"Musical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Blackbirds of many kinds scuttled in flocks about the corrals and outbuildings around the ranches. Mocking-birds abounded, and were very noisy, singing almost all the daytime, but with their usual irritating inequality of performance, wonderfully musical and powerful snatches of song being interspersed with imitations of other bird notes and disagreeable squalling. Throughout the trip I did not hear one of them utter the beautiful love song in which ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... singing; but progress may be made towards both ends by the same study, and those exercises which benefit the singing voice benefit the speaking voice, and vice versa. The distinction between speaking tones and singing tones should be clearly understood. Musical tones are produced by isochronous (equal-timed) vibrations of the vocal organs continued for some length of time. Hence, a musical tone is a note, which may be prolonged at will without varying in pitch, either up or down. A speaking tone, on the contrary, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the chairman's duty to introduce the artists. "Ladies and gentlemen," he would shout, in a voice that united the musical characteristics of a foghorn and a steam saw, "Miss 'Enerietta Montressor, the popular serio-comic, will now happear." These announcements were invariably received with great applause by the chairman himself, and generally with chilling ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... (or Handel, as the name is written in German) was born at Halle, Lower Saxony, in the year 1685. Like German literature, German music is a comparatively recent growth. What little feeling existed for the musical art employed itself in cultivating the alien flowers of Italian song. Even eighty years after this Mozart and Haydn were treated like lackeys and vagabonds, just as great actors were treated in England at the same period. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Ingram," he said, with a singular light of enthusiasm on his handsome face, "what a beautiful voice that girl has! I have never heard anything so soft and musical in all my life; and then when she smiles what perfect teeth she has! And then, you know, there is an appearance, a style, a grace about her figure—But, I say, do you seriously mean to tell me you are not in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... salt in the beds in the mountains, and, being soluble in water, they also come down the tiny railroad with musical laughter. How can we separate them, so that the salt shall ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... minor citadel of Mohammedanism; and Mrs. Burch had encouraged her in the idea, not, it is to be feared, because Rebecca showed any surplus of virtue or Christian grace, but because her gift of language, her tact and sympathy, and her musical talent seemed to fit her ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... structural plan. And because reason justifies the view regarding the origin of domestic cats from wild ancestors, the evolution of all the various members of the cat tribe must be acknowledged. These animals exhibit a fundamental likeness, which, to employ a musical analogy, is the "theme" of "cat-ness," and they are so many ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... else in nature, is produced by vibrations. So is sound, and light, and taste. Each odor has its particular rate of vibration. They resemble very much the notes of a musical instrument, and, as in music, odors can be harmonized, or they may be so mixed together as to produce discord. Some perfumes, when used on the handkerchief, and are about to fade away, have a sickly and disagreeable odor. This is due to the admixture ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... her that she saw the regular quick flutter of the blue vein on his fair temples, and as the musical mastering voice so well remembered and once so fondly loved stole tenderly through the dark, lonely, dreary recesses of her desolate, aching heart, it waked for one instant a wild, maddening temptation, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... which the power of neither pen nor pencil can do justice. The sun was slowly sinking among a pile of those soft crimson clouds, behind which fancy is so apt to picture to itself the regions of calm delight that are inhabited by the happy spirits of the blest; the sycamore and hawthorn were yet musical with the hum of bees, busy in securing their evening burthen for the hive. Myriads of winged insects were sporting in the sunbeams; the melancholy plaint of the ringdove came out sweetly from the trees, mingled with the songs of other birds, and the still sweeter voice of some ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... one of the most extraordinary women and accomplished actresses that have ever graced the profession of the drama." Mrs. Glover had a daughter, Phillis, a very clever young actress, at the Haymarket Theater, who has been dead several years. Her two sons are distinguished, the one as a popular musical composer, and the other as a clever tragedian—the latter with considerable talent, also, as an ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... her father, entering as her song was ended, "does your musical philosopher teach you to contemn the world before you know it? That is surely something premature. Or did you but speak according to the fashion of fair maidens, who are always to hold the pleasures of life in contempt ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... something. Jack could not understand why. Surely, she was no longer fearful of him. She leaned closer to her young mistress, seated at a low writing table, and whispered in her ear. Rafaela threw back her head and laughed—a low, musical laugh that sounded fascinatingly pleasant in Jack's ears, worried though ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... said Bob. "Of course, we can't do it to-night, but to-morrow's Saturday, and if we get started early we may be able to fix things up so that we can hear something to-morrow night. Saturday night is the time they usually send out the biggest number of musical selections, and if we have luck we may be able to listen in ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... conductor dispelled illusions. Ned learnt from him that improvisations were not admissible in an opera house; and when the conductor told him what would be required of him he began to lose interest in his musical career. As he stood jingling his pence on the steps of the opera house a man went by who had crossed with Ned, and the two getting into conversation, Ned was asked if he could draw a map according ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... into the water, imploring their wonderful white visitors by gestures to come on shore. Not a creature among them carried arms of any sort; a hospitable curiosity animated the entire population. The men cried out, in their smooth musical language, "Come and eat!" and the plump black-eyed women, all laughing together, added their own invitation, "Come and be kissed!" Was it in mortals to resist such temptations as these? The Captain led the way on ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... hurriedly dismounted our guns and took cover in the dugout. We knew what to expect soon. We didn't have to wait long, three salvos of "whizz-bangs" came over from Fritz's artillery, a further confirmation that we had sent that musical machine-gunner on his ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... organist with vaguely-melodious hints foreshadows in his prelude the musical motifs which he means to vary and elaborate in his fugue, so Kielland lightly touched in these "novelettes" the themes which in his later works he has struck with a fuller volume and power. What he gave in this little book was it light sketch of his mental physiognomy, from which, perhaps, his ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... much interested in music, and evinced a partiality for Arthur Sullivan's melodies. Mrs. Harrison's favorite music was Nevin's "Good Night, Beloved" and the Sousa marches. The soundness of Mrs. Cleveland's musical taste was shown by her liking for the "Tannhauser" overture and ...
— The Experiences of a Bandmaster • John Philip Sousa
... to see Griselda's fair face! She is a gem, and I am sure will prove a blessing as she moves about the world in her nobleness and purity, so exceedingly womanly and winning. The book is full of poetry, and held me spell-bound to the close. It is very musical, too, in its rich, pure English. I don't know how much of its poetic charm lies in the original or in your rendering, but as it is, it is "just lovely," as the girls say.—Letter ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... new pleasures, the merry-go-round seems still to maintain its ancient popularity. I was the other day the delighted, indeed the fascinated, spectator of one in full swing in an old Thames-side town. It was a very superior example, with a central musical engine of extraordinary splendour, and horses that actually curveted, as they swirled maddeningly round to the strains of 'The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo.' How I longed to join the wild riders! But though I am a brave man, I confess that to ride a merry-go-round in front of ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... his impressive uniform stood erect and unabashed. With affectionate care he gave the tumblers a final musical stir. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... and Mrs. Green walked up to the house and were shown into the drawing-room. Here was Mrs. Mason supported by Penelope and Creusa. As Diana was not musical, and therefore under no compliment to Mrs. Green, she kept out of the way. Mr. Mason also was absent. He knew that something very mean was about to be done, and would not show his face till it was ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... well, and Irene especially made great progress in her musical studies. She had always been fond of music as a little child. In her wildest moods, when Lady Jane had played for her she had become quiet, and crept close to her mother, laid her charming little head against her mother's knee, ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... tear from his eye as the chant ceased. I have not sought to color the picture. There was a wonderful pathos about it. We had not heard the song before; and I am inclined to believe it extempore,—one of those musical efforts which persons in what we term the savage state will sometimes make when their feelings are touched by new and strange influences. Even after the song had ceased, the girls, as if under its spell, stood holding out their white hands to us. I can hardly ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... here also two other inventors of importance in the line of appliances for musical instruments, Mr. J. H. Dickinson and his son S. L. Dickinson, both of New Jersey. They have been granted more than a dozen patents for their appliances, mostly in the line of devices connected with the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Atherstone, the remembrance of the dulled, confused state in which she had been living with her aunt returned forcibly to her mind. The various articles of furniture, the red silk handkerchiefs dabbed behind pendent plates, the musical elephants on the mantle-piece, the imitation Eastern antimacassars, the shocking fate, in the way of nailed and glued pictorial ornamentation, that had overtaken the back of the cottage piano—indeed, all the various objects of luxury and vertu with which ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... silence of the popular concourse which followed this grotesque procession. The solemn composure on the countenances of the two corpulent civil officers who went before it, was reflected on the features of the smallest boy who followed humbly behind. Profound musical amateurs in attendance at a classical quartet concert, could have exhibited no graver or more breathless attention than that displayed by the inhabitants of Fowey, as they marched at the heels of ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... carts lined the road on either side, and the hoarse shouts of the vendors of fruit, vegetables, and shell-fish, mingled with the Babel of voices from the throng of people who loitered about the street, which was regarded as the promenade of the neighbourhood. Sounds of musical instruments and a loud chorus came from the upper windows of many of the public-houses and from the low music-halls known by ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... thus that I have come to conclude the reality of the stigmata. They may have been a unique fact without being more miraculous than other phenomena; for example, the mathematical powers or the musical ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... child—and then it all came to an end. There was a great staircase up which we went together; there was cloud at the top, but it seemed to me that there was life and movement behind it; there was no shadow behind the cloud, but light . . . and there was sound, musical sound. I went up with the child's hand clasped close in my own, but at the top he disengaged himself, and went in without a word to me or a sign, not as if he were leaving me, but as if his real life, and mine too, were ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mention the nasal twang, that my niece had to run away to indulge in an obstreperous laugh, and her senior companion had also much difficulty in refraining from the same kind of expression of opinion. The Oriental system of church musical notation is very complicated, having no stave-lines or bars, but only certain arbitrary marks over the notes to designate high or ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... struck them as out of place in it. Music was associated in their minds with promenades at seaside resorts, with dinners at fashionable restaurants, with ornamental cavalry evolutions at military tournaments. We were not going to France to do musical rides or to stroll about the sands of Boulogne with pretty ladies. We were going to fight. Therefore, bands were better left at home. It was a very natural mistake to make; but it was a mistake, and it is all to the credit of the War Office, a body which gets very little credit for anything, ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... the excursionists to provide themselves with light musical instruments for amusement in the ship, with saddles for Syrian travel, green spectacles and umbrellas, veils for Egypt, and substantial clothing to use in rough pilgrimizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore, it was suggested that although the ship's library would afford a fair amount of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I've seen his daughters there. Nell has played the organ at times, fer she's mighty musical. My, ye should hear her play the fiddle! She makes ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... means, musical, devoted to parish work, wishes to correspond with clergyman with view to being 'an helpmeet for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... The most musical and startling sound we heard in the woods greeted our ears that evening about sundown as we sat on a log in front of our quarters,—the sound of slow, measured pounding in the valley below us. We did not know how near we were to human habitations, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... the shrine of Edward the Confessor, with its beautiful surroundings, its grand musical services, and its abundant holy relics, that formed the chief attraction to pilgrims, and yet only the barest hints and allusions have come down to us as to what was going on for centuries in the great centre of ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... at her, and drew musical laughter from her again; but I might well stare, for there was not a careful line on her face; her skin was as smooth as ivory, her cheeks full and round, her lips as red as the roses she had brought in; her beautiful arms, which she had bared for her work, ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... to convey the immediate members of the family to the wedding breakfast. The younger bridegroom saw nothing but the sweet face at his side, though he started perceptibly when the service revealed that his father's bride and his own bore the same musical name ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... where he found his friend awaiting him in a closed car, which quickly moved off out of the city by the Laeken road. Travelling by way of Vilvorde they were within an hour in old-world Malines, famous for its magnificent cathedral and its musical carillon. Crossing the Louvain Canal and entering by the Porte de Bruxelles, they were soon in an inartistic cobbled street under the shadow of St. Rombold, and a few minutes later Hugh was introduced to a short, stout Belgian woman, Madame Maupoil. The place was meagrely furnished, but scrupulously ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... The song always had a profound charm for me. Partly this was due to association. The words and tones, which have been used to embody their emotions by those whom we have loved, are doubly expressive when we use them to embody our own. The song is potent too, because with utmost musical tenderness and strength it reveals the secret of the influence of the story of Jesus. Nobody would be bold enough to cry, THAT TOO IS MY CASE, and yet the poorest and the humblest soul has a right to the consolation that ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... The ladies, looking like Diana or her nymphs, were mounted on cream-colored Anatolian chargers, with golden bells; while Mr. Phoebus himself, in green velvet and seven-leagued boots, sounded a wondrous twisted horn, rife with all the inspiring or directing notes of musical and learned venerie. His neighbors of condition came mounted, but the field was by no means confined to cavaliers. A vast crowd of men, in small caps and jackets and huge white breeches, and armed with all the weapons of Palikari, handjars and ataghans and silver-sheathed muskets of ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... walls. In the same spirit of determination not to come short of the mark, a rich Bengalee baboo whom I once knew furnished his drawing-room, a large apartment, with thirty-two round tables and an equal number of musical boxes. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... has pointed out that lovers of the drama, who are sound judges as well, too frequently have so little taste in music that they tolerate or even approve the most atrocious noises emitted in the name of musical comedy; while lovers and sound judges of music are quite as often woefully remiss in their knowledge of stagecraft, accepting scenery and stage management in their opera which would put men less skilled in the creation of theatric ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... tramped along remote corridors, and burst into secluded lumber-rooms, with accompaniment of shouting from the boys, and of operatic humming from Mr. Migott and myself, who happen, among other social accomplishments, to be both of us musical in a desultory way. We turned out, in these same lumber-rooms, plans of estates from their neat tin cases, and put in lemons and loaf-sugar instead. Mr. Migott pounced upon a stray telescope, and strapped it ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... Chinese characters occupy the most important place. But all those words which express the wants, feelings, and concerns of everyday life, all that is deepest in the human heart, are for the most part native. If we would trace the fountains of the musical and beautiful language of Japan, we must seek them in the hearts and hear them flow from the lips of the mothers of the Island Empire. Among the anomalies with which Japan has surprised and delighted the world may be claimed that ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... mother asked me to show her what I could play on the piano, wisely hoping to divert my father's thoughts by the sound. I played Ueb' immer Treu und Redlichkeit, and my father said to her, 'Is it possible he has musical talent?' ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... person well, and even showily dressed, according to the finery of the times, and bore at his back, as wandering minstrels were wont, a case, containing a small harp, rote or viol, or some such species of musical instrument for accompanying the voice. The leathern case announced so much, although it proclaimed not the exact nature of the instrument. The colour of the traveller's doublet was blue, and that of his hose violet, with slashes which showed a ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... on aimlessly, "that I thought I had rather abused your kindness. Besides," he added, veering off, "I was afraid I should be an interruption to the musical exercises." ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... murmured the stalwart cavalier, in a deep musical voice, "how my heart has yearned for this day! How I have longed to hear your sweet and well-remembered voice! In the desolate solitudes of the far north I have thought of you. Amid the silent glades of ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... the tonneau laughed in frank delight—a musical outburst that flattered the station host tremendously. The man at the wheel ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... a little ceremonial, in the course of which the count proffered a formal welcome to the deputation; and one of the ladies, who was richly attired and wore an air of much distinction, spoke for three or four minutes in a balanced, musical voice. The count whispered me her title—I have forgotten it ages ago, though she was a great personage in her time—and told me that she had lost her husband and her three sons in the struggle for independence. This made her interesting and venerable, and I watched her closely as ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... the kneeling crowd, he stood still a moment or two, from time to time, and blessed the people; his voice was full and deep, but very musical; his face was supremely handsome, but devoid of all traces of passion. As he lifted his hands to heaven, and implored the Almighty to protect the righteous arms of his poor children in La Vendee, he certainly looked every inch a bishop; the peasants congregated round him, and kissed ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... takes to writing musical comedies, it is because some evil influence has corrupted him. That evil influence is ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... the Piper stept, Smiling first a little smile, As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while; Then, like a musical adept, To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled; And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning
... The viceroyalty of Lord Elgin was drawing rapidly to a close, and two parties, given every week at Government House, afforded an example which the good people of Quebec were not slow to follow. There were musical parties, conversaziones, and picnics to the Chaudire and Lorette; and people who were dancing till four or five o'clock in the morning were vigorous enough after ten for a gallop ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... restless in his hiding-place, and fiercely disgusted with the sleeper's monotonously musical whistle, when his waiting was rewarded. The door once again opened cautiously, and this time, Jasper Lamotte entered. He looked carefully about him, then closing and locking the door, he ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... tones and overtones, which should assist each other, mingle in jarring confusion. Indeed, when the parlor is large and high, a genuine pipe-organ built in a recess and harmonizing in finish with the woodwork of the room is not only the finest decoration possible, but the most appropriate musical instrument. Those families who possess an old-fashioned piano, such as thin and tinkly "square," are advised to have it overhauled and refinished by a competent piano-repairer, and preserved, if only for practice ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... lions and a flock of admiring nobodies twice a-week. The little widow prided herself on her worship of genius. All members of the lion tribe came alike to her: painters, sculptors, singers; actors, and performers upon every variety of known and unknown musical instruments; budding barristers, who had won forensic laurels by the eloquent defence of some notorious criminal; homoeopathic doctors, lady doctresses, or lawyeresses, or deaconesses, from America; and pretty women who had won a kind of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Theatre" (destroyed so late as 1902) and "The Gaiety" (at the stage entrance of which are the old offices of Good Words, so frequently made use of by Dickens in the later years of his life), and "The Vaudeville," were given over to musical comedy and farce. "The Adelphi," though newly constructed at that time, was then, as now, the ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... middle-aged woman in appearance, while in years not much beyond her first youth, she recalls those triumphs of her past. Her success had been marvelous though short-lived. Her mind wanders back to the days when she was the pet and idol of musical Europe. The mere announcement that she was to sing would pack the largest opera house to the very doors. Ah! those days of triumph, when she had passed from one success to another, when the mighty ones of the earth were pleased to do her honor, when the incense of praise ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... was light and frivolous; but when I talked of merry subjects which were innocent, what could be more joyous or more exhilarating than her laugh—what more intoxicating than her sweet smile, when she approved of my sentiments! and when animated by the subject, what could be more musical or more impassioned than her bursts of eloquence, which were invariably followed by a deep blush, when she recollected how she had been carried ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... nice you look in your new suit," she said, and I was aware of a muffled quality in her ordinarily clear, musical voice. She was laughing at me. "Are you giving ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... gives to the woods! How you long to explore every nook and corner of them! One must taste it to understand. The looker-on sees nothing to make such a fuss about. Only a little glimpse of feathers and a half-musical note or two—why all this ado? It is not the mere knowledge of birds that you get, but a new interest in the fields and woods, the air, the sunshine, the healing fragrance and coolness, and the getting away ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... of this tremendous tot so awe-inspiring is the fact that he is not merely a musical illiterate, who cannot yet read a note of music, but that he has received no education of any kind! Born at Tipperusalem, Oklahoma, on the 15th of March, 1912, he has for parents a clerk in the Eagle Bakery and a Lithuanian laundress. He never touches meat, not even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... the evening's peace, musical with the rustling of leaves and laden with the perfume of blossoming vines, brought no solace to her heart. Presently, unable to endure the silence ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... all musical, and proposed having little concerts. One of the gentlemen played on the violin, and the other on the german-flute. The instruments were brought in, with all the eagerness that attends putting a new scheme ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... little home improvements, or perhaps for laying it aside for the dreaded "rainy day." Perhaps she thought of getting a new rug, or a new sideboard for the dining-room; or perhaps it was a piano for your daughter, who is musical, she had set her heart on getting. The ten per cent. increase seemed to make it all so easy and certain! But after a little while she found that somehow the ten per cent. did not bring the coveted things; that, although she was just as careful as ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... but their limbs were remarkably small. The colour of their skin was a dark chocolate. Their hair was black, but not woolly; and their features were far from being disagreeable. They had lively eyes, and their teeth were even and white. The tones of their voices were soft and musical, and there was a flexibility in their organs of speech, which enabled them to repeat with great facility many of the words pronounced by ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... trees cast dusky shadows across her pathway, as she walked onward, and far away to the right of her, stretched a dark forest, shrouded in impenetrable gloom and silence. All was calm repose. Sweet odors floated to her, borne on the evening breeze, while afar off came the musical plash of falling waters, and the murmuring leaves bent to whisper a benediction. Charmed by the calm beauty of the hour, she did not observe that any one was near her, until a carefully modulated ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... He ordered the manes of all the horses and mules to be cut off in sign of mourning, he struck off the battlements of all the neighbouring cities, crucified the unhappy physician, and would not permit the flute or any other musical instrument to be played throughout his camp, until a response came from the oracle of Ammon bidding him honour Hephaestion and offer sacrifice to him as to a hero.[432] To assuage his grief he took to war, and found consolation ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... training supervisors of music has led him to feel that, although only the elementary phases of conducting can be taught, such instruction is nevertheless quite worth while, and is often surprisingly effective in its results. He has also come to believe that even the musical genius may profit by the experience of others and may thus be enabled to do effective work as a conductor more quickly than if he relied wholly upon his ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... Village." He joins Charles Lamb's friends, listens to the prose-poet's reveries on Dream-Children, then closes his eyes and falls into a reverie of his own childhood days; or he spends an hour with Tennyson, charmed by his always musical but not often virile verse, or with Browning, inspired by his always virile but often rugged verse, or with Milton or Dante, and forgets this world altogether, with its problems and perplexities, convoyed to another realm by these ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... celebrated artistes whom I had ever heard seemed to me feeble and void of expression. Until then I had had no conception of such long-sustained notes, of such nightingale trills, of such undulations of musical sound, of such swelling up to the strength of organ-notes, of such dying away to the faintest whisper. There was not one whom the sweet witchery did not enthral; and when the singer ceased, nothing but ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... free access, but afterwards were admitted only on payment of one shilling, for which, however, they received an equivalent of "tea before eight o'clock," or "half a pint of wine during the concert." There was a theatre in the Gardens, in which balls, concerts, and scenic displays took place. The musical department was for some time under the direction of Dr. Arne, and the fireworks under Signor Torre. An allegorical play was performed on June 4, 1772, in ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... all human institutions have their ridiculous sides, which astonish and amuse us when pointed out, but from viewing which we suddenly become aware of relative values before misunderstood. But just as poetry may degenerate into a musical collection of words and painting into a decorative association of colors, so humor may degenerate into the merely comic or amusing. The laugh which true humor arouses is not far removed from tears. Humor indeed is not always associated ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... She is in love with Orsino—this she knows. Olivia, she believes, is in love with her. The edge of the situation, the dawn of this entanglement, excites her mirth. In this scene she becomes charming—an impersonation of Spring. Her laughter is as natural and musical as the song of a brook. So, in the scene with Olivia in which she cries, "Make me a willow cabin at your gate!" she is the embodiment of grace, and her voice is as musical as the words, and as rich in tone as they ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... "mamma coming home? Oh! oh! oh!" and she commenced to dance about the room, and laugh, and sing so many little songs, that Edith thought there must be a musical snuff-box inside of her; particularly as she stopped to give two funny little sneezes, and then went on again. She could hardly sit still a moment all the rest of the day; and she begged to be put to bed earlier than usual, so that the "next day ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... changed by Athene into a spider. This goddess is said to have invented the flute,[21] upon {46} which she played with considerable talent, until one day, being laughed at by the assembled gods and goddesses for the contortions which her countenance assumed during these musical efforts, she hastily ran to a fountain in order to convince herself whether she deserved their ridicule. Finding to her intense disgust that such was indeed the fact, she threw the flute away, and never raised it to ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... of Saxony, 3 m. from the Bohemian frontier, at an elevation of 1400 ft. above the sea, on the Plauen-Eger and Aue-Adorf lines of railway. Pop. 5000. It has lace, dyeing and tanning industries, and manufactures of toys and musical instruments; and there is a convalescent home for the poor of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... for a long time," I said. "I shall have lots of good hermiting before that happens. I shall have my breakfasts quite alone and nobody will ask me to go to Mrs. Latimer's musical afternoon in London, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... Liversedge, of Branksome, who, with the view of developing his pine-woods in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth, had placed the formation of the company necessary to the scheme in Soames's hands. Mrs. Liversedge, with a sense of the fitness of things, had given a musical tea in his honour. Later in the course of this function, which Soames, no musician, had regarded as an unmitigated bore, his eye had been caught by the face of a girl dressed in mourning, standing by herself. The lines ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Indian, for whatever purpose he intends it. A long piece of bone, the thigh joint of the war-eagle, hangs suspended over his breast. It is curiously carved, and pierced with holes like a musical instrument. It ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... distinction, and possessed all the advantages of a polished and liberal education. The heroine has, in all situations, an abundant store of money, jewels, and clothes, supplied no one knows when, how, or by whom; and these, with her musical instruments, drawing materials, &c. accompany her into every reverse of situation, in a manner perfectly incomprehensible, but highly amusing and edifying. A miniature portrait of some mysterious relative or friend, seldom or ever seen, nay, indeed, a sacred memento ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... the High School at Washington, D. C.; Hattie a graduate from the Conservatory of Music at Oberlin, Ohio, and was professor of music at the Eckstein-Norton University at Cave Springs, Ky., and now musical director of public ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... people on a third, giving hatchets to the chiefs, knives to the others, beads and other trifles to the women, and rings, counters, and broaches of tin to the children. He then caused our trumpets and other musical instruments to be sounded, which made the natives very merry. We then took leave of them to return to our boats, on which the women placed themselves in our way, offering us of their provisions which they had made ready for us, such as fish, pottage, beans, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... little book of Verses was published. Like most beginners, she was obliged to pay for the stereotyped plates. The book was well received. Emerson liked especially her sonnet, Thought. He ranked her poetry above that of all American women, and most American men. Some persons praised the "exquisite musical structure" of the Gondolieds, and others read and re-read her beautiful Down to Sleep. But the world's ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... demand for the release of my prisoner, my name-daughter stood her ground with her cohorts, who had been scrambling around and over and through the shrubbery, massed behind her. There were Mikey of the red head, small James, the musical wee Susan, Maudie Burns and Jennie Todd, besides several more of the Burns family, a few Sprouls and Paynes and a very ragged young Jones, and they all looked at me with hostile and accusing eyes as Charlotte hurled a final invective at me. "You are wicked and the devil will ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... WHITE (INNES & CO.), is a pretty little book, prettily written, prettily illustrated by LESLIE BROOKE, and prettily bound," he continues. "Miss WHITE has a charming knack of writing musical verse, simple, rhythmical, delightful. To children and their parents, I say, take my tip (the only one parents will get at this season), and read ROMA WHITE's dainty, delicate, fresh and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... the little town, once a cattle station, now renamed in musical Spanish, Caroca,—A Caress—a spot where fruits were grown and shipped and flowers bloomed the year round wherever the water caressed the earth. Sandy rode the mare into the livery where the last skirmish between hoof ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... closed down upon us and wrapped us within its impalpable folds, the breeze gathered strength and weight by imperceptible degrees, until the scarcely audible tinkle under the bows merged into the sound of a knife shearing through a tautly stretched silken web, with a musical fountain-like plashing at the cutwater and a crisp, gushing curl of the glassy wave under the lee bow as it broke and hurried past into our wake in a lacework of creamy swirling froth, gemmed with countless glittering foam-bubbles; ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... it were, of the whole fabric of prose literature in a precisely similar manner—that is to say, by public readings or recitations. In point of fact, the instance there is more directly akin to the present argument. A musical cadence, or even possibly an instrumental accompaniment, may have marked the Homeric chant about Achilles and Ulysses. Whereas, obviously, in regard to Herodotus, the readings given by him at the Olympic games were readings in the modern sense, pure and simple. Lucian has related the incident, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... signified his assent by several yes's, and Chia Se also came forward to deliver his message. "The mission to Ku Su," he explained, "to find tutors, to purchase servant girls, and to obtain musical instruments, and theatrical properties and the like, my uncle has confided to me; and as I'm to take along with me the two sons of a couple of majordomos, and two companions of the family, besides, Tan P'ing-jen and Pei Ku-hsiu, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... over-fatiguing himself, he was thrown into a fever, and in the thirty-eighth year of his age died in a little country-town in England, greatly lamented by all lovers of learning and politeness. In his poetical capacity, he does not appear to have much imagination, neither are his verses so musical and well polished as lord Surry's. Those of gallantry in particular seem to be too artificial and laboured for a lover, without that artless simplicity which is the genuine mark of feeling; and too stiff, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... hair light; and his eyes blue, and as beautiful as those of a girl. In the tones of his voice, there was something indescribably gentle and winning; and he spoke the German language, with the soft, musical accent of his native province of Curland. In his manners, if he had not 'Antinous' easy sway,' he had at least an easy sway of his own. Such, in few words, was ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the little organ, which some Northern benefactor had given to the church and school at Red Wing, had served to prevent her fingers from losing all their skill, and in a few minutes their wonted cunning returned. She had been carefully trained and had by nature rare musical gifts. The circumstances of the day had given a wonderful exhilaration to her mind and thought. She seemed to have taken a leaf out of Paradise and bound it among the dingy pages of her dull and monotonous life. Every thing about her was so quaint and rare, the clothes she wore so rich and ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... exist between one form of perception and another as are found in the sphere of the physical senses.6 Secondly, even in ordinary sense-perception a certain overlapping of visual and aural experiences is known to us. We need only think how common it is to give musical attributes, such as 'consonant' and 'dissonant' to colours, and to describe tones as 'light' and 'dark'. The reason is that subconsciously we accompany visual experiences with tone-sensations, and vice versa. Cases are even known of human beings in whom the secondary sensation occurs ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... the splendid scenery, stage fittings, costumes and musical instruments were lost in the fire which destroyed the Grand Opera House, where their ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... history of the childhood of Christ, and his training under the eye of his mother. It is entitled Jesu Christi Del Domini Salvatoris nostri Infantia, "The Infancy of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ;" and the title-page is surrounded by a border composed of musical instruments, spinning-wheels, distaffs, and other implements, of female industry, intermixed with all kinds of mason's and carpenter's tools. To each print is appended a descriptive Latin verse; Latin being chosen, I suppose, because the publication ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... joys at My side, holding My tender hands in happiest security, for ever and ever to all eternity. Only the word that proceeds out of My sweet mouth surpasses the melodies of all the angels, the sweet harmony of all harps, and musical instruments of ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... so much nearer wrong; she is like a person trying to remember a tune, and singing it not quite correctly, while you know it better, and can't sing it at all, and are ready to go mad with mistakes which you perceive, without being able to rectify them: that is a musical experience of which you, not being musical, don't ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... first streaks of dawn Casey and Simon mounted and rode for Talapus. But before they had ridden five hundred yards Casey discovered an extraordinary thing. In his ears sounded a sustained, musical murmur, nothing less than the happy ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... have the grandest front of all. It was, however, in such a ruined state, and the few remaining fragments so complicated, that no drawings have been given us. Human figures are represented in several places; two are apparently playing on musical instruments. We recall that at Palenque, the roof of some of the temples bears a curious two-storied work, erected apparently for ornamental purposes. The same instinct reappears in this building. At regular intervals ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... not listen to me," said Purpurpurati the Peacock. "They affect even to scorn my voice! They pretend that it is less resonant than the cock in the farmyard and less musical than the bird's ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... decidedly large; the lower border of the stomach reached to the level of the umbilicus. Two cardiac murmurs were present, the one a sharp and well-defined mitral regurgitant sound, confirmed by the dyspnoea and dropsy as organic, the other a loud musical murmur of haemic origin. The trouble in deglutition proved to be due to an oesophageal narrowing. The blood examination bore out the suggestion of probable pernicious anaemia, the red cells being only 1,500,000, ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... only proportionally louder. Sometimes one would circle round and round me in the woods a few feet distant as if tethered by a string, when probably I was near its eggs. They sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as musical as ever ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern. Yet the fishers and the peasants ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... glass of a bird-cage. At the period just named, however, it found everything so exquisitely charming. It was again among flowers and verdure, again surrounded by joy and festivity; it again heard singing and musical instruments, and the hum and buzz of a crowd of people, especially from that part of the gardens which were most brilliantly illuminated. It had a good situation itself, and stood there useful and happy, ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... found at last, and the horse shod afresh during my absence. Loath to interrupt so pretty a scene, I waited, aloof, until these adieux should be concluded, and whilst I waited there came to me from the carriage a sweet, musical voice ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... straw hat, and drawing the ribbon attached to it tantalizingly along the smooth grass. Her rich hair, thus released and dishevelled by the exercise, fell partly over her face in wavy ringlets; and her musical laugh and words of sportive endearment sounded on Kenelm's ear more joyously than the thrill of the skylark, more sweetly than ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sun shone down upon them, without the shade of a twig overhead; and the water that a little while before had sung of death rippled with its old musical joy, and about them the birds sang, and very near to them a pair of mating red-squirrels chattered and played in a mountain-ash tree. And Nada's hair brightened in the sun, and began to ripple into curls at the end, and Peter's bristling whiskers grew dry—so that half ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... fifty years every bishop of Rome died a martyr, to the number of thirty consecutive Popes. It is really and truly holy ground, and it is meet that the air, once rent by the death cries of Christ's innocent folk, should be enclosed in the world's most sacred place, and be ever musical with holy song, and sweet with incense. It needs fifty thousand persons to fill the nave and transepts in Saint Peter's. It is known that at least that number have been present in the church several times within modern memory; but it is thought that ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Gualtier's musical instructions. These communications, however, were brief and hurried, and only served to deepen the intimacy between them. They had now mutually recognized themselves as two conspirators, and had thus become already ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... The crude musical instrument of the Sioux, the flute, was made to appeal to the susceptible ears of the maidens late into the night. There comes to me now the picture of two young men with their robes over their heads, and only a portion of the hand-made and carved chotanka, the flute, ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... His fine head, with abundant iron-gray hair, tossed carelessly back from his forehead, his keen eyes and expressive mouth, shaded by a black moustache, made up a very noticeable portrait, and his voice was so musical and penetrating that it lent a charm to the merest trifle that he uttered. Judge Jeremiah S. Black was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a clean-shaven, rugged face, a bright-brown wig, and a sharp pair of eyes that flashed from under snow-white brows, which made the brown wig seem ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... throughout, but they only form the gorgeous palace within which Thought dwells in full magnificence and mystic dimness. "As the thread of my song," says the poet in his preface, "unrolled itself, I saw that my heart was full of mind, that its pulses were of thought, that my feeling had something musical and difficult to measure, and that I accepted the rapture of contemplation just as a lad accepts his sweetheart's kiss. And then I saw that I am the poet, surely a poet among many—a mere soldier of the ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... affected she could not go back to school for the spring term. In looking for some one who could be eyes for their Mildred, so that she might go on with her studies at home, they had thought of this other Mildred, the little English girl, whose low, musical voice had been so carefully trained by her father in reading aloud. By one of these strange providences which we never recognize as such at the time, Mr. Rowland had broken his spectacles the last evening of Mildred's stay in New York. She had ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... colorless. Her husband, a wild explorer, a tornado of a man, had been killed by a buffalo. She was afraid that Zora took after her father. Her younger daughter Emmy had also inherited some of the Oldrieve restlessness and had gone on the stage. She was playing now in musical comedy in London. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... admit. But you will allow that in matters musical my opinion is worth something, my serious ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... Miss Knight relates that, while at Leghorn, he said he hoped Lady Nelson and himself would be much with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, that they all would dine together very often, and that when the latter went to their musical parties, he and Lady Nelson would go to bed. In accordance with this programme, he took his two friends to dine with his wife and father, immediately upon his arrival in town. Miss Knight went to another ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... continents will read it if it is written by a master. It is not at all taken for granted, admitted, or intimated, that the Negro writer of the present century is oblivious to any of these facts. Just as the "coon" melodies have captured the musical realms of this country, and will remain in the saddle for some time yet; just as Negro singers and actors are honorably invading the progressive end of the American stage, so will Negro writers swarm in ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... young Riley turned his back on the little schoolhouse and for a time wandered through the different fields of art, indulging a slender talent for painting until he thought he was destined for the brush and palette, and then making merry with various musical instruments, the banjo, the guitar, the violin, until finally he appeared as bass drummer in a brass band. "In a few weeks," he said, "I had beat myself into the more enviable position of snare drummer. Then I wanted to travel with a ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... powerful mind endowed with strong poetical sensitiveness. His work is even more poetical than musical. The suppression of the lyrical element, and therefore of melody, is with him a systematic parti pris. No more duos or trios; monologue and the aria are alike done away with. There remains only declamation, the recitative, and the choruses. In ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Evans sang a perfect bass. Bangs a clear tenor; Moore faked a baritone that satisfied all hands and Waddles wagged his head in unison with the picking of his guitar and hummed, occasionally accenting the air with a musical, drumlike boom. They rambled through all the old familiar songs of the range. The Texan herded his little dogie from the Staked Plains to Abilene; the herd was soothed on the old bed ground—bed down my dogie, bed ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... was given to understand that you liked that same come-all-ye. Have you been educating your musical taste in the last week, Miss William Louisa?" Ward stopped his horse before her, and with his hands still clasped over the saddle-horn, looked down at her with that ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... and incumbent of Baddesley. The Vicar was the Rev. Gilbert Heathcote, fifth son of Sir Thomas, second Baronet. He was afterwards Archdeacon of Winchester and a Canon of Winchester. He was a man of great musical talent, and some of his chants are still in use. The only other fact recollected of him was, that being told that he used hard words in his sermons, he asked a labourer if he knew what was meant by Predestination, and was answered, "Yes, sir, some'at about the innards of a pig." He generally resided ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... musical way. He knew the anguish that coffee had cost Hannah. She had taken to Father Letheby wonderfully. He had found for her a new brand of snuff, and had praised her cooking. And lo! a miracle. Hannah, the Parish priest's ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... out of mischief. There were swings in the big, shady pasture, where Mary swung her charges and ran under them until their feet touched the branches. All the woods were full of squirrels and birds and blooming flowers; all the meadows were gay with clover and butterflies, and musical with singing grasshoppers and calling larks; the fence-rows were full of wild blackberries; there were apples and peaches in the orchard, and plenty of melons ripening in the corn. Certainly it was ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... evening myself once long ago. I accompanied a young widow lady to a musical At Home, given by a lady who had more acquaintances than she knew. We met the butler at the top of the stairs. My ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome |
