"Ditty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commented Pinac, and he went out humming the latest music-hall ditty which he was playing nightly to the patrons of the cafe. Poons went along; he had no more idea of his benefactor's condition than the man in the moon. The three men had not seen much of him lately, for they always left him to himself when he signified by his silence that he wanted ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... three hundred pounds to remove their sons from Osborne. On the other hand promotion from the lower deck was to be encouraged, and in future every youngster entering the Navy would metaphorically carry a broad-pennant in his ditty-box. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... you! Not that I object to the first part of the ditty. It is natural enough that a Scotchman should cry, 'Come, fill up my cup!' more especially if he's drinking at another person's expense—all Scotchmen being fond of liquor at free cost: but 'Saddle his horse!!!'—for what purpose, I would ask? Where is the ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... boy or girl has never played the game, and sung the ditty, "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down," even though nobody now living ever ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... something really on the plate" moved her to alert appreciation, and she proceeded to eat her dinner with an expression of artless and whole-souled relief. She was able to point out to Henry, as a bit of prandial small-talk, that the orchestra was playing "Nancy Brown"—a classic ditty whose notes had reached even Clayton Centre. It was at this stimulating point of the dinner, also, that she felt privileged for the first time to remove her gloves, glance at the other tables and the clothes of the women, and talk freely to her husband. Hitherto she ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... The sentiments of this ditty did not materially differ from those which Gilbart was in the habit of assimilating from his morning newspaper; nor were they much more fatuously expressed. Twenty-four hours ago he might even have applauded them as noisily as anyone in the enraptured house. Now his gorge rose against the ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... an improving song for young officers neither. I'll try 'Twisting Jane' if you gentlemen will support me with the chorus;" and in a deep mellow voice he embarked without more ado on the following barrack-room ditty:— ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... fighting he left the army and betook himself to the Middle Temple, where possibly he spent more time over lyrics than over the law, for a biographer, describing this period of his life, passes over his legal acquirements, but says that 'his vein for ditty and amorous ode was esteemed most lofty, insolent, and passionate.' He and Spenser were very congenial companions, and later Spenser, speaking of their great friendship, said: 'He pip'd, I sang, and when he ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... gossip. Sit you there And hide the hour-glass. There was a time In early boyhood, when a thing like thee Seemed horrible, but now my mouth is dry With other terror. Thou art a cap and bells: Play me a ditty on a tambourine. [Starting up.] Who goes there? [Rushes to Smith, who enters.] Tell me that ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... tramp, the grim road, the road from Mons to Wipers (I've 'ammered out this ditty with me bruised and bleedin' feet); Tramp, tramp, the dim road—we didn't 'ave no pipers, And bellies that was 'oller was the drums we 'ad to beat. Tramp, tramp, the bad road, the bits o' kiddies cryin' there, The fell birds a-flyin' there, the 'ouses ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... music which marked Dr Johnson, Victor Hugo, Theophile Gautier, and some other poets. Nay, he liked Beethoven, which places him higher in the musical scale than Scott, who did not rise above a Border lilt or a Jacobite ditty. The Wren songs, entitled The Window, were privately printed by Sir Ivor Guest in 1867, were set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan, and published by Strahan in December 1870. "A puppet," Tennyson called ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... window of Herrera's room, which was at about a dozen feet below him. The mist and thick darkness prevented any view of the sentry; but he could hear the sound of his footsteps, and the burden of the royalist ditty which he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the real whip-poor-will or night-jar last night frequently, sighing his melancholy ditty along the banks of the beautiful Thames. The cry of the Canada quail, which is a very small partridge-like bird, is very plaintive. As we passed them, they gave it out heartily—Phu—Phoo-iey. We arrived at Smith's tavern, seventeen miles, at half-past seven, breakfasted, and stayed ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... occurred; he makes his selection according to circumstances, according to the state of his own mind; not forgetting the state of mind that the children may be in, and especially the state of the weather. The following little ditty may then be repeated, the subject ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... predicament, predict, addict, verdict, indict, dictionary, dictation, jurisdiction, vindictive, contradiction, benediction, ditto, condition; (2) abdicate, adjudicate, juridical, diction, dictum, dictator, dictaphone, dictograph, edict, interdict, valedictory, malediction, ditty, indite, ipse dixit, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... knew your lore, Save when against the winter's drenching rain, And driving snow, the cottage shut the door. Then, as instructed by tradition hoar, Her legends when the Beldam 'gan impart, Or chant the old heroic ditty o'er, Wonder and joy ran thrilling to his heart; Much he the tale admired, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... column there doth stand Inamorato with folded hand; Down hangs his head, terse and polite, Some ditty sure he doth indite. His lute and books about him lie, As symptoms of his vanity. If this do not enough disclose, To paint him, take thyself ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... had no chance of better treatment if he were to remain quiet." The snow-storm continued, and the men remained below, all but Jemmy Ducks, who leaned against the lee side of the cutter's mast, and as the snow fell, sang, to a slow air, the following ditty, it probably being called to his recollection by the state of ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... sitting under midnight's misty moon, Lo I see the spirits flitting o'er the waters one by one! Slumber wraps the silent city, and the droning mills are dumb; One lone whippowil's shrill ditty calls her mate that ne'er will come. Sadly moans the mighty river, foaming down the fettered falls, Where of old he thundered ever o'er abrupt and lofty walls. Great Unktehee—god of waters—lifts ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... anchor here? this ship? and this sea-ditty of Dibdin's? The book must have fallen into the hands of some tarry captain of a forecastle. No: that anchor, ship, and Dibdin's ditty are mine; this hand drew them; and on this very voyage to Liverpool. But not so fast; I did not ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the moment when once more his persecutor was commencing his childish ditty, he felt as if, from the top of a mountain a hundred miles away, a cold cloud came journeying through the sky, and descended upon him. He opened his eyes: there was Joan, and the cold cloud was her soft cool hand on his forehead. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... in the spirit of the thing yourself. Now for a more ecstatic burst. You purposely prolong his suspense; he is all atilt, expecting the delightful surprise. You drawl out each word; you drone the ditty over and over again, till every tiny nerve is tense with expectation. "Boo!" at last, and over he goes, in the complete abandon of baby glee; his cherry lips are wide asunder, his head hangs powerless back, and the "Hicketty-hicks" burst tumultuously from his little, ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... Traquair to Murder Cairn, the hill rung with the discordant attempts of the Saxon upon the unmanageable monosyllable, and the heartfelt laugh which followed every failure. They had, however, better modes of awakening the echoes; for Wakefield could sing many a ditty to the praise of Moll, Susan, and Cicely, and Robin Oig had a particular gift at whistling interminable pibrochs through all their involutions, and what was more agreeable to his companion's southern ear, knew many of the northern airs, both lively ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... be gratified. In that hope I am content to drag on the brief remnant of my days. Meanwhile, I must not omit the stimulant. In a short time I may not require it." Draining the bottle to the last drop, he flung it from him, and commenced chanting, in a high key and cracked voice, a wild ditty, the words ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... been faggot-cutting, and the bunches lay piled amidships, while fore and aft they plied their oars, and sang. The gloaming hid all but sound and sex, and threw its veil of romance over the trollers, who sent their hearts out thus across the twilight sea. The song, no doubt some common ditty, gathered a pathos over the water through the night. It swept from one side of us to the other, softened with distance, lingered in detached strains, and then was hushed, leaving us once more alone with ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... his oar, With measured sweep the burden bore, In such wild cadence, as the breeze Makes through December's leafless trees. The chorus first could Allan know, 395 "Roderick Vich Alpine, ho! iro!" And near, and nearer as they rowed, Distinct the martial ditty flowed. ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... humour, in the early days, expressed itself in what were called pipes—a ditty, either taught by repetition or circulated on scraps of paper: the offences of official men were thus hitched into rhyme. These pipes were a substitute for the newspaper, and the fear of satire ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... of heavenly light; Reason, he names it, and doth so Use it, than brutes more brutish still to grow. With deference to your grace, he seems to me Like any long-legged grasshopper to be, Which ever flies, and flying springs, And in the grass its ancient ditty sings. Would he but always in the grass repose! In every heap of ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... to this appeal, so Tom himself at once began shouting a no very melodious ditty. First one man joined in, then another and another, until the whole of the boats' crews were singing at the top of their voices. It appeared to me that the vessel was moving somewhat faster than before through the water, but looking towards the wall of foam that seemed no further ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... Leicester and myself, whose rooms lay in the same direction, were steering along, very soberly, under a bright moonlight, when something put it into the heads of some other stragglers of the party to break out, at the top of their voices, into a stanza of that immortal ditty—"We won't go home till morning." Instantly we could hear a window, which we well knew to be the dean's, open above us, and as the unmelodious chorus went on, his wrath found vent in the usual ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the fact that his horse had been "stun lame" the night before, Mr. Price was able to start for Harwich, via Brampton, very early the next morning. He was driving along through Northcutt's woods with one leg hanging over the wheel, humming through his nose what we may suppose to have been a love-ditty, and letting his imagination run riot about the lady in question, when he nearly fell out of his wagon. The cause of this was the sight of fat Tom coming around a corner, with Jethro Bass behind him. Lem Hallowell and the storekeeper had kept their secret so well that Sam, if he was thinking about ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I will praise thee, oh, thou human race. God's likeness art thou, oh, how true, how striking! Two lies thou hast natheless, in sooth, to show; The name of one is man, the other's woman! Of faith and honor there's an ancient ditty, 'Tis sung the best, when men each other cheat. Thou child of heaven, the one thing true thou hast Is Cain's foul mark upon thy ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... and sets himself at his work. When Beckmesser, after impatiently preluding to bring to the window the figure he is expecting, clears his throat to begin the serenade, Sachs, vigourously hammering on his last, prevents him by bursting forth on his own account in a lusty ditty with much loud Ohe, Ohe, Trallalei!—a playful ditty, sweet at the core, about Eve, the original mother, and the first pair of shoes, ordered for her from an angel by the Lord himself, who was sorry to see the pitiful sinner, when turned out ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Railway, and that is the reason why he said the other day, "Give me to gaze once more on the blue hills," to the girl in the booking-office, when what he really wanted was a ticket (of a light heliotrope colour) to St. James's Park. Lord BYRON, on the other hand, composed a sorrowful ditty on the decadence of the Isles of Greece whilst shaving; but the invention of the safety-razor and the energetic action of M. VENIZELOS will most likely render it unnecessary for anyone to repeat such a performance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... without that luxury. As he caught sight of it the young fellow's face brightened gaily. He stepped back a little way, leaned against a linden, and sang, in the drawling tone peculiar to the west of France, the following Breton ditty, published by Bruguiere, a composer to whom we are indebted for many charming melodies. In Brittany, the young villagers sing this song to all newly-married ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... grunts and ejaculations, which ended in a series of long and doleful whistles, and then broke out into a song. So he went up, and found the stranger sitting upright in bed, combing his curls with his fingers, and chaunting unto himself a cheerful ditty. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... these effects of serenity and purity. The nature of the sensations to be aroused in passing through the roji differed with different tea-masters. Some, like Rikiu, aimed at utter loneliness, and claimed the secret of making a roji was contained in the ancient ditty: ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... over to himself with considerable satisfaction. He possessed a remarkably sweet tenor and pleasurably anticipated singing his ditty to its hero, and doubtless getting a cushion pitched at his head for his pains. But it happened that Varney was to go to his grave without ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... new "relief" is called and the night guard changed. Round and round all night ride the guards, jingling their spurs and droning some low monotonous song, recounting through endless stanzas the fearless deeds of some frontier hero, or humming some love ditty rather too passionate for ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Gabii, Agias drew rein, telling himself that the horse would make better speed for a little rest and baiting. The tavern court into which he rode was exceedingly filthy; the whole building was in a state of decay; the odours were indescribable. In the great public-room a carter was trolling a coarse ditty, while through the doorway ran a screaming serving-maid ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the growth of the lusty brood within. The scuffle of little feet over the rough floor brings indolent, half-indifferent guessing as to which of the lesser four-foots they belonged. The whippoorwills down in the river woods call until they drop off, one by one, and the timid ditty of a singing mouse that lives under the floor by my cot is the last message the sandman sends to close our eyes before sleep. And such sleep! That first steel-blue starlit night in the open we said that we meant to sleep ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... fare no better with his companions, who on their parts renew an old acquaintance with the princess's attendants. Each, in heart, is already false to his vow, without knowing that the wish is shared by his associates; they overhear one another, as they in turn confide their sorrows in a love-ditty to the solitary forest: every one jeers and confounds the one who follows him. Biron, who from the beginning was the most satirical among them, at last steps forth, and rallies the king and the two others, till the discovery of a love-letter forces ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... than Dryden or Handel. Apropos to Dryden, he has burlesqued his St. Cecilia, that you will never read it again without laughing. There is a description of a milliner's box in all the terms of landscape, painted lawns and chequered shades, a Moravian ode, and a Methodist ditty, that are incomparable, and the best names that ever were composed. I can say it by heart, though a quarto, and if I had time would write it you down; for it is not yet reprinted, and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... Friend can hardly be met; Friendship for Interest is but a Loan, Which they let out for what they can get. 'Tis true, you find Some Friends so kind, Who will give you good Counsel themselves to defend. In sorrowful Ditty, They promise, they pity, But shift for your Money, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... the place looks still so wondrous classical, that I can never persuade myself either Constantine Attila or the Popes themselves have chased them all away. I think I should have found some out, who would have fed me with milk and chestnuts, have sung me a Latian ditty, and mourned the woeful changes which have taken place, since their sacred groves were felled, and Faunus ceased to be oracular. Who can tell but they would have given me some mystic skin to sleep on, that I might ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... not each ditty with the glorious tale? Ah! such, alas, the hero's amplest fate! When granite moulders and when records fail, A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date. Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate, See how the mighty shrink into a song! Can volume, pillar, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... gown And wool-knit slippers, comfortable and pretty, To the radiant breakfast table trotted down, Inclined to have some frolic and be witty (As frolicsome as any in the City) And chaff his daughters in his usual style; Minutiae omitted in this ditty, For to relate 'twould not be worth the while, I therefore must, my reader, meet you ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... utricle, bladder; pericarp, udder. stomach, paunch, venter, ventricle, crop, craw, maw, gizzard, breadbasket; mouth. pocket, pouch, fob, sheath, scabbard, socket, bag, sac, sack, saccule, wallet, cardcase, scrip, poke, knit, knapsack, haversack, sachel, satchel, reticule, budget, net; ditty bag, ditty box; housewife, hussif; saddlebags; portfolio; quiver &c (magazine) 636. chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, pyx, pix, caisson, desk, bureau, reliquary; trunk, portmanteau, band-box, valise; grip, grip sack [U.S.]; skippet, vasculum; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and should be eschewed by gentlemen in familiar discourse, as tending much less towards edification than offence. Many people are absurdly jealous on the subject of their coffined sires; nor is it wise in convivial moments to strike up an ancestral ditty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... for a good old Christmas song. He bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye and a voice that was by no means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto like the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty: ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... by Raleigh to Spenser at Kilcolman was the 'lamentable lay' to which reference had just been made—the piece in praise of Elizabeth which bore the name of Cynthia. In Spenser's pastoral, the speaker is persuaded by Thestylis (Lodovick Bryskett) to explain what ditty that was that the Shepherd of the Ocean sang, and he explains very distinctly, but in terms which are scarcely critical, that Raleigh's poem was written in love and praise, but also in ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... race 3920 Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds Who had survived the wild beasts' hungry chase Died moaning, each upon the other's face In helpless agony gazing; round the City All night, the lean hyaenas their sad case 3925 Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty! And many a mother ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... shrills his ditty, Flickering flame-wise through the clear live calm, Rose triumphal, crowning all a city, Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm, Built of holy hands for holy pity, Frank and fruitful ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the monk, "has been added to the ditty by Nicholas Demdike. I heard him sing it the other day ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... surprise they found Ross there. He was sitting at the piano strumming a music-hall ditty. As the door opened be shuffled to his feet, shook hands distantly with Auntie Nan, and ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... songs for which he was renowned. Few of his friends were able to sing them, and no one but himself could both sing and play them simultaneously: they were a monstrous, standing joke. Instead of this, however, he turned, winked at his audience, and began a slow, melancholy ditty, with a recurring refrain. He was not allowed to finish the first verse; a howl of disapproval went up; his hearers hooted, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... lord! Besides, I hoped to hear My ditty warbled into fairer ears, By your own lips; ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... no more, my gentle mate! With your tiny tawny bill, Wake the tuneful echo shrill, On vale or hill; Or in her airy rocky seat, Let her listen and repeat The tender ditty that you tell, The sad lament, The dire event, To luckless Itys that befell. Thence the strain Shall rise again, And soar amain, Up to the lofty palace gate Where mighty Apollo sits in state In Jove's ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... vigorously encored, and Tom at once responded with a second—and I have no doubt, genuine—barrack-room ballad. The hero of this ditty is a "Lancer bold." He is duly wetted with tears before his departure for the wars; but is cheered up at the last moment by the lady's assurance that she will meet him on his return in "a carriage gay." Arrived at the front, he performs the usual prodigies: slashes his way ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... forty, fifty, sixty passed; Until, when seventy came at last, The occupant of number three Called friends to hold a jubilee. Wild was the night; the charging rack Had forced the moon upon her back; The wind piped up a naval ditty; And the lamps winked through all the city. Before that house, where lights were shining, Corpulent feeders, grossly dining, And jolly clamour, hum and rattle, Fairly outvoiced the tempest's battle. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... observes that he has committed only one plagiarism in his play. But with all the triumph of vanity, we here stoutly convict him of having wilfully, maliciously and despitefully stolen, the pleasing idea of the repetition of "down, down, down," from the equally pathetic and instructive ditty of "up, up, up," in Tom Thumb; the exordium or prolegomena to which floweth ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... to admit the eunuch, who entered; and when he saw the Commander of the Faithful, he saluted not neither kissed the earth, but said, 'Quick, quick! Arise in haste! My lady Tuhfeh sitteth in her chamber, singing a goodly ditty. Come to her in haste and see all that I say to thee! Hasten! She sitteth [in her chamber].' The Khalif was amazed at his speech and said to him, 'What sayst thou?' 'Didst thou not hear the first of the speech?' replied the eunuch. 'Tuhfeh sitteth ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... England" sung, because of his own country's successes, some time ago. They were gallant and conspicuous victories of the American frigates; we do not grudge them. A fair fight should leave no rancour, above all in the victors, and Dr. Holmes's withers would have been unwrung by Campbell's ditty. ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... you could afford to hunt for buried treasure, or buried beans, or buried anything else, if you wanted to. And if you'll report one of them even winking disrespectful, or showing the trace of a grin, I'll set him and his ditty bag ashore ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the holy fist of His Holiness of Rome: moreover I have a rare charm and notable cure for the worms, together with divers salves, electuaries, medicaments and nostrums from the farthest Orient. I have also store of songs and ballades, grave and gay. Are ye melancholic? Then I have a ditty merry and mirthful. Would ye weep? Here's a lamentable lay of love and languishment infinite sad to ease you of your tears. Are ye a sinner vile and damned? Within my wallet lie pardons galore with powerful indulgences whereby ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... newly-hemmed black necktie, and asks what further orders I have ... and could you but see the highly respectable, fog-enveloped street, and hear the pitiable voice with which a beggar down there pours forth his ditty (he will soon be outscreamed by the street-sellers), and could you picture to yourselves that from here to the City is three-quarters of an hour's drive, and that in all the cross streets of which one has glimpses the noise, clamour, and bustle ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... name from the dittis or Manchester stuff of which it was once made. It is in use among seamen for holding their smaller necessaries. The ditty-bag of old, when a seaman prided himself on his rig, as the result of his own ability to fit himself from clue to earing, was a treasured article, probably worked in exquisite device by his lady-love. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Changes of flannels. 6 Pairs of stockings. 2 Mufflers. 4 Towels. 3 Coloured flannel shirts. 1 Bar of soap. 6 Collars, 2 neckties. 2 Pillow-slips. 1 Bed and full set of bedding. 2 Caps. 1 Canvas bag. 1 Ditty bag well stored with needles, thread, buttons, thimble, worsted to darn stockings, and cloth to patch ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... I went below to the officers' corridor. Now and then, through the quiet, a mandolin or guitar could be heard far off twanging some sentimental island ditty; and beneath these sweeter sounds lay a ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... "squalidus" is "in a sorry pickle." "Importuna" is "a plaguy baggage;" "adulterium" is rendered "her pranks;" "ambages" becomes either "a long rabble of words," "a long-winded detail," or "a tale of a tub;" "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is "to tip him a kiss;" "pingue ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... fought passionately for her friend and never gave way till Kurt had promised not to go on with his ditty. But her mother wanted to know now what had given Mea such red eyes. So she told them that she had followed Loneli in order to comfort her, for she was still crying. Loneli had told her then about being caught at ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... finished playing a melancholy air, exclaimed, "That was but a melancholy ditty, miss—we'll try a merrier." ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... their merry Swiss girls about, until vengeance overtook them—a vengeance so complete, so surprising, that I can hardly now believe what my own eyes saw and my own ears heard. One of the merry Swiss girls sang a love-ditty with a jodeling refrain, which was supposed to be echoed back by her lover afar in the mountains. To produce this pleasing illusion, one of the merry Swiss boys ascended the staircase, and hid himself deep in the corridors of the hotel. All went well up ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... milked into a wooden pail And sang a country ditty, An innocent fond lovers' tale, That was not wise nor witty, Pathetically rustical, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... sunk in that thoughtful melancholy, with which twilight and solitude impress the mind. Michael had now ended his ditty, and nothing was heard but the drowsy murmur of the breeze among the woods, and its light flutter, as it blew freshly into the carriage. They were at length roused by the sound of fire-arms. St. Aubert called to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... was so fond of hearing Chirpy's songs, it was lucky for Freddie that his sprightly neighbor usually chose to sing at night, when Freddie could better enjoy his shrill ditty. And Freddie frequently went out of his way on a fine, dark, summer's night to find Chirpy Cricket and ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... thought! yet be as now thou art, That in thy waters may be seen The image of a poet's heart, How bright, how solemn, how serene! Such as did once the poet bless, Who, pouring here a later ditty, Could find no refuge from distress, But in the milder grief ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... one of them, "let us set the ditty to music; let us subscribe to have it set by Handel; it will ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... gendarmes rushed upon the scene, causing a general stampede among the disciples of the onion and a hasty adjournment of the festival. What law against irregular assemblages was infringed by these onion-worshipers is not clear, for one can hardly detect sedition lurking under the rustic ditty, and it is equally difficult to suspect an Orsini bomb conspiracy of being typified by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... the funeral dirge in this play for the death of Marcello, except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... that she knew no songs, and had no voice, but under persuasion she broke into a ditty, a sort ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... hands, and war and the chase gave life a colour; but they are dead. A cart comes slowly down the road, and the labourer with it sings as he jogs along; but, if you listen, it tells you nothing of wheat, or hay, or flocks and herds, nothing of the old gods and heroes. It is a street ditty such as you may hear the gutter arabs yelling in London, and coming from ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... language question a little more openly than was at all his wont with such prickly subjects, speaking a few quiet truths in a way that even a firebrand like van Hert could not possibly resent. When they joined Diana she was sitting on a table, swinging her feet, and singing a new music-hall ditty. ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the regular train for Wallace could pick 'em up. Burke is seven miles up the canon from Wallace and the grade drops two hundred and thirty-five feet to the mile, being a masterpiece of engineering. Ed gets his two cars to the main line, all right, whistling a careless ditty. Then when they should of stopped they did not. They kept sneaking and creaking along on him. He couldn't get the brake of the forward car up very tight, and in setting the brake of the rear car, with a brakeman's stick for a lever, he broke the chain. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... concluded in 1718, shows that each side was too strong as yet to be crushed. In dismissing Marlborough, Great Britain had lost one of her chief assets. His name had become a terror to France. To this day, both in France and in French Canada, is sung the popular ditty "Monsieur Malbrouck est mort," a song of delight at a report that Marlborough was dead. When in place of Marlborough leaders of the type of General Hill were appointed to high command, France could not be finally beaten. The Treaty of Utrecht was the outcome of war-weariness. It marks, however, ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... women; she prefers a young king to an old emperor." His army filed off by night, in silence, leaving behind its munitions and its tents just as they stood, "driven away, almost, by the chastisement of Heaven," says the contemporary chronicler Rabutin, "with but two shots by way of signal." The ditty of the soldier just quoted ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a comprehensive programme was rendered. Every popular song that occurred to the mind was turned on and yelled with wild lustiness. Those who did not know the words either whistled the air or improvised an impossible ditty. Whenever there was a pause to recall some new song, the interval was occupied with "Rule, Britannia!" This was a prime favourite, and repetition did not stale its forceful rendition, especial stress being ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... opposite to Mr. Jinks, who was driving his needle as savagely as ever, and, with a tremendous frown, chaunting the then popular ditty of the "Done-over Tailor." Whether this was in gloomy satire upon his own occupation we cannot say, but certainly the lover of the divine Miss Sallianna presented an appearance very different from his former one, at the Bower of Nature. ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... sound old melody called "The Jilt's Hornpipe." Just as they turn Madeira into port in the space of a single night, so this old air has been taken and doctored, and twisted about, and brought out as a new popular ditty.' ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... anon seeming acted upon by some passing dream of former devilment, as he smiled and muttered some sentences in an under-voice. Sleep at length overpowered me; but my last waking thoughts were haunted with a singular ditty by which Mike accompanied himself as he kept burnishing the buttons of my jacket before the fire, now and then interrupting the melody by a recourse ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... concealed by the fine and resonant quality of his rich baritone notes. The chorus was not much of a success—Lady Sybil's promised accomplices seemed to have found their courage fail them at the critical moment; but as for the martial ditty itself, it appeared to take the public ear very well; and when Lionel finally folded the music together again, there was quite a little tempest of clapping of hands. Here and there a half-hearted demand for a repetition was heard; but this was understood ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... lived above an hundred Years ago) in the third Part of his Treatise, pag. 179, speaking of Motetts or Anthems, complains thus:—'But I see not what Passions or Motions it can stir up, being as most Men doe commonlie Sing,—leaving out the Ditty—as it were a Musick made onely for Instruments, which will indeed shew the Nature of the Musick, but never carry the Spirit and (as it were) that lively Soule which the Ditty giveth; but of this enough. And to return to the expressing ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... Keeshee begged the favour of a little rum and medicine to heal his foot, which was inclined to swell and give him pain; and another request which he made was, that they would repair a gun, which had been deprived of its stock by fire. He then sung them a doleful ditty, not in praise of female beauty, as is the practice with the songsters of England, but it was in praise of elephants and their teeth, in which he was assisted by his cane bearer, and afterwards took his leave. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... himself desperately together, plunged recklessly into the following appropriate ditty; which, failing its proper tune, he manfully set at the top of his voice, and with all the energy he was capable of, to the air of ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... certainly would have hugged him for Tom's opening song, delivered in the arms of Huncamunca, if he could have forgiven the later master in his own craft for having composed it afresh to the air of a ditty then wildly popular at the "Coal Hole."[177] The encores were frequent, and for the most part the little fellow responded to them; but the misplaced enthusiasm that took similar form at the heroic intensity with which he stabbed ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... better conclude this summary of what I have been able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty. The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge towards the home ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side; A pleasanter spot you never spied; But, when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin was ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... surmised that Christine did not care about the acquaintance of her father's clerk, and so brought them no more together. But Christine was pained by Dennis's icy manner, and saw that she was thoroughly misunderstood. When asked to sing, she chose a rather significant ditty: ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from brier; And this ditty after me Sing, and dance ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure; 20 Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Pity then will cut away Those cruel ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Turn'd her into the pied-plum'd Psittacus, That now the Parrot is surnam'd by us, Who still with counterfeit confusion prates Naught but news common to the common'st mates.— This told, strange Teras touch'd her lute, and sung This ditty, that ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... the Phoenix, there pealed forth—faint in the distance and rain—a solemn royal ditty, piped by the tuneful Aldermen of Skinner's Alley, and neither unmusical nor somehow uncongenial with the darkness, and the melancholy object of the doctor's walk, the chant being rather monastic, wild, and dirge-like. It was ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... he took her hollow lute,— Tumultuous,—and, in chords that tenderest be, He play'd an ancient ditty, long since mute, In Provence called "La belle dame sans mercy": Close to her ear touching the melody;— Wherewith disturbed, she uttered a soft moan: He ceased—she panted quick—and suddenly Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone: Upon ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... the other singers, not even Cutts himself, as that high-minded man owned, could stand up before the Snatcher, and he commonly used to retire to Mrs. Cutts's private apartments, or into the bar, before that fatal song extinguished him. Poor Cos's ditty, 'The Little Doodeen,' which Bows accompanied charmingly on the piano, was sung but to a few admirers, who might choose to remain after the tremendous resurrectionist chant. The room was commonly emptied after that, or only left ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but the occasion of wit in others, quick at repartee, fond of proverbial sayings, curious in his wines. A good old song, set to a fine old tune, was written about him, and called "Old Sir Simon the King." This was the favourite old-fashioned ditty in which Fielding's rough and jovial Squire Western ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... on the other, bending his knee and sinking nearly to the floor, while he extends the other leg straight before him, raises one hand above his head, and rests the other on his hip. His heels must never touch the floor, nor may he, while bobbing thus comically up and down and trolling his lively ditty, suffer his face to relax from that expression of sober and dignified earnestness which marks the true Szekler. It is a dance and a display of great physical strength and endurance at ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai |
