"Nightingale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... honor the Queen's meenisters; an' Miss Nightingale, wha nursed the soldiers i' the war; an' Leddy Burdett-Coutts, wha gies a' her siller an' a' her heart to puir folk an' is aye kind to horses and dogs an' singin' birdies; an' we gie the keys to heroes o' the war wha are brave an' faithfu'. An' noo, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... female form enveloped in a loosely flowing dress of virgin whiteness. The air was cool and serene, and except the rustling of the surrounding foliage, when agitated by the breeze, or the soft plaintive voice of the nightingale, no obtrusive sound disturbed the solemn silence. The blue vault of heaven, glittering with countless stars, the rich perfume flung around by the orange flower and jasmine, and a stilly languor that pervaded the spot, all disposed the mind ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... whereupon Tohfah rose to her feet and Iblis said, "Go ye up with Tohfah to the garden for the rest of the night." So Kamariyah took her and went with her into the garden, which contained all manner birds, nightingale and mocking-bird and ringdove and curlew[FN181] and other than these of all the kinds. Therein were all manner of fruits: its channels[FN182] were of gold and silver and the water thereof, as it broke forth of its conduits, was like the bellies of fleeing ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... says, "with many mountains and peaks ... most beautiful, of a thousand varied forms, accessible, and full of trees of endless varieties, so tall that they seem to touch the sky; and I have been told that they never lose their foliage. The nightingale [i. e. some kind of thrush] and other small birds of a thousand kinds were singing in the month of November [December] when I was there."[522] Before he had done much toward exploring this paradise, a sudden and ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... but a pottle of sack, like a sharp prickle, To knock my nose against when I am nodding, I should sing like a nightingale."—Fletcher, The Lover's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... the Song of Life. Through the dim aeons of man's savage infancy; through the centuries of bloodshed and of horror; through the dark ages of tyranny and superstition; through wrong, through cruelty, through hate; heedless of doom, heedless of death, still the nightingale's song: "I love you. I love you. I love you. We will build a nest. We will rear our brood. I love you. I love you. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... beauty went in with the fibre. Baby fingers clutched at it and were laughingly untangled. At night, when the fires of the village were lighted, and the crimson glow was reflected upon it, strange tales of love and war were mingled with the thread. "The nightingale sang into it, the roses from Persian gardens breathed upon it, the moonlight put witchery into it; the tinkle of the gold and silver on the women's dusky ankles, the scent of sandal wood and attar of rose—it all went into ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... morning I well remember! Dame Nature was just donning her variegated gown of rustic-brown, while fitful airs from the realms of Jack Frost were painting the wild roses and forest leaves in cardinal hue, and the blackbird, thrush and musical nightingale flew low and sang hoarse, but continually, in their assemblages for migration to ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... afternoon in June and a dip into the familiar old Americanized clangor at the Cecil; or Chinkie's place in Devonshire about a month earlier, sitting out on the terrace wrapped in steamer-rugs and waiting for the moon to come up and the first nightingale to sing. Of Fifth Avenue shining almost bone-white in the clear December sunlight and the salted nuts and orange-blossom cocktails at Sherry's, or the Plaza tea-room at about five o'clock in the afternoon with the smell of Turkish tobacco and golden ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... sportive touch in showers resplendent flings Her lucid cataracts, and her bubbling springs; 265 Through peopled vales the liquid silver guides, And swells in bright expanse her freighted tides. YOU with nice ear, in tiptoe trains, pervade Dim walks of morn or evening's silent shade; Join the lone Nightingale, her woods among, 270 And roll your rills symphonious to her song; Through fount-full dells, and wave-worn valleys move, And tune their echoing waterfalls to love; Or catch, attentive to the distant roar, The pausing murmurs of the dashing shore; 275 Or, as aloud she pours ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... the insects, they were not willingly received in society and their ways were little known. Several complimentary presumptions were expressed that the honeycomb was due to one or the other admired and popular bird, and there was much fluttering on the part of the Nightingale and Swallow, neither of whom gave a positive denial, their confusion perhaps extending to their sense of identity; but the Owl hissed at this folly, arguing from his particular knowledge that the animal ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... rattling hail High on the window sill, With pipe and wassail, rime and tale, I'd never miss the nightingale Or cuckoo ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... brooklets silver-clear, Love bids their murmur woo the vale; Listen, O list! Love's soul ye hear In his own earnest nightingale. No sound from Nature ever stirs, But Love's sweet voice is heard with hers! Bold Wisdom, with her sunlit eye, Retreats when love comes whispering by— For Wisdom's weak to love! To victor stern or monarch proud, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... gentlest love," is supposed to have been written at a later period; but it was most probably produced at the time of his courtship, for he wrote but few love verses after his marriage—like the nightingale (as a French editor of Bonefonius says, in remarking a similar circumstance of that poet) "qui developpe le charme de sa voix tant qu'il vent plaire a sa compagne—sont-ils unis? il se tait, il n'a plus le besoin de lui plaire." This song having been hitherto ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... morning to night. At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights: "Now here, my jolly companions every one,—which the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste, voices and ears,—now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... of Wales, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Columbus, Cabot, Cartier, Champlain, Madeleine de Vercheres, Pontiac, Brock, Laura Secord, Florence Nightingale. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... head of Mohammed, and by the honour of a soldier—by the tomb at Mecca, and by the soul of my father," said the Emir, "I swear to thee that the letter is written in all honour and respect. The song of the nightingale will sooner blight the rose-bower she loves than will the words of the Soldan offend the ears of the lovely kinswoman ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... jewel is manufactured. It is in the cloaca, the chamber common to the oviduct and the intestine, that the bird wraps its egg in a calcareous shell, often decorating it with magnificent hues: olive-green for the Nightingale, sky-blue for the Wheatear, soft pink for the Icterine Warbler. It is in the cloaca also that the Clythra and the Cryptocephalus produce the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... for shade And every scented wind to fan, And sweetest flowers to strew the lea; The soft Winds are their servants fleet To fetch them every fruit at will And water from the river chill; And every bird that singeth sweet Throstle, and merle, and nightingale Brings blossoms from the dewy vale, - Lily, and rose, and asphodel - With these doth each guest twine his crown And wreathe his cup, and lay him down Beside some friend ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... "Of course I'm the nightingale. But, more literally," Nick continued, "Nash has melted back into the elements—he's part of the great air of the world." And then as even with this lucidity he saw the girl still mystified: "I've a notion he has gone to India and at the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... said Love, bringing the brass warming-pan into the "fore-room," to fill it with coals at the fireplace. "Why, mother, I never hear the name 'Willy,' but it makes me think of music. It sounds as sweet as if you said 'nightingale.'" ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread, For all the bloomy flush of life is fled. All but yon widowed, solitary ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... his School, in Ramaswami Raju, Indian Fables; The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, Lear (poem), in Story-Telling Poems; The Partridge and the Crow, in Dutton, The Tortoise and the Geese; The Pious Robin, in Brown, Curious Book of Birds; The Rustic and the Nightingale, in Dutton, The Tortoise and the Geese; The Sparrows, Thaxter (poem), in Story-Telling Poems; The Sparrows and the Snake, in Dutton, The Tortoise and the Geese; The Spendthrift and the Swallow, in Scudder, Book of Fables and Folk-Stories; The Story of the First Mocking-Bird, in Holbrook, Book of ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... the question. "If I could do that, Fan, I should be a very wise girl indeed. It is a feeling that we all have at times; and some day when we read the poets together you will find that they often speak of it. Keats says of the music of the nightingale that it makes his heart ache to hear it, but he does not know why it aches any more than we do. We can say what the feeling is which human love and sympathy give us —the touch of loving hands and lips, the words that are sweet to hear. This we can understand; but that ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... interval for refreshments, liberally proffered, a comic afterpiece, "Mr. Nightingale's Diary," was given with far greater spirit. Dickens personated the principal character—or rather, the four or five principal characters—for the life of the piece is sustained by his appearance successively as a ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... with cruel distinctness, just as he was trying to throw the most intense pathos into the words, ''tis not the lark, it is the nightingale!' ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... a melting bridal carol Sings the nightingale, the pure one. How the fire-flies in the grasses Trip their ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... most beautiful person in the world; the next, that she should have the wit of an angel; the third, that she should have a wonderful grace in everything she did; the fourth, that she should dance perfectly well; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that she should play all kinds of ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... light surrounded her graceful head, revealing her charms in spite of the night and the distance and as he gazed, her lips opened, and a song thrilled through the silence, soft and plaintive like the sweet notes of a nightingale ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... attentively, for in the distance a nightingale was singing, and the sweet notes were answered from somewhere beyond, and again and again at greater distances still, the notes, though faint, ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... to-night, when we leave this place, left Sirius nine years ago; and could the inhabitants of Sirius see the earth at this moment, they would see the English army in the trenches before Sebastopol, Florence Nightingale watching at Scutari over the wounded at Inkermann, and the peace of England undisturbed by "Essays ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... scorn! from which alone I sing, Thou weariest and saddenest my soul! O butterfly that joyest on thy wing, Pausing from bloom to bloom, without a goal— And thou, that singing of love for evermore, Fond nightingale! from wood to wood dost go, My life is as a never-ending war Of doubts, when likened to the peace ye know, And wears what seems a ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... for British forces during the Falklands War, and it remains a critical refueling point in the air-bridge from the UK to the South Atlantic. Tristan da Cunha: The island group consists of the islands of Tristan da Cunha, Nightingale, Inaccessible, and Gough. Tristan da Cunha is named after its Portuguese discoverer (1506); it was garrisoned by the British in 1816 to prevent any attempt to rescue Napoleon from Saint Helena. Gough and Inaccessible Islands ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Julius, "does the little nightingale utter wails and deep sighs. Only in the night does the flower shyly open and breathe freely the fragrant air, intoxicating both mind and senses in equal delight. Only in the night, Lucinda, does the bold speech of deep passion flow divinely from the lips, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Brava! (They turn round towards the window in astonishment.) A vastly pleasing song, vastly well sung. Mademoiselle Nightingale, permit me to felicitate you. (Turning to the Mother) The Mother of the Nightingale also. Mon Dieu, what is voice, of a richness, of a purity! To live with it always! Madame, I felicitate ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... learning about bird-music than would help me to guess that a dull dissyllabic refrain in the heart of the wood came from the cuckoo; and when at moments I heard a twitter of fuller tone, with a more suggestive modulation, I could only hope it was the nightingale. I have listened for the nightingale more than once in places so charming that his song would have seemed but the articulate expression of their beauty, and have never heard much beyond a provoking snatch or two—a prelude that came to nothing. In spite of a ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... take good care that he did not lapse in his attentions to Phyllis; as she knew lovers are but too apt to lapse, especially when they begin well. She would, for instance, send him from her side in the garden after dinner, to walk with Phyllis up to the woods where a nightingale was said to be in the habit of singing when the lovely summer twilight had waned into the lovely summer night. With the nightingale's song in their ears, two ordinary young persons with no preconceived theories on the subject of love, have been known, she was well aware, to become lovers ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... heart for consulting guide-books and encyclopaedias. From time to time, however, she uttered a deep, full murmur of gratification. Florence in midsummer was perfectly void of travelers, and the dense little city gave forth its aesthetic aroma with a larger frankness, as the nightingale sings when the listeners have departed. The churches were deliciously cool, but the gray streets were stifling, and the great, dove-tailed polygons of pavement as hot to the tread as molten lava. Rowland, who suffered from intense heat, would have found all this uncomfortable ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Australia, wherever there are reeds by the banks of the rivers or creeks, but where they were wanting its voice was silent. On the banks of the Murray and the Darling its note was to be heard during the greater part of the night, almost equal to that of the nightingale, and like that delightful bird, its plumage is any thing but brilliant, it is however somewhat larger, and although its general shade is brown, it has a light shade of yellow in the breast that makes it brighter in its ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... out into the dazzling moonlight of Lorraine; a nightingale began singing far away in the distant swamp; a bat darted by, turned, ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... new abashed nightingale, That stinteth first when she beginneth sing, When that she heareth any herde's tale, Or in the hedges any wight stirring, And after, sicker, doth her voice outring; Right so Cresseide, when that her dread stent, Open'd her heart, and told ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on as if in pain. And dreaming through the twilight That does not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his natural gaiety a sufficient dose of serious vanity. His impertinences were usually well received in crucial moments when it often pleased him to perform his operations with a certain slow majesty. He was, in other respects, as inquisitive as a nightingale, as greedy as a hound, and as garrulous as all diplomatists who talk incessantly and betray no secrets. In spite of these defects developed in him by the endless adventures into which his profession led him, ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... last is a true lover," said the Nightingale. "Night after night have I sung of him, though I knew him not: night after night have I told his story to the stars, and now I see him. His hair is dark as the hyacinth-blossom, and his lips are red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... things by their right names; no euphuism or transcendentalism,—the plainer and commoner the better. He tells us of his farm life, its joys and sorrows, its mirth and care, with no embellishment, with no concealment of repulsive and ungraceful features. Never having seen a nightingale, he makes no attempt to describe the fowl; but he has seen the night-hawk, at sunset, cutting the air above him, and he tells of it. Side by side with his waving corn-fields and orchard-blooms we have the barn-yard and pigsty. Nothing which was necessary to the comfort and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... opinion. He chooses to take a part in public matters. He prefers this bustle to the tranquillity of a country life. The boisterous hallooing of multitudes is more pleasing to his ears than the chinkling of the plough traces, the bleating of lambs, or the song of the nightingale. His taste may be bad; but, a'God's name, do not cover him with all sorts of infamous names and imputations, on account of his want of taste. Besides, if this sort of objection were made to leaders at Public Meetings, we ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... consists of eight chapters: 1. Aromatic Herbs from the Life of Shaikh Junaid, etc.—a glorification of Sufism. 2. Philosophical Ana. 3. The Blooming Realms by Wisdom. 4. The Trees of Liberality and Generosity. 5. Tender State of the Nightingale of the Garden of Love. 6. Breezes of Jocular Sallies. 7. Signing Birds of Rhyme and Parrots of Poetry. 8. Animal Fables. We give the following as specimens of the Stories: First Garden, pp. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... establishes necessary government—he also shall have my respect,—he has it,—he deserves his carriage and pair as fully as the road-mender deserves his dinner. We should not grudge or envy either man the reward due to their separate positions. The nightingale has a sweet voice,—the peacock screams—the one is plain in colour, the other gorgeous,—and there is no actual equality; yet the one bird does not grudge the other its position, inasmuch as though there is no Equality there is Compensation. So it ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... full of talent, and not only sings like a nightingale, but draws like an angel, Chaulieu spoke of her so enthusiastically to Mademoiselle de Launay that she thought of employing her for the costumes of the different ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Baker? You have never known anything of the kind—and even if he had, how could you know it? You should not talk such nonsense to me, and I beg you won't again." Then she went away, and began to read a paper about sick people written by Florence Nightingale. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... when from the boughs[413] The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whispered word; And gentle winds, and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... but a few years since Christendom was thrilled by the heroism of a young English girl of high position, Florence Nightingale, who having passed through the course of training required for hospital nurses, voluntarily went out to the Crimea at the time when English soldiers, wounded and sick, were dying by scores and thousands without medicine or care, broke over the red-tape rules ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... rejoined, "Our choicest minstrel's left behind. Ill may we hope to please your ear, Accustomed Constant's strains to hear. The harp full deftly can he strike, And wake the lover's lute alike; To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush Sings livelier from a spring-tide bush, No nightingale her lovelorn tune More sweetly warbles to the moon. Woe to the cause, whate'er it be, Detains from us his melody, Lavished on rocks, and billows stern, Or duller monks of Lindisfarne. Now must I venture, as I may To ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... always terrified. It is your habit. No, Leonora is not English. She is European. If you went out into the world of amusement a little more—and it would be good for you—you would know that she has the most exquisite voice in the history of civilization. She transcends the nightingale because her body is beautiful. She transcends the peacock because her voice is beautiful. She is, in fact, worthy of every homage, and you will meet her in a short time. Like all ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... say that the calm summer evening was spent in a delightful walk down by the pleasant wood-side, where out of their reach the party could see, as it grew later, the light mists begin to curl above the river in many a graceful fold. Fred's friend, the night-jar, was out, and the nightingale in full call, while every now and then his sweet song was interrupted by the harsh "Tu—whoo—hoo—hoo—oo," of an owl somewhere in the recesses of the wood. Then the return home was made, and soon after the ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... nightingale Tells to the Moon her love-lorn tale; Now doth the brook that's hush'd by day, As through the vale she winds her way, In murmurs sweet rejoice; The leaves, by the soft night-wind stirr'd, Are whispering many a gentle word, And all Earth's sweetest sounds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... be styled its leader. He was one who absolutely did gain his living, and an ample living too, by his pen, and was regarded on all sides as a literary lion, justified by success in roaring at any tone he might please. His usual roar was not exactly that of a sucking-dove or a nightingale; but it was a good-humoured roar, not very offensive to any man, and apparently acceptable enough to some ladies. He was a big burly man, near to fifty as I suppose, somewhat awkward in his gait, and somewhat ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... meadows. Ulick shivered, and leant over the fire to breathe a drier air, bantering the ladies for their admiration, and declaring that Mrs. Ferrars had taken the moan of an imprisoned house-dog for the nightingale, which he disdainfully imitated with buzz, zizz, and guggle, assuring her she had had no loss; but he looked rather white and chilled. Sophy whispered something to her papa, who rang the bell, and ordered in wine and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a song of 'Robin Redbreast,' And 'My litle pretie Nightingale,' 'There dwelleth a Jolly Fisher here by the west,' Also, 'I com to drink som ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... birds, big people as well as little love them. In the Moorish cafes, in the wretchedest gourbis, cages made of reeds are hung on the walls, all rustling with trills and fluttering of wings. Quail, thrushes, nightingales are imprisoned in them. The nightingale, the singing-bird beyond all others, so difficult to tame, is the honoured guest, the privileged dweller in these rustic cages. With the rose, he is an essential part of Arab poetry. The woods round about Thagaste were full ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... the whole of Saturday afternoon, and an hour on Wednesday, and now the evenings are light I might utilize them a little. I am to have Nightingale lane and the whole of Rowley street, so one afternoon in the week will scarcely ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... live), those human angels of whom it is written—'The barren hath many more children than she who has an husband.' And such will not be wanting. As long as England can produce at once two such women as Florence Nightingale and Catherine Marsh, there is good hope that Esau will not be defrauded of his birthright; and that by the time that Jacob comes crouching to him, to defend him against the enemies who are near at hand, Esau, instead of borrowing Jacob's religion, may be able ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... Harvest the lesson of patience taught by the little apple tree's experience will bear rich fruit I do not doubt, and the wisdom of the little brown hen cannot help but teach us all to listen for the nightingale's song of ...
— The Little Brown Hen Hears the Song of the Nightingale & The Golden Harvest • Jasmine Stone Van Dresser
... subjective, according to the disposition in which we find ourselves at the moment of hearing it. It is objective when, affected only by the purely physical sensation of sound, we listen to it passively, and it suggests to us impressions. A march, a waltz, a flute imitating the nightingale, the chromatic scale imitating the murmuring of the wind in the "Pastoral Symphony," may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... to town to see "the lions," and, with her "cousin," goes to the opera, where one guinea is paid for their admission, or even more if they be installed. Two Londoners would buy their tickets during the day, and thus pay but 17s. Another party are dying to hear Braham sing, or Paton warble her nightingale notes among the canvass groves and hollyhock gardens of Drury Lane and Covent Garden; or to sup on the frowning woes of tragedy, the intrigues of an interlude dished up as an entremet, or a melodrama for a ragout; or the wit and waggery ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... into a deep black blue, relieved by a thousand flashing edges of molten silver and quivering gold, under the crescent moon and the innumerable stars. And the bats had almost ceased to wheel, and in the moist air of early night the flowers were diffusing their luscious sweetness, and the nightingale was flooding the grove with her unimaginable rapture, and the eager talk had hushed itself into a delicious calm of happy silence, before they moved. It was a beautiful picture—the father and mother still youthful enough to enjoy life to the full, happy at heart, and proud ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... manner, soul speaks to soul. If you want Christ's lost- lambs really to believe that He died for them, you will do it better by one little act of interest and affection, than by making them learn by heart whole commentaries—even as Miss Nightingale has preached Christ crucified to those poor soldiers by acts of plain outward drudgery, more livingly, and really, and convincingly than she could have done by ten thousand sermons, and made many a noble lad, I doubt not, say in his heart, for the first time in his wild ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... lark aspiring soars on high, Flies from her cleft the dove so shy, And seeks the woodland shadow; The nightingale with song so rare Delights and fills the ev'ning air O'er ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... light, the value of which is beyond computation. On the faded leaves of this book, which once belonged to Fanny Brawne, are inscribed three new poems in KEATS'S own hand. Not mere album verses, but poems of the highest importance, equal to rank to the Odes to the Grecian Urn and the Nightingale. The book itself will be sold by auction next week, but meanwhile the poems are to be issued in pamphlet form by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... sundown through the exquisite woods of Eastwell, and will watch the owlets in their downy nest or the nightingale silhouetted against the fading sky. Then her constitutional depression passes, and she is able once more to ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... charmed by her unaffected sweetness. If they were not quite ready to take up her theories for the advancement of women, they fell to reading the delightful "Neighbours" and "Home." And now there was to be another visitant, "The Swedish Nightingale." ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... falling off to sleep once more when they were aroused again, this time by the divinest music. A nightingale began to sing in the little wood, and made it echo and ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... sunk behind a bed of clouds—the nightingale began its song, and the fresh green leaves rustled beneath the mild breath of the evening breeze. The bee hummed joyously on its homeward way, loaded with the sweets of the spring flowers. Down in the valley, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... interrupted Balbilla, "for as we approached the screen behind which he is working he was whistling a tune with his lips, so pure and cheery, and loud, that it rang through the empty hall above all the noise of the workmen. A nightingale does not pipe more sweetly. We stood still to listen till the merry fellow, who had no idea that we were by, was silent again; and then hearing the architect's voice, he called to him over the screen. 'Now we must clap Urania's head on; I saw it clearly in my mind ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... against the piercing dry night-cold; and the arrieros began to sing like capirotes [Footnote: The Capirote or Tinto Negro, a grey bird with black head (Sylvia atricapilla), is also found in Madeira, and much resembles the Eastern bulbul or Persian nightingale. It must be caged when young, otherwise it refuses to sing, and fed upon potatos and bread with milk, not grain. An enthusiast, following Humboldt (p. 87), describes the 'joyous and melodious notes' of the bird ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... She presently stretched out a hand almost caressingly to the thick trees and the grass, and said aloud: "Oh, the beautiful trees and the long grass!" There was a whirr of birds' wings among the branches, and then, presently, there rose from a distance the sweet, gurgling whistle of the nightingale. A smile as of reminiscence crossed her face. Then she said, as if to herself: "It is the same. I shall not die. I hear the birds' wings, and one is singing. It is pleasant to sleep in the long grass when the nights are ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... forever watchful of thine own short-comings. * * * Forbearance is the basis of length of days." He proved in his life what he preached. A literary wit put a characteristic epigram into the mouths of three well-known personages in our history: to Nobunaga he attributed, "I will kill her, if the nightingale sings not in time;" to Hideyoshi, "I will force her to sing for me;" and to Iyeyasu, "I will wait till ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... a nightingale singing in the woods. Did ever a bird sing like that? He listened. There was a witchery in the song. He rose and went into the woods. The song filled the air like a shower of golden notes. He followed it. It retreated. He went on. But the song, more and more enchanting and alluring, ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... through the trees, breaking through storm-clouds which had been rapidly filling the horizon, and kindling the tall trees, with their ribbed grey bark, till they shone for a brief moment like the polished pillars in the house of Odysseus. Then a nightingale sang. Nightingales were rare at Beechmark; and Buntingford would normally have hailed the enchanted flute-notes with a boyish delight. But this evening they fell on deaf ears, and when the garish sunlight gave place to gloom, and drops of rain began to patter on the new leaf, the ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Blanche," she said, "everything in the room is pretty; and you are the prettiest of all." The other smiled, looked in the glass, went up and took both of Laura's hands, and kissed them, and sat down to the piano, and shook out a little song, as if she had been a nightingale. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... features as he said, after a little consideration, 'Then, fair lady, I will sing you the song made by King James, when he had first seen the fair mistress of his heart, on the slopes of Windsor, looking from his chamber window. He feigns her to be a nightingale.' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the thrush is the most 'cultivated,' so to speak, of all our birds: the trills, the runs, the variations, are so numerous and contrasted. Not even the nightingale can equal it: the nightingale has not nearly such command: the thrush seems to know no limit. I own I love the blackbird best, but in excellence of varied music the thrush surpasses all. Few birds, except those that are formed for swimming, come to a still pond. They like a clear ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... could no more have stopped and shaken hands with Hope Wayne than he could have sung like a nightingale. He could not even raise his head erect as he went by—something very stern and very strong seemed to ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... aimed at the Stornaway and the Chrysolite, the two clippers that were known to be the fastest ships under the British flag. Though this sporting defiance caused lively discussion, nothing came of it, and it was with a spirit even keener that Sampson and Tappan of Boston offered to match their Nightingale for the same amount against any ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... sweetness pale Even the soft notes of the nightingale, Whose theme is wrought of laughter and of tears From all the ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... the tables should tell the life-stories of those who have bravely fought and never faltered. Biographies of men like Wilberforce and Howard who have lived to help their fellow-men; and of women like Florence Nightingale and Lady Stanley, who have regarded their social gifts and ample wealth as calls to service; histories of charities, intellectual development and noble achievement, pictures like Sir Galahad and The Light of the World are potent forces in the formation of character. ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... come to us from Sirius; those rays which we may see to-night when we leave this place, left Sirius nine years ago; and could the inhabitants of Sirius see the earth at this moment, they would see the English army in the trenches before Sebastopol; Florence Nightingale watching at Scutari over the wounded at Inkermann; and the peace of England undisturbed ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... also discover their peculiarities in their jokes; for they are taught never to talk at random, nor to utter a syllable that does not contain some thought. As, when one of them was invited to hear a man imitate the nightingale, he answered, "I have heard the original;" and the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... her all into the Lord's treasury?—or of Jephtha's daughter, who made a demonstration of unselfish patriotism?—or of Abigail, who rescued the herds and flocks of her husband?—or of Ruth, who toiled under a tropical sun for poor, old, helpless Naomi?—or of Florence Nightingale, who went at midnight to stanch the battle wounds of the Crimea?—or of Mrs. Adoniram Judson, who kindled the lights of salvation amid the darkness of Burmah?—or of Mrs. Hemans, who poured out her holy soul in words which will forever be associated with hunter's horn, and ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... in the world again. Well she knew that she would rather live over three minutes in the red room when she had unconsciously pleased Mr. Rollo's taste, than to dance the gayest dance with such men as Stuart Nightingale, or do miles of promenading with the peers of Mr. May. For to Wych Hazel, to care for anybody so, was to care not two straws for anybody else. The existence, almost, of other men sank out of sight. She heard their compliments, she laughed at their talk, but through it all ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... "A nightingale made a mistake; She sang a few notes out of tune: Her heart was ready to break, And she hid ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... revolver, and gurgling out '54.40' to the Sergeant-at-Arms in particular, and decency in general, as a proof of his fitness to be regarded as a mate for his Southern colleagues. Fancy Brignoli singing '1.2.3,' as he reminds us by his good singing and wooden acting of a nightingale ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... heard one before, and the idea of listening to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart. A nightingale! That is to say, the invisible witness of her lovers' interview which Juliette invoked on her balcony[14]; the celestial music, which is attuned to human kisses, that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... constantly for several months, but last night a strange thing happened. I was taking my last plunge, when I heard—sometimes from one side, and sometimes from another—the sound of a voice singing more sweetly than any nightingale, though I could not catch any words. I left the pool, and, dressing myself as fast as I could, I searched every bush and tree round the water, as I fancied that perhaps it was my friend who was playing a trick on me, but there ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... like in America. We have had an April of really 'magnifique' Weather: but here is that vixen May with its N.E. airs. A Nightingale however sings so close to my Bedroom that (the window being open) the Song is almost ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... Greece—speaking the oration over the Peloponnesian dead. "The greatest glory of woman," he said, "is to be the least talked of among men;" so said Pericles, when he lived. Had Pericles lived to-day he would have agreed that to be talked of among men as Miss Martineau and Florence Nightingale are, as Mrs. Somerville and Maria Mitchell are, is as great a glory as to be the mother of the Gracchi. Women in Greece, the mothers of Greece, were an inferior and degraded class. And Grote sums up their whole condition ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... situated in 37 degrees 8' of southern latitude, and 10 degrees 44' of longitude west of the meridian at Greenwich. Inaccessible Island is eighteen miles to the southwest and Nightingale Island is ten miles to the southeast, and this completes the little solitary group of islets in the Atlantic Ocean. Toward noon, the two principal landmarks, by which the group is recognized were sighted, and at 3 P. M. the DUNCAN entered ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... it, and give up looking for - something better. But what then? Give up the 'something better'? Give up pursuit, - the effort that makes us strong? 'Give up the sweets of hope'? No! 'tis better as it is, perhaps. The kitten plays with its tail, and the nightingale sings; but they think no more of happiness than the rose-bud of its beauty. May be happiness comes not of too much knowing, or too ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... written; she was always an awful fool, And Charlie was always drunk, which made our families cool; For Willie was walking with Jenny when the moon came up the dale, And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Alexandra Pavlovna, to tell the truth, understood little of all that Rudin said, but was full of wonder and delight; her brother too was admiring him. Pandalevsky was watching Darya Mihailovna and was filled with envy. Pigasov thought, 'If I have to give five hundred roubles I will get a nightingale to sing better than that!' But the most impressed of all the party were Bassistoff and Natalya. Scarcely a breath escaped Bassistoff; he sat the whole time with open mouth and round eyes and listened—listened ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... the pluck. None of the rest of us ever had the pluck. We all swore we'd swing for him as, one after another, he wedded and deserted us. The Two-headed Nightingale swore it, and the Missing Link, and the Spotted Girl, and the Strong Woman who used to double up horseshoes. Now she doubles up her perambulator with her children in it, but she never doubled ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... Kanwa is absent, Dushyanta, hunting, follows an antelope into that quiet refuge; finds Sakoontala, loves and marries her. Here we are amidst the drowsy hum of bees, the flowering of large Indian forest blossoms, the scent of the jasmine in bloom; it is what Keats would have written, had his nightingale sung in an Indian jungle.—The king departs for his capital, leaving with Sakoontala a magical ring with power to reawaken memory of her in his heart, should he ever forget. But Durvasas, a wandering ascetic, passes by the hermitage; and Sakoontala, absorbed in her dreams, fails ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... pierced by a dagger that was dropping red drops very sentimentally; and it said would she not hasten to take her vast beauty out in the moonlight, to walk with Herman under the quiet trees while the nightingale warbled and the snee, or sidehill mooney, called to its lovemate? And here, as they walked, they could plan their beautiful ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... have wandered from the Androscoggin in Maine to the Tombigbee in Alabama, and we never found a brook, that "babbled." The people babble who talk about them, not knowing what a brook is. We have heard about the nightingale and the morning lark till we tire of them. Catch for your next prayer meeting talk a chewink or a brown thresher. It is high time that we hoist our church windows, especially those over the pulpit, and let in some fresh air ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... nightingale, a bird he did not know. But he knew a thrush—it was one of the four birds he knew, and he stuck to it that it was a thrush singing. Afterwards he pointed out the squalid-looking cottage he lived in. It was on the estate of ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... nightingale— 'Most musical, most melancholy' bird! A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy. But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, . . . . he, and such ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... of wrangling as to her precise merits. Do you doubt this? Then come with me in my light Fourth Avenue car, while the stars are bright and the sky is blue, (this is an adaptation of a once popular love-song by Dr. WATTS,) and we will go to Steinway Hall to hear the Improved Swedish Nightingale, and feast our ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... swore Ere the spring he would return. Ah! what means yon violet flower, And the bud that decks the thorn! 'Twas the lark that upward sprung, 'Twas the nightingale that sung. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... can I do, a lame old man, than sing hymns to God? If then I were a nightingale I would do the part of a nightingale: if I were a swan, I would do like a swan. But now I am a rational creature and I ought to praise God; this is my work, I do it, nor will I desert this post so long as I am allowed to keep it; and I exhort you to ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... other weapons failed him, he fell back on the colic. He had only to interrupt the torrent of her reproaches, with a groan, and a twist of his fat abdomen, and "oh, honey, I'm so bad in my stomach!" and she was transformed, in an instant from a Xantippe into a Florence Nightingale: the whole current of her wrath deviated from him to the last meal he had ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson |
