"Musician" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he missed his instrument, and suspecting that it had been stolen asked them to return it to him. They denied having taken it, so he had to depart, leaving his fiddle behind him. The chief's son, being a musician, used to play on the Jogi's fiddle, and in his hands the music it gave forth delighted the ears ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... expectation that they might soon arrive. At length, his patience having become considerably exhausted, he determined to return to Dublin, and provided he met them, with Dandy in pursuit, to wheel about and also to join the musician in the chase. Having settled his bill, which he did not do without half an hour's wrangling with the waiter, he came to the hall door, from which a chaise with close Venetian blinds was about to start, and into which he thought the figure of a man entered, who very much resembled ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... opened; it was Montgomery come to see them. Kate jumped off Dick's knees, and, settling her skirts with the pretty movement of a surprised woman, threw herself into a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. The musician had come to speak about his opera, especially the opening chorus, about which he could ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... this, there is, in this glorious temple, enough to fill the least enthusiastic lover of art with delight and adoration for weeks and months together. If one knew he was to be blind in a year, like the young musician in Auerbach's exquisite romance, I know of no place in the world where he could garner up so precious a store of memories for the days of darkness, memories that would haunt the soul with so divine a light of consolation, as in that graceful ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the guide, "who used to be head musician in the big Chinese theatre. He has a place of his own now, about four storeys underground, where he tinkles on every sort of Chinese instrument. Probably the lady would like to visit him. And I know a house where children sing and dance. It's underground too; and the poor little brutes, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... who will listen carefully to the robin's breeding song on a bright day in May, will agree, I think, that he is no mean musician; and that for force, variety and character of melody, he is surpassed only by black-cap, thrush, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... day was breaking and the dim lights at the guard-house and the hospital burned red and bleary across the sandy level of the parade. The company cooks were already at their ranges, and a musician of the guard had been sent to rouse his fellows in the barracks, for the old-style reveille still held good at many a post in Arizona, before the drum and fife were almost entirely abandoned in favor of the harsher bugle, by the infantry ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... at once to Lucia, mentioning that Cortese was staying with them, but, quite naturally, saying nothing about the usefulness of Peppino and her being able to engage the musician in his own tongue, for that she took for granted. An eager affirmative (such a great pleasure) came back to her, and for the rest of the day, Lucia and Peppino made up neat little sentences to let off to the dazzled Cortese, at the moment when they said "good-night," ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... strains of the bagpipe in general, and have no objection to drums in particular—doubts do occasionally come across me whether there be in reality any such thing as tune. My friend William Ross was, on the contrary, a born musician. When a little boy, he had constructed for himself a fife and clarionet of young shoots of elder, on which he succeeded in discoursing sweet music; and addressing himself at another and later period to both the principles and practice of the science, he became one of the best flute-players ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. You get this queer irascible musician quite impossibly and unfortunately in love with a wealthy patroness, and then out of his brain comes THIS, a tapestry of glorious music, setting out love to lovers, lovers who love in spite of all that is wise and ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... afternoon, one of the King's musicians will awake from dreaming of his home and will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise of the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul of his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will awake and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the harbour when the ships came in, and ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... the assistance of a certain liveliness of manner, may read very flat on paper, because it is abstracted from all the circumstances that had set it off to advantage. A writer should recollect that he has only to trust to the immediate impression of words, like a musician who sings without the accompaniment of an instrument. There is nothing to help out, or slubber over, the defects of the voice in the one case, nor of the style in the other. The reader may, if he pleases, get a very good idea ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... The musician groaned. "What a pity!" After a moment he murmured, "I improvise a good deal." The instrument, perhaps for the first time in its life, began to vibrate and ring to something besides the claptrap music of the ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... been exchanged for clear outline and effulgent day. The growth of higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added strength. We can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy than a painter or a musician can wish to return to his cruder manner, or a philosopher to his ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Villeparisis, where the de Berny family were settled: "I may tell you," he says, "that Mademoiselle de B. has narrowly escaped being broken into three pieces in a fall; that Mademoiselle E. is not so stupid as we imagined; that she has a talent for serious painting and even for caricature; that she is a musician to the tips of her toes; that Monsieur C. continues to swear; that Madame de B(erny) has become a bran, wheat, and fodder merchant, perceiving after forty years' reflection ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... holds that far away in the centre of a Circle of pure Light, the true God exists,—a vast all glorious Being who with exceeding marvellous love controls and guides Creation toward some majestic end—even as a musician doth melodize his thought from small sweet notes to perfect chord-woven harmonies. Furthermore, that thousands of years hence, this God will embody a portion of his own Existence in human form and will send hither a wondrous creature, half-God, half-Man, to live our life, die our ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Burette, who doubtless could play a tune to, as well as prescribe one to, his patient. He conceives that music can relieve the pains of the sciatica; and that, independent of the greater or less skill of the musician, by flattering the ear, and diverting the attention, and occasioning certain vibrations of the nerves, it can remove those obstructions which occasion this disorder. M. Burette, and many modern physicians and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... factory; a third girl who had supported her little sisters since she was fourteen, eagerly used her fine voice for earning money at entertainments held late after her day's work, until exposure and fatigue ruined her health as well as a musician's future; a young man whose music-loving family gave him every possible opportunity, and who produced some charming and even joyous songs during the long struggle with tuberculosis which preceded his death, had made a brave beginning, not only as a teacher ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... whether there are not certain ideas of I know not what sort, in the mind of God which are so many marks or notes that direct Him how to produce sensations in our minds in a constant and regular method—much after the same manner as a musician is directed by the notes of music to produce that harmonious train and composition of sound which is called a tune, though they who hear the music do not perceive the notes, and may be entirely ignorant of them. But, this notion of Matter seems too extravagant to deserve a confutation. ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... as I have told you, Were the friends of Hiawatha, Chibiabos, the musician, And the very strong man, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... who, with an oblong music-book open before him on the table, was seated upon a stool, with a 'cello between his legs, gravely sawing away at the strings, and frowning severely whenever, through bad stopping with his fingers—and that was pretty often—he produced notes "out of tune and harsh." The musician was dressed, according to the fashion of the day, in dark velvet with a lace collar, and wore his hair long, so that it inconvenienced him; the oily curls, hanging down on either side of his fat face like the valance over an old-fashioned four-post bedstead, swaying to and fro with the motion of ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... Captain Foster. As the field musician came running up he added: "Sound the recall. I think Prescott and the others will understand that. Blow your hardest, Bugler. Give the call three times. That will bring them back, but every man among them, Overton, will think it worth while ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... o'er my soul,"—and it was heard two or three times a day. The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocal mothers were upset by it, brains were busy, punishments descended in showers. This lasted for several months. The girls were all more or less in love with the unknown musician. Each one dreamed that she was Zetulbe. The sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the Rue Droit-Mur; and they would have given anything, compromised everything, attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... returned the Imbiber. "He tried to work them both with one foot. It was the only thing to mar an otherwise marvellous performance. The idea of a man trying to display Wagner with two hands and one foot is irritating to a musician ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... the nurse, and the priest have all died, (the shadow of God be upon their spirits) the soothsayer still lives. And yesterday I met him near the gates of the temple; and while we were talking together he said, "I have always known you would become a great musician. Even in your infancy I prophesied ...
— The Madman • Kahlil Gibran
... early forms of various races are not more often studied by modern musicians. Writers and painters set an example in this way; painters and sculptors especially, for they study the art of all times and peoples, ancient Greek, Egyptian, Japanese, etc., but what does the ordinary musician know of these ancient Greek, Egyptian, or Celtic tunes that are fast being forgotten, or of Japanese, Indian, or Burmese intricacies? Sir Arthur Sullivan did study Burmese music, but was not that quite exceptional? ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... promenading along the wooden pier is very general at the leaving of the packets, and on their arrival a great number of persons pass over it. There are whispers of a band being engaged for the season; but, as there will not be room on the pier for more than one musician, it has been suggested to negotiate with the talented artist who plays the drum with his knee, the cymbals with his elbow, the triangle with his shoulder, the bells with this head, and the Pan's pipes with his mouth—thus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... disturbed, and took this indignity offered to her son exceeding ill, that while he was alive, any one else should be sent for to have the dignity of the high priesthood conferred upon him. Accordingly, she wrote to Cleopatra [a musician assisting her in taking care to have her letters carried] to desire her intercession with Antony, in order to gain the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... typically a woman of the world, the Princess spent six months of the year in Paris, where she was a well-known and much-liked figure in the most exclusive circles; she was clever and cultivated, a first-rate musician, and her reputation was spotless, although it was very seldom that she was accompanied by her husband, whose duties as Grand Chamberlain to the Tsar kept him almost continuously in Russia. When in Paris she occupied a suite of four ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... for a great blast, and put the trumpet to his lips—but in vain; Andy had bottled his music for him. O'Grady, seeing the inflated cheeks and protruding eyes of the musician, whose visage was crimson with exertion, and yet no sound produced, thought the fellow was practising one of his jokes upon him, and became excessively indignant; he thundered anathemas at him, but his voice was drowned in the din of the drum and cymbals, which were plied so vigorously, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... artists, they commit them (in two-thirds of the lyric theatres of Europe) to the superintendence of a single man, who has no more idea of the art of conducting than of that of singing, who is generally a poor musician, selected from among the worst pianists to be found, or who cannot play the pianoforte at all—some old superannuated individual, who, seated before a battered out-of-tune instrument, tries to decipher a dislocated score which he does not know, strikes false ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... stood behind the musician's chair muttering in an undertone: "Only one Bach, only one Bach." The King requested the improvisation of a fugue in six parts, which the master did to the astonishment of all present. But for the new instrument Bach had little use. He complimented Silberman ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... through to London without stop, and arrived there at one o'clock: wonderful the shortening of this journey; went with a party to Handel's Athalia at Exeter Hall; tired, fagged, and sleepy as I was, I yet felt deeply the power of the mighty master in this his mighty work. Yes, Handel is the greatest musician the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... with disconcerting effect comes the story of Ambrosio de Cotes, who was a gambler and a drunkard, who kept a mistress, and was rebuked publicly for howling indecent refrains to the tunes in church. Which of these is fairly typical as a musician? ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... fascinated, into the face of the other. He was a reader of men, was Donnegan; he was a reader of mind, too. In his life of battle he had learned to judge the prowess of others at a glance, just as a musician can tell the quality of a violin by the first note he hears played upon it. So Donnegan judged the quality of fighting men, and, looking into the face of Lord Nick, he knew that he had met his ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... nature will have set forth. So doth the astronomer look upon the stars, and by that he seeth, setteth down what order nature hath taken therein. So do the geometrician, and arithmetician, in their diverse sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, in times, tell you which by nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath his name, and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues, vices, and passions of man; and follow nature ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... seems impossible. The sportsmen, the musicians, the physicists, the biologists will get their apparatus for the asking as easily as their bread, or, as at present, their paving, street lighting, and bridges; and the deaf man will not object to contribute to communal flutes when the musician has to contribute to communal ear trumpets. There are cases (for example, radium) in which the demand may be limited to the merest handful of laboratory workers, and in which nevertheless the whole community must pay because the price is beyond the means of any individual worker. ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... responded to this call were in varied disguises, one, perhaps, coming up to us as a petty chief with a mounted escort, another as a merchant with a bullock cart to draw his packages of goods and a servant in attendance, yet another as a juggler or a musician, we could instantly recognize them as belonging to our brotherhood of Bowani by the secret signals with ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... he had been drawn to the quiet lawyer who was much older than either. They spent delightful days together on the lake and among the hills; Singleton told them something about his studies and ambitions, and in the evenings they persuaded him to sing. Ethel was a musician and Singleton sang well. On leaving they had invited him to visit them; but, partly from diffidence, Singleton had not gone, though he knew these were not the people who took a man up when he could be of service and ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... professional ascetic, or retired from the world in order to devote himself to bodily mortifications and the exclusive pursuit of the contemplative life. Side by side with his interior life of adoration, its artistic expression in music and words—for he was a skilled musician as well as a poet—he lived the sane and diligent life of the Oriental craftsman. All the legends agree on this point: that Kabr was a weaver, a simple and unlettered man, who earned his living ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... his paints or the musician his instruments? No, you'll have to begin at the beginning, Charles Batty, and work very hard before you're ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... mining districts where there were scores of Cornish Miners. There was a widow there with whom my brother lived and worked all the time for about two years. He was quite a musician this widow bought him a high grade Stewart Banjo and then she fell in love first with his playing and then with his banjo and lastly of all with him. Love stole my partner. I have had many but none like Lone Lee The Mountain Musician. After ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... painter, or musician, if he be dissatisfied with his work, may alter and perfect it before giving it publicity, but an actor cannot rub out; he ought, therefore, in justice to his audience, to be sure of what he is going to place before it. Should a picture in an art gallery be carelessly ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... harmonies:—that some master colourist who has mechanical and inventive genius as well, may so arrange them that they can be played by rule; that colour may have its Mozart or Beethoven—its classic melodies, its familiar tunes. The musician, as I have said—has gathered his tones from every audible thing in nature—and fitted and assorted and built them into a science; and why should not some painter who is also a scientist take the many ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... asked the same question of the second, who made no reply, so downcast and melancholy was he; but the first answered for him, and said, "He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... vehicle in which the tender expressions of the poet were conveyed to our ears; and I was reproached by my companions for having injudiciously praised the verses of the Swan of Bearn: certainly heard in mutilated fragments, and sung by such a musician—"La Hauet sus las Mountagnes" and "La Plus Charmante Anesquette," were not ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... middle-aged man with a face lined and tanned by many a summer's sun, and without a spare ounce of flesh on his sinewy frame, stood a bit apart with the accordion in his hands, his hat pushed back, and his head on one side as he looked round the assembly. Palmer Billy was the musician and vocalist of Boulder Creek, without a rival, equal, or superior, albeit his musical prowess was limited to the five chords which the key arrangement of the accordion automatically provided for, and his vocal repertoire to one song, sung to the American melody ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... must remember to make allowances. Not the best musician could sit down after a year ... however, I dare say it will come back to me quicker than to most people. You must make allowances for ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... lessons at the school. A few were popular, some were tolerated, and one or two were cordially disliked. Among those who had the ill fortune to encounter strong opposition was Fraeulein Hochmeyer, the singing mistress. She was a most conscientious teacher and a clever musician, but so intensely German in both accent and methods that she offended the British susceptibilities of her pupils, and inspired more ridicule than respect. Poor Fraeulein meant so well, it was really very hard that her efforts did not meet with better results. She treated her classes exactly as she ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... operas, or lyric tragedies, which, from the number of times they have been performed, appear to have obtained the greatest success, are those of GLUCK. The originality, the energy, the force and truth of declamation of this great musician were likely to render him successful, especially among the French, who applauded the two last-mentioned qualities on their ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... groundless, he earnestly refuted that of his want of skill in an art upon which he had bestowed so much pains, and in which he had arrived at such perfection; asking frequently those about him, "if they knew any one who was a more accomplished musician?" But being alarmed by messengers after messengers of ill news from Gaul, he returned in great consternation to Rome. On the road, his mind was somewhat relieved, by observing the frivolous omen of a Gaulish soldier defeated and dragged ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... A Prince from a distant country, an enchanter, a spy sent from Barodia, a travelling musician?—you see, I give you ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... thousand other partnerships of hymnist and musician, Dr. Rankin was fortunate in his composer. The tune is a symphony of hearts—subdued at first, but breaking into a chorus strong with the uplift of hope. It is a farewell with ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... things went right with him to-morrow that music,—or the musician who made it,—would be his own for the rest of his life. Was he justified in expecting that she would give him so much? Of her great regard for him as a friend he had no doubt. She had shown it in various ways, and after a fashion that had made it known to all the world. But so had Lady Laura ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... and Bugler Stufton were stationed on a knoll where they could see the signal when it was given by Captain Gordon, and the musician was ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... hint, O Musician, the piece that you played Is naught but a copy of Chopin or Spohr; That the ballad you sing is but merely "conveyed" From the stock of the Ames and the Purcells of yore; That there's nothing, in short, in the words or the score, That is not as out-worn as the "Wandering ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... Forum alone, but the steps of the adjacent temples, the roofs of the basilicas, the arches of Janus, one that extended remotely to the black walls of the Curia Hostilia beyond. And there, on the rostrum, a musician behind him supplying the la from a flute, the air filled with gold motes, Caesar, his toga becomingly adjusted, a jewelled hand extended, opened for the defence. Presently, when through the exercise of that art of his which Cicero ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... his church," she said, "and he teaches me. He is a splendid musician—don't you think so? I owe a great deal to him. He has helped me so much—especially in my phrasing. He is a wonderful man. We are fortunate in having ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... curiously. "Oh, she couldn't help it," cried Mr. King, beginning to walk up and down the floor, and beaming as he recalled his successful strategy; "there wasn't the smallest use in thinking of anything else. I told her 'twould just stop Polly from ever being a musician if she broke off now—and so 'twould, you know yourself, Marian, for we should never get the child here again, if we let her go now; and I talked—well, I had to talk some; but, well—the upshot is I did get her, and I did bring her—and here she is!" And the old gentleman was so ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... of fours, to the tune of jingling accoutrements, the squadron swung. Prescott wheeled about and rode forward at a walk. In the same instant, the bugler, a musician belonging to the Regular Army, trotted forward, then slowed down to a walk close to the young squadron commander. From that time on, all the commands were to ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... Rubini or the opera," said the old man, sadly. "That is a pleasure that, rich as I am, I cannot give to my daughter. She was once a great musician, and the opera was ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... rioting! What blasphemy! If you can think that there is not more profaneness than piety in such sensual revelries—why, it is that you do not know how to think. You would have learnt to reason better had you known that sweet poet and musician, and true thinker, Mr. John Milton, with whom it was my privilege to converse frequently during my husband's lifetime, and afterwards when he condescended to accept my son for his pupil, and spent three days and ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... magnificent voice, as if a prayer from her very heart for all who were in distress, in the grand supplication, "Lord, remember David." Mary held her breath, unwilling to lose a note, it was so clear, so perfect, so imploring. A far more correct musician than Mary might have paused with equal admiration of the really scientific knowledge with which the poor depressed-looking young needlewoman used her superb and flexile voice. Deborah Travis herself (once an Oldham factory girl, and afterwards the darling of fashionable ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... child, who is destined to become a doctor, solicitor, soldier, shopkeeper, labourer, or worker in any ordinary occupation; but the thought-germ that will find entrance to the brain-cells of a future painter, writer, actor, or musician, must represent some propensity of a more or ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... gifted musician; and for several years was the organist for one of the most prominent churches in her native city. On the morning of September 19, 1889, she was married to Bishop Charles Calvin Pettey, A. M., D. D. Immediately after her marriage ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... fire, on, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's golden hair! Fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ's keys; blow, bugler, blow until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Glad to see you, Mr. Sherwood, oh, Shirley! It seems as though I had heard your name—aren't you an actor, or an artist? A musician, or something like that? My memory ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... is a general rule by means of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and, using the first rule, to derive the score again. That is what constitutes the inner similarity between these things which seem to be constructed in such ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... great, the reeds of the swell, piled one upon another in a splendid harmony. He looked up and saw the lengthened windows that indicated the location of the chapel, which apparently extended the full height of the building. The musician within added a two-foot stop, the final needed element of brilliancy, crowning the edifice of sound his fingers had reared, so that now the music seemed to burst through the half-open windows and to shake the vines ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... enter public life. 'A lawyer indeed! Will you wrangle in public with notaries' sons, defend murderers and burglars, and take fees like the old men who write letters for the peasants under a, green umbrella in the street? It would be almost better to turn musician and give concerts.' 'The Church, perhaps?' I suggest. 'The Church? Are you not the heir, and will you not be the head of the family some day? You must be mad.' 'Then give me a sum of money and let me try my luck with my cousin San Giacinto.' 'Business? ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... Lover, who recently arrived in this city, is said to be a good poet, a good painter, a good musician, full of wit, anecdotes and pleasantry—it is impossible to pass a dull evening ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... visits, I found out that the church warden was a good musician, and that he knew others in the parish who were able to play on various instruments; so in order to improve the services, and make them more attractive, I urged him to invite these musical people to his house to practise; and in due course we had a clarionet, two fiddles, ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... Sulloway, who happened to be in town, to promise he'd come and tell some funny anecdotes. He ain't a regular doctor—he just took it up; a guy with long black curls and a big moustache and a big hat and diamond pin, that goes round selling Indian Snake Oil off a wagon. Doc said he'd have his musician, Ed Bemis, come, too. He said Ed was known far and wide as the world's challenge cornetist. I says all right, if he'll play something neutral; and Doc says he'll play "Listen to the Mocking Bird," with variations, and play it so swell you'll think you're perched right up in the treetops listening ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... musician shows in wonderful music-pictures how Siegfried went out into the early morning, and how the light glittered on the trembling leaves and sifted through in little splashes. He stood still, listening to the stir of the ...
— Child Stories from the Masters - Being a Few Modest Interpretations of Some Phases of the - Master Works Done in a Child Way • Maud Menefee
... force me to abandon any pursuit by competing with me; for knowing that failure is inevitable, rather than fight against destiny I give up de bonne grace. Originally, I was said to have a talent for the piano, as well as Miriam. Sister and Miss Isabella said I would make a better musician than she, having more patience and perseverance. However, I took hardly six months' lessons to her ever so many years; heard how well she played, got disgusted with myself, and gave up the piano at fourteen, with spasmodic ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... a musician, And in a pipe delighteth; It descends in a close Through the organ of the nose. With a relish that inviteth. Song: ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... are listening to something which belonged originally to Beale Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. The original "Memphis Blues," so far as it can be credited to a composer, must be credited to Mr. W. C. Handy, a colored musician ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... before the eye the beauty of the universe; and to throw wide its portals of duty and of power to the human soul. It must honor the poet and painter, the writer and the teacher, the scientist and the inventor, the musician and the prophet of righteousness—the men of genius in all fields who make life nobler. It must call forth anew, and for finer uses, the pioneer's love of creative individualism and provide for it a spiritual atmosphere friendly to the ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... had the reputation of possessing unwearying patience, I was selected to give him private lessons. That was how I obtained a footing in the Gilmore family. Later on, when they had found out that I was somewhat of a musician—you may remember, perhaps, that for an amateur I was a tolerable performer on the piano—I went every day to the house to teach Latin and Greek to Francis, and music ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... enterprise was occupying the breast of his friend and how much of an emotion a good bit stronger. Amory himself was not in love, but there existed between him and all who were a special kinship, like that between a lover of music and a musician. ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... worked in the government tobacco factory at Seville until a clever writer and a musician rescued her. Went on the stage. Has appeared in most of the cities throughout the world, made love to several singers, and then been killed by a bull fighter after singing her way ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... and sometimes Daddy could guess the story almost. Tante used to shake her head and Daddy would say, 'Leave her alone—she knows more than we do.' I don't know what he meant, but some day I shall study hard and try to be a great musician. Daddy said-I should-only he said I must wait until my body grew as strong as ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... surplices, with a serious air and their eyes fixed on the psalter, sang at the top of their voices in the clear morning air. Each time they stopped to take breath, the "serpent" continued its bellowing alone, and as he puffed out his cheeks the musician's little gray eyes disappeared, and the skin of his forehead ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... were white. Better chorus work is not often heard. Tougaloo is fortunate not only in having had competent music teachers, but in having in Prof. Hill, Dean of the Normal Department, a most capable musician. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... the pianolist's repertory opens up a field for speculation into which, fortunately, it is quite possible for the layman to follow the musician and to appreciate the point I wish to make. As many purchasers of pianolas are people who never have received musical instruction, it might be supposed that the most popular selections for the instrument would be either bits of musical slang ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... a musician's gallery, which overlooked the chamber in which the incantations were about to take place, the sorcerer showed me a strange instrument, compounded of lenses set in a black box in which burned a small lamp. "Fear not, Benvenuto," he whispered, ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended; and, I think, The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many things by season, seasoned are To their right praise and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... for the animal only; but the Professor watched John to the exclusion of everything else. When the first strains vibrated he glanced around, and saw the musician. From that moment until George dropped the violin his eyes never ceased the stare. As the music continued he appeared to be enraptured, if such a thing could be said ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... leaning toward her, in his hand a menu which the waiter had placed before the girl while she was still alone. She noticed that the hand was brown and nervous-looking, the hand of a man who might be a musician or an artist. He was pretending to read the menu, and to consult her about it. "You're a true woman, the right sort—brave. I swear I'm not here for any impertinence. Now, will you go on helping me? Can you keep your wits and not give me ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... what honor, what profit can accrue to you from such conduct as yours? One moment you tell me you are going to become the greatest musician in the world, and straight you fill my house with fiddlers. Tri. I am clear out of that scrape now, sir. Old F. Then from a fiddler you are metamorphosed into a philosopher; and for the noise of drums, trumpets, and hautboys, you substitute ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... to the child," said the musician; "sure he did it no harm. But where at all did he learn to play that way? That's what I'm thinking. Have you been letting him learn all this time and never ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... This version is intended to be a vivid reminder of the drama to those who have seen it at Bayreuth, and also to give to those who have not seen it a fuller glimpse of the majestic story than has hitherto been possible to find in English. The genius of Wagner as a musician has so far overshadowed all else, that his genius as a poet and as an exquisite reteller of the old legends has ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... played upon by the unknown musician of the sleepless hours. Now a mad, ecstatic chorus dinned in her ears and set her blood coursing; and again despair seized her with a dirge. Periods of semiconsciousness only came to her, and from one of these ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... childhood. This criticism hardly applies to the new century, which has been called the century of the child. The fate of little Henry Lindner who is to be transformed by hook or by crook from a dreamy musician into a circumspect efficient man, and who suffers shipwreck on the reefs of mathematics, reminds us in many ways of the tragedy of the last Buddenbrook, Hanno, whose delicate sensibility is crushed out by the discipline of the school. A few years later there, appeared in Hermann Hesse's On the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... answered he was very much obliged to him. We were presently afterwards entertained with the most delicious voice I had ever heard, accompanied by a violin, equal to Signior Piantinida. I presently discovered the musician and songster ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... over indulgent, however, in the treatment of the German enemy alien within our gates. No American singer or musician could travel about Germany at will, unwatched by the police, collecting money from Americans to be used in propaganda, or things much worse, against America. Americans in Germany are compelled to report twice daily to ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... born in the romantic country of Switzerland. He was educated tolerably well; he was a good musician, and could draw excellently. He possessed a small, though independent fortune. However, notwithstanding his advantages and acquirements, he proved, when he became a lover, to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... you care to learn How many tinkling cups were served in turn,— Add all together, you will find them ten,— Our young MUSICIAN joined us now and then. Our bright DELILAH you must needs recall, The comely handmaid, youngest of us all; Need I remind you how the little maid Came at a pinch to our Professor's aid,— Trimmed his long locks with unrelenting shears And eased his looks of half ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... bin al-Mahdi, a pretender to the Caliphate of well known wit and a famed musician surnamed from his corpulence "Al-Tannin"the Dragon or, according to others (Lane ii. 336), "Al-Tin" the fig. His adventurous history will be found in Ibn Khallikan D'Herbelot ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... young musician, later the well-known composer and Concert Director, Victor Bendix, I plunged into the mysteries of thorough-bass, and went so far as to write out the entire theory of harmonics. I learnt to express myself in the barbaric ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... liberty of asking the monarch what he thought of this extraordinary performance? 'I think,' replied he, coldly, 'that it would gain him great credit among a nation of monkeys.' Another time he was present at the exhibitions of a celebrated musician, who was reputed to possess unrivalled skill in playing soft and melting tunes upon the lyre. All the audience seemed to feel the influence of his art, by their inarticulate murmurs of admiration, and the languishing postures of their bodies. When the exhibition was ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... good a Socialist as you could find, and Socialists had nothing to do with bombs! But young Emil Forster—he had been making explosives in his spare hours, had he not? At which Jimmie became still more outraged. He knew young Emil well; the boy was a carpet-designer and musician, and if anybody had told such tales about him, they were lying, that was all. The questioner went on for an hour or so, tormenting poor Jimmie with such doubts and fears; until finally he dropped a little of his sternness of manner, and told Jimmie that he had ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... an exquisite prose poem—words strung on thought-threads of gold—in which a musician tells his love for one whom he has found to be his ideal. The idea is not new, but the opinion is ventured that nowhere has it been one-half so well carried out as in the 'Love Letters of a Musician.' The ecstacy of hope, the apathy of despair, alternate in these enchanting letters, ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... four days, and the Venetian ambassador invited all the ministers to the rehearsal in the grand hall of his palace. The music was pronounced exquisite; the two other acts were written, and in a fortnight the opera was put upon the stage. The musician was rewarded handsomely, but I was considered too grand to work for money and my reward was paid me in the Court money of compliments. However, I was glad to see that the ambassador was proud of me and that the minister's ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... succession by poets, by painters, and by novelists. A great musician had the privilege of measuring the portions of the cake for some time; an ambassador succeeded him. Sometimes a man less well known, but elegant and sought after, one of those who are called according to the different epochs, "true gentleman," or "perfect knight," ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... generous and sweet-tempered toward me when I was in her company. She was her husband's superior in birth, as in everything else; was a great reader of books in all languages; and possessed such admirable talents as a musician, that her wonderful playing on the organ is remembered and talked of to this day among the old people in our country houses about here. All her friends, as I have heard, were disappointed when she married Mr. Welwyn, rich as he was; and were afterward astonished ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... These he wove into a Sanscrit poem, which three hundred years later was translated into Chinese, from which version our present translation is made. There can be no doubt that the author of the Sanscrit poem was a famous preacher and musician. Originally living in central India, he seems to have wandered far and wide exercising his office, and reciting or singing his poem—a sacred epic, more thrilling to the ears of India than the wrath of ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... people knew that at the top of the tower was a chime of Christmas bells. They had hung there ever since the church had been built, and were the most beautiful bells in the world. Some thought it was because a great musician had cast them and arranged them in their place; others said it was because of the great height, which reached up where the air was clearest and purest; however that might be no one who had ever heard the chimes denied that they were the sweetest ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... singer, a song written by a would-be poet, and set by a would-be musician. Verve was there none in the whole ephemeral embodiment. When it died a natural death, if that be possible where never had been any life, Vavasor said, "Thank you, Raymount." But Hester, who had been standing with her teeth clenched under the fiery rain ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... fill the beaks of the callow fledglings? Yet this is precisely what France is doing. She does her utmost to produce artists by the artificial heat of competitive examination; but, the sculptor, painter, engraver, or musician once turned out by this mechanical process, she no more troubles herself about them and their fate than the dandy cares for yesterday's flower in his buttonhole. And so it happens that the really great man is a ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... "coster poet", music-hall artist, and musician of French extraction was born in Hammersmith. He is a careful, competent actor of minor parts, and sings his own little ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... logical co-ordination of the social fabric. I will now explain my meaning by literal examples, leaving aside all purely abstract reasoning, which I call the mathematics of thought. Instead of being, as you are, a proprietor living upon your income, let us suppose that you are painter, a musician, an artist, or ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... mother. But he professed the tenets of the Catholic Church, and satisfied Pope Clement, in an interview when the young prince was only thirteen, that his Catholic education was sound and complete. For the rest, he was a graceful musician, spoke French, Spanish, and Italian as readily as English, and was skilled in the use of arms. As far as the cultivation of mind or body vent, he might fairly be considered to hold his own with any of the preceding sovereigns and princes ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... extent, at least, they are as dependent as the poorest; but they are quite sure that the great composers have no message for the poor. There is difficult music, of course, which only the scholarly musician can appreciate; but much of the very best music, if we once have a chance to become familiar with it, appeals to all of us. Then the artistic temperament is not a matter of either condition or race, as one of our young American musicians ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... have taken a heart of flint to withstand such pleading. Nancy left the musician and went boldly ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... Europe, erudition, research, and collections of rules have not been wanting. Much has been accomplished, but an exhaustive work, based upon the simple laws of nature, has (so far as the writer can learn) never yet appeared. The profoundly learned and truly great Bohemian musician, W. J. Tomaschek, who died in 1849, taught a system of musical science founded upon a series of beautiful and easily comprehended natural laws. His logical training and wide general cultivation gave ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... content with it alone....The musical sense implies the intelligence....The theory...applies to a great number of sonorous sensations, and not at all to any musical perceptions." Mr. W.H. Hadow tells us that it is the duty of the musician not to flatter the sense with an empty compliment of sound, but to reach through sensation to the mental faculties within. And again we read "the art of the composer is in a sense the discovery and exposition of the INTELLIGIBLE relations in the ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... ode (3:19) "to the chief musician"—the Hebrew word is the same that so often occurs in the titles of the Psalms—implies that this ode was to be used in the solemn worship of God. The added words, "on my stringed instruments," are most naturally understood of those under his charge as a leader in the service of song ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... everything goes to feed the brain; nor in a pugilist in training, where everything goes to feed the muscles. The result is disease. We all know the musical instrument called the harp. All the strings are tuned into perfect harmony. If there is a false note struck, that is a sign to the musician that there is something wrong, and that the instrument needs to be tuned. The discord is a symptom, that some cords are out of order. So, bad temper is a sign that some string in our moral constitution is out of harmony ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... author of the clever novel 'Le Rouge et le Noir' (that is the right title of the book, which has nothing to do with the name); the author's name is Stendhal, or so he calls himself. I think that he was either a musician or a musical critic, and that he is dead.... My visitor has not yet arrived (6 o'clock, p.m.), frightened no doubt by the abruptness of the two notes which I wrote in reply to hers yesterday morning; and indeed nobody could fancy the hurry in which one ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... this pleasant word spoke, But in comes the beggar in a silken cloak, A velvet cap and a feather had he, And now a musician, forsooth, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... tonality; consonance; consent; part. [Science of harmony] harmony, harmonics; thorough-bass, fundamental- bass; counterpoint; faburden[obs3]. piece of music &c. 415[Fr]; composer, harmonist[obs3], contrapuntist (musician) 416. V. be harmonious &c. adj.; harmonize, chime, symphonize[obs3], transpose; put in tune, tune, accord, string. Adj. harmonious, harmonical[obs3]; in concord &c. n., in tune, in concert; unisonant[obs3], concentual[obs3], symphonizing[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... academic drawing is all that can be really taught, and is as necessary to the painter as the practising of exercises is to the musician, that his powers of observation and execution may be trained. But the vital matter of art is not in all this necessary training. And this fact the student should always keep in mind, and be ever ready to give rein to those natural enthusiasms which, if he is an artist, he will find welling up within ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed |
