"Violin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... friendship struck up between Frohman and Stoddart, who, in a way, was a character. He played the violin, and when business was bad and the company got in the dumps Stoddart added to their misfortunes by playing doleful tunes on his fiddle. But that fiddle had a virtue not to be despised, because it was Stoddart's bank. In its hollow box he secreted ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... just came in here, is quite a musician, and her old father plays the violin beautifully;—by the way, we might engage him for ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... milliners is, from their superior height, unrecognizable; while doctors and lawyers are again, I doubt not, massed by countesses and other blue-blooded realities, with the literary lions who roar at soirees and kettle-drums, or even with chiropodists and violin-players! But I am growing scornful at scorn, and forget that I too have been scornful. Brothers, sisters, all good men and true women, let the Master seat us where He will. Until he says, "Come up higher," let us sit at the foot of the board, or stand ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... green, Arthur noticed, not a village blacksmith, but a small crowd, mostly composed of children, gathered round somebody. On going to see who it was, he discovered a battered-looking old man with an intellectual face, and the remnants of a gentlemanlike appearance, playing on the violin. A very few touches of his bow told Arthur, who knew something of music, that he was in the presence of a performer of no mean merit. Seeing the quality of his two auditors, and that they appreciated ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... of a man of the world. His forehead was high; his lips were thin; his nose inclined toward the Roman pattern; his black moustache was carefully curled and twisted at the extremities. Moreover, he was musical; for he held in one hand the bow of a violin, having just laid down the instrument itself on the sofa after a plaintive duet with ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... concerning the Original of the Cat-call, we are in the next place to consider the Use of it. The Cat-call exerts it self to most advantage in the British Theatre: It very much Improves the Sound of Nonsense, and often goes along with the Voice of the Actor who pronounces it, as the Violin or Harpsichord accompanies ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... slight-of-hand professors, and raree-shew men, have each their distinct audiences. You advance. A little girl with a raised turban (as usual, tastefully put on) seems to have no mercy either upon her own voice or upon the hurdy-gurdy on which she plays: her father shews his skill upon a violin, and the mother is equally active with the organ; after "a flourish"—not of "trumpets"—but of these instruments—the tumblers commence their operations. But a great crowd is collected to the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... upon four or five of them to venture on board. As soon as they entered the ship I made them several, presents, and in a very little time they appeared to be perfectly at ease. As I was very desirous to entertain them, one of the midshipmen played upon the violin, and some of my people danced; at this they were so much delighted, and so impatient to show their gratitude, that one of them went over the ship's side into the canoe, and fetched up a seal-skin bag of red paint, and immediately smeared the fiddler's face all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... for the possession of a violin and the moment it is yours, may play upon it. It is yours. If you are in the mood to play, it must be ready for you. If it is not, then tune it, and it will be.[G] But a human being cannot be treated so in any human relationship. It needs mutual patience and mutual ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... you noisy fellows," exclaimed Mendelssohn gaily; and two men entered. The elder, who was of Mendelssohn's age, carried a violin case, and saluted the composer with a flourish of the music held in his other hand. "Hail you second Beethoven!" he exclaimed. Suddenly he observed my presence and hushed his demonstrations, giving me a courteous, and ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... meaningless strumming. He could rattle through a lot of popular tunes and stumble through a few short simple school-girl salon pieces. The Buchers were a real orchestra. With the ladies at the piano, the old Herr at the flute, Ernst at the violin and Rudi at the 'cello, they could play a dozen programmes and furnish ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... never was rich, and yet he came here. He was very pale, and had large and beautiful but sorrowful eyes. He took a violin with him to Mount Carmel; it was the greatest treasure he had on earth, and he played the most wonderful things on this violin that ever were heard, and everybody who heard it said that he was a great musician. In the winters he suffered very much from the cold and the fogs of England; so, ...
— The Pearl Story Book - A Collection of Tales, Original and Selected • Mrs. Colman
... great friend of Gounod. When he returned to New Orleans after an absence of forty-six years to play for his native city once more, he was old, but not worn, nor bent, the fire of youth still flashed in his eye, and leaped along the bow of his violin.[91] One may mention a long list of famous musicians of color of the State, but our picture must be filled in rather with the broad sweep of the mass, not of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... sentences. He was elegant in his manners and bland and refined in his deportment. He was a skilful musician and passionately fond of children, and it was his wont in early life to gather them in groups about him and beguile them by the hour with the music of the flute or violin. He was actually devoid of all ambition for power and place, and uniformly declined all offers of advancement to the highest judicial honors ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Stradivarius; Paganini knows it, takes it home with him, guards it as the apple of his eye; from an instrument that for me would never have been more than a resonant wooden box he draws chords that make men weep, and love, and fall into a very ecstasy; he directs in his will that they bury this violin with him in his coffin. Well, Paganini is the lover, the instrument with its strings and tuning-pegs is the woman. The instrument must be beautifully made and come from the workshop of a right skilful maker; more than that, it must fall into the ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... Rome this time, where he dallied with architecture and painting in turn, took up the violin, and wrote some ghastly Italian sonnets, supposedly the ruminations of a thirteenth-century monk on the joys of the contemplative life. It became established among his Harvard intimates that he was ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... we shall live through this noise and get a little rest, but I give up the idea of ever seeing Portland," answered Dora, staring with all her blue eyes at the display of musical instruments about the room, and longing to stop her ears, for several of the children were playing on the violin, flute, horn or harp. They were street musicians, and even the baby seemed to be getting ready to take part in the concert, for he sat on the floor beside an immense bass horn taller than himself, with his rosy lips ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... entertainment in the schoolroom, and admitted the poor into the cheaper seats. Everybody knows the nature of these functions. There were readings and recitations; young ladies sang drawing-room songs or played the violin; tableaux were displayed or a polite farce was performed; a complimentary speech wound up the entertainment; and then the performers withdrew again for several months into the aloofness of their residences, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... evening that General Pickett and I spent with Mrs. Clay at the Spotswood Hotel, when she told us of her trip from Macon, and her two poet escorts. I remember that Senator Vest was present and played the violin while Senator ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... Savelli, the self-willed, temperamental daughter of an Italian violin virtuoso, furnished much of the interest of the book. The efforts of Grace and her chums to create in this girl a healthy, wholesome enjoyment for High School life, and her repudiation of their friendship, and subsequent attempts to revenge ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... all the time with a metrical fluency, he scraped a little jig on the violin, while Dummer led off a procession which solemnly capered round the room in sundry stages of conscious awkwardness. Mr. Bultitude shuffled along somehow after the rest, with rebellion at his heart and a deep sense of degradation. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... me doing the double F in the Boston Cake Walk to get me at my best. You've heard Kubelik on the violin? Well, it's not a bit like that, and yet there's just the something which links great artists together, no matter what their medium ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... namely, wind instruments, as the trumpet, and the organ;—stringed instruments, as the harp or lyre, violin, &c.; and instruments of concussion, in which the sound is produced by striking a sonorous body, as for instance the drum, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... fact of his college training to her, and he was really thinking just then that he would like to give them a serio-comic song, for which he had been famous with his class. He borrowed the violin of a Kanuck, and, sitting down, strummed upon it banjo-wise. The song was one of those which is partly spoken and acted; he really did it very well; but the Willett and Witherby ladies did not seem to understand it quite; and the gentlemen looked ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the stabbing-scene, he should make 'a decided hit.' A self-taught deaf gentleman, who had kindly offered to bring his flute, would be a most valuable addition to the orchestra; Miss Jenkins's talent for the piano was too well known to be doubted for an instant; Mr. Cape had practised the violin accompaniment with her frequently; and Mr. Brown, who had kindly undertaken, at a few hours' notice, to bring his violoncello, would, no doubt, manage ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... at him to see that he was one of those men who reserve all their intelligence for the practical sides of the practical thing that forms the basis of their material career. He knew something of many things, had a wonderful assortment of talents—could sing, could play piano or violin, could compose, could act, could do mystifying card tricks, could order women's clothes as discriminatingly as he could order his own—all these things a little, but nothing much except making a success of musical comedy ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... fellow that makes such a flutter as he do. When we come to the Duke of York here, I heard discourse how Harris of his play-house is sick, and everybody commends him, and, above all things, for acting the Cardinall. Here they talk also how the King's viallin,—[violin]— Bannister, is mad that the King hath a Frenchman come to be chief of some part of the King's musique, at which the Duke of York made great mirth. Then withdrew to his closett, all our business, lack of money and prospect of the effects of it, such as ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... pretty music in the evenings, occasionally, between her and the captain, assisted sometimes by Master Simon, who scrapes, dubiously, on his violin; being very apt to get out, and to halt a note or two in the rear. Sometimes he even thrums a little on the piano, and takes a part in a trio, in which his voice can generally be distinguished by a certain quavering tone, and an ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... band. Music is an instinct with these Hungarian gipsies. They play by ear, and with a marvellous precision, not surpassed by musicians who have been subject to the most careful training. Their principal instruments are the violin, the violoncello, and a sort of zither. The airs they play are most frequently compositions of their own, and are in character quite peculiar, though favourite pieces from Wagner and other composers are also given by them with great effect. I heard on this occasion one of the ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... poor, old man, Whose white hair, worn and thin, Fell o'er his shoulders, as he played His cherished violin, Forever drawing to and fro O'er ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... of Robert Barclay and William Penn, and for years never hesitated to rebuke young or old Quakers or "world's people," whom he found violating "the principles of truth." A summer boarder who played a violin upon his premises was silenced, and the singing of a hymn in the Meeting House of which he was Clerk ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... shops. He had no inclination for sleep, although everything in the street, even the watchmen not excepted, appeared to rejoice the gift of God. Wilhelm thought upon the merry evening party, upon his adventure with the poor hackney-coachman, then took down his violin from the wall and began to ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... words repeated themselves over and over again, on different notes and in another key each time, and with such powerful emphasis that at last it aroused the Tenor, upon whose sleepy brain the fact that it was not a voice but a violin to which he had been listening, dawned gradually, while his trained ear further recognized the tone of a rare instrument, and the touch of a master hand. He got up and went to the window. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "is it you?" and there was a ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Captain Barrett for another voyage. When he came back from that in a month's time, he bought a small house and had it hauled to the "Cove," a lonely inlet from which no other human habitation was visible. Between his sea voyages he lived there the life of a recluse; fishing and playing his violin were his only employments. He went ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... A violin with broken strings that fingers have caressed, A diamond-set betrothal ring that lover's lips have pressed, A high shell comb, a spangled fan, a filmy bit of lace, A heart-shaped locket, ribbon-tied, that frames ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... — the one who is Sensitized, if you get what I mean — will hear a tone on the violin, and see a color, and think passionately of the One he Loves, all at the same time, just through smelling ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... "balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to midday." It is like an Aztec revel for its flowers: the great stairways, leading up and down between the rooms that glow with light and resound with the tones of flute and violin, are wound with shrubs where art conceals everything but the branch and blossom; doors are arched with palms and long banana leaves; flowers swing from lintel and window and bracket, stream from the pictures, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... art of composition,' writes, on the other hand, another angry correspondent, 'as though it were one of the exact sciences; you might just as well advise your "clever Jack" to study the art of playing the violin.' So that one portion of the public appears to consider the calling of literature mechanical, while another holds it to be ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... a small, but sturdy lad, who had apparently been playing a violin for coppers, refusing to dance for a big brute of a sailor, an Italian, who had ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... is this," said the Count. "You know that I am an exquisite player on the violin, though I did not bring one with me; for I might have been mistaken, had I done so, for an itinerant musician. The idea that has occurred to me is that I will purchase one, so that I may be able to accompany ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... and will listen to piano or violin while quietly occupied, for example if they are drawing. One Nursery School teacher plays soft music to get her babies to sleep, and our little ones fidget less if some one sings softly during their ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... poor. The D——s, and the Impressario of the theatre got up a concert for him the other night, which was well attended, and on which occasion he electrified the audience. He is a native of Genoa, and if I were a judge of violin playing, I would pronounce him the most ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... sweet to sit there and whisper to her sophistries and reasonings, to take her sensitive fancy into new worlds, to play upon her feelings—those feelings which he realized were as fine and as full of tone as the sounds which could be drawn from a Stradivarius violin. ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... as if the refusal were being made to an invisible presence. Suddenly he lifted his face as the sound of a weird, wild wail was borne to him, mingling with the elf-like moaning of the wind. He leaned forward slightly, listening intently. From somewhere above him pleading notes from a violin were making the night even more mournful. A change ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... of one arm in the carrying of weights, the habit of resting on one leg more than the other, or the assumption of a faulty attitude in writing or in playing the piano or violin, doubtless, determine the seat and direction of the curvature, and, when it has once commenced, tend to aggravate and ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... the privilege of listening to Ole Bull's witchery with his violin, he gave an hour to Norwegian folk-songs, his wife at the piano. She played with finish, feeling, and restraint. She first went through the air, then he joined in with his violin with indescribable charm. Critics said he lacked ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... He had been educated for the bar, but had never practised, or attempted to do so, having while still a young man married a wife with considerable means. He was a decidedly clever man, especially in an artistic direction, having been a very good musician and performer on the violin, and a draughtsman and caricaturist of considerable talent. The lady he married had been a Miss Abrams, but was at the time he married her the widow of (I believe) a naval officer named Fisher. She had by her first husband one son and one daughter. There had ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... came they sang and danced and this was what they called a "frolic." As a general rule this same thing was permitted after the crops had been gathered. Music for these occasions was furnished by violin, banjo and a clapping of hands. Mr. Bland says that he used to help furnish this music as Mr. Coxton had bought him ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... O cursed human voice, violin of flesh and blood, fashioned with the subtle tools, the cunning hands, of Satan! O execrable art of singing, have you not wrought mischief enough in the past, degrading so much noble genius, corrupting the purity of Mozart, reducing Handel to a writer of high-class singing-exercises, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... managed to attend an evening class occasionally, and made an attempt at learning Latin and mensuration. He also picked up some knowledge of the smith's craft, and acquired sufficient skill to play a little on the violin. A special craving, which stood him in good stead in after life, impelled him to learn something of whatever he came ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... was the typist, there was not something rare about her. He could not compare her in this moment with his sisters May and Gracie, who were always getting up French plays for bazaars, or Chrissie, who played the violin, for the earth held nothing to vex the sturdiness of these young women except the profligacy with which it offered its people attractions competitive with bazaars and violin solos. But he thought it unlikely that any occasion would have evoked from them this serene ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... the other deck, the music of a little orchestra had been tinkling pleasantly. Now a man with the harp, another with a violin, and a third with a huge guitar, came up the companionway and grouped themselves to play upon the upper deck. The three musicians were all foreigners—French or Italian. The man who played the harp was a huge, fleshy man, with a red waistcoat and long, ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... 'em trampin' around!" exclaimed Budge, in great excitement. "There!—the piano's shut! Isn't that too mean! Oh, I'll tell you—here's Uncle Harry's violin." ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... which exists is reasonable; that there is no such thing as evil or good; and that it is unnecessary for man to war against evil, but that it is only necessary for him to display intelligence,—one man in the military service, another in the judicial, another on the violin. There have been many and varied expressions of human wisdom, and these phenomena were known to the men of the nineteenth century. The wisdom of Rousseau and of Lessing, and Spinoza and Bruno, and all the wisdom of antiquity; ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... to see how little musical talent is exhibited by these little ones, whose natures are drawn from the land of music. We have repeatedly seen them sawing away patiently at a violin, or jerking the strings of a harp, but could detect no semblance of melody in the noise they made. Not a few of the little ones endeavor to make up in dancing what they lack in musical skill. Their parents or proprietors are harsh and stern with them, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... people, ought I to mention an incident which broke but one heart? Yes, I think the sad episode is not without importance, even in so vast a picture. It was a child's funeral. The little wooden coffin, scantily covered with a black pall, was not larger, as Theophile Gautier says, "than a violin case." There were few mourners. A woman, the mother doubtless, in a black stuff dress and white crimped cap, holding by the hand a boy, who had not yet reached the age of sorrowing tears, and behind them a little knot of neighbours and friends. The small procession crept ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... STIVER]. O, but you must consider this, my friend; There is no Want where Love's the guiding star; All's right without if tender Troth's within. [To Falk. He loved her to the notes of the guitar, And she gave lessons on the violin— ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... seized her to break her chiragh and treasure the pieces—in memory of to-night. Why trouble Mai Lakshmi with a question already half answered? But, lost in happy thoughts—inwoven with delicate threads of sound from Thea's violin—she forgot all about it, till the warmth of her cheek nestled against the cool pillow. Too lazy and comfortable to stir, she told her foolish heart that to-morrow morning ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... sire," replied the Colonel. "It is an old fellow called Pere La Chique, whom we have left at the barracks playing his violin, the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... rare and priceless, Though its outward fashions perhaps entice less: A Sultan's slipper, a Bishop's mitre, Or the helmet owned by a Roundhead fighter, Or an old buff coat by the years worn thin, Or—what do you say to the violin? I'll wager you've many, so you can't miss one, And I—well, I have a mind for this one, This which was made, as you must know, Three hundred years and a year ago By one who dwelt in Cremona city For me—but I lost it, more's the pity, Sixty years back ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... declaring, as a friend of mine said of his own playing—although eminent in his profession—"that they were only fiddlers." Paganini's playing was most unearthly and inhuman. I never heard anything like the tones he produced from his violin—the sounds now crashing as if a demoniac was tearing and straining at the strings, now melting away with the softest and tenderest harmonies. He kept his hearers enthralled by his magical music, and astonished by his wonderful execution. I shall never forget hearing ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... brother named Harold, who was short and fat. Harold seemed to do nothing all day long but ride a wheel at a tearing pace over the asphalt paths, and regularly, for two hours every morning, to draw a shrieking bow across a tortured violin. ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... that the master should add instrumental to vocal music. He should be able to play on the violin, flute, or clarionet, but, as he must speak much, the former is to be preferred. Such is the influence of the weather, that children are almost always dull on dull days, and then a little music is of great advantage. On wet days, when they ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... was master of ceremonies at the dinners. Always they had two Italians in to play a violin and harp and had a little dance ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... they would have appeared as stolid as savages, but their nerves were taut as drawn violin strings. Strange self-assertions, violences of temper, were under the skin ready to break out at a jar in the methodical routine. Had the train been larger, its solidarity less complete, furious quarrels would have taken place. With an acknowledged leader whom they believed ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... remarkable power and beauty. It is for 'rano, viola, first and second violin, and 'cello. It is divided into four movements: Allegro brillante; In moda d'una Marcia; Scherzo; and Allegro ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... rollicking German students' song. He was followed by Lady Olivia, who sang Gounod's "Ave Maria," accompanied by her husband on the piano, and the professor on the organ. Then Mildmay produced his violin. And so the time slipped rapidly on until the clock upon the mantelpiece struck the hour of midnight, when "Good-nights" were said, and the ladies retired to their respective cabins; while the four men wended their way to ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... fact has struck me in a remarkable manner. Once, on the skirts of a pine forest in the wilds of Argyleshire, I came suddenly on a gypsy-camp celebrating a wedding. The women were dancing the "Romalis" to a violin and tambourine. The music, the dance, the conical tents, the flashing swarthy faces, the careless piquant dresses, were all so Oriental in character that in spite of the mountains, the moors and the heather I found it hard to realize that I was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... hour, chiefly as a listener, while the man from Sorrento bewailed fate with his coterie, and denounced all forms of government, over insipid Chianti. Sometimes, an equally melancholy friend in soiled linen and frayed clothes took up his violin, and, as he improvised, the noisy group would fall silent. At such moments, Samson would ride out on the waves of melody, and see again the velvet softness of the mountain night, with stars hanging intimately close, and hear the ripple of ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... Hope, "thy brain was the violin whence it issued, and the fever in thy blood the bow that drew it forth.—But who made the violin? and who guided the bow across its strings? Say rather, again—who set the song birds each on its ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... the so-called Hardanger-fiddle are four metal strings, which lie under the sounding-board. They are tuned in unison with the upper catgut strings, whereby, as well as by the peculiar form of the violin itself, this gives forth a ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... Dryfoos was taking it up; she had herself been so much interested by it. Anything, she said, was a relief from the piano; and then, between the guitar and the banjo, one must really choose the banjo, unless one wanted to devote one's whole natural life to the violin. Of course, there was the mandolin; but Margaret asked if they did not feel that the bit of shell you struck it with interposed a distance between you and the real soul of the instrument; and then it did have such a faint, mosquitoy little tone! She made much of the question, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... family. Nancy always went to the piano and played for her father after dinner, sometimes Mrs. Nairn joined in with her violin, and to-night ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... many cases these children are born of parents and grandparents deficient in the particular branches of knowledge evidenced by the child. Babes scarcely able to sit on the piano stool, or to hold the violin, have begun to play in a way that certainly indicated previous knowledge and technique, often composing original productions in an amazing manner. Other young children have begun to draw and design without any instruction whatever. Others have shown wonderful mathematical ability, ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... be terribly cut up, but I will confess to you in confidence that they are very good, better than my collection of poems, which are not worth a shot." Elsewhere he tells us, that when, after one of Paganini's concerts, he was passionately complimenting the great master on his violin-playing. Paganini interrupted him thus: "But how were ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... introduced the true dramatis personae, to the drollest violin accompaniment, consisting of chords till the end of each verse, and then a ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... been looking questioningly at her violin box and two trunks standing on their ends farther down the platform, and she smiled ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... out of her sorrow reveries and smiled. Eddie was still talking. The music of a violin, harp, and piano was playing with a rollicking wistfulness through the clatter and laughter of the cafe. Eddie was saying, "There, that's better. That makes you look like Anna. You were looking like ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... an injustice. He has but little mathematical sense, it is true, and he will never be able to add more than one column of figures with speed and correctness. Nature intended him for something different from a bank cashier. Give this boy a good violin, place him under competent instructors, spend seventy-five dollars on his musical education and he will display such magnificent talent that you will be willing ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... who just came in here, is quite a musician, and her old father plays the violin beautifully; by the way, we might engage him for ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... murmuring of a conversation carried on in low tones. Then nothing more was heard save the persistent shrilling of the neighbouring cricket, who continued to scrape away at his disagreeable instrument with the determination of a beginner on the violin. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... another torment about this fearful place that I am in, one that you could not imagine. I had thought that it would be a pleasure, but it tears my soul. They have music in the evening; and fancy a person in my state listening to a violin! ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... the utmost importance, and I am prepared to furnish the same in manuscript to my patrons for one dollar orchestra parts. There is no printed copy of the music I use to my knowledge. Will furnish first violin ...
— The Highland Fling and How to Teach it. • Horatio N. Grant
... violin, avec accompagnement de piano. Par Guido Papini. Op. 66.—The author of "La Mecanisme du jeune Violiniste" has given us in these little pieces a charming addition to the repertoire of the amateur violinist. Specially tender and expressive is No. 4. The ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... "shootin'-iron." The musician carried no weapon. "I ain't 'feared o' no wolf," he said; "I'll play 'em a chune." He went on in the vanguard, his tousled yellow hair idealized with many a shimmer in the moonlight as it hung curling down on his blue jeans coat, his cheek laid softly on the violin, the bow glancing back and forth as if strung with moonbeams as he played. The men woke the solemn silences with their loud mirthful voices; they startled precipitate echoes; they fell into disputes and wrangled loudly, and would have turned back if sure of the way home, but ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... ... the other day they seized an odd man who goes by the name of Count Saint-Germain. He has been here these two years, and will not tell who he is, or whence, but professes that he does not go by his right name. He sings, plays on the violin wonderfully, composes, is mad, and not very sensible. He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico, and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman. The Prince of Wales has had unsatiated curiosity ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... dined together at the Junior Carlton, and Applegarth and I got on so well that he asked me down to his place. Oxford man, clever, a fine musician, and an astronomer; has built himself a little observatory—magnificent telescope. By Jove! you should hear him handle the violin. Astonishing fellow! Not much of a talker; rather dry in his manner; but no end of energy, bubbling over with vital force. He began as a barrister, but couldn't get on, and saw his capital melting. 'Hang it!' said he, 'I must make some use of what money I have'; and ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... the legend of Cupid and Psyche from his drawings on the roof of the great banquet hall. Remaining within the circuit of Rome, we may turn from the sibyls of S. Maria della Pace to the genii of the planets in S. Maria del Popolo, from the "Violin-player" of the Sciarra palace to the "Transfiguration" in the Vatican: wherever we go, we find the masterpieces of this youth, so various in conception, so equal in performance. And then, to think that the palaces ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... St. Zacharia, at Venice, is the picture of a Virgin and Child, whom an angel is entertaining with an air upon the violin. Jean Belin was the artist, in 1500. So, also, in the college library of Aberdeen, to a very neat Dutch missal, are appended elegant paintings on the margin, of the angels appearing to the shepherds, with one of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... at its centre so that it can vibrate freely at its edges, is required. It is evenly and not too thickly covered with fine sand or lycopodium powder and then caused to vibrate acoustically by the repeated drawing of a violin-bow with some pressure across the edge of the plate until a steady note becomes audible. Through the vibrations thus caused within the plate, the particles of sand or powder are set in movement and caused to collect in certain stationary parts ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... musician; "with my music, perhaps. You talk nonsense, when you talk of her falling in love with me, of her marrying a poor musician. What then? To have one instrument more in her palace! Let her marry her piano-forte,—or her violin, if she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sillier than if you were to walk along throwing your money into the gutter. Time ought to be used like money—spent generously but intelligently." He talked rapidly on, with his manner as full of unexpressed and inexpressible intensity as the voice of the violin, with his frank egotism that had no suggestion of vanity or conceit. "Because I systematize my time, I'm never in a hurry, never at a loss for time to give to whatever I wish. I didn't refuse to keep you waiting for your sake but for my own. Now the next hour belongs to you and me—and we'll forget ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... part of the evening, the hand of a young lady, whose charms had made a deep (though, as subsequent events proved, not a durable) impression on my susceptible heart. Monsieur was our only musician, and, of course, with his violin went the dancing. The cause of his evasion or flight was variously accounted for, some ascribing it to a debt he had contracted for kid gloves and pumps, and others to dread of the wrath of a young gentleman, whose sister he had been so imprudent as to kiss in the presence of another girl, not ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... musical—the youngest boy was once raised upon a table to play the violin at a public performance. The girls were forbidden to learn music by their mother, but their father sometimes taught them a little on the sly. Alexander ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... officer of the Guards, in particular, named G——, who belonged to a very good family and was an exceptionally cultured gentleman. Music was his recreation, and he was a virtuoso on the violin. In the war he had distinguished himself first on the Russian front and then on the French. He had given of his best, for he was grievously wounded, had his left hand paralyzed, and lost his power of playing the violin forever. He received a high decoration ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... conveyed from Professor Von Slammerbogen; my mother delighted to receive me in any character, whether that of pedant or prodigal. Nicholas, my elder brother, I found as much attached, as when I left him, to practising "Dull Care", upon the violin. In Tom, however, there was a considerable modification, he having left his sinister arm at Hougomont, in exchange for a three months' campaign in country quarters and a Waterloo medal. In the following term I entered at Cambridge, as my father ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... it,' cried Louisa, bouncing on her chair with the exaggeration of one who is indignant with a beloved. 'It is only lately you would even submit to muting your violin. At one time you would have refused flatly, ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... all the firmament doth fill; To which the people, standing all about, As in approvance, doe thereto applaud, And loud advaunce her laud; 145 And evermore they "Hymen, Hymen," sing, That all the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring. [* Croud, violin] ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... were men who sang songs which were not of the highest order, and they showed no great proficiency as singers, but if they were not singers they were good listeners, and occasionally a strolling violin player would arrive in the camp and he was given the closest attention and rewarded always with an ounce of gold, which had the value of $16. He was extended full hospitality and shared their grub (as the miners called their food in the camp in ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... seen in the first volume of Purcell's Catches, on two persons of the name of Young, father and son, who lived in St. Paul's Churchyard; the one was an instrument maker, and the other an excellent performer on the violin:— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... they pleased. Some therefore took to fishing, others to reading, while a few employed themselves in drying their clothes, which had got wet the previous day, and one or two entertained themselves and their comrades with the music of the violin and flute. All were busy with one thing or another, until the rock began to show its black crest above the smooth sea. Then a bell was rung to summon the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... cars speed, with clanking music making din as they go. One of the negroes will add something to change the monotony. Fumbling beneath the seats for some minutes, he draws forth a little bag, carefully unties it, and presents his favourite violin. Its appearance gladdens the hearts of his comrades, who welcome it with smiling faces and loud applause. The instrument is of the most antique and original description. It has only two strings; but Simon thinks wonders of it, and would not swap it for a world of modern fiddles, what don't touch ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... eyes, but not with your voice—at least not so that I could hear. And—well, it is not easy to look calm and only friendly when every nerve in one's body is vibrating like a violin string under the bow. Yes, let us talk of something else. I've never been acutely conscious of the presence of others when I've been with you. To-night I'm in great danger ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... very fond of music, but it was too much trouble to learn the piano or the violin; and as for dancing, that would have been too great an exertion. So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and played on the Jew's-harp; and if the ants bit them, why they just got up and went to the next anthill, till they were bitten ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... enclosures, and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. The music made by this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty night I shall never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the wagoners would gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on the violin furnished by one of their fellows, have a Virginia hoe-down, sing songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experiences of drivers and drovers from all points of the road, and, when it was all over, unroll their beds, lay ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... that. He never got it quite right, though he fumbled about it for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. And then two girls went, and one punished the piano while the other, with a wrist rather than an ear for music, drowned its cries with a violin. So it went on all the evening, and when I moved they all looked at me; I had been put on a nervous wicker chair, and I knew my shoes squeaked like a carnival of swine, and so I could not get away. And all the things that kept coming into my head, George, the ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... relieved himself by cracking jokes with the passers-by. I have spoken of his warm affection for me. He also—notwithstanding his rough outside—possessed a talent for music, and could not only sing a capital song, but had learned to play the violin from an old fiddler, Peter McLeary, who had presented him with an instrument, which he valued like the apple of his eye. He now carried it in its case, strapped carefully on behind him. We rode on too fast to allow of his playing it, as I have seen him do on horseback ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... play the violin this evening, my dear Duke?" asked the woman, as she unhooked a cord to let a handsome curtain fall ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... musical, and practised scales two hours a day as a preliminary before settling down for another two or three hours of sonatas and fugues. Elsie locked herself in her bedroom for a like period, and the wails of her violin came floating downstairs like the lament of a lost soul. Nan appropriated a chilly attic, carved wood and her fingers at the same time, and clanged away at copper work, knocking her nails black and blue with ill-directed strokes of the hammer, as she manufactured the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the serving of the great dish, the dish which world-weary Grand Dukes and market-obsessed money magnates counted among their happiest memories. And at the same moment something else happened. The leader of the highly salaried orchestra placed his violin caressingly against his chin, lowered his eyelids, and floated into a ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... a musician," he admitted, "and I play on the violin for money whenever the occasion offers, something which you will yet congratulate yourselves upon if you wish to reach the root of this mysterious and dastardly crime. But that I am a nobody I deny, and I even dare to hope ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... broad Scotch dialect; makes and mends fishing-tackle for members of the university; makes bows and arrows for those who belong to the Archery Society; is an indifferent musician, occasionally amuses under-graduates in their apartments by playing to them country dances and marches on the flute or violin. He published his Life a short time since, in a thin octavo pamphlet, entitled "The Stranger Abroad, or The History of Myself," ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... "Sigfridsage." Henrietta Sontag and the coming Paganini. Wagner's Volker-Wilhelmj at Bayreuth. Magic fiddles and wonderworking fiddlers. Grimm's Fairy Tales. Norse folk-lore. English nursery rhymes. Crickets as fiddlers. Progenitors of violin. The violin of Queen Elizabeth and her age. Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. Household of Charles II. Butler, in Hudibras. Viola d'amore in Milwaukee, Wis. Brescian and Cremonese violin-makers. Early violinists. ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... red and brown were falling, and the wind that came up the valley played on the boughs like a bow on the strings of a violin. The mountain ridges piled against each other cut the blue sky like a saber's edge, and the forests on the slopes rising terrace above terrace burned in vivid colours painted by the brush of autumn. The despatch ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... eleventh is sounded by six horns, and the chords of the ninth, which follow, are given to the woodwind. The rapid figure in the second measure is for solo violin, heard softly against the sustained interval of the diminished ninth, but the final G natural is snapped out by the whole orchestra sforzando. There follows a rapid and daring development of the theme, with the flutes ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... door the place was empty; but from the rear came the quavering notes of a violin. Being drawn from the wailing strings was a new harmony—new, that is, for Hopewell Drugg. He was fond of the old tunes; but for the most part his musical tastes ran to ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... one of the best known and most popular of which is called the "Matrosen Marsch," which is to be purchased in all large music stores. He also holds his own as a first-class amateur performer, both on the violin and the piano. His sister, the crown princess of Greece, a pupil of Rufer, excels on the organ, as does also the widowed Empress Frederick, while there is not one of the children of the present kaiser who does not possess musical gifts of a high order, which ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... that the pirates must have stolen from other ships: Kashmir shawls as thin as a cobweb, embroidered with flowers of gold; jars of fine tobacco from Jamaica; carved ivory boxes full of Russian tea; an old violin with a string broken and a picture on the back; a set of big chess-men, carved out of coral and amber; a walking-stick which had a sword inside it when you pulled the handle; six wine-glasses with turquoise and silver round the rims; and a lovely great sugar-bowl, made of mother o' pearl. ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... Mareuil, Boursault, and Chouilly, together with a large patrimony in land and money; but a mania for gambling brought him to utter ruin, and he dispossessed himself of money, lands, and chteaux in succession, and was reduced, in his old age, to earn a meagre pittance as a violin-player at the Paris Opera House. The old chteau of Boursault, which still exists contiguous to the stately edifice raised by Mme. Clicquot on the summit of the hill, was risked and lost on a single game at cards by this pertinacious gamester, whose pressing pecuniary difficulties compelled ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... program consisted of various tricks performed by the dogs. I had not the slightest notion what they did. I was so nervous and taken up in repeating my own part. All that I remember was that Vitalis put aside his fife and took his violin and played accompaniments to the dogs' maneuvers; sometimes it was dance ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... costume, when necessary, while the dancers are executing their pirouettes and exhibiting their graceful steps. The overture to the second act began; and, at the first sound of the leader's bow across his violin, Franz observed the sleeper slowly arise and approach the Greek girl, who turned around to say a few words to him, and then, leaning forward again on the railing of her box, she became as absorbed as before in what was going on. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... heard musicians play better or get more of the spirit of dance in their music than those did to-night. They had just given us the most lovely swinging things, one after another, when suddenly they all stopped and the leader drew his bow across his violin. Never in all my life have I ever heard anything like the call of that waltz from that gipsy's strings. It laughed you a signal and you felt yourself follow ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sight of the little grove of cypresses and yews, we could discern a crowd of women, in their snow-white caps, and of men and boys, in blue blouses. The hollow beat of a drum reached our ears afar off, and after it the shrill notes of a violin and fife playing a merry tune. Monsieur Laurentie appeared in the foreground of the multitude, bareheaded, long before we reached ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... too ungrateful to the classic land whence Germany and France derived their first teaching. While the compositions of Carissimi, Cavalli, Scarlatti, and Rossi were being played throughout Italy, the violin players of the Paris opera house enjoyed the singular privilege of being allowed to play in gloves. Lulli, who extended the realm of harmony, and was the first to classify discords, on arriving in France found but two men—a cook and a mason—whose ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... saloon below a violin sang its very soul out upon the summer night, weaving its plaint into the soft, adagio rippling ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the world without being seen; when we shut it we are in solitude, and what can we require beyond? My little son," she continued, pointing to the other object of her care, who was seated beside a pretty little girl, tuning a small instrument, "occupies himself with his violin, and he can touch the guitar prettily, also; he is now playing to a petite voisine who often comes to keep him company: he has considerable parts, and is well advanced in his Latin. We let our large house to M. le Cure, and live in the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... however, though an open violin-case on the table and a music-stand, on which leaflets of Schubert fluttered fitfully in the light breeze that entered through the open window, testified to its ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... some suspiciously unreceipted bills, a few dry-dock estimates hinting at bribery, and a quantity of vouchers for three years' extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up together in a dusty old violin-case lined with ruby velvet. I found besides a large account-book, which, when opened, hopefully turned out to my infinite consternation to be filled with verses—page after page of rhymed doggerel of a jovial ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... sees he might have used. I sympathise. I know just how it feels To think of the right thing to say too late. Harold's associated in his mind with Latin. He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying He studied Latin like the violin Because he liked it—that an argument! He said he couldn't make the boy believe He could find water with a hazel prong— Which showed how much good school had ever done him. He wanted to go over that. But most of all He thinks if he could have ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... violin. Back on the bank, dripping wet, he hugged it to him like a little girl with a doll that was lost and ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... on foot accompanied them, one of whom carried his lance and shield. Upon near approach he immediately dismounted and advanced toward us, bowing in a most foppish manner, while his attendant followed him on foot with an enormous violin, which he immediately handed to him. This fiddle was very peculiar in shape, being a square, with an exceedingly long neck extending from one corner. Upon this was stretched a solitary string, and the ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker |
