"Banjo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sat on the porch of his little square-fronted house, chanting into the twilight. Across his padded blouse of purple silk lay his sam-yen banjo. And as, from time to time, his hymn to the Three Pure Ones was prolonged in high, fine quavers, like the uneven, squeaky notes of a woman's voice, he ran his left hand up the slender neck of the instrument, rested ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... nice girl, but I had roomed with her at school, and I was under no illusions. When Jim raved about Bella and her banjo, and Bella and her guitar, I had painful moments when I recalled Bella, learning her two songs on each instrument, and the old English ballad she had learned to play on the harp. When he said she was too good for him, I never batted an eye. And I shook hands solemnly across the ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... we called our business 'The Graphic Company.' We had five or six young fellows, all musicians, as well as handy painters, and we used to capture the towns with our music. One fellow could whistle like a nightingale, another sang like an angel, and another played the banjo. I scuffled with the violin ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... go with peacocks' feathers and guitars. I can see Dick with a single peacock's feather at St. Giles's Fair, when the bulldogs are not looking; but the decorative panel of peacock's feathers is too much for him. I can imagine him with a banjo—but a guitar decorated with pink ribbons! To begin with he is not dressed for it. Unless a family be prepared to make themselves up as troubadours or cavaliers and to talk blank verse, I don't see how they can expect to be happy living in these fifteenth-century ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... admitted. "There was a mining fellow who used to come over and clean out my whiskey, and sing gruesome songs for hours together to a banjo that had, I think, two strings. I stayed out all night quite frequently when I had reason to believe that he was coming. Then, we killed a good many tarantulas—and a few equally venomous pests—but when all was done it left one hours to sit staring at the sage-brush and wonder whether ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... got out his banjo and played "Shady Grove," and "Blind Coon Dog," and "Sugar Hill," and "Gamblin' Man," while Chad's eyes glistened and his feet shuffled under his chair. And when Dolph put the rude thing down on the bed and went into the kitchen, Chad edged toward it and, while old Joel was bragging ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... hut among de bushes, One dat I love, Still sadly to my memory rushes, No matter where I rove. When will I see de bees a-humming All round de comb? When will I hear de banjo tumming, Down in my good ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... his banjo, and when the party had settled low about the fire it helped to keep alive the talk. Every few minutes the taffy and the coyotes were demanded in turn, and Glover was kept busy apologizing for the absence of the wolves and the slowness of his ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... this worthy, who by the way had been previously chaffed by his brother officers, such is the levity of sailors in imminent peril, about the gun accident not having provided him with any patients. "Hullo, Pompey, you've forgotten your banjo and bones!" ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fact of his college training to her, and he was really thinking just then that he would like to give them a serio-comic song, for which he had been famous with his class. He borrowed the violin of a Kanuck, and, sitting down, strummed upon it banjo-wise. The song was one of those which is partly spoken and acted; he really did it very well; but the Willett and Witherby ladies did not seem to understand it quite; and the gentlemen looked as if they thought this very undignified business for an ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... mirabile dictu! at these great social gatherings of man-and-animal kind, there has not been even "a negro- pew" for the donkey. A genuine, raw, Guinea negro might have as well entered the Prince of Wales' Ball in New York bare-footed, and offered to play a voluntary on his banjo for the dancers, as this despised quadruped have hoped to obtain the entree to these grand and fashionable assemblies of the shorter-eared ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... march ceased to execute, discomfited by the persistent and overpowering violin; the banjo and the coster-songs were given over; even the collegians' music was defeated; and the neighborhood was forced to listen to the dauntless fiddle, but not without protest, for there came an indignant, spoken chorus from the quarter whence the college ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... ever seen, this concert is," Alice's escort would declare fervently. "Sh, Tommie, the banjo club's ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... two pistols, such as courteous Claude Duval used for side-arms. Opposite were two old rifles, and beneath them two stone beer-mugs, and a German student's pipe absurdly long and richly ornamented. A mantel close by was filled with curiosities, and near it hung a banjo unstrung, a tennis-racket, and a blazer of startling colors. Plainly they were relics of German student life, and the odd contrast they made with the rough wall and ceiling suggested a sharp change in the fortunes of ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... had a nickname for each of us, and if any one was missing she had to hear all about it. Many a pleasant evening we spent in her little home. A bunch of us would go together, and we would take along our mandolin, banjo, and mouth organ, and have a little concert; Madame would sit there and smile, not understanding a word we said, but enjoying seeing us having a good time—another thing, it was always warm there, and that was something that ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... the experience of a lifetime. Meanwhile Von Baumser, at the other end, was floundering about with a broad smile upon his face and an elderly lady tucked under his right arm, while he held her disengaged hand straight out at right angles, as if she had been a banjo. In short, the fun was fast and furious, and waltz followed polka and mazurka followed waltz with a rapidity which weeded out the weaker vessels among the dancers and tested the stamina ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... upon an instrument' can still be seen on the modern mandoline, guitar, and banjo. In Shakespeare days, the viol, lute, and cittern all had frets on the fingerboard, but they were then simply bits of string tied round at the right places for the fingers, and made fast with glue. Their use is referred to in the next line, to 'tune' the strings, i.e., to 'stop' ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... birds after a shower of rain, and for those who see in such a fire no mere holocaust of dead twigs, but the Red Flower of the Jungle, the symbol and spirit of wild life, this spontaneous minstrelsy has a charm peculiarly its own. A charm of the simplest, certainly; for at camp-fires the banjo reigns supreme; and the aptest songs are those that 'rip your very heartstrings out' and offer fine facilities ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... to eat, and in the midst of the meal they heard another knock on the door. This time Ned Lowe was there, one of their chums who was a great singer and banjo player. ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... from Miss Blake, a banjo from her father, skates from Delia, she had longed for just such a new pair, and innumerable other articles bearing no giver's name, but coming, every one, from the same generous source Nan knew well enough. She absolutely ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... graduated from Madison, and in his day at college had done much to relieve the gray Calvinistic tone of that sedate institution. It was he who had transformed the old "college chorus"—it had been a "chorus" almost from the foundation—into a glee club, and he had organized the first guitar and banjo club. The pleasant glow he left behind him still hung over the campus when Fred entered four years later. Charles's meteoric social career had dimmed the fact (save to a few sober professors) that he had got through by the skin of his teeth. Fred's plodding ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... first lot I have to offer you is a screen,—six foot high,—bring out the screen, Theodore! There it is, gentlemen,—open it out, Theodore! Observe, Gentlemen it is carved rosewood, the panels hand painted, and representing shepherds, and shepherdesses, disporting themselves under a tree with banjo and guitar. Now what am I offered for this hand-painted, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... I see um. Dey put um on banjo table and sell um just lak chicken. Nigger ain't no more den chicken and animal, ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... nonsense. How can a man marry an archangel, let alone a lady. My mother was a lady and she married a dying fiddler who tramped the roads; and the mixture plays the cat and banjo with my body and soul. I can see my mother now cooking food in dirtier and dirtier lodgings, darning socks with weaker and weaker eyes when she might have worn pearls by consenting to be ...
— Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton
... not the reply according to time-honoured formula, and Charlie, who was expecting something quite different, was at no pains to hide his perplexity. "A banjo?" he repeated, slowly, "a ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... being also a younger son of a retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strange aberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have been written with an exclusive view to his person. When he did not play the banjo he loved to sit and look at it. He proceeded to this sentimental inspection, and after meditating a while over the strings under my silent scrutiny ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... without any special bent for music, or art, may want to play on a drum, or a banjo—or to paint pictures with water-colors—and through the effort devoted to this want, encourage the growth of tastes and feelings, which may prove of benefit ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... laid down, and an awning placed over them to make a place where bags of cotton were tied up to be taken to the gin. Gathered around this platform were a number of negro men, women and children. One of the men had an old banjo, and though the instrument seemed battered and broken, he managed to get ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... Sabbath. This is often encouraged by slaveholders. When they wish to have a little sport of that kind, they go among the slaves and give them whiskey, to see them dance, "pat juber," sing and play on the banjo. Then get them to wrestling, fighting, jumping, running foot races, and butting each other like sheep. This is urged on by giving them whiskey; making bets on them; laying chips on one slave's head, and daring another to tip ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... barometer of the banjo type in the parlour of the White House, which, whatever might have been its character for veracity in former days, had now become such an inveterate story-teller, that it was pretty safe to accept as true, exactly the reverse of what ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... "in Pop" before he was seventeen, and yet as simple and unaffected and unspoilt with it all as the small boy whom I remembered. And I did remember him, and knew his mother well enough to believe it all; for she did not chant his praises to organ music, but rather hummed them to the banjo; and one felt that her own demure humour, so signal and so permanent a charm in Catherine, would have been ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... mixed entertainment that followed, in which dancing and singing, banjo playing, and a liberal display of the anatomy of the female "artists" formed the principal features, they sipped their beer and applauded loudly the efforts of those who ministered to ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... they were a little more at their ease for each came back with a flower. By a little after three all had arrived, the Porter boys with their Punch and Judy show which they had promised to bring, and Ben with his banjo. All the girls wore plain frocks with no extra ornaments, Margaret herself being not much better dressed than her friends ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... were deserted. Since the occurrences of the afternoon all the people had locked themselves into their houses, to await the departure of the Americans. But, even though the casino was closed, the Yankees managed to have a good time. They sang and danced and played the banjo until an early hour in the morning, when they finally went to sleep, leaving only two for a night watch, for there was no danger that the insurgents would return, after their engagement, in which they ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... knoll you looked straight along the main street; with a field-gun you could have swept it clean from end to end, and, what's more, you wouldn't have hurt a soul. The place was dead empty—not so much as a cur to sit on the sidewalk—and the only hint of life was the laughing and banjo-playing indoors. You could hear that plain enough. Every second house in the place was a saloon, and every saloon seemed to have a billiard-table and a banjo player. I never heard anything like it. I should say, if you divided the population into four parts, that two of these were ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... chanted tipsily, as he strummed softly the strings of a muffled banjo. And Raoul Bethune, with the flush of liquor upon his pale cheeks, joined in the laugh that followed, and replenished his glass from the black bottle he had contrived to smuggle from the hospital stores when he had been returned to his room in the dormitory. And "Monk" Bethune he was ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... needed one for two years," said the lieutenant, genially. "But fancy your knowing Sparks! He has the next station to mine; I'm at one end of the Shire River and he's at the other; he patrols from Fort Johnson up to the top of the lake. I suppose you've heard him play the banjo, haven't you? That's where we hit it off—we're both terribly keen about the banjo. I suppose if it wasn't for my banjo, I'd go quite off my head down here. I know Sparks would. You see, I have these chaps ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... amazing coffee-coloured pictures varnished an inch deep, and some stuffed creatures in cases; dotted among the audience, in Sung and out of Snug, the 'Professionals;' among them, the celebrated comic favourite Mr. Banjo Bones, looking very hideous with his blackened face and limp sugar-loaf hat; beside him, sipping rum-and-water, Mrs. Banjo Bones, in her natural colours—a ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... without interruption. An occasional burst of laughter floated down the corridor. At some distance away, on the same deck of barracks in Bancroft Hall, a midshipman was industriously twanging away on a banjo. Darrin, however, absorbed in his novel, paid no heed to any of the signs of Saturday-night jollity. He was a third of the way through an exciting tale when there came a knock on the door—-a moment later a head was ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... at the little fellow and whispers, "You let me manage 'em! Stay up till broad daylight if we take a notion—eh?" And Billy dances off again in newer glee, while the inspired musician is plunking a banjo imitation on his enchanted instrument, which is unceremoniously drowned out by a circus-tune from Doc that is absolutely inspiring to everyone but the barefooted brother, who drops back listlessly to his old position ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... he 'struckt read, write, many, many tings, and young Missa 'Genie she teach her de music. 'Rore she 'complish gal—berry 'complish gal. Know many ting; jes like de white folks. Plays on de peany—plays on de guitar—guitar jes like banjo, an Ole Zip play on ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... and Amiel's stout and amiable parents joined their offspring in the summerhouse. One of the affable, if uninteresting, neighbors came as well and, promptly introducing a banjo as a reason for his being, lured the assembled company ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... machine by a slow clockwork motion, bending one knee every time as they curtsey sideways toward the machine. They earn very good wages and look healthy; but, where the wool is dyed, what with the dye and what with the oil, the piecers are all ready toileted to sing to a banjo; and sometimes, with rubbing their faces with their dirty ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... Hogan says that almost anny time he ixpicts to see a black face peerin' through a window an' in a few years I'll be takin' in laundhry in a basement instead iv occypyin' me present impeeryal position, an' ye'll be settin' in front iv ye'er cabin home playin' on a banjo an' watchin' ye'er little pickahinnissies rollickin' on th' ground an' wondhrn' whin th' ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... on the list—he's got 'em on the list; And they'll none of 'em be missed—they'll none of 'em be missed. There's the banjo serenader, and the others of his race, And the piano-organist—I've got him on the list! And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face, They never would be missed—they never would be missed! Then the idiot who ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... say, you know, Shepler," protested one of the solemn young men, "he must still talk like a banjo." ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... jes' takes up my banjo an' I plays a little chune, An' you see dem hai'ds come peepin' out to listen mighty soon. Den my wife say, "Sich a pappy fer to give you sich a fright! Jes' you go to bed, an' leave him, say yo' prayers, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... mortal ear. At such times it would seem as if his soul were in a trance, and could only find existence, expression, in the ecstasy of tone, that would catch our souls with his into the very seventh heaven of harmony. Or, in merry mood, I have seen him take a banjo, for he could play on any instrument, and as with deft fingers he would strike some strange new note or chord, you would see his eyes brighten, he would begin to smile and laugh as if his very soul were tickled, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... had been instructed to keep the matter absolutely secret, he could not turn to them for relief. He worried through the long Saturday, making futile attacks on the work prescribed for Monday, strumming in an aimless way on his banjo, and finally writing his mother a letter between the lines of which she ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... brother do not delay As fleeting time and sudden death for no man ever wait!" "Praise God!" the lassie's war-cry is, the keynote of her song. To the tune of "Annie Roonie" and kindred fervid lay With mandolin and banjo, marching in bold array The devil's strongholds storming, battling to victory— With banners flying, the tambourine and drum Forever has she silenced the shamans vile tom-tom. All Fetish Spirit-medicine she has tabooed, ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... this time and could only look at his comrades in helpless wonder. Then the twang of a banjo sounded through the rooms and to the thrumming of the strings came a voice in rich ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... from the day after Christmas until the day after New-year, is the negroes' saturnalia! There are usually eight days of incessant dancing, feasting and frolicking from quarter to quarter, and from barn to barn. Then the banjo, the fiddle and the "bones" are heard from morning until night, and from ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... give my fancies words, they would rank with the great creations of genius. At the dulcet name of Mellasys a fairy scene grew before my eyes. I seemed to see an army of merry negroes cultivating the sugar-cane to the inspiring music of a banjo band. Ever and anon a company of the careless creatures would pause and dance for pure gayety of heart. Then they would recline under the shade of the wild bandanna-tree,—I know this vegetable only through the artless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... natural musician. He could play "any old instrument," and extract very good music from banjo, guitar, violin, or even an accordion; he also had a fine voice that often aroused the enthusiastic acclaim of his comrades while sitting around ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... moonlight, and from near and far away came the sounds of Charleston, voices, the sound of traffic and then, a thread of tune tying moonbeams, magnolias, carnations and cherokee roses in a great southern bunch, came the notes of a banjo, plunk, plunk, and a voice from somewhere away in the back premises, the voice of a negro singing one of the ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... hung the deadly nightshade at your cabin-doors, and your blood is turning to water. You are beginning to wither away. You shiver in the sunshine; you don't want to eat; your hearts are heavy and you don't feel like work; and when you come from the field you don't take down the banjo and pat and shuffle and dance, but you sit down in the corner with your heads on your hands, and would go to sleep, but you know that as soon as you shut your eyes she will cast hers on you through the chinks in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... the tree above him. Some new danger, he thought, but he dared not take his eyes from the yellow green orbs before him. There was a sharp twang as of a broken banjo-string, and at the same instant an arrow appeared in the yellow hide of the ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... splendid painting by West, "Christ healing the Sick." We then visited the Musical Fund Hall, and heard the far-famed Ethiopian serenaders, Messrs. German, Hanwood, Harrington, Warren, and Pelham, upon the accordion, banjo, congo-tambo, and bone-castanets, in all of which they stand unrivalled in the world. They were representing Niggers' lives, with songs, &c. Home and ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... nothing better to do," he assured her. "And my patience is well rewarded. Hope you're keen on music. I've brought my banjo for the Rajah's edification. It's better than a tomtom anyway. I wonder if the fates have put us next to each other. I'll lay you five rupees to ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Ratcliff Road into polite literature. That is quite true. He owes his fame partly also to the brilliance with which he talked adventure and talked "shop" to a generation that was exceptionally greedy for both. He, more than any other writer of his time, set to banjo-music the restlessness of the young man who would not stay at home—the romance of the man who lived and laboured at least a thousand miles away from the home of his fathers. He excited the imagination of youth with deft questions ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... black faces are pretty much the same," said he. "Their predominant expression is black, but I haven't got the fixings nor the coloured pants and things, to say nothing of a banjo, so I reckon you'll just have to be Mr. Isaacson, and you may thank the God of the Hebrews I haven't made you an old clothes man—watches are respectable. Here are your letters, they are short but credible. ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... left," answered the father of the boy next door. "You see, Mrs. Brown, I had to correct Fred for doing something wrong. He spent some money to buy a banjo that he had promised—I had told him I would get him a fine banjo ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... sang a song whose first line is something like the words 'Georgie Porgie.' Most men who have been in Burma will know the song. It means: 'Puff, puff, puff, puff, great steamboat!' Georgie sang it to his banjo, and his friends shouted with delight, so that you could hear them far ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... over Hopwood could be relied on to provide baths. Ross, as has been said, considered himself an expert at swizzling cocktails, and all three men had a fancy for playing the banjo, which they ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... child, whose sole luggage is a small bandbox and a large banjo, is without, and requests the favour of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... spokesman for the Anglo-Saxon breed. His gospel of orderly energy is the inspiration of thousands of business offices; his sententious maxims are parts of current speech: the victrola has carried his singing lyrics even farther than the banjo penetrates, of which latter democratic instrument his wonderful poem is the apotheosis. And we have the word of a distinguished British major-general to prove that Mr. Kipling has wrought a miracle of transformation with Tommy Atkins. General Sir George Younghusband, in ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... (which is alliterative,) pretty, piquant, and addicted to the banjo. The latter characteristic is inseparable from her. In whatever situation the dramatist may place her, whether in a London drawing-room or a Cockney kitchen, whether on an Algerian battle-field or in a California mining-camp, she is certain to produce the inevitable banjo, and to sing ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... shone brightly. I heard a banjo in the distance and a cowboy sing. There was not a person in sight in the wide courts or on the porch. I did not have a well-defined idea about ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... too big for you, and besides, there ain't nothin' to fite about." By this time Jim was makin' rite towards us. I put myself in position, and by the time he got to us every muscle in my body was strung as tite as a banjo. I was worked up powerful, and felt like I could whip a campmeetin' of wild cats. Shore enuf Jim stepped up defiantly, and lookin' me rite in the eye, says he, "I dare anybody to hit that," and he touched ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... boor that couldn't appreciate the Taj Mahal, or the sculpture of Michael Angelo, might be swept off his feet by the music of a master, though he couldn't understand its story. Besides, I've carried a banjo and a cornet to the ends of the earth with me. I saved my life with the cornet once. A lion got inside my zareba in Rhodesia. I hadn't my gun within reach, but I'd been playing the cornet, and just as he was crouching I blew a blast from it—one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... upon the possibilities of plaintive Negro melodies, which they of course capitalized. In New York late in 1842 four men—"Dan" Emmett, Frank Brower, "Billy" Whitlock, and "Dick" Pelham—practiced together with fiddle and banjo, "bones" and tambourine, and thus was born the first company, the "Virginia Minstrels," which made its formal debut in New York February 17, 1843. Its members produced in connection with their work all sorts of popular songs, one of Emmett's being "Dixie," which, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... hath charms—at least it should; Even a homely voice sounds good That sings a cheerful, gladsome song That shortens the way, however long. A screechy fife, a bass drum's beat Is wonderful music to marching feet; A scratchy fiddle or banjo's thump May tickle the toes till they want to jump. But one musician fills the air With discords that jar folks everywhere. A pity it is he ever was born— The discordant fellow who ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... in our next." Finally, however, the singers had sung themselves hoarse in the damp night air, the last "Spanish Cavalier" had been safely restored to his inevitable true-love, and the sound of voices and banjo floated away over the water. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... Church, is run on a pabulum of falsehood. Englishmen would hardly believe such lying possible, but the Freeman, as a liar, has, by constant practice, attained virtuosity. What Rubinstein is on the piano, what Blondin was on the tight-rope, what the Bohee Brothers are on the banjo, what Sims Reeves was in the ballad world, what Irving is in histrionic art, what Spurgeon was as a preacher, what Patti is in opera, what Gladstone is as a word-spinner, what Tim Healy is as a ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Palmer; spare and wiry, slim-faced, a large hooked nose, a tuft of beard on his chin. He had no particular calling or trade; first a hotel keeper, then a house or boat painter, paper hanger or decorator, saloonkeeper, book-agent, banjo player and cheap gambler. He was good-natured. His wife was the head man of the family; what Node lacked in spirit she made up in talk. Node was kind in his way to his wife and children, who accepted his efforts in their behalf without any untoward semblance of gratitude ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... dancers a couple of fellows were playing on a drum and a little banjo. They were singing a chorus, which was not only singular, and perfectly marked in the rhythm, but exceeding sweet in the tune. They danced in a circle; and performers came trooping from all quarters, who fell into the round, and began waggling their heads, and waving their left hands, and tossing ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... drawing-room, which was beautifully decorated. It was full of knick-knacks, and some plates hung up on the wall. There were several little wooden milk- stools with paintings on them; also a white wooden banjo, painted by one of Mr. Paul Finsworth's nieces—a cousin ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... from his baggage," announced Ned, looking from the window. Tom saw his rival taking something from one of the packs slung across the back of a mule. Soon the circus agent hurried back into the king's hut, and a moment later there was heard the strains of a banjo being picked by an unpracticed hand. It was succeeded by a rattling tune ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... month Walker was glad. A year's leave would make a new man of Dick Hatteras, he thought, or, at all events, restore the old man, sane and sound, as he had been before he came to the West African coast. During the second month Walker began to feel lonely. In the third he bought a banjo and learnt it during the fourth and fifth. During the sixth he began to say to himself, "What a time poor Dick must have had all those six years with those cursed forests about him. I don't wonder—I don't wonder." ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... and often in the evening I envied Yorke (who had straightway, of course, made desperate love to Clotilde, who was old enough to be his mother), sitting in the bow of the boat and thrumming his banjo lightly as he sang her some creole love-song he had picked ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... Let it be abolished. Electrocute the composer and banish the music-critic. Then let there be elected a supervisory board of trusty guardians, men absolutely above the reproach of having played the concertina or plunked staccato tunes on a banjo. Entrust to their care all beautiful music and poetry and prohibit the profane, vulgar, the curious, gaping herd from even so much as a glance at these treasures. For the few, the previous elect, the quintessential in art, let ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... rooms and a little kitchen. To Jess, accustomed to the mild but beautiful savor of a country town, the dreggy Bohemia was sugar and spice. She hung fish seines on the walls of her rooms, and bought a rakish-looking sideboard, and learned to play the banjo. Twice or thrice a week they dined at French or Italian tables d'hote in a cloud of smoke, and brag and unshorn hair. Jess learned to drink a cocktail in order to get the cherry. At home she smoked a cigarette after dinner. She ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... moody answer and envied him his way of taking things, while Harry tried to smile, and Johnston, lifting down a banjo, commenced a plantation ditty, which he sang with so much spirit that presently he had most of the shovel gang for an appreciative audience. Then there were roars of laughter when he stood in the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... house through the door in the garden. Later, when Miss Erith came back from her toilet, but still wearing her outing skirt, McKay turned from the long window where he had been standing and watching the picnickers across Isla Bridge. The flashy man had a banjo now and was strumming it ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... had was a banjo. Some made their banjos. Take a bucket or pan a long strip of wood. 3 horse hairs twisted made the base string. 2 horsehairs twisted made the second string. 1 horse hair twisted made the fourth and the fifth string was the fine one, it was not twisted at all ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... and hoe corn. But he felt he could do plumbin' better than them who had handled plumbs for years. And when I see Josiah wuz sot on hirin' him to do the job I felt dretful, for he wuz no more fit for it than our brindle cow to do fine sewin', or our old steer to give music lessons on the banjo. He wuz a creeter I never liked, always tryin' to invent sunthin' and always failin. But Josiah insisted on havin' him because he wuz so ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... has found it out? From the father must have come the man's artistic impulse, and he carried it on and on to a golden fruition. In the Luxembourg gallery hangs his picture, "The Raising of Lazarus." At the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, I saw his "Annunciation," both a long way from his "Banjo Lesson," and thinking of him I began to wonder whether, in spite of all the industrial tumult, it were not in the field of art, music and literature that the Negro was to make his highest contribution to American civilization. But this is merely a ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... music and dancing going on, for, comfortably reclining on a pile of cotton seed in the rough ginning-room, with thick festoons of cobwebs everywhere, and bits of dusty lint clinging to every splinter in its walls, a young man was playing a banjo, and two others, with naked feet, were dancing as if for their lives. A slim dark girl in a blue and white homespun dress, her head turbaned with a square of the same, sat on a bag of seed cotton ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the subject to Toledo, and that faithful official had nearly every miner in camp at the schoolhouse that same evening. The judge brought a fiddle, Uncle Hans came with a cornet, and Yellow Pete came grinning in with his darling banjo. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... grass that prodded Tom to envious sarcasm. And then, with a whoop, he clattered to the rear and brought back Uncle Ike, a battered colored retainer of the family, with his banjo, and strewed sand on the porch and danced "Chicken in the Bread Tray" and did buck-and-wing wonders for half an hour longer. Incredibly, wild and boisterous things he did. He sang, he told stories that set all but one shrieking, he played the yokel, the humorous ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... another, pledging him to secrecy, showing a little ring on a white ribbon about her neck. Her Corydon was a sheepman's son who lived beyond the Sullivan ranch, and could dance like a butterfly and sing songs to the banjo in a way to melt the heart of any maid. So Mary said, but in her own way, with ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... What's the use of having a string if a feller can't ride it? And I CAN ride him, and he don't kick at all. I rode him just now, in the little pasture to see if I liked his gait better than the others. I rode Banjo first and I wouldn't own a thing like him, on a bet. Silver'll do me till I can get around to break ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... my homage owns, Skilled on the banjo and the bones; For whom I would not fear to die, If death would ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... as they followed along, Betty did not notice where they were going, until the strumming of a banjo and loud singing drew her attention to the fact that they were almost upon the ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... talked to his audience with a delicious mingling of impudence, deference, and patronage, commenting upon them generally, administering advice and correction in a strain of humor that kept his hearers in a pleased excitement. He handled the banjo and the guitar alternately, and talked all the time when he was not singing. Mary (how much harder featured and brazen a woman is in such a position than a man of the same caliber!) sang, in an untutored treble, songs of sentiment, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... slave States are a thoughtless, happy set, spending their evenings in dancing or singing to the banjo; and 'Oh, carry me back to Old Virginny,' or 'Susannah, don't you cry for me,' may be heard on summer evenings rising from the maize and tobacco grounds of Kentucky. Yet, whether naturally humane instincts may lead to merciful treatment of the slave, or the same result be accomplished by the ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... took his watch from his pocket and Mr. Simms turned to look at the old banjo clock in his office, and both men quickly said in one voice: "Oh, no, Jake! You have plenty of time to get off ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... old Surry,"—when he used the prefix "old" to any one's name, he was always excellently well disposed toward them,—"the Richmond people are prompt this time. Here is your assignment—send for Sweeney and his banjo! He shall play 'Jine the Cavalry!' in honor of ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... surer impression than half-a-dozen cats. I speak from experience. Before we sailed I had occasion to purchase some stockings, as I found on inquiry that my dingy-faced washerwoman had supplied her "lubing bruder" with several pair belonging to me, to dance with her at a banjo hop, and took care I should not have them until the day before we sailed, which was Saturday. On examining them I found they were so worn into large holes that I could not put them on. Having obtained permission to go on shore, I repaired to ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... miss having his good college time. College widows made love to him, and college girls loved him, and he was indefatigable in his dancing. He never cut a smoker, a beer bust, or a rush, and he toured the Pacific Coast with the Banjo and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... through my mind in a flash, almost subconsciously, and before I had time to check my impressions, or even properly verify them, I made an involuntary movement, catching the tight rope in my hand so that it twanged like a banjo string, and in that instant the creature turned the corner of Sangree's tent and was ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... gratifying without vulgar ostentation," says I; "and I don't see how money could be better invested. Give me a cuckoo clock and a Sep Winner's Self-Instructor for the Banjo, and I'll ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... there drifted into the room furnished sounds and furnished scents. He heard in one room a tittering and incontinent, slack laughter; in others the monologue of a scold, the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and one crying dully; above him a banjo tinkled with spirit. Doors banged somewhere; the elevated trains roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably upon a back fence. And he breathed the breath of the house—a dank savour rather than a smell—a ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... instrument proceeds in half tones from [F: a,] to [G: b''] The tones are produced by plucking the strings with the fingers (which are covered with a kind of metal thimble), and the instrument is held so that one of the gourds hangs over the left shoulder, just as one would hold a very long-necked banjo. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... jokes as usual, accompanied by the enthusiastic applause of Rowden. Clifford also played "The Widow Nolan's Goat" upon his banjo, accompanied by the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... drifting from the outside was strangely familiar. Back at Bannister College, where he remembered he had gone in the dim and dusty past, he had often heard that same fog-horn voice, roaring songs of a less blood-curdling character, and accompanied by that same banjo twanging, which tortured the campus, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice |
