. Patriotic melodies formed no small part of Jack's musical repertoire. Of these, this one, written by a landsman, was for a long time popular among the tuneful souls of the forecastle, and was not altogether unknown ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... musical cry was sounding a little distance off, slowly coming nearer as it was repeated. A cry that New York never hears now, but that used to come through the streets in the evening with a sonorous, half melancholy intonation, pleasant ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... there and here, rending their woof, and strewing its fragments through the aerial plains—then we rode out, and sought new spots of beauty and repose. When the frequent rains shut us within doors, evening recreation followed morning study, ushered in by music and song. Idris had a natural musical talent; and her voice, which had been carefully cultivated, was full and sweet. Raymond and I made a part of the concert, and Adrian and Perdita were devout listeners. Then we were as gay as summer insects, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... golden and silver jars, filled with water, covered with Udumbara branches and various lotus flowers, besides a white jewelled chourie, a white splendid parasol, a white bull, a white horse, all manner of musical instruments and bards.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} In the preceding chapter {HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} there are mentioned two white chouries instead of one, and all kinds of seeds, perfumes and jewels, a scimitar, a bow, a litter, a golden vase, and a blazing ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... thought so unaffected, were, to name them correctly, only tricks; I judged from a distance that her vanity adopted certain ones, that it improved upon others; they were little ways that one might have noted down and that a woman might have learned like a musical air. I trembled for the risk which I should have run, if I had had the misfortune to experience again in good faith her deceptions, at the point of perfection to which her cleverness had carried ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... dancing the old men sat in the drawing-room, smoking and looking at the young people. Among them was Shebaldin, the director of the municipal bank, who was famed for his love of literature and dramatic art. He had founded the local Musical and Dramatic Society, and took part in the performances himself, confining himself, for some reason, to playing comic footmen or to reading in a sing-song voice "The Woman who was a Sinner." His nickname ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... reference to what 'the books' say, and evidently meant his work to be read. (The earlier gleemen, so far as known, could not read or write, got their material from oral tradition and composed their poems to be sung or recited to musical accompaniment.) Rother is a king of Italy who sends twelve envoys to Constantinople to win for him the hand of the emperor's daughter. She favors her unknown suitor, but the irate Constantine throws the envoys into a dungeon. Rother takes the name of Dietrich and sails with ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... dark-eyed daughter, Wayward as the Minnehaha, With her moods of shade and sunshine, Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate, Feet as rapid as the river, Tresses flowing like the water, And as musical a laughter: And he named her from the river, From the water-fall he named her, Minnehaha, ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... was primarily vocal—the singing of hymns and, possibly, folk songs. Instrumental music was confined to the fiddle, which one Fair Play settler felt valuable enough to mention in his will.[51] The fiddle also provided the musical background for the rollicking reels and jigs which the Scotch-Irish enjoyed so much.[52] That it was a hard life is certainly true, but it had its happy moments and music was the source ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... Stage; the beasts and birds and insects in and out of the Zoological Gardens; figures by the score, nude and draped; costumes of all ages and every country; soldiers, sailors, and the uniforms of every army and navy; land and sea and sky; boating and botany, nuns and clowns, hospital-nurses, musical instruments, and rifles, locomotives, wheel-barrows, shop-windows, and everything else besides—everything, in short, as he himself declared, "from a weasel to a Welshman"—all are photographed mostly by himself, and all are arranged by himself, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... nerves, to burst into the world above the senses and to experience the taste, or rather the odor, which goes before it. For it is an absolute condition that the feeling should be hazy, something in the nature of an odor; or, better still, the echo of an odor. No key of a musical instrument is to be touched; no definite features are to be drawn; the tone of mind alone is to be produced. The baron's dwelling gave the tone of mind for another world. He and his associates believed in another world, beyond the earth and the grave; on the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... natural drollery, at the same time passionate and capricious. Her all-absorbing interest and taste was music, to which all her faculties and time were devoted. She was eternally surrounded with musical artists, was their great patroness, and at her house the world was regaled with the best music that art could supply. Soon after her brother's death, she married the Count St. Antonio (who was afterwards ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... canines are sharpened to a point. In the forests they go quite naked. They speak a corrupted form of the dialects of their negro neighbours. They have a peculiar way of singing their words. Their voices are low and musical and the pronunciation is singularly staccato, every syllable being separately uttered. They show no trace of spirit or ancestor worship, but have some idea that thunder, lightning and rain are manifestations of an Evil Power, and that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... from end to end, for not only was Hermann a person of innumerable friends, but he had already a considerable reputation, and, being a German, all musical England went to hear him. And to-night he was playing superbly, after a couple of days of miserable nervousness over his debut as a pianist; but his temperament was one of those that are strung up to their highest pitch by such nervous agonies; he required ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... months' wages, and we were all very poor and very blue. Jonathan Whittemore—a real good fellow, who used to cover the hammers with leather—came to me the day the shop was closed, and told me he was going to take the chance to go to Europe. He was going to the Musical Conservatory at Leipsic, if he could. He would work his passage out as a stoker. He would wash himself for three or four days at Bremen, and then get work, if he could, with Voightlander or Von Hammer till he could enter the Conservatory. By way of preparation for this he wanted me ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... and in a powerful but not very musical voice began to sing a hymn full of cowboy slang. His singing had a quality not usual in street singers, and a crowd quickly gathered about him. His song was long and not without a rude poetry. He ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... not establish a German state, these immigrants did cling to their customs wherever they settled in considerable numbers. Especially did they retain their original social life, their Turnvereine, their musical clubs, their sociable beer gardens, their picnics and excursions, their churches and parochial schools. They still celebrated their Christmas and other church festivals with German cookery and Kuchen, ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... young man, admitted there? Simply because, though I was an execrable pianist, and never improved until the happy invention of the pianola made a Paderewski of me, I could play a simple accompaniment at sight more congenially to a singer than most amateurs. It is true that the musical side of London society, with its streak of Bohemianism, and its necessary toleration of foreign ways and professional manners, is far less typically English than the sporting side or the political side or the Philistine ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... in simple conviviality. This singing-school had descended through the generations, and in solemn rotation visited the families of all church-members. Under the fostering care of Mrs. Widesworth, the occasion grew to a musical festival of considerable importance. When the meeting was at her house, there were invited many citizens of distinction from the neighboring towns; also, there was summoned all that was lively, pretty, or profound in Foxden. From three in the afternoon until nine in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of rain over-night, has broken with all the signs and symptoms of a bright July day. The Firth is bathed in sunlight, and the wavelets at full tide are kissing the strand, making a soft musical ripple as they retire, and as the pebbles run down the sandy slope on the retreat of the waves. Beyond the farthest contact of the tide is a line of seaweed dried and desiccated, mixed up with which, in confusing array, are masses of ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... words on music will not be out of place in this part of our work. Musical composition down to the year 1500 was chiefly in the hands of the Flemish school, whose originality and artistic dexterity were greatly admired. Side by side with this, there nevertheless existed an Italian school, which probably stood nearer to our present taste. Half ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the Sabhath commenced. A psalm of the old and homely version was sung, with true feeling, if not with a perfect regard to musical effect and harmony. The brief but fervent prayer was offered, and the good man had just announced the text for his sermon, when a sudden tramp of feet, and a confused murmur of human voices, fell on ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... heap careful for things belong when they stay," Annie-Many-Ponies observed in her musical contralto voice which always irritated Applehead with its very melody. "I think plenty wire all fold up neat in prop-room. Wagalexa Conka, he all time clean this studio ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... opened in a moment of aimless wandering to and fro. Margot was no great performer, but what she could play she played by heart, and Nature had provided her with a sweet, thrush-like voice, with that true musical thrill which no teaching can impart. At the first few bars of a Chopin nocturne Mr Macalister's newspaper wavered, and fell to his knee. Margot heard the rustle of it, slid gradually into a simpler melody, and was conscious of a heavy hand ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... on the earth we had read of attempts to connect musical tones and chords with the chromatic scale of colour, it being suggested that each musical sound had its own distinctive tone-colouring. Now we saw it practically demonstrated, for each chord of music was accompanied by changes ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... in reality what He had always been in purpose, intent, and idea. Then that to which my text originally alludes, to which it looks back, is the great deliverance wrought by the banks of the Red Sea. It was because Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in it that Miriam and her musical sisters, with their timbrel and dance, not only said, 'The Lord is my strength,' but 'He has become my strength'—there where the corpses are floating yet. What answers to that in the matter with which we are concerned? Brethren, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... workshop. Even now, comparatively bare as it is at the present moment of writing, this is one of the most picturesque suites of rooms in existence; but to see it on one of the grand occasions of Leighton's musical receptions was a very different sight and one not easily to be forgotten. Then when walls and easels were covered with pictures, when rare carpets hung from the gallery, flowers and palms filled the bay window, beautiful women and men of every form of distinction crowded the floor to listen ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... his countenance, as, with a mechanical, doting gesture of fondness, he smoothed her dishevelled hair over her forehead. While he was thus engaged, while the remains of the gentleness of his childhood were thus awfully revived in the insanity of his age, a musical string wound round a small piece of gilt wood fell from its concealment in her bosom; he snatched it from the ground—it was the fragment of her broken lute, which had never quitted her since the night when, in her innocent ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... were presently condemned, great oil paintings, done to please the half-educated middle-class, glared for a moment and were gone, Academy marbles crumbled to useful lime, a gross multitude of silly statuettes and decorative crockery, and hangings, and embroideries, and bad music, and musical instruments shared this fate. And books, countless books, too, and bales of newspapers went also to these pyres. From the private houses in Swathinglea alone—which I had deemed, perhaps not unjustly, altogether illiterate—we ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... young girl gave her powerful interpretation of the design or purpose of the woman of old. Her every word and tone carried with it the conviction of her own belief. The loftiness of her thoughts seemed to uplift us all as we listened. Her noble words, flowing in musical cadence and vibrant with internal force, seemed to issue from some great instrument of elemental power. Even her tone was new to us all; so that we listened as to some new and strange being from a new and strange world. Her father's face was full of ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... my object, in writing the following Little Songs for Little Boys and Girls, to endeavor to catch something of that good-humored pleasantry, that musical nonsense, which makes Mother Goose so attractive ...
— Little Songs • Eliza Lee Follen
... domestic architecture,—in which very elegant boudoirs, adorned with harps, hold prominent place; and libraries with gilt-bound books, very rich in lyrical and dramatic poetry; fine views from bay-windows; graceful pots of flowers; sleek-looking Italian greyhounds; cheerful sunlight; musical goldfinches chattering on the wall; superb pictures of princesses in peasant dresses; soft Axminster carpets; easy-acting bell-pulls; gigantic candelabrums; porcelain vases of classic shape; neat waiters ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... consideration. Marcia was a proficient upon the harp and piano, and, as she had heard that Mr. Greenleaf, the handsome painter, as she called him, was a fine singer, she determined to practise some operatic duets with him, that should move all her musical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Gwen to lubricate matters:—"Yes—look here! But I know which I like best." She managed to collate a handful of her own glory of gold and her friend's rich black, in one hand. "I know which I like best," said Irene. And Gwen laughed her musical laugh that filled the place. "No head of hair is a prophet in its own ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... almost an intoxication. Up to a certain point the acquirement of knowledge is a task, an effort, a seeming self-sacrifice; beyond that point it is a labor of love, a pleasure, a consecration. The crude, discordant efforts of a child, when it first begins to acquire a musical education, very convincingly illustrates the condition of mind of the beginner in self-culture. The task is a toil and the results do not stimulate further spontaneous effort. The same child, however, may successfully pass through the various gradations of a musical career and arrive at a time ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... that there really were some Yankees that did not have any musical accomplishments, and that I was one of that unfortunate number. I asked him to get the ladies to sing for me, and to this they acceded quite readily. One girl, with a fair soprano, who seemed to be the leader of the crowd, sang "The Homespun Dress," a song very popular in the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... and Irene especially made great progress in her musical studies. She had always been fond of music as a little child. In her wildest moods, when Lady Jane had played for her she had become quiet, and crept close to her mother, laid her charming little head against her mother's knee, and listened with wide-open eyes. As she grew a ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... uniforms, Their outfit, although a little theatrical, looked very handsome: the pelisse and dolman in white and the trousers and the shako in lilac; all clean bright and shining. One might have thought they were going to a ball, or to play in a musical comedy. This brilliant appearance contrasted somewhat with the more modest toilette of our Chasseurs, many of whom were still dressed in the worn clothing in which they had bivouacked for eighteen ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... walked through the kneeling crowd, he stood still a moment or two, from time to time, and blessed the people; his voice was full and deep, but very musical; his face was supremely handsome, but devoid of all traces of passion. As he lifted his hands to heaven, and implored the Almighty to protect the righteous arms of his poor children in La Vendee, he certainly looked every inch a bishop; the peasants ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... of Beethoven? He was one of the greatest musical composers that ever lived. His great, his sole delight was in music. It was the passion of his life. When all his time and all his mind were given to music, he became deaf—perfectly deaf; so that he never more heard one single ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... certain periods of the year, are legally allowed an unusual amount of freedom with women, are those who practise the art of making musical instruments and eating-vessels out of human bones. The skull is used for making drinking-cups, tsamba bowls, and single and double drums. The bone of the upper arm, thigh-bone, and shin-bone are turned into trumpets and pipes. These particular Lamas are ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... which has not yet sunk far enough in the west to cease from dazzling the eyes of English music-makers. But of Haendel as a lover, we must postpone the gossip till we have mouthed one of the most delicious morsels in musical scandal, a choice romance that is said to have ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... off at all, at all, Tony," Myra Rostrevor was saying to him in her soft, musical voice with a delightfully attractive touch of the brogue. "It was Tiger here that was trying to show off and make himself out to be my master.... Weren't ye, Tiger?" She patted the sleek neck of her horse again as she spoke, and he pricked ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... contented to take up with little things. Women have a great advantage that they may take up with little things, without disgracing themselves: a man cannot, except with fiddling. Had I learnt to fiddle, I should have done nothing else[680].' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, did you ever play on any musical instrument?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. I once bought me a flagelet; but I never made out a tune.' BOSWELL. 'A flagelet, Sir!—so small an instrument[681]? I should have liked to hear you play on the violoncello. That should ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... was his second, "Concord" piano sonata, one of the finest, and some would say the finest, works of classical music by an American. It reflects the musical innovations of its creator, featuring revolutionary atmospheric effects, unprecedented atonal musical syntax, and surprising technical approaches to playing the piano, such as pressing down on over 10 notes simultaneously using a ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... Production of Franz C. Bornschein's cantata "Onawa" at the Tri-City Musical Festival at Paterson, N. J. (This work won the prize offered by the New Jersey ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... Papacy Hankering for peace, when peace had really become impossible Hating nothing so much as idleness Mirror ever held up before their eyes by the obedient Provinces Rigid and intolerant spirit of the reformed religion Scorn the very word toleration as an insult The word liberty was never musical in Tudor ears ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... Wolvercote was continuing, "and the Duke thinks he may be able to get down ——," she mentioned a royalty. "You're going to help us too, aren't you, Mrs. Shaw? It's so very kind of you. We've got such a pretty part for you in a musical affair which Lenny Lumley wrote with somebody or other for the Duchess of Ulster's Elizabethan bazaar. There's a chorus of fairies—nymphs, Charlie? Yes, nymphs, and we want them all to be very pretty and able to sing, and ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... presented to me, and replied in the affirmative, not entirely because it meant fivepence a day extra to my service pay, though of course this was a consideration, but mainly for the reason that it would afford me privileges for musical culture. ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... I am a warlock," said the honest smith: "a poor, broken hearted thing, that, if she hath done evil, has dreed a sore weird for it. Be kind to her. And you, my musical damsel, I will call on you tomorrow morning, and carry you to the waterside. This old woman will treat you kindly if you say nothing to her ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... sentimental remarks, without being instantly frozen. She's like the Boston girls we read about in the funny papers. He couldn't give her things, either, except flowers or books, or sweets, or music. She has more books than she wants, because she reviews'em for the paper, and I don't think she's musical. She doesn't look like the candy fiends, and I imagine she'd pitch a box of chocolates into the sad sea, or give it to Hepsey. There's nothing left but flowers—and I suppose ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... see, you're worried about all that chorus work they kept up last night, and mebbe you think there were some who sang off-key, which bothers your musical ear, so you want to pick 'em out, and even things up," and Steve grinned as he said this, because he did not have as high an opinion of Toby's accomplishments in the line of music ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... formless before, now cleared—the place and the man. The room was large and had the character of a music studio, or one department of a large conservatory. A grand piano, a stand for violin, pictures of the masters, and famous musical scenes on the wall—more, there was music in the air—intervals when the three figures seemed to listen. A violin was across the man's knee, a bow in his ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... Egyptian infantry, steady troops, upon whom Saladin much relied. Here were other tribes, gathered from afar, each distinguished by its own particular marks. In silence did this vast array view awhile the solid mass of the Christians. Suddenly a strange din of discordant music from thousands of musical instruments—conches and horns, cymbals and drums, arose in wild confusion. Shouts of defiance in a dozen tongues and from two hundred thousand throats rose wild and shrill upon the air, while clear above all the din were heard ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... themselves gracefully acknowledge, "We have tried to transfer, not all the truth about the poem, but the historical truth into English. In this process Homer must lose at least half his charm, his bright and equable speed, the musical current of that narrative, which, like the river of Egypt, flows from an undiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the palaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without the music of verse, only a half truth ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... of range of my vision. A waspish voice streaming blistering oaths proved that Mister Fitzgibbon was welcoming each as he emerged into daylight. Another voice, melodiously penetrating the uproar, proved another man was watching the crew turn to. I recognized the silky, musical voice of Yankee Swope. "Stir them up, Mister! Make them jump! My ship is no hotel!" is what ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... ladies, who have not any one of her excellent qualities; whose whole time, in the short days they generally make, and in the inverted night and day, where they make them longer, is wholly spent in dress, visits, cards, plays, operas, and musical entertainments, wonder at what I have written, and shall further write; and let them look upon it as an incredible thing, that when, at a mature age, they cannot boast one of her perfections, there should have been a lady so young, ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... once along the steepest line, but if one lost it going downwards, to listen for water and reach it and follow it. I wish I had space to tell all about this old man, who gave me hospitality out there. He was from New England and was lonely, and had brought out at great expense a musical box to cheer him. Of this he was very proud, and though it only played four silly hymn tunes, yet, as he and I listened to it, heavy tears came into his eyes and light tears into mine, because these tunes reminded him of his home. But I have no time ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... Trenck. They get to Vienna (meeting La Corilla in an odd but not badly managed maternity-scene half-way) and rejoin old Porpora there. There are interviews with Kaunitz and Maria Theresa:[183] and a recrudescence of the Venetian musical jealousies. Consuelo endeavours to reopen communications with the Rudolstadts, but Porpora—chiefly out of his desire to retain her on the stage, but partly also from an honest and not wholly unsound belief that a union between ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... a while; memories were rushing to his mind. Then he began: "If you had ever known Marguerite Doederlein, she would have been just as unforgettable to you as she is to me. She and Eleanore—those were the two really musical women I have known in my life. They were both all nature, all soul. Marguerite's youth was a prison; her brother Carovius was the jailer. When she married Doederlein, she somehow fancied she would escape from that prison, but she merely exchanged one for the other. And yet she hardly knew ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the parlor is large and high, a genuine pipe-organ built in a recess and harmonizing in finish with the woodwork of the room is not only the finest decoration possible, but the most appropriate musical instrument. Those families who possess an old-fashioned piano, such as thin and tinkly "square," are advised to have it overhauled and refinished by a competent piano-repairer, and preserved, if only for practice by the children. In case such an instrument has "overstrung" wires, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... ears, and he heard a faint far sound, musical like his own call. It seemed to him to be the ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... most musical and flattering. Daphne smiled in spite of herself. "Yes, we do. It's in London now—waiting till we can find a place ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ballad was only known for years by the favourite verses written by the poet Moore, which, however musical, have no real semblance to the veritable ballads with which the voyageurs have for centuries kept time as they pushed over the lakes and rivers of Canada and the North-west. Dr. Larue and M. Ernest Gagnon have ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... having a musical ear," he explained. "I made the boy who carried it put my banjo in a hollow of that tree out of the wet, and when I saw the old stick was going to crash down, I made a grab for the 'jo, and got it right enough. Well, I wasn't sufficiently ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... beautiful ocean, which lay calmly reposing and smiling beneath the setting sun. "How unlike that stormy, dark, and noisy sea of but a week ago!" so said the friends to each other, as they listened to its distant musical murmur, and heard the waves break gently on ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... the human voice: those of a clarionet, the notes of a goose: and, all the world knows that a well-played violin (especially in the practice of gliding) yields sounds so inseparable from the strains of a cat, as not to be distinguished by the mere amateur of musical science. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... their satisfaction the basis for yet loftier standards and holier aspirations and nobler and more careful practice. The work of all such men deserved a place in an outline of the progressive forces of the human mind, as much as the work of those who invented bills of exchange, the art of musical notation, windmills, clocks, gunpowder, and all the other material instruments for multiplying the powers of man and the conveniences ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... "The word glee, which peculiarly denoted their art (the minstrels'), continues still in our own language ... it is to this day used in a musical sense, and applied to a peculiar ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... taste either for literature or the arts; and he jumbled together in one large magazine the beautiful pictures, clocks, and musical instruments accumulated by his ancestors. To explain and repair these, there had always been Europeans, chiefly Portuguese, in attendance; and to some of these we have been indebted in times past for memoirs of the court of Peking; but Taou-Kwang ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... that those nations with more intelligence and refined feelings will make a beginning, and then by force of example induce the Germans to do the same.[8] Meanwhile, hear what Thomas Hood says of them (Up the Rhine): "For a musical people they are the most noisy I ever met with" That they are so is not due to their being more prone to making a noise than other people, but to their insensibility, which springs from obtuseness; ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... answered, "I think it is what they call effect!" and herewith she turned the staff round, and lo! there was not a single flower to be seen upon it; she only held the naked skewer, and lifted this up, as a musical conductor lifts his baton. ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... at once by every avenue of sense, and folding and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole being in a clear and buoyant element of tone. It was only by degrees that out of this absolute essence of sheer sound distinctions of rhythm and pitch began to appear, and to assume definite musical form. The theme at first was pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling grasses and murmuring reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite lilting tune, the song of the souls as they sped down the river. But one by one other elements crept into ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... musical trial of skill, and that to lively conversation. At length, when the solitary sound of one o'clock had long since resounded on the ebon ear of night, and the next signal of the advance of time was close approaching, Mannering, whose impatience had long subsided into disappointment and despair, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Maskelyne's famous box trick; for it is to be doubted if it could ever so well have attained its end as even a second-rate conjurer can. I have cited a passage in which Reynolds confronts the work of great artists with the illusions of the camera obscura (see p. 237). The adept musical performer who reproduces the noises of a farmyard is the true parallel to the lesser Dutch artists; he deceives the ear far better than they deceive the eye. For every picture has a surface which, unless very carefully lighted, must immediately destroy the illusion, even if it were otherwise ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... of music. Still young, though already bald, always carefully shaved, a little corpulent, as it was fitting, wearing a gold pince-nez instead of old-fashioned spectacles, active, gallant, and joyous, he passed in Vernon for an artist. He thrummed on the piano and played on the violin, and gave musical evenings where interpretations were ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... breast. This descending rivulet might lead him to the river where the hunters lay encamped. With renewed energy he traced its course, making his way through thicket and glen, led ever onwards by that musical sound, till he found himself on the borders of a small lake, within which the waters of his forest guide ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the worshippers to prayer, no words came forth—only a dry whisper. Some ladies simpered, and more than one courtier laughed silently. Michel saw, and his face flamed up. But he laid a hand on himself, and a moment afterwards his voice came forth, clear, musical, and resonant, speaking simple words, direct and unlacquered sentences, passionately earnest withal. He stilled the people to a unison of sentiment, none the less interested and absorbed because it was known that he had been the cause of the great ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of maidens, comely and merry, sit behind musical instruments, of so great variety as to recall the "cornet, flute, sackbut, harp, psaltery, and dulcimer" of Scripture. The "head wife" of the premier, earnestly engaged in creaming her lips, reclines apart on a ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... great red eye of the sun opened itself in the East until it disappeared in the blue haze beyond the crysolite city, Kiron labored with his fellows. Then, at the appointed hour, the musical signals would peal forth their sweet, sad chimes, whispering goodnight to ears that would hear them no more and all operations would halt for the night, just as it had done when The Masters were here ...
— The Ultimate Experiment • Thornton DeKy
... Fontaine a leather bag, with a strap fastened round it. "The keys are inside," he explained. "I wore them loose this morning: and they made a fine jingle. Quite musical to my ear. But Mistress thought the noise likely to be a nuisance in the long run. So I strapped them up in a bag to keep them quiet. And when I move about, the bag hangs from my shoulder, like this, by another strap. When ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... torchlight processions; and rockets were frequently used; but an illuminated garden fete such as the Emperor of Austria gave for the Shah of Persia at Schoenbrunn would at that time have been impossible. The same might be said of certain forms of musical entertainment; for example, concerts. Society in that age would have shuddered at the orchestral music of to-day, and the ear-splitting drums would have appeared barbarous to the Italians of the Renaissance, just as would the military parades, which are still among the favorite ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... hand-organs at a distance, its popularity will be indescribable. The worst form I have ever known an invention to take was one that was introduced in a country town, when I was a boy, by a Yankee of musical turn of mind, who came along and taught every branch of education by singing. He taught geography by singing, and to combine accuracy of memory with patriotism, he taught the multiplication-table to the tune ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... well as America has produced a type—not quite so truculent in talk as in print, more inclined to fight with a smile. A third was Wilfred Pollock, forgotten save by his friends I am afraid; and a fourth, Vernon Blackburn, who began life as a monk at Fort Augustus and finished it as a musical critic, he too I fear scarcely more than a name; and a fifth, Jack Stuart, and a sixth, Harold Parsons, and a seventh, and an eighth, and I can hardly now say how many more long since dead, now for me vague ghosts ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... conversation. The moon was just appearing through the tops of the trees, and the animals and insects in an adjoining wood kept up a continued din of music. The croaking of bull-frogs, buzzing of insects, cooing of turtle-doves, and the sound from a thousand musical instruments, pitched on as many different keys, made the welkin ring. But even all this noise did not drown the singing of a party of the slaves, who were seated near a spring that was sending up its ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... to argue about, they only spoke a few words at a time, but these were all musical ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade |
