"Minstrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Finn McCool was the great champion of Ireland. He had many warriors, who were called Fenians. He had a son, Oisin, who was a great warrior, too, and besides that a poet and a minstrel. Some of his poems are left to us yet. One day the Fenians were hunting, when they met a beautiful girl riding on a white horse. She called to Oisin, and he went apart from the others to ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... dual personality; there is one phase of him which is disclosed only in the freemasonry of his own race. I have often watched with interest and sometimes with amazement even ignorant colored men under cover of broad grins and minstrel antics maintain this dualism in the ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... "seems they hitched a kind of nigger minstrel show right on to it—banjos and thingumajigs in front of the curtain while they was changin' scenes, and they hitched the second act right on to that. Nobody come out of the theatre at ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. Grief was our minstrel of things that endure. Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate. Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure. Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing. Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth? Memory ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... times of love and minstrelsy; but so sensitive was the ear now become to exterior impressions, that she started, as though expecting a salutation from the midnight rambler. Her anticipations were in some measure realised, the minstrel pausing beneath her lattice. A wooden balcony projected from it, concealing the musician. Isabella threw a light mantle around her, and rousing one of her maidens, she opened the window. The rich melody came upon ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... well served by his spies in Ferrara, received news of what was going on and immediately informed his brother Alfonso. This was in July, 1506. The conspirators sought safety in flight, but only Giulio and the minstrel Guasconi succeeded in escaping, the former to Mantua and the latter to Rome. Count Boschetti was captured in the vicinity of Ferrara. Don Ferrante apparently made no effort to escape. When he was brought before the duke he threw himself at his ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... all he played, charmed them, even when he gave them old familiar airs. From the concertina he passed to the violin, and his skill and mastery over his followers grew; and then there came a notable day when up over a thousand miles of country a melodeon was brought him. Then a wanderer, a minstrel outcast from a far country, taking refuge in those hills, taught him, and there was one long year of loving labour together, and merry whisperings between the two, and secret drawings, and worship of the Golden Pipes; and then the minstrel died, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the song ceased the fair form of May MacLeod appeared at the casement overhead, she waved a fond farewell to her mountain minstrel and closed the window; but the light deprived of her fair face had no charm for him—he gazed once more at the pane through which it beamed like a solitary star, amid the masses of foliage, and was turning away when he found a heavy ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... Eastern districts, and the chances are that the first note you hear will be his. Rain or shine, before noon or after, in the deep forest or in the village grove,—when it is too hot for the thrushes or too cold and windy for the warblers,—it is never out of time or place for this little minstrel to indulge his cheerful strain. In the deep wilds of the Adirondac, where few birds are seen and fewer heard, his note was almost constantly in my ear. Always busy, making it a point never to suspend for one moment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... of the Hobby Drive, the bracken was like elfin plumes; each stone, wrapped in moss, was a lump of silver coated with verdigris; distant cliffs seen between the trees were cut out of gray-green jade, against a sea of changing opal; and in the high minstrel-galleries of the latticed beeches a concert ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... cheap comic literature, which I carefully preserved. In those days there were Crockett's almanacs (now a great fund of folk-lore), and negro songs and stories were beginning to be popular. It is very commonly asserted that the first regular negro minstrel troupe appeared in 1842. This is quite an error. While I was at Mr. Greene's, in 1835, there came to Dedham a circus with as regularly-appointed a negro minstrel troupe of a dozen as I ever saw. I often beheld the pictures of them on the bill. Nor do I think that this was any novelty even ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... faculties. There, now, is a man, moping about, the very picture of stolidity; observe how his heavy head hangs down until his chin rests upon his breastbone, his mouth open and almost dribbling. That man, sir, so unpoetical and idiotic in appearance, imagines himself the author of Beattie's 'Minstrel' He is a Scotchman, and ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in her father's hall Shields gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrels all, Chanting his glory: When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter's hand, Mute did the minstrel stand To ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... somewhat freely translated from the original of a Chinese emigrant named CA-TA-NA-CH, or the "illustrious minstrel." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... about him, one might very well belong to Christmastide. It is said that, wishing to know what the Danes were about, and how strong they were, King Alfred one day set out from Athelney in the disguise of a Christmas minstrel, and went into the Danish camp, and stayed there several days, amusing the Danes with his playing, till he had seen all he wanted, and then went back without ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... take part in the battle. It was a mournful beginning for a young warrior. Harald beheld the fall of his noble brother, and was himself severely wounded. He was led from the field by a faithful bonder, who hid him in his house; but the spirit of the young minstrel warrior was undaunted, and, during his ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... vagabond. The evening breeze bore the strain he was singing down to where stolid Tom stood and he smiled, then suddenly became tensely interested as he listened. Tom often wondered where Hervey got his songs and ballads. On the present occasion this is what the blithe minstrel ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to be transported back to what was youthful, simple, healthy, active, and happy. I can heartily sympathise with the feelings of Sir Walter Scott when, in reply to Washington Irving, who had expressed disapprobation in the scenery of the Tweed, immortalized by the genius of the Border Minstrel, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... to hear any more about them—seems to be a secretary. Think of having the run of a house where a social secretary is required! I'm sure she sends out the invitations and keeps the engagement- book. Besides all that, she writes poetry—she is the minstrel of the court. She does verses about her chatelaine—is quite the mistress of self- respecting adulation. She would know the difference ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... On the four winds are sped my couriers, For thee the towered trees are hung with green; Once more for thee, O queen, The banquet hall with ancient tapestry Of woven vines grows fair and still more fair. And ah! how in the minstrel gallery Again there is the sudden string and stir Of music touching the old instruments, While on the ancient floor The rushes as of yore Nymphs of the house of spring plait for your feet— Ancestral ornaments. And everywhere a hurrying to and fro, And whispers ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... sweet, How virtuous, the morning air; Every accent vibrates well; Not alone the wood-bird's call, Or shouting boys that chase their ball, Pass the height of minstrel skill, But the ploughman's thoughtless cry, Lowing oxen, sheep that bleat, And the joiner's hammer-beat, Softened are above their will, Take tones from groves they wandered through Or flutes which passing angels blew. All grating ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... North! that mouldering long hast hung On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, Till envious ivy did around thee cling, Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,— O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep? Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring, Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep, Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... had she felt, If, through the rhythmic motion of light forms, A vision, had arisen; as when, of old, The minstrel's art laid bare the seer's eye, And showed him plenteous waters in the waste? If she had seen her ploughman-lover go With his great stride across some lonely field, Beneath the dark blue vault, ablaze ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... the accustom'd place That minstrel ply'd his art, Though its soft symphony of words Convulsed with pain the broken chords Within ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... heather or in fishing the Teviot. Lady Fanny herself cared little for sport, or only for its picturesque side. Near the house are the rocks known as Minto Crags, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," where many and many a time Lady Fanny raced about on hunting days, watching the redcoats with childish eagerness—intensely interested in the joyousness and beauty of the sight, but in her heart always secretly thankful if the fox escaped. Fox-hunting ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... was long, the sun was hot, the minstrel (as surely he may be called who carries a musical box) was more than once in two minds about turning back. He perspired under his absurdly ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... The end man of the negro minstrel troupe is a modern creation like the Greek phlyax, for he is a buffoon of the plantation-negro type, with every feature exaggerated to the utmost, so that he is unreal and a caricature; but the exaggerations direct attention to familiar facts and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... a man, O Nestor, to be bought? Asia's not price enough! bid the world for him. And shall this man, this Hermes, this Apollo, Sit lag of Ajax' table, almost minstrel, And with his presence grace a brainless feast? Why they con sense from him, grow wits by rote, And yet, by ill repeating, libel him, Making his wit their nonsense: nay, they scorn him; Call him bought railer, mercenary ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... were, through a language he knew not, who shall say? He did divine him by a natural sympathy of excellence, and his chapters on the "Ulysse" of Ponsard are worth a wilderness of notes by learned and most un-Homeric men. For, indeed, who can be less like the heroic minstrel than ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... point Saxon settled the dispute of modesty and raised a general laugh by rippling chords on the ukulele and parodying an old hymn in negro minstrel fashion: ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... suspended. The argument most plausible was that he went home, while one romantic youth suggested a girl. The accusation was never repeated. What? The "Lord" a ladies' man? Tut! One would as soon expect a statue to drill a minstrel show. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... margins mossy, Where the flocks at noon their path on Came to feed by birk and hawthorn; Or upon the mountain lofty, Seated where the wind blew softly, With my faithful friend beside me, And my plaid from sun to hide me, And the volume oped before me, I would trace the minstrel's story, Or mine own wild harp awaken, 'Mid the deep green glens of braken, Free and fearlessly revealing All the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Longfellow minstrel," he continued, ignoring or not hearing my remark, "with his dreary hurdy-gurdy to cap the climax. Heavens! what a nasal twang the whole thing has to me. Not an original or cheerful note! 'Old ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... modern Englishman Handel is almost a contemporary. Paintings and busts of this great minstrel are scattered everywhere throughout the land. He lies in Westminster Abbey among the great poets, warriors, and statesmen, a giant memory in his noble art. A few hours after death the sculptor Roubiliac took a ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... several selections the musicians moved up before a hastily constructed stage. Plays or musical farces, written and acted by cadets, are often presented. In Dick's plebe summer, however, the choice had been for a minstrel show. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... Altenberg, who seemed well acquainted with English literature, if he had ever read Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel? ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... mineralogio. Mingle miksi. Miniature miniaturo. Minimum minimumo. Minister (religious) pastro. Minister (polit.) ministro. Ministry ministraro. Minor (age) neplenagxa. Minor (mus.) molo, mola. Minority (age) neplenagxo. Minority malplimulto. Minstrel bardo, kantisto. Mint mento. Minute menueto. Minuet (time) minuto. Minute (note) noto. Minute malgrandega. Minuti detaleto. Miracle miraklo. Miraculous mirakla. Mire sxlimo, koto. Mirror spegulo. Mirth gajeco, kun—. Miry sxlimhava. Misapply eraralmeti. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... long table at one end of the room is the crowd of American students singing in a chorus. The table is full now, for many have come from dinners at other cafes to join them. At one end, and acting as interlocutor for this impromptu minstrel show, presides one of the best fellows in the world. He rises solemnly, his genial round face wreathed in a subtle smile, and announces that he will sing, by earnest request, that popular ballad, "'Twas Summer and the Little Birds ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... The most primitive and unlettered peoples and tribes have always shown and still show this universal characteristic. As far back as written records go we find stories; even before that time, they were handed down from remote generations by oral tradition. The wandering minstrel followed a very ancient profession. Before him was his prototype—the man with the gift of telling stories over the fire at night, perhaps at the mouth of a cave. The Greeks, who ever loved to hear some new thing, were merely typical ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Again the minstrel took his harp and sang, and again Odysseus wept. Alkinoos noticed that the song of Demodokos moved Odysseus to tears, and thought it might be well to stay the music awhile and begin the games, that the stranger might witness the athletic skill of the Phaeacians. All the princes instantly ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... already disposed of it in the manner and for the purpose I have shown you. As I still believed you capable of remorse and confession, I twice allowed you to see I was on your track: once in the garb of an itinerant negro minstrel, and the second time as a workman looking in the window of the pawnshop where you ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... that pleases them is not always the best, for the simple reason they do not know what is best. As fast as they learn better, they drop whatever is before them and at once take up something else. The sudden disappearance of negro minstrel music is an evidence of this. The people outgrew it, and it passed away, as it ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... began with building a fire in the morning. Thurston waked reluctantly, shivered in anticipation under the blankets, gathered together his fortitude and crept out of his bunk. While he was dressing his teeth chattered like castanets in a minstrel show. He lighted the fire hurriedly and stood backed close before it, listening to the rage of the wind. He was growing very tired of the monotony of winter; he could no longer see any beauty in the high-turreted, snow-clad hills, nor the bare, red faces ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... struck the chords of his harp with a bold and vigorous hand. I learnt that they were uncle and niece. I shall not readily forget the effect of these figures, or of the songs which they sang; especially the sonorous notes of the mastersinger, or minstrel. He had a voice of most extraordinary compass. I quickly perceived that I was now in the land of music; but the guests seemed to be better pleased with their food than with the songs of this old bard, for he had scarcely received a half florin since ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the 'Antiquary,' under the eye of Jonathan Oldbuck, who was himself once in love but has come to see that he was a fool for his pains. Certainly, somehow or other, they are apt to be terribly wooden. Cranstoun in the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' Graeme in the 'Lady of the Lake,' or Wilton in 'Marmion,' are all unspeakable bores. Waverley himself, and Lovel in the 'Antiquary,' and Vanbeest Brown in 'Guy Mannering,' and Harry Morton in 'Old Mortality,' and, in short, the ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... place. We, on the contrary, have scarcely any slang songs of merit. With a race of depredators so melodious and convivial as our highwaymen, this is the more to be wondered at. Had they no bards amongst their bands? Was there no minstrel at hand to record their exploits? I can only call to mind one robber who was a poet,—Delany, and he was an Irishman. This barrenness, I have shown, is not attributable to the poverty of the soil, but to the want of due cultivation. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... only one day and one night, and yet, when he came home to his kingdom, he found all changed, his friends dead, his family dethroned, and not a man who knew his face; until at last, driven hither and thither like a beggar, a poor minstrel had taken compassion of his sufferings and given him all he could give—a song, the song of the prowess of a hero dead for hundreds of years, the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... the branches, and children's boats from the chips. What remained was used to make shelters for weak old men, sick widows, and orphan children, and the last branches left were used to build a little room in which the minstrel could sing his songs. Strangers who came now and then across the bridge stopped before the minstrel's hut to ask the name of the city with the magnificent palace; and the minstrel replied that there was nothing there but his poor hut, and all the splendour they beheld was ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... kind of patriotic poem that could satisfy the emotions of a patriotic person. But it certainly is not the sort of poem that is expected from a Poet Laureate, either on the highest or the lowest theory of his office. He is either a great minstrel singing the victories of a great king, or he is a common Court official like the Groom of the Powder Closet. In the first case his praises should be true; in the second case they will nearly always be false; but in either case ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... a woman. No man would have torn himself from the comfort of a morning nap to listen to a minstrel in a jacket; none but a maid awakes to songs of love. Not only was this woman a maid, but she was an old maid. When she had opened her blinds with the furtive motion of the bat, she looked in all directions, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... without, along The drawbridge sweetly stealing? Within our hall I'd have that song, That minstrel measure, pealing." Then forth the little foot-page hied; When he came back, the king he cried, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... supposed to ask an old German musician how many instruments of music he could play, and he acts out in pantomime all of the instruments he could blow or handle. We think it was this merriment that became known in America as the song of Johnnie Schmoker in the minstrel days. ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... farther delighted to recognize a well-known face on the minstrel's shoulders, she hastened at the conclusion to give him her compliments. It was the young nobleman who had aided her flight with Clemenceau at Munich, and of whom she had not cherished a second thought! Better than all, while titled ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Counsellor is young for his time of life; for he already betrays some signs of the change referred to in that once familiar street song, which my friend, the great American surgeon, inquired for at the music-shops under the title, as he got it from the Italian minstrel, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the "Y" and their own efforts to battle ennui with minstrel show and burlesque and dances have already been mentioned. The great high Gorka built by the American engineers in the heart of the city afforded a half-verst slide, a rush of clinging men and women as their toboggan coursed laughing ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... it stilled the multitude, And yet more joyous rose, and shriller, I saw the minstrel where he stood At ease against a Doric pillar: One hand a droning organ played, The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned Like those of old) to lips that made The reeds ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... dwelling. The furniture was scant but neat, and so daintily arranged. The bright cooking-stove, the bird-cage, the little round work-stand, above all, the handsome, cheerful woman, with her household love and genial benevolence, Isabel Chester's mother—how vividly the sight of that young minstrel brought ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... lord of the little domain in the foreground, hands on knees, lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed and dreamy, seeing the rich colors and varied action as soon as words conveyed the story to the ear; a perfect picture of the listening boy, to whom experience like a wandering minstrel sings the glory of the future in the happenings ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... the banquet, the minstrel strung his ancient harp, and soon the company tripped lightly on the oaken floor, till the rafters rang with the merry sounds of their midnight revelry. For three days and nights the hunt and the feast continued, and as, at last, the revelries drew to a close, still four dark chieftains ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... poems. Though tradition represents many cities as contending for the honor of having been his birthplace, still he was generally regarded as a native of Smyrna, in Asia Minor. He travelled widely (so it was believed), lost his sight, and then, as a wandering minstrel, sang his immortal verses to admiring listeners in the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... happened that a poem would open with a bright, musical stanza giving promise of a finished work not unworthy of Clare's genius at its best. This would be followed by others in which, to quote a line from the "Village Minstrel," were "Half-vacant thoughts and rhymes of careless form." Then came deeper obscurity, and at last incoherent nonsense. Of those which are printed, scarcely one was found in a state in which it could be submitted to the public without more or ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... the chiefs of Troy and of Carthage, with the god of love seated beside her on her golden couch. A hundred maids and as many pages attended upon the guests. After the viands were removed, I-o'pas, the Tyrian minstrel and poet, played upon his gilded lyre, and sang about the wondrous things in the ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... sculptors, except Chapu indeed, absolutely and integrally a romanticist, completely enamoured of the Renaissance. The two are so distinct as to be contradictory. The moment M. Dubois gives us the type in a "Florentine Minstrel," to the exclusion of the personal and the particular, he fails in imaginativeness and falls back on the conventional. The type of a "Florentine Minstrel" is infallibly a convention. M. Dubois, not being occupied directly with the ideal, is bound to carry his subject and its idiosyncrasies ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... applause of the boys and girls of both ages in this land; and all the English critics heap their honours on its brave old Simplicity: our national literary flag, which signalizes us while we float, subsequently to flap above the shallows. One may sigh for it. An ill-fortuned minstrel who has by fateful direction been brought to see with distinctness, that man is not as much comprised in external features as the monkey, will be devoted to the task ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the debt is going to be paid. When we open our new and wonderful gym, containing all sorts of up-to-date appliances for physical development, there will be no debt hanging over our heads. We figured on having to give all sorts of entertainments the coming winter, from basket-ball matches to minstrel performances, in order to raise funds to help out; but now we can devote our time to having all the fun going. You also remember the big promise several of the mill- owners made, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... the minstrel, With womanish hair and ring, Yet heavy was his hand on sword, Though light upon ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... eager feet the forest carpet springs, We march through gloomy valleys, where the vesper sparrow sings. The little minstrel heeds us not, nor stays his plaintive song, As with our brave coureurs de ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic ballads, songs, and pieces of early poetry under the title of 'Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, but we own we ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... the names. That which it has given to these "days of liberty" announces the ending of the feasts, and the month of fasting which should follow; carn-ival means, literally, "farewell to flesh!" It is a forty days' farewell to the "blessed pullets and fat hams," so celebrated by Pantagruel's minstrel. Man prepares for privation by satiety, and finishes his sin thoroughly before he begins ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... been a bolster, and bore him away. At first the men of the place wanted to hang him on the spot, but Gurnet claimed him as his prisoner, and would not allow this. He gave him his liberty, and the poor wretch maintained himself for many a day as a wandering minstrel. At last he managed to get on board of a Spanish vessel, and was never more heard of, but he left his guitar behind him. It was picked up on the shore, where he left it, probably, in his haste ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the fields to afternoon service. It was a hot July day, and he walked slowly—for there was plenty of time—with his eyes fixed on the far-off, shimmering sea. That minstrel of heat, the locust, hidden somewhere in the shade of burning herbage, pulled a long, clear, vibrating bow across his violin, and the sound fell lazily on the still air—the only sound on earth except a soft crackle under the Bishop's feet. Suddenly the erect, iron-gray ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... longer flight, With folded arms upon her heart's high swell, Floating the while in circles of delight, And whispering to her wings a sweeter spell Than she has ever aim'd or dar'd before— Shall I address this theme of minstrel lore? To whom but her who loves herself to roam Through tales of earlier times, and is at home With heroes and fair dames, forgotten long, But for romance, and lay, and lingering song? To whom but her, whom, ere my judgment knew, Save but by intuition, false ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... I have seen bearing a keg a porter who could speak Latin fluently. I have been in a beer-shop kept by a man who was distinguished in the Frankfurt Parliament. I have found a graduate of the University of Munich in a negro minstrel troupe. And while mentioning these as proof that Breitmann, as I have depicted him, is not a contradictory character, I cannot refrain from a word of praise as to the energy and patience with which ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... by no other achievement than the production of poetry, he suffers in our opinion a loss of respect. And this is only recovered for him after he is dead, and his poetry is left alone to speak for his name. However fond my lord and lady were of the ballad, the place of the minstrel was at the lower end of the hall. If we are pushed to say why this is, why this happens to the poet and not to the producers of anything else that excites the admiration of mankind, we are forced to admit that there is something in the poet to sustain ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... huts and oblong, flat-roofed buildings stretching their disorderly array along the road. Coming closer he saw the name, "Pipesville," printed on the door, and knew that this must be the "summer home," as it was called, of San Francisco's beloved minstrel, Stephen Massett, otherwise "Jeems Pipes of Pipesville," singer, player, essayist and creator of those wondrous one-man concerts dear to all ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... ride, and he didn't have spunk enough to hit back. If 'Zeke had jined in with me we'd had him out o' town lively. And then the way he butted in at my concert and turned a high-class musical entertainment inter a nigger minstrel show by whistling a tune vas enough to make ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... older "Spielmannsdichtung", or minstrel poetry, in the terseness and vigor of its language and in the lack of poetic imagery, but it is free from the coarseness and vulgar and grotesque humor of the latter. It approaches the courtly epic in its introduction of ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... Mere spectral forms from fashion's concave glass. She haunted gay assemblies, ill-content— Witched woods to hide in from her better self, And danced, and sang, and ached. What had she felt, If, called up by the ordered sounds and motions, A vision had arisen—as once, of old, The minstrel's art laid bare the seer's eye, And showed him plenteous waters in the waste;— If the gay dance had vanished from her sight, And she beheld her ploughman-lover go With his great stride across a lonely field, Under the dark blue ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... to her fine-tuned ear, On the midnight breezes float; Than the sounds that ring From the minstrel's string, When the mighty deeds of some warrior king Inspire ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... as he ruefully reflected, were very kind terms—rather more than kind, he had hoped, or feared, now and then. Merton saw that he had annoyed her, and thrown her, metaphorically speaking, into the arms of the Irish minstrel. All the better, perhaps, he thought, ruefully. The poet was handsome enough to be one that 'limners loved to paint, and ladies to look upon.' He generally took chaff well, and could give it, as well as take it, and there were ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... copious and energetic language: but they have no scientific grammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declensions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies have versification, and often versification of great power and sweetness: but they have no metrical canons; and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated solely by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would himself be unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before prosody, so government may exist in a high degree of excellence long before ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to you this second volume of "THE MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL," as a sincere token of my estimation of your long continued and most disinterested friendship, and of the anxiety you have so frequently evinced respecting the promotion of my professional views ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... when I awoke and re-entered the house, a merry group of guests had surrounded the harper in the hall, and were singing Penillion at full stretch, to the now unsteady and somewhat discordant accompaniment of the minstrel; the laugh was of course against me, but good-nature, rather than contempt, characterised the bantering, and I bore it all in good part. The party broke up about eleven, and before midnight I was at home, after a magnificent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... Ted was lifting a cup of chocolate to his mouth, a chunk of snow fell right into the cup, splashing the chocolate all over the lad. Luckily it was not hot, though after the splashing was over Ted looked as if he had colored himself to take part in a minstrel show. ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... Chopin is the minstrel, Neukomm the orator of music: we want them both,—the mysterious whispers and the resolute pleadings from the better world, which calls us not to slumber here, but press daily onward ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... expected that two such beings should feel attracted to each other, and Bragi soon won this fair goddess for his wife. Together they hastened to Asgard, where both were warmly welcomed and where Odin, after tracing runes on Bragi's tongue, decreed that he should be the heavenly minstrel and composer of songs in honour of the gods and of the heroes whom he received ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... The sorrowing minstrel at the casement stands And bends before the sun that gilds his wires, And prays a blessing on his faltering hands, That they may serve his lady's ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... of the minstrel, the treasure of time; [10] A rainbow of rapture, o'erarching, divine; The God-given mandate that speaks from above,— No place for earth's idols, but hope ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... dinner-party, looking sadly broken down by infirmities; and my final recollection of the beautiful old man presents him arm in arm with, nay, partly embraced and supported by, if I mistake not, another beloved and honored poet, whose minstrel-name, since he has a week-day one for his personal occasions, I will venture to speak. It was Barry Cornwall, whose kind introduction had first made ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... quiet rivers glisten We'll sometimes stop and listen To tales a gray old hermit tells, or wandering minstrel's song. We'll loiter by the ferries, And pluck the wayside berries, And watch the gallant knights spur by in haste to right a wrong. Oh, little 'Trude and Teddy, For wonders, then, make ready, You'll ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... he disguised himself as a wandering minstrel and went into the camp of the Danes. He strolled here and there, playing on a harp and singing Saxon ballads. At last, Guthrum (Guth'-rum), the commander of the Danes, ordered the minstrel to ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... the Gift of Truth," she replied, "and I will add to that the Gift of Prophecy, and of writing wondrous verses; and here is a harp that was fashioned in Fairyland. With its music, set to thine own words, no minstrel on earth shall be to thee a rival. So shall all the world know for certain that thou learnedst the art from no earthly teacher; and some day, perchance, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... literary efforts, the most important being the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," parts of which had occupied him since childhood. This was followed by "Sir Tristrem" and the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." Scott was now enrolled among the poets of the day, and while never neglecting the duties of office, he entered upon his literary career with unflagging industry. "Marmion," "The Lady of the Lake," "Don Roderick," and "Rokeby" reflected his ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... that finest of all patriotic feelings,—a desire to preserve the RELICS, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS of PAST AGES. Normandy is fertile beyond conception in objects which may gratify the most unbounded passion in this pursuit. It is the country where formerly the harp of the minstrel poured forth some of its sweetest strains; and the lay and the fabliaux of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which delight us in the text of Sainte Palaye, and in the versions of Way, owed their existence to the combined spirit of chivalry and literature, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... plain; O'er Baltic shores and through Hercynian groves, Stirring the soul, the mighty impulse moves; Art plies his tools, arid Commerce spreads her sail, And wealth is wafted in each shifting gale. The sons of Odin tread on Persian looms, And Odin's daughters breathe distilled perfumes; Loud minstrel Bards, in Gothic halls, rehearse The Runic rhyme, and "build the lofty verse:" The Muse, whose liquid notes were wont to swell To the soft breathings of the' olian shell, Submits, reluctant, to the harsher tone, And scarce believes the altered voice her own. And now, where Csar saw ...
— Eighteen Hundred and Eleven • Anna Laetitia Barbauld
... was a household service, the ritual of our feastings and mournings; and often it rehearsed for us the tales of many lands, or, best of all, the legends of our own. I see him, a silver-haired minstrel, touching melodious keys, playing and singing in the twilight, within sound of the rote of the sea. There he lingers late; the curfew-bell has tolled and the darkness closes round, till at last that tender voice is silent, and he softly ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... world, no more? Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face! Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore Can we the footsteps of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife Shadows ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... something.' Then while all went in pageantry before us, I told her of the hermitage in the oak wood and of the unhappy small tower, and of you and me and those others, and what was done that day. Don Jayme, I told it like a minstrel who believes what he sings! And then I spoke of to-day. She is no puny soul, nor is she in priest's grip. She acts from her own vision, not from that of another. The Queen is no weak soul either! She also has vision, but too often she lets the churchmen take her vision ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... explained the situation, and saw that the necessary matter was produced. He was not ambitious to write—not then. He wanted to be a journeyman printer, like Pet, and travel and see the world. Sometimes he thought he would like to be a clown, or "end man" in a minstrel troupe. Once for a week he served as subject for a traveling hypnotist-and was dazzled ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... came towards him a minstrel carrying a harp and trailing a rope. "Marry, friend, but your harp is out of ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... of the Falls of Niagara the misunderstandings between the two countries would be reduced. Peter Irving, who was then in Edinburgh, was impressed with the brilliant talent of the editor of the "Review," disguised as it was by affectation, but he said he "would not give the Minstrel for a ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... good tenor voice, and knew many of the most popular songs of the day. A third showed a talent for mimicking well known people, particularly Americans of national fame. Several agreed to black up, and give a humorous little minstrel skit that they declared would set the ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... are blended— Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended;— Even as his song the willowy scent of spring Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing, And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun, In strains that ever delicately run; So musical and wise, page after page, The sage a minstrel grows, the bard a sage. The dew of youth fills yet his late-sprung flowers, And day-break glory haunts his evening hours. Ah, such a life prefigures its own moral: That first "Last Leaf" is now a leaf of laurel, Which—smiling not, but trembling at the touch— Youth gives ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... MINSTREL, adj. Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a humor more than ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... around, and saw the world he left When to that visionary realm of song His spirit fled from bonds of flesh bereft; And on the vision he lay musing long, As o'er his soul rude minstrel-echoes throng, Old measures half-disused; and grasp'd his pen, And drew his cottage-Christ for ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Eperitus?" said the Queen. "I have heard but once of such a weapon, and that in a minstrel's tale. He came to our Court with his lyre from the Northern Sea, and he sang of ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... pathetic Indian songs, Captain Preston remembered conjuring tricks which he had learned in India, Mr. Roper proved a genius at relating short stories, and Mrs. Cameron could recite old ballads with the fervor of a medieval minstrel. The walls of the Italian salon seemed to melt away and change to a wild moorland or a northern castle as she declaimed "Fair Helen of Kirconnell," "The Lament of the Border Widow," "Bartrum's Dirge," or ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... new dust of dream God took For making man and hope and love and graves Had kindled to its fate. Before the floods Had folded round the hills. Before the rainbow Born of cloud had taught the sky its tints, The Lightning Minstrel was. The cry of Vague To Vague. The Chaos-voice that rolled and crept From out the pale bewildered wonder-stuff That wove the worlds, Before the Hand had stirred that touched them, While still, hinged on nothing, Dim and shapeless Things And clouds ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... while I am alive. Should n't mind being done in bronze after I was dead. On second thoughts not so clear about it, remembering how some of them look that we have got stuck up in public; think I had rather go down to posterity in an Ethiopian Minstrel portrait, like our friend's the ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... famous circus clown of the period, Joe Pentland, very serious and proper when not professionally funny. A minstrel who made a great hit with "Jim Crow" once gave me a valuable lesson on table manners. One Barrett, state treasurer, was a boarder. He had a standing order: "Roast beef, rare and fat; gravy from the dish." Madame Biscaccianti, of the Italian ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... clang of armour. She could not see Hugh, but even as she stood in her own doorway, looking across the hall, she heard his voice, singing, as he worked, snatches of the latest song of Blondel, the King's Minstrel. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... to 9s., apparently because the office of Scavenger was again made a distinct office, to which James Shepherd was appointed at 6s. a week. Shortly after this the office became a thing of the past, and John Ward, Beadle, disappears from our view, to join the company of the last minstrel, the last fly wagon, the last stage coach, and ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... most distinguished in rank, fashion, and letters of the Scottish metropolis. He writes to his daughter 12th February, 1809: "Among the literary men of Edinburgh I have met M'Kenzie, author of the Man of Feeling, and Scott, author of the Minstrel. I met both frequently, and from both received civilities and hospitality. M'Kenzie has twelve children—six daughters, all very interesting and handsome. He is remarkably sprightly in company, amiable, witty—might pass for forty-two, though certainly much older. Scott, with less softness ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... except a burglar's tool or two here and there to mark its operations, and, with the aged and infirm General Scott at the head of a little army, and no encouragement except from the Abolitionists, many of whom had never seen a colored man outside of a minstrel performance, the President stole incog. into Washington, like a man who ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... we passed through tangled woods the odors distilled from the wild flowers by the sun's warmth were often almost suffocating in their sweetness; and in a yellow-tufted bush on the lawn at Coronado I came upon a mocking-bird singing in a way to make his brother minstrel of Mobile or Savannah feel like applying for admission to a school of expression and learning the singing business ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... like the gates of Death, Hiss horrible pursuit—his red eyes glare The waters into blood—his eager breath Grows hot upon their plumes:—now, minstrel fair! She drops her ring into the waves, and there It widens all around, a fairy ring Wrought of the silver light—the fearful pair Swim in the very midst, and pant and cling The closer for their fears, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... who wrote in College Rhymes, and secured for that periodical a circulation by taking a hundred copies each. LEGION sent dozens of his, marked, to every poet he heard of, generally addressing them "Dear ALURED" (if that was the Minstrel's Christian name), or, in verse, "Brother, my Brother, my sweet, swift Brother!" This annoyed some poets, who did not answer; others were good-natured, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... improved revival of his original plan. If he could have made a fortune with his great inventions in 1876, what might he not accomplish by the same means in 1598! He pictured to himself the delight of the ancient worthies when they heard the rag-time airs and minstrel jokes ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... must be mentioned, namely, the minstrel Orpheus. He was the son of the muse Calliope, and was looked on as the first of the many glorious singers of Greece, who taught the noblest and best lessons. His music, when he played on the lyre, was so sweet, that all the animals, ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... life of a literary minstrel was not my role for long. Soon I was dividing every fortnight between Los Angeles and Encinitas. Sunday services, classes, lectures before clubs and colleges, interviews with students, ceaseless streams of correspondence, articles for EAST-WEST, direction of activities in India ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda |
