"Musical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without fail, Rusty sang his dawn song right under Farmer Green's window. His musical trill, sounding very much like the brook that rippled its way down the side of Blue Mountain, always made Farmer Green feel glad ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... in the interior of the fertile island of Java. Among the rudest houses shown are those of Celebes, that curious island, larger than Britain, which seems to rival the sea-monster, with its arms sprawling upon the map. One house on stilts is fitted up with a complete equipment of musical instruments, the wooden and brass harmonicons with bars or inverted pans resting upon strings and beaten with mallets. Here also is a weighing-machine for sugar products, the floor resting upon the shorter beam of a lever, while the long arm extends far out of doors. Rice-granaries ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... gather a few rich carnations, singing in a low, musical voice, a man, young and handsome, slipped from beneath the pretty porch, and walking noiselessly behind her, suddenly lifted her in his strong arms, pressing the slight ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... so evidently anxious to obtain an engagement in the same theatre that he himself was engaged in that his vague reluctance ultimately vanished; and he began considering when he could bring her before Mr. Lehmann, the manager, and Mr. Carey, the musical conductor, so that they should hear her sing. As to their verdict, as to what the manager would do, he had no doubt whatever. She had a valuable voice, and her ignorance of stage requirements would speedily disappear. At the very time ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... ocean, of course," Rudolph would answer, triumphantly; while Bessie, looking at its golden ripple, and listening to its musical song, half believed that it carried its wealth of ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree, although the rules be not yet fully found. Lastly, and principally, his handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what else is the awaking his musical instruments; the often and free changing of persons; his notable prosopopoeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty; his telling of the beasts' joyfulness, and hills leaping; but a heavenly poesy, wherein, almost, he sheweth himself a passionate lover of that ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... the proper time for judgment, if we should speak of the excellence of the musical qualities of the great organ before having had the opportunity of hearing its full powers displayed. We have enjoyed the privilege, granted to few as yet, of listening to some portions of the partially mounted instrument, from which we can confidently infer that its effect, when all its majestic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... produced. He was by birth a German; but had studied in Italy, and afterwards settled in England, where he met with the most favourable reception, and resided above half a century, universally admired for his stupendous genius in the sublime parts of musical composition. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... variable disposition, and occasional fits of depression, he showed to greater advantage. He scribbled verses early; and sometimes startled those about him by unexpected 'swallow-flights' of repartee. One of these, an oft-quoted retort to a musical friend who had likened his awkward antics in a hornpipe to the dancing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... took to Ireland Clayton to write him musical entertainments, and a train of parasites of quality. He was a great borough-monger, and is said at one critical time to have returned thirty members. He had no difficulty, therefore, in finding Addison a seat, and made him in that year, 1709, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... remarked later, while smoking his cigar by himself, "I shall try to see more of that pretty seamstress, without regard to the McKenzie expectations. Jove! what eyes she has! and her low 'thank you,' as I let her in, had the most musical sound I've heard in many a day. Stay," he added, with a start, "now I think of it, she must be the same girl to whom those proud upstarts gave the cut direct in Macy's the other day. I thought her face was familiar, and didn't she pull herself together gloriously ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... risen, but he accompanied his words with a smile and a slight but courteous inclination of the head. Partly from the smile, partly from the strange musical murmur with which the Sire prefaced his observation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through his marrow. And what with disgust and honest confusion of mind, he could scarcely ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... booked the order, and departed. Archie had just completed his toilet after a shower-bath when a musical clinking without announced the advent of the meal. He opened the door. The waiter was there with a table congested with things under covers, from which escaped a savoury and appetising odour. In spite of his depression, Archie's soul perked up ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... heard her then, "rather below the average height, a complexion like yellow parchment, and short lank brown hair: a most pleasing expression and winning smile, and when she spoke I thought I had never heard such a musical voice." She went to her home-city, Aberdeen, and addressed a meeting in Belmont Street Church, which her mother had attended; and of her power of speech the Rev. Dr. Beatt, the minister, who was in the chair, says: ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... yer musical the night. Hey, Captain Ogilvy, surely I seed you an' Ruby slinkin' down the dark side o' the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... please about it in order to elucidate its nature, must always be considered as using the bodily senses in its resultant rhythm. It must always be considered as using that portion of the objective universe which we name the body as an inevitable "note" in its musical flight from darkness to darkness. It must always be conceived as following the attraction of an eternal vision, in which "the idea of the body" is ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... the last beams of the westering sun came shining in, lying level and warm upon the group at the upper end of the hall, which had gathered around the white-haired, white-bearded bard, who, with head thrown backwards, and eyes alight with strange passions and feelings, was singing in a deep and musical voice to the ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... stole up and out past the sleeping, drunken sentinel, to the stables. She lead out a white horse, her own horse, Arthur was sure, for the creature caressed her with his head, and as she saddled him she talked to him in low tones, sweet, musical words of some foreign tongue. The handsome horse seemed to understand the necessity of silence, for he did not even whinny to the touch of his mistress' hand, and trod daintily and noiselessly as she led him to the mounting block, his small ears pricking ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... boisterous mountain brook. The weather was clear, with thin ice coursing the dark waters of the mountain tarns, and now and again slight snowfalls that made the forest gleam and glisten in the moonlight like fairyland. Through the frosty air they could hear the vibrant, musical notes of the bull elk far off, calling to the cows ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... her fore topsail, which was a signal for her sailing. She unmoored and warped down into the bight, from which she got under way. During this operation her crew were a long time heaving at the windlass, and I listened to the musical notes of a Sandwich-Islander named Mahanna, who "sang out'' for them. Sailors, when heaving at a windlass, in order that they may heave together, always have one to sing out, which is done in high and long-drawn notes, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... kind of musical instrument,' she said. 'But don't let us talk any more about it. This is the second time I have seen you, but we have not really had a good chance to ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... you state, that Cruikshank had got the words from a pot- house singer, but the locality he named was Whitechapel,* where he was looking out for characters. He added that Cruikshank sung or hummed the tune to him, and he gave it the musical notation which follows the preface. He also said that Charles Dickens wrote the notes. His personal connection with the work and his relation to Dickens are, I think, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... faint and far away, the food cry, yap-yap-yooo! yap-yap-yoooooo! quivering under the stars in the tense early-morning air, and would dart away to find game freshly killed by one of the old wolves awaiting them. Again, at nightfall, a cub's hunting cry, ooooo, ow-ow! ooooo, ow-ow! a deep, almost musical hoot with two short barks at the end, would come singing down from the uplands; and the wolves, leaving instantly the game they were following, would hasten up to find the two cubs herding a caribou in a cleft of the rocks,—a young caribou that had lost his mother ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... Clocks, old slow clocks, all telling different time, all over the house. The house was very neat, but in odd corners there were all those odd family things that Russians collect, china of the worst period, brass trays, large candlesticks, musical boxes, anything you please. Only in the dining-room there was some attempt at modernity. Bad modern furniture, on the walls bad copies of such things as Somoff's 'Blue Lady,' Vrubel's 'Pan' and one of Benoit's 'Peter the Great' water-colours. Beyond this room the house was of eighty ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... the profanity of the towpath and hurl it back and forth across the river as if it was great fun and all propriety. The stalwart exhortations and clean-cut phraseology of the mule-drivers and the notes of the bugles go ringing over to Virginia's shore, and fill the air with cadences so sweet and musical that they sound like the pleasant laughter of good-humored Nature, instead of the well-punctuated and diligent ribaldry of the most profane class of humanity in existence. It is perfectly startling and frightful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... theories overboard, declaring he would never allow excerpts from his operas to be given, nor even one single opera of the Ring to be given, and then allowing single operas to be given and conducting excerpts himself—there never was in the world such a mass of contradictions as this musical apostle of universal peace born during the Napoleonic wars ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... great operas of that period, and criticised with wonderful skill the composers and their characteristics. He gave a word picture of all the great artists who had appeared on the English stage and the merits and demerits of each. A stranger listening to him would have said that a veteran musical critic, who had devoted his life to that and nothing else, was reminiscing. He said that thirty years before the manager of Covent Garden had raised the pitch, that this had become so difficult that ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... called. He was born in London, I believe, and was only four years old when his father brought him to this country, less than three years ago. Since that time he has appeared in concerts and various entertainments in many of our principal cities, attracting unusual attention by his musical skill. I confess, however, that I had not heard of him until last month, though it seems he had previously given two or three public performances in the city where I live. I had not heard of him, I say, until last month; but since then I do not think a day has passed when this child's face has ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... once one of the charms of this woman. Her voice was deliciously soft and musical. The words seemed to leave her lips slowly, almost lingeringly, and she spoke with the precision and slight accent of a well-educated foreigner. Her eyes seemed to be wandering all over me and my possessions, yet her interest, if it amounted to ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 by the children. In case such an ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... here, once for all, to what is one of the principal charms of Vaish.nava hymns, the exquisitely musical rhythm and cadence. They seem made to be sung, and trip off the tongue with a lilt and ...
— Chaitanya and the Vaishnava Poets of Bengal • John Beames
... of his trip, which has been preserved for us in the form of letters. At one place on the route a most tragic circumstance came to his notice. It affected him so much that he wrote it out with many sorrowful comments. It seems a certain monk of decided literary and musical ability was employed by a nobleman to give music-lessons to his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... and died at an advanced age respected by his brother officers and by all who knew him. He inherited some of the talents of his mother, particularly music, in which he was remarkably proficient. His apartments at Toulon, where he was stationed, were crowded with musical instruments and the works of the greatest masters. All the musicians traveling back and forth between Italy and France made his house their headquarters. The Chevalier accorded them a generous welcome on all occasions; the only return demanded was ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... and the first half of the eighteenth century there was little in New England that could properly receive the name of music. Musical instruments and books of musical instruction were rare. I have told the deplorable condition of church music in "The Sabbath in Puritan New England." A feeling of revolt rose in ministers and congregation. In 1712 Rev. Mr. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... was still shining brightly, and on the broad landscape beyond, which lay open to view through the gap in the trees. The glass door was open; the sweet summer air and the sound of birds and insects and fluttering leaves floated into the room, making the stillness musical. On the threshold pussy sat crouched, with his forefeet doubled under his breast, watching, with intense gravity, the operations of Margery, who was setting the table on the lawn, just before his eyes. Alice ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... issuing in wide-tufted undulating plain-country, rich in all charms of field and town. Waving blooming country of the brightest green; dotted all over with handsome villas, handsome groves; crossed by roads and human traffic, here inaudible or heard only as a musical hum: and behind all swam, under olive-tinted haze, the illimitable limitary ocean of London, with its domes and steeples definite in the sun, big Paul's and the many memories attached to it hanging high over all. Nowhere, of its kind, could ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... a voice soft and musical, and with the natural and easy elocution he inherited from his father, "sire, it is not from to-day that I belong to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sculptured on the marble, so thin and subtle that even the leaves seemed to quiver. A laver capable of holding five hundred barrels of water on six hundred brazen ox-heads, which gushed with water and filled the whole place with coolness and crystalline brightness and musical plash. Ten tables chased with chariot wheel and lion and cherubim. Solomon sat on a throne of ivory. At the seating place of the throne, on each end of the steps, a brazen lion. Why, my friends, in that place they trimmed their candles with snuffers ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... whisper stole in song upon his closing ear; From his own daughter's lips it came, so musical and clear, That scarcely knew the dying man what melody was there— The last of earth's or first of heaven's ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... viol, a sort of violin, which only true artists knew how to use well (one is reproduced in "English Wayfaring Life," p. 202). Therefore many minstrels early replaced this difficult instrument by the common tabor, which sufficed to mark the cadence of their chants. Many other musical instruments were known in the Middle Ages; a list of them has been drawn up by H. Lavoix: "La Musique au temps de St. Louis," in G. Raynaud's "Recueil des motets francais des XIIe et XIIIe Siecles," vol. ii. ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... atoned for by the admirable part of Madge Wildfire, flitting like a feu follet up and down among the douce Scotch, and the dour rioters. Madge Wildfire is no repetition of Meg Merrilies, though both are unrestrained natural things, rebels against the settled life, musical voices out of the past, singing forgotten songs of nameless minstrels. Nowhere but in Shakspeare can we find such a distraught woman as Madge Wildfire, so near akin to nature and to the moods of "the bonny lady Moon." Only he who created Ophelia could have conceived or rivalled the scene ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to throw some light upon the characteristics of musical performances in Germany—with regard to the concert-room, as well as to the theatre. Those who have experience in such matters are aware that, in most cases, the defective constitution of German orchestras and the faults ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... the noontide of the moon, and when[mg] The wind is winged from one point of heaven, There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then Is musical—a dying accent driven Through the huge Arch, which soars and sinks again. Some deem it but the distant echo given Back to the night wind by the waterfall, And harmonised by the old ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... repressing his musical instincts when he caught himself humming some favorite melody; nor would he have budged until Alec appeared had not his keen eyes noted another curious movement in the street. About half-past three several men strolled ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... with the bevies of the younger set, from sixteen to eighteen, dressed in soft tulle and organdy; slow of speech; their voices low, musical, delicious. He was introduced to so many his head began to swim. To save his soul he couldn't pick out one more entrancing than another. The moment they spied his West Point uniform he was fair game. They made eyes at him. They languished and pretended to be smitten ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... extraordinary woman broke off her speech, or chant, which was so much musical gibberish to us, for all that we understood of what she was talking about, and seemed to fix her flashing eyes upon the deep shadow before her. Then in a moment they acquired a vacant, terrified stare, as though they were striving to realise some half-seen ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... pieces of Arabic song. "In these," he would say to Shakib, pointing to the bottle and the lute, "is real poetry, and not in that book with which you would kill me." And Shakib, in stingless sarcasm, would insist that the music in Al-Mutanabbi's lines is just a little more musical than Khalid's thrumming. They quarrel about this. And in justice to both, we give the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Musical instruments are always acceptable. The metalophone is one of the simplest from which you can get real music. The cheapest is just as usable as the more expensive, although, of course, it does not have so ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... March' on my golden lyre, and cry out in anguish, 'ai! ai! 'Nay, nay, a couple of nays; college years are all too brief; hence I shall, by my own original process, extract from them all the sunshine and happiness possible, and by my wonderful musical and vocal powers, bring joy to my colleagues, who—Ouch, Butch—look out for ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... to argue about, they only spoke a few words at a time, but these were all musical ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... out to Frederick an individual who was smoking a dirty pipe with his elbows resting on a balcony; and the popular frenzy redoubled with a continuous crash of broken porcelain and pieces of crystal, which, as they rebounded, made sounds resembling those produced by the plates of musical glasses. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... infant; the staff of old age; the secret treasure we lock up in our own hearts, and which ever grows greater as we count it over. Let me not be told that the coin is fictitious, and the gold not genuine; its clink is as musical to the ear as though it bore the last impression of the mint, and I'm not the man to cast an aspersion upon ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... returned, "to give you a musical counter to your picture. But I see a grave man tilling the ground in peace, and the form of Truth standing behind him, and folding her wings closer and closer over and around him as he works on at his ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... down looking for her keys, Lecoq scrutinized her closely. She was about forty years of age, with an abundance of light hair, and a very fair complexion. She was well preserved—that is to say, she was plump and healthy in appearance; her glance was frank and unembarrassed; her voice was clear and musical, and her manners were pleasing, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... pity that the Americans have not adhered more to the Indian names, which are euphonous, and very often musical; but, so far from it, they appear to have had a pleasure in dismissing them altogether. There is a river running into Lake Champlain, near Burlington, formerly called by the Indians the Winooski; but this name has been superseded by the settlers, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... regard to external style are such as these: Is it good or bad, careful or careless, clear and easy or confused and difficult; simple or complex; terse and forceful (perhaps colloquial) or involved and stately; eloquent, balanced, rhythmical; vigorous, or musical, languid, delicate and decorative; varied or monotonous; plain or figurative; poor or rich in connotation and poetic suggestiveness; beautiful, or only clear and strong? Are the sentences mostly long or short; periodic or loose; mostly of one type, such as the declarative, or with ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... the river Marsyas, under the citadel. This river too runs through the city, and falls into the Maeander. The breadth of the Marsyas is twenty-five feet. Here Apollo is said to have flayed Marsyas, after conquering him in a trial of musical skill, and to have hung up his skin in the cave, where the source of the stream rises: and on this account the river is called the Marsyas. 9. Xerxes is said to have built both this palace and the citadel of Celaenae, when he was returning from Greece after ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... the story of their wrongs. It made my blood boil to bear those tones, wrung from the heart of poverty by the hand of tyranny. The ignorance, permitted by the government, causes an unheard amount of misery and degradation. We heard afterwards in the streets, another company who played on musical instruments. Beneath the proud swell of England's martial airs, there sounded to my ears a tone whose gathering murmur will make itself heard ere long by the ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Hymn-Tunes, Chants, Sentences, Motets, and Anthems, adapted to Public and Private Worship, and to the Use of Choirs, Singing-Schools, Musical Societies, and Conventions. Together with a Complete Treatise on the Principles of Musical Notation. By B.F. BAKER and W.O. PERKINS. Boston: Ticknor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... eldest daughter a composer,—I am really interested in hearing all they have to say on the subject. Our bias is, temporarily, decidedly Wagnerian, for Cousin JANE, who is really in favour of "tune," and plenty of it,—being specially fond of BELLINI and DONIZETTI,—in scientific musical society has not the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... rose and fell in unison, and the steady swishing sound was musical. The moonlight deepened and poured its stream of silver over hundreds of savage faces, illuminating the straight black hair, the high cheek bones, and the broad chests, naked, save for the war paint. None of them spoke, but ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... village against village, family against family, throughout the land. He should be afraid to die in such doctrine. He shuddered that any one should dare to come before God's tribunal with such blasphemies. Meantime his great adversary, the learned and eloquent, the musical, frolicsome, hospitable heresiarch was no more. Worn out with controversy, but peaceful and happy in the convictions which were so bitterly denounced by Gomarus and a large proportion of both preachers ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... breaking of the waves among the rocks, which would have proved what he wished to know at once; but though he listened again and again, he could not distinguish a sound. The only noises he heard were those he made in stepping on one side of some piece of stone, which gave forth a musical ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... surmounted with crescents, birds, elephants, barrels, and swords of gold, and on some were couched stuffed animals. Innumerable smaller umbrellas of striped stuff were borne by the crowd, and all these were waved up and down, while a vast number of flutes, horns and other musical instruments sounded in the air. All the principal people wore robes woven of foreign silk, which had been unraveled for working into native patterns. All had golden necklaces and bracelets, in many cases so heavy that the arms of the bearers were supported on boys' heads. The ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... only long knowledge of men can give to women. He wondered if he were found wanting.... Her dark head bended, elbow on knee, chin resting lightly in the cradle of her slender, parted fingers, the woman thought profoundly, her reverie ending with a brief, curt laugh, musical and mirthless as the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... nothing like disparagement in this comparison) is widely shared, as we have the best reason to know, by our readers on both sides of the Atlantic: 'JOHN WATERS! There is a drab-coated plainness about the name, which is at the same time liquid and musical; not more liquid and musical, howbeit, than those charming commentaries of his on every variety of quaint topic; full of an amiable grace, tinged with the most delicate hue of a fine humor; a refined ore drawn from no ordinary mine without alloy; ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... simper, at least. No need but of the most delicate hints to them. A man who is gross in a woman's company, ought to be knocked down with a club: for, like so many musical instruments, touch but a single wire, and the dear souls are ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... night Pharaoh's daughter had her attendants play upon a thousand different musical instruments, which she had brought with her from her home, and as each was used, the name of the idol to which it was dedicated was mentioned aloud. The better to hold the king under the spell of ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... admiration of her friends increased every day. The little children, whose musical education she had now begun, had already learned to love her; and when she was transformed from a friend to a teacher they loved her none the less. Zillah's capacity for teaching was so remarkable that it surprised herself, and she began to think that ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... 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 ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... imagination," said Valentin, "I have been to see her—three times in five days. She is a charming hostess; we talk of Shakespeare and the musical glasses. She is extremely clever and a very curious type; not at all coarse or wanting to be coarse; determined not to be. She means to take very good care of herself. She is extremely perfect; she is as hard and clear-cut as some little figure of a sea-nymph in ...
— The American • Henry James
... all reason transported, that to express his sorrow, he immediately ordered the manes and tails of all his horses and mules to be cut, and threw down the battlements of the neighboring cities. The poor physician he crucified, and forbade playing on the flute, or any other musical instrument in the camp a great while, till directions came from the oracle of Ammon, and enjoined him to honor Hephaestion, and sacrifice to him as to a hero. Then seeking to alleviate his grief in war, he set out, as it were, to a hunt and chase of men, for he fell upon the Cossaeans, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... not even know what was happening to her, for she could not resist the fascination of his voice. That musical pleading of love, those burning kisses, and those passionate glances flooded her entire being with an overwhelming and mad desire for joy. She abandoned herself to him with the passiveness of a fascinated ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... splendid music of man conquering all things for God, were, after all, some huge, sublime and holy vagueness, as if the service and the things I saw about me were not hard true realities—as if going to Church were like sitting in a cloud—some soft musical cloud or floating island of goodness and drifting ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... were cast down and disheartened. Thus, as Plato says, he was able to prove that oratory is the art of influencing men's minds, and to use it in its highest application, when it deals with men's passions and characters, which, like certain strings of a musical instrument, require a skilful and delicate touch. The secret of his power is to be found, however, as Thucydides says, not so much in his mere oratory as in his pure and blameless life, because he was so well known to be incorruptible, and indifferent to money; for though he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... quiet any longer. She sprang up, locked her door, and began, in her long, white night-robe, pacing up and down. So another hour passed. One! One from the little Swiss musical clock; one, solemn and sombre, from the big clock up in the tower. Then she stopped—stopped in thought; then she walked to one of her boxes, and took out a writing-case, always kept locked. With ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... to Cornelia, who courtesied grandly in return, the band struck up a waltz, which seemed to be at once reflected in her face and manner. She was particularly sensitive to musical impressions, and instinctively looked up to Bressant's face for sympathy, forgetting at the moment that his infirmity would probably debar him from sharing her enjoyment. However that might be, he was certainly not ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... of Box is of great value for musical instruments, and for forming the handles of many tools: being very hard, it admits of a fine polish. This tree is growing in quantity at Box-hill in Surry, and has given name to ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... as the emigrants gathered for worship, she was present with the children, and joined in the singing, for she had a fine, melodious voice. There was no organ on board the ship, neither did the colonists have musical instruments. Yet they sang so wondrously that it was a pleasure to listen to them. The hymns were learned by heart, not only by the older members, but also by the children, who joined their clear young voices with those ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... 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
... Coram-street was the spot pitched upon. The house had been furnished accordingly; two female servants and a boy engaged; and an advertisement inserted in the morning papers, informing the public that 'Six individuals would meet with all the comforts of a cheerful musical home in a select private family, residing within ten minutes' walk of'—everywhere. Answers out of number were received, with all sorts of initials; all the letters of the alphabet seemed to be ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... more than once raised again by general desire. A musical interlude kept the assembly amused while preparation was going forward, to surprise them with a picture of a higher stamp; it was the well-known design of Poussin, Ahasuerus and Esther. This time Luciana had done better for herself. As the fainting, sinking queen she had put out ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... evenings, then, when the smell of roast apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's pantry—a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was to be one ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Mohammedan call to prayers. The music and merrymaking instantly ceased, and the sweet weird chant rang out far and wide through the still evening air over the silent village, dying away at last in a long musical cry of La illaha il Allah! ("There is no God but God"). Amid profound silence Kazi Mullah—for the gray-bearded stranger was that renowned priest—stretched out his hand over the crowded courtyard and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... to a musical water-tree, Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon, Before my eyes, in the light of the moon, To ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... lord's peril, was then enjoying. He immediately got together, in the words of my authority, "a great, lawless mob of fiddlers, players, cobblers, and such like," and marched towards the earl. The Welsh, although a musical people, not relishing this sort of chorus, thought it prudent to beat a retreat, and fled. The earl, by this well-timed presto-movement, being released from danger, returned with his constable to Chester, and in reward of his service, granted by deed to Roger and his heirs, authority "over ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... younger son of a blue-blooded but impecunious baronet should, and to step into the living which is fattening for you, then I must refuse to take any further responsibility for your future. Here is a thousand pounds; it is the money I had set aside for your college course. Use it for your musical tomfoolery if you insist, and then—get what living you can.' Which was severe but dignified, unpaternal yet patrician. But what does my governor do? That cantankerous, pig-headed old Philistine—God bless him!—he's ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... not know how long I had been sleeping when I was wakened by a voice that seemed to fill the room, low, soft, and musical as the tones of an Aeolian harp. I groped my way noiselessly in the dark to Max's bed and aroused him. Placing my hand over his mouth to insure ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... he said to himself. "I must get out of this. A fellow can't work in London. I'll go down to some farmhouse in the country. I can't think here. You might just as well try to work at a musical 'At Home.'" ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... the chance of somebody hearing her in this wild and desolate place. Through the ravine rang the golden voice that might one day enthrall the world, pitched to fill a wider auditorium than it had ever filled before. From side to side it rolled and echoed in musical cadences: "Help! Come! ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... madam took up the matter, uttering her angry squawk, and breaking upon my silence almost like a pistol shot. At once I forgot her mate, and though he retired to a little distance and resumed his brilliant musical performance, I did not turn my head at his beguilements. She was the business partner of the firm whose movements I wished to follow. She must, sooner or later, go to her nest, while he might deceive me for days. Indeed, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... had Bobolink received his bugle, and William his drum. Both proved very able in managing these musical instruments, and the shrill notes of the one, and the roll of the other, had become very familiar and acceptable sounds in Stanhope these fall days, when the first ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Sur Das was of special importance for in one of his compositions he took each of the thirty-six traditional modes of Indian music-the Ragas and Raginis—but instead of celebrating them as separate 'musical characters,' appended to each a love-poem about Krishna. Sur Das was followed by Keshav Das of Orchha (fl. 1580), Govind Das (fl. 1590), Bihari Lai (fl. 1650) and Kali Das (fl. 1700)—all poets in whom religious ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... stuccoed saloons, with their out-look on to the cloisters of a court, or the ilex tops or orange espaliers of a garden, filled with the faint splash of the fountains outside, the spectral silvery chiming of musical clocks, where, unconscious of the thousands of beings who would crowd in there armed with guide-books and opera-glasses in the days to come, only stray foreigners were to be met, foreigners who most likely were daintily embroidered and powdered aristocrats ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... known as the 'laughing jackass.' We had heard of the creature before, but this was our first view of him. We took a good look, and while we were doing so he laughed again, right in our faces. The laugh is almost exactly like that of a human being. It is not musical but is very comical, and, somehow, it has a tendency to set everybody laughing who is within sound ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... are not a musical people.' The dictum long stood unquestioned, and, in general estimation, unquestionable. All the world had agreed upon it. There could be no two opinions: we had no national airs; no national taste; no national appreciation of sweet sounds; musically, we were blocks! ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... voice was past singing, and began one of her most renowned instrumental pieces, which she could play as mechanically as a musical-box. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Genesis—Adam, Enos, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph—seven in number, represent the seven chief stages of the soul's existence which follow each other like the notes in the musical scale. It is our own experience that is there portrayed, both present and prospective. What we as individuals, and nations are now going through in our efforts for betterment, is told in the story of Genesis. More than this, the clue to assured ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... instructors, and by the most ample opportunities of cultivation and improvement. Such lessons and exhibitions, however, might have been thrown away upon many; but James had been born with those natural capacities which fitted him to excel in them. He possessed a fine and correct musical ear; a voice which was rich, flexible, and sufficiently powerful for chamber music; and an enthusiastic delight in the art, which, unless controlled by strong good sense, and a feeling of the higher destinies ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... be said to be full of music, for it is composed of nine different kinds of verses, which by their several lengths resemble the nine stops of the old musical instrument, that is likewise the subject ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... pleasure of perceiving those advances; which, like the hand of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation. A facility of drawing, like that of playing upon a musical instrument, cannot be acquired but by an infinite number of acts. I need not, therefore, enforce by many words the necessity of continual application; nor tell you that the port-crayon ought to be for ever in your hands. Various methods will occur ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... We all lived in Honolulu in those days. Charming, charming fellow, George Studdiford, but queer. He was very musical, you know; he'd look daggers at you if you happened to sneeze in the middle of one of his Beethoven sonatas. Tim's mother was very sweet, beautiful, too, but ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... "On musical grounds. After singing 'My Country, 'Tis of Thee,' all these years, I don't want the mental effort of changing to ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... a recess formed entirely of petrified matter, around which the irregular projections of native rock are covered with an incrustation white as snow; and in many parts appear stalactites suspended from point to point, like light festoons of ice, which, if struck, return all the notes of musical glasses. In the midst of this recess arises from a pedestal, clear almost as glass, an amber altar. Beneath, but still in the roof of the cavern, is another circular excavation resembling an immense helmet, which seems to be lined with rich satin, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... town at present is in relation to Edgcombe; though your not knowing the people concerned so well as I do, will, I fear hinder you from being so much entertained by it. I can't tell whether you know a tall, musical, silly, ugly thing, niece to Lady Essex Roberts, who is called Miss Leigh. She went a few days ago to visit Mrs. Betty Tichborne, Lady Sunderland's sister, who lives in the house with her, and was denied at the door; but, with the ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... all through dinner with jokes and quips from the latest musical comedies and anecdotes of his dear old college days, and how that very afternoon he had won a silver cup and the pool championship of his college club—and against a lot of corking good players, too, he didn't mind saying. Also I noticed we was eating a mighty good dinner; so darned good you didn't ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... flowers of spring suggested the end of the dreary winter season, the Newtown people prepared to move. Selling their lands on the Charles River to the congregation of Rev. Thomas Shepard, the whole body, in June, 1636, emigrated through the green woods, musical with birds and bright with flowers, under the leadership of their two eminent ministers, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone.[51] Among the lay members of the community were Stephen Hart, Thomas Bull, and Richard Lord.[52] A little ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... Lady Wolvercote was continuing, "and the Duke thinks he may be able to get down ——," she mentioned a royalty. "You're going to help us too, aren't you, Mrs. Shaw? It's so very kind of you. We've got such a pretty part for you in a musical affair which Lenny Lumley wrote with somebody or other for the Duchess of Ulster's Elizabethan bazaar. There's a chorus of fairies—nymphs, Charlie? Yes, nymphs, and we want them all to be very pretty and able to sing, and there's a charming dance for them. I'm afraid that silly ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... followed, all men listening with attentive ear, even the women and children across the little ravine, hushing their nervous giggle and chatter, 'Tonio's voice was presently uplifted, neither harsh nor guttural, but deep and almost musical. In the tongue of his people he spoke seven words, and there seemed no need of the ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... eighteen years of age, and had a very pretty face,—though it was thickly covered with a coating of the sacred soil,—a musical voice, and a small hand. Her eyes sparkled like fire-flies on a June night, and her hair hung in wavy ringlets over what would have been an 'alabaster brow,' had it not been for the superabundance of dirt above mentioned. She was the only good-looking ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... But the instant she got out into the cool night air a check came to action and thought. Strange sensations poured in upon her—the darkness, lonesome and weird; the wailing wind with its weight of dust; the roar of Benton's main thoroughfare; and the low, strange murmur, neither musical nor mirthful, behind her, from that huge hall she called her home. Stranger even than these emotions were the swelling and aching of her heart, the glow and quiver of her flesh, thrill on thrill, deep, like bursting pages of joy never before experienced, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... beautiful Villa Reale, between this course and the sea. The Villa is a slender strip of Paradise, a mile long; it is rapture to walk in it, and it comes, in description, to be a garden-grove, with feathery palms, Greekish temples, musical fountains, white statues of the gods, and groups of fair girls in spring silks. If I remember aright, the sun is always setting on the bay, and you cannot tell whether this sunset is cooled by the water or the water is warmed by the golden light upon it, and upon ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... drove home at top speed, and my quick ears caught the musical hum of the motor as it crossed the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... fanned their hot faces gratefully. The musical tap-tap of the waves against the side of the ship came to them as from a great distance, and even the voices and laughter of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... very pretty, no doubt, and as true as most poetical and musical descriptions, but I felt certain that there must be something to pay for this flattering entertainment; if you are considered to be a great man, a present is invariably expected in proportion to your importance. I ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... calls them organa hydralica, and they seem to have been a musical instrument on the same principle as our present organs, only that water was the inflating power. Vitruvius (iv. ix.) mentions the instrument as the invention of Ctesibus of Alexandria. It is also well described by Tertullian, De Anima, c. xiv. The pneumatic ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... makes some people gather the mistaken impression that San Francisco's dramatic and musical history had its genesis when miners threw gold nuggets at the feet of Lotta Crabtree. But it has been pointed out by one musical critic that the Franciscan padres were chanting Gregorian measures in the Mission Dolores when the battles of Lexington and Concord ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... in electro-therapeutics. An effect produced on a nerve by very rapidly alternating induced currents. The currents are produced by an induction coil with a vibrator giving a musical note. This is a species of gauge of ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears,[236] And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, 20 With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas[237]—and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the country put on Gaelic plays by Dr. Douglas Hyde, Pierce Beasley, Thomas Haynes, Canon Peter O'Leary, and others; and the Oireachtas (the Gaelic musical and literary festival) held each year in Dublin usually presents several Irish plays and offers prizes for new ones ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... Mother Songs, Froebel couples rhythm with harmony of all kinds, not only musical harmony but harmony of proportion and colour, and in urging the very early training of "the germs of all this," he gives perhaps the chief reason for training. "If these germs do not develop and take shape as independent formations ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... soft purring ways of a cat, the tact of a Jesuit, the penetration of a money-lender, the sensibility of a musical amateur, and the morals of a maid-of-honour. He had extraordinary command over himself; he seemed able to do everything, and wishful to win nothing. There never was a young man (as a matter of fact) who wanted so much or asked so little. It was the very boundlessness ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... conservatory is but dimly lit with lamps covered with pale pink shades. The soft musical tinkling of a fountain, hidden somewhere amongst the flowering shrubs, adds a delicious sense of coolness to the air. The delicate perfume of heliotrope mingles with the breath of the roses, yellow and red and amber, that, standing in their pots, nod their heads drowsily. The begonias, ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... know what to write about my house. It is a Japanese idyll; there is nothing within or without which does not please the eye, and, after the din of yadoyas, its silence, musical with the dash of waters and the twitter of birds, is truly refreshing. It is a simple but irregular two-storied pavilion, standing on a stone- faced terrace approached by a flight of stone steps. The garden is well laid ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... are noted for their worship of the golden god," she replied, with a low musical laugh; "but Ralph Mainwaring's love of money is almost a monomania. He has planned and schemed to get that old piece of English property into his hands for years and years, in fact, ever since it was willed to Hugh Mainwaring at the time his brother ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour |
