"Fiddler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There's no get out of it. Here's Jim Mason with me, and we've got orders to stun you and pack you if you show fight. The blessed fiddler from Mudgee didn't turn up. Dave Regan burst his concertina, and they're in ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... bands of music that seem to itinerate everywhere about the country. It consisted of a young woman who played the harp, a bass-viol player, a fiddler, a flutist, and a bugler, besides a little child, of whom, I suppose, the woman was the mother. They sat down on a bench by the roadside, opposite the house, and played several tunes, and by and by the waiter brought them a large pitcher of ale, which they quaffed with ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on a visit to Dr. Sheridan, they were informed that a beggar's wedding was about to be celebrated. Sheridan played well upon the violin; Swift therefore proposed that he should go to the place where the ceremony was to be performed, disguised as a blind fiddler, while he attended him as his man. Thus accoutred they set out, and were received by the jovial crew with great acclamation. They had plenty of good cheer, and never was a more joyous wedding seen. All was mirth and frolic; the beggars told stories, played tricks, cracked jokes, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... ($600.00 in our money) for a quantity of roses, with which she caused the floor of the hall to be covered to a depth of eighteen inches. These flowers were retained in a very fine net, to allow the guests to walk over them. According to Suetonius, Nero (the fiddler of burning Rome and the tyrant par excellence of the ancient day) gave a fete at one time on the Gulf of Baiae when inns were established on the banks, and ladies of noble blood played hostesses to the occasion, the roses alone costing more than ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a wonderfully wicked world. To find out the two vagabonds would have been hopeless; unless I could have followed them to the Back of Beyond, where the mare foaled the fiddler. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Lusk. "That's my game! And you done your share," she cried to the fiddler. "Here's my regards, old man! ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... blue supper-smoke curled up. The mists were rising from the meadows; earth and sky were blending on the hills; a little silver sickle moon hung in the fading violet, low in the western sky. Under an old oak in a green place a fiddler and a piper were playing, and youths and maidens were dancing in the brown light. Some little chaps were playing blindman's-buff near by, and the older folk were gathered by ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... on the table with his knuckles, as if there was a room full of people asking him to sing. In short, my father was drunk as a fiddler; the last brew finished him; and he began roaring away all kinds of droll songs, and telling all manner of stories as if he was at ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... cried he to his companion; "for Mr. Toil will never dare to show his face where there is a fiddler, and where people are dancing and making merry. We shall be ...
— Little Daffydowndilly - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a house of entertainment which must have been popular, since it contained a dancing-hall, admission to which was free, any man being privileged to invite to it any woman whom he fancied and for whose diversion he was willing to disburse a penny to the fiddler. He was accompanied on this occasion by his dog, who insisted on following him into the hall and persisted in keeping at his heels while he danced,—a proof of its fidelity which created considerable amusement, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... been made aware of the fact that this fiddler only availed himself, in his vain exhibitions, of a part of the felis which was not necessary to its felicity after death, I determined to give a portion of my worldly goods toward the building of a light-house on the Norway coast, for which purpose, I heard it averred, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... Where from now? Why, you're as fine as a fiddler!" cried Mr. Joel Ferris, who was fast becoming familiar, on the strength of ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... Which tho' they're known to be so ample, We need not copy from example. We're not the only persons durst 895 Attempt this province, nor the first. In northern clime a val'rous Knight Did whilom kill his bear in fght, And wound a fiddler; we have both Of these the objects of our wroth, 900 And equal fame and glory from Th' attempt of victory to come. 'Tis sung, there is a valiant Mamaluke In foreign land, yclep'd — To whom we have been oft compar'd 905 For person, parts; address, and beard; ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Whereto the fiddler answered, "Never was king of any land better or happier, nor his kinsmen nor vassals; know that for certain. Right glad were they when we set ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... ceremonies. On the seat sits the bride in the full dress of the country, and wearing her bridal crown; by her side the bridegroom, also well adorned for the occasion; and, on the step of the cart, that most important person, the fiddler, working his bow with astounding energy. If the pony can bear the weight, perhaps a couple of the bride's relations will sit up behind, otherwise they will walk in the procession which follows; and there may be seen all the available peasants of the district—young men and maidens, grandfathers ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... quite so punctual as you would have me believe," said Mr. Percy; "there is not even a fiddler visible." ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... formed to a great extent before he went abroad, his ideas of pictorial effect were broadened and his technical resources enriched by his sojourn in Italy. Some of the work executed immediately after his return, such as the portraits of Lord President Dundas, Neil Gow, the famous fiddler, and the earlier of two portraits of his friend John Clerk of Eldin, shows, with much unity, a greater care and precision in the handling of detail, a more searched kind of modelling and a fuller sense of tone, and thicker impasto ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... go and have a drop of ale; the fiddler is there.' 'No, brother, I never drank a drop of ale since my aunt went (died).' 'Well, take some tobacco, brother?' 'No, no, I have not smoked since my wife fell in the water and never came out again alive.' 'Well, let's go and play at cock-shy, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... marching in a body to cultivate the earth with a fiddler at their head, and dancing from time to time, to rest themselves from walking. There is every year, near Naples, a festival consecrated to the madonna of the grotto, at which the girls dance to the sound of the tambourine and the castanets, and it is not uncommon for ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... was two days baking cakes at the train stops. Friends got together little presents for the bride. Jed, Molly's brother, himself a fiddler of parts, organized an orchestra of a dozen pieces. The Rev. Henry Doak, a Baptist divine of much nuptial diligence en route, made ready his best coat. They came into camp. In the open spaces of the valley hundreds of wagons were scattered, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... of bamboo sharpened like a knife in one hand, he held another piece in the other, split in two, with the convex part uppermost, in which he had cut a small notch. He began passing the sharp piece slowly over the other, as a fiddler does his bow over his fiddle—strings, increasing in rapidity, till, in a very short time, the powder produced by the friction ignited, and fell down upon the ashes. This he quickly blew up, and even more rapidly than I could have done with my burning-glass, a flame was produced. The smoke which ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... revenged the following winter by a dark-haired Roumanian fiddler, who beat her and forced her to carry her jewels to a pawnshop, where they were redeemed at half price by their original donour and used to adorn the plump, firm body of a ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... Vermichel, formerly violinist in the Bourgogne regiment, was occupied, during the Restoration, with the various callings of fiddler, door-keeper of the Hotel de Ville, drum-beater of Soulanges, jailer of the local prison, and finally bailiff's deputy in the service of Brunet. He was intimate friend of Fourchon, with whom he was in the habit of getting on sprees, and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... young man of agreeable, easy manners. With him I went to Indianapolis, and thence by "stages," waggons, or on horseback through a very dismal country in gloomy winter into the interior of the State. I can remember vast marshy fields with millions of fiddler crabs scuttling over them, and more mud than I had ever seen in my life. The village streets were six inches deep in soft mud up to the doors and floors of the houses. At last we reached our journey's end at a large log-house ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... small fiddle; to crowd v. to grate as the two ends of a broken bone, to make a flat creaking; Crowder s. a fiddler (W. crwthwr) ...
— A Glossary of Provincial Words & Phrases in use in Somersetshire • Wadham Pigott Williams
... day of heavy toil at log-rolling, the young men and boys bantered one another into foot races, wrestling matches, shooting contests, and other feats of strength or skill. And if a fiddler could be found, the day was sure to end with a "hoe-down"—a dance that "made even the log-walled house tremble." No corn-husking or wedding was complete without dancing, although members of certain of the more straitlaced religious sects already ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... sawing: so the fiddler in Italian is called the "village-saw" (Sega del villaggio). He is the Alnaschar of the Englished Galland and Richardson. The tale is very old. It appears as the Brahman and the Pot of Rice in the Panchatantra; and Professor Benfey believes ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... kept on, resolved to be still on the floor when the other had abandoned it in defeat—that being the test of victory. At last, the girl from Dryhill reeled, and was caught by half-a-dozen arms. Her adversary, holding the floor undisputed, slowed down, and someone stopped the fiddler. Sally turned from the crowded wall, and began looking about for Samson. He was not there. Lescott had seen him leave the house a few moments before, and started over to intercept the girl, as she ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... after the affair was over, and a group of girls had gathered in her room, "'Every dog has his day.' We had ours last year; and next year you will pay the fiddler for a ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... fiddler, he had a fiddle, And a very fine fiddle had he; Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee, ...
— Denslow's Mother Goose • Anonymous
... Fortescue, however,[86] has told us that in his youth the Duke learnt to play the violin, and that he only abandoned it, when he was about thirty years old, "because he judged it unseemly or perhaps ill-sounding for a General to be a fiddler." The Duke is not the only great soldier who has been a musical performer. Marshal St. Cyr used to play the violin "in the quiet moments of a campaign," and Sir Hope Grant was a very fair performer on ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Was a merry old soul, And a merry old soul was he; He called for his pipe, And he called for his bowl, And he called for his fiddlers three. Every fiddler, he had a fine fiddle, And a very fine fiddle had he; Twee tweedle dee, tweedle dee, went the fiddlers. Oh, there's one so rare, As can compare With old King Cole and his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... know is that Mary Simmons says she gave ten thousand dollars and Josie Fiddler says it was three hundred,—so you can ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Some nights there was music on the stage; a young lady in a white robe with a golden harp, and attended by a gentleman in black mustachios. This was when the principal harpiste of the King of Saxony and his first fiddler happened to be passing through Mowbray, merely by accident, or on a tour of pleasure and instruction, to witness the famous scenes of British industry. Otherwise the audience of the Cat and Fiddle, we mean the Temple of the Muses, were fain to be content ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... united like one long coloured scarf that undulated across the fields, along the narrow path winding amid the green corn, soon lengthened out, and broke up into different groups that loitered to talk. The fiddler walked in front with his violin, gay with ribbons at its pegs. Then came the married pair, the relations, the friends, all following pell-mell; the children stayed behind amusing themselves plucking the bell-flowers from oat-ears, or playing amongst themselves ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... printed in The Merry-Thought as well as the author of the dedication, but the dedication was itself signed with the name "Hurlo Thrumbo." Similarly, the title-page listed Hurlo Thrumbo as the publisher of the work. In 1729 Hurlothrumbo: or, The Super-Natural, a play by a half-mad dancer and fiddler, Samuel Johnson of Cheshire (1691-1773), had set all of London talking. The irrational, amusing speeches and actions of Hurlothrumbo, the play's title-character, gained instant fame, and two years later Roberts, by attributing his collection ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... of the choir were managed tolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter, to be in at the death. But the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and on which he had founded ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... 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 about him, but in vain. However, nothing has been made out against him -.' he is released: and, what convinces me that he is not a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... rim of a slouchy felt hat, and raising it at every inquiry. "Massa sold me, fore I was old 'nuff to know my mudder, to a preacher man in Florida. Bimeby massa die, and missus, she had a musical turn o' mind, and swapped me off for a fiddler; but de people all got de laf on de ole 'oman, for in two or free months the old fiddler died, and she lost us both," and ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... "That same first fiddler who leads the orchestra to-night Here fiddled four decades of years ago; He bears the same babe-like smile of self-centred delight, Same trinket on watch-chain, same ring on the hand ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... at old Collins', Quite a bunch was there before, You could hear the fiddler calling, And the scraping on the floor. Through the dingy sodhouse window Gleamed a sickly yellow light, Where I helped you from the wagon, Holding you so loving tight. Then they called out, "Choose your pardners, Numbers five, six, seven, and eight," And we hustled up to join in, For ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... there was to be a beggar's wedding in the neighborhood. He was resolved not to miss the opportunity of seeing so curious a ceremony; and that he might enjoy the whole completely, proposed to Dr. Sheridan that he should go thither disguised as a blind fiddler, with a bandage over his eyes, and he would attend him as his man to lead him. Thus accoutred, they reached the scene of action, where the blind fiddler was received with joyful shouts. They had ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... Devonshire extraction. His mother had kept the pleasantest public-house in town, and at her death Bill succeeded to her property and popularity. All the young ladies in the neighbourhood of Fiddler's Row, where he resided, set their caps at him: all the most fashionable prigs, or tobymen, sought to get him into their set; and the most crack blowen in London would have given her ears at any time for a loving word from ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it's all over—that note was given Madame St. Germain for tuition of a young girl, Miss Julia Vining, whom I educated with the romantic notion of making her my wife, when she should arrive at a suitable age, at which period she ran off with a one-eyed French fiddler, and is now taking in sewing at ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... that its catalogue is likely to contain what it may wish should be read. {117} Here we selected a very interesting volume with many illustrations, suitable for the girl's reading; and soon at the cafe again, I bowed to the senior fiddler, who nodded assent, and then the poor pale lonely girl had the pleasant book as a remembrance of home placed in her hands, and a promise given her that a good Christian lady ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... coming along with a bunch of men and supplies to show them the way to our claim. Twenty jacks, a cook and a fiddler will be here late this afternoon, together with a knock-down bunk-house, sufficient food supplies for two weeks, tools, and I've got a supply of cash to pay the hands. Now what have you to say ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... abroad. She had not liked Europe—being quite frankly a provincial person. To Castleman County a foreigner was a strange, dark person who mixed up his consonants, and was under suspicion of being a fiddler or an opera-singer. The people she had met under her husband's charge had been socially indubitable, but still, they were foreigners, and Sylvia could never really be sure what they ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... a fiddler fiddle? I have. I heard a fiddler fiddle, and the hey-dey-diddle of his frolicking fiddle called back the happy days of my boyhood. The old field schoolhouse with its batten doors creaking on wooden hinges, its windows innocent of glass, and its great, yawning fireplace, cracking and ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... crustacean known as the "fiddler crab" is unusually numerous in the marshes of Long Island, this summer. It differs from impecunious persons inasmuch as it is a burrowing, not a borrowing, creature. It differs from ordinary fiddlers by two letters, in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... ragged of the beggar-maids. "Mistress Mary," in her pretty blue dress, tripped along with "Simple Simon" staring about him like a blockhead. The fine lady left her horse to dance with "Bobby Shafto" till every bell on her slippers tinkled its tongue out. "Bo-Peep" and a jolly fiddler skipped gayly up and down. "Miss Muffet" took the big spider for her partner, and made his many legs fly about in the wildest way. The little wife got out of the wheelbarrow to help "Boy Blue" along, and Molly, with the frying-pan over her shoulder, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... amusement in observing the various personages that daily passed and repassed beneath my window. The character which most of all arrested my attention was a poor blind fiddler, whom I first saw chanting a doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern near the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat, out at elbows, the fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... very phrase evokes and parades a pageant of amours! The thousand heartaches; the fingers clutching hungrily at keys that might be other fingers; the fiddler with his eyelids clenched while he dreams that the violin, against his cheek is the satin cheek of "the inexpressive She;" the singer with a cry in every note; the moonlit youth with the mandolin tinkling his serenade to an ivied window; the dead-marches; the nocturnes; the amorous ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Here the fiddler struck up a jig, which cut short the gossip of the priest and made a diversion for his hearers. Some of the young fellows and girls present fell to footing it, and called on Tim and me to join in. But I was too much out of heart even to look on; and as for Tim, he glared as if he would have ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... men had brought a fiddler from the village, and it was not long before most of the company were treading the measures of reels or cotillons on the grass. How merry and happy they all were! How freely and unembarrassedly they moved and ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... the fiddler represented as a Frenchman? France, as a whole, is reputed to be the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... the tide we may find a crab or two, perhaps, some jelly-fish, star-fish, and those wonderful living flowers, the sea-anemones. And then we will watch the great gulls sweeping about in the air, and if we are lucky, we may see an army of little fiddler-crabs marching along, each one with one claw in the air. We may gather sea-side diamonds; we may, perhaps, go in and bathe, and who can tell everything that we may do on the shores of ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... been called Out of Paganini—founded upon that distinguished fiddler's life, although (as the Author says) "it is necessarily speculative as to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... greatest fiddler, till Paganini, that has appeared. He was born in the territory of Bologna, in 1653, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... the spires beneath the paly moon, And through the cloister peace and silence reign, Save where some fiddler scrapes a drowsy tune, Or copious bowls inspire ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... good white man. He was a grand fiddler and he used to call us to de big house at night to dance for him. I couldn't do nothin' 'cept jump up and down and I sho' did git tired. Marse Jabe warn't married. He raised his brother's chillun, but dey was all grown ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Music.] — N. musician, artiste, performer, player, minstrel; bard &c (poet) 597; [specific types of musicians] accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer^, trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. vocalist, melodist; singer, warbler; songster, chaunter^, chauntress^, songstress; cantatrice^. choir, quire, chorister; chorus, chorus singer; liedertafel [G.]. nightingale, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... old fiddler's advice, Deemster—have nothing to do with the women. When they're young they're kittens to play with you, but when they're old they're cats to ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... bourgeois sphere, but it was not until July, 1782,—just after he had finished reading Wagner's 'Infanticide',—that the plan of 'Louise Miller' began to take shape in his mind. Gemmingen's poor artist, Wehrmann, became the poor fiddler, Miller, and the daughter Lotte was rechristened Louise. The aristocratic lover, Gemmingen's Karl, was named Ferdinand von Walter, and Amaldi was converted into Lady Milford. One of Gemmingen's subordinate characters, the foppish nobleman, Dromer, who ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Fiddler, play a little longer! Why this hurry, say? I'm but half-way through a measure— Yet a little play! Smiling in her wreath of flowers Is my love not fair? See us in the charmed circle, Flitting light as air! Haste thee, loved one, for the music Shall be hushed anon... (O sweet years of ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... interest and romantic effect to the principle here spoken of. Were they constant, they would become indifferent, as we may find with respect to disagreeable noises, which we do not hear after a time. I know no situation more pitiable than that of a blind fiddler who has but one sense left (if we except the sense of snuff-taking(1)) and who has that stunned or deafened by his own ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... fiddler, an' he sometimes played fer de dances at de Cross Roads, a little village near de marster's place. All what ain't been mean could go, but de mean ones can't, an' de rest o' us has ter habe a pass ter keep de patterollers ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... gave a treat to all the hands at the mill, with hard cider and apples and nuts a plenty, and even had Blind Dick, the fiddler, who lived in Tom Reed's upper cabin, to help them make merry. That is, Andy gave the treat, but his foreman was host; he never came himself. Jane was there and Dan monopolized her. He knew her well, so that night ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... is to our common speech; and even to write down modern Irish by ear I was poorly qualified. Things were made harder, too, by the manner of recitation, as traditional as the words. He chanted, with a continuous vocalisation, and while he chanted, elbow and knee worked like a fiddler's or piper's marking the time. However, with persistence, I got the thing down, letting him first say a verse fully through, then writing line by line or as near as I could; then going back and ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... encouraging at the time, and kept our lads in good heart; but, in the long run, it has proved demoralizing to our critics as well as to their clients. For, now that the war is over, those who so loyally proclaimed that any bugle-boy was a better musician than any fiddler find themselves incapable of distinguishing, not only between fiddlers, but even between buglers. Perhaps it was natural that when, during the war, T.S. Eliot, about the best of our young poets—if ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... a famous Hungarian Fiddler, accompanied by a warbling Guinea Hen and backed up by sixty Symphonic Heineys wearing Spectacles, was giving a Recital for the True Lovers in a Mammoth ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... as you may possibly become, have never achieved anything. We're too sane; we're merely reasonable. We lack the human touch, the compelling enthusiastic mania. People are quite ready to listen to the philosophers for a little amusement, just as they would listen to a fiddler or a mountebank. But as to acting on the advice of the men of reason—never. Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman. For the madman appeals to what is fundamental, ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... having at length returned from the fiddler hunt, and being whisped over, and made tolerably decent, Mr. Watchorn, having exchanged the postilion saddle in which it had been ridden for a horn-cased hunting one, had mounted, and, opening the kennel-door, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... It was a blind fiddler, in Islay, who told the story of Conall, as it had been handed down by tradition from generation to generation; just as thousands of years before the story of Odysseus and Polyphemos was told by Greek bards ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... White Lion on its hinder legs, and there was one a year or two since of George the Fourth in a Highland dress—a powerful representation of Lady Charlotte Bury, dressed for Norval. Look at that gem of art, his Blind Fiddler, now in the National Gallery, or at his Waterloo Gazette, or at the Rent Day, and compare any one of them with the senseless stuff he now produces, and grieve. His John Knox—ill placed for effect, as relates ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... mankind can possibly be. But they are not properly qualified for this object of their ambition. The want of a regular education, and early habits, and some lurking remains of their dignity, will never permit them to become a match for an Italian eunuch, a mountebank, a fiddler, a player, or any regular practitioner of that tribe. The Roman emperors, almost from the beginning, threw themselves into such hands; and the mischief increased every day till the decline and final ruin of the empire. It is therefore of very great importance (provided the thing is not overdone) ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... stood in the door, That sassy bug mus' be drownded sure! But thar war Goggle-eyes, peart an' gay, Twangin' an' a-tunin' up—'Now, dance away! Ye may sarch night an' day ez a constancy An' ye won't find a fiddler sech ez me! Sech ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... express, brings intelligence of the landing of Napoleon. The king performs a sacrifice: but the entrails are unfavourable; and the victim is without a heart. He prepares to encounter the invader. A young captain of the guard,—the son of Maria Antoinette by Apollo,—in the shape of a fiddler, rushes in to tell him that Napoleon is approaching with a vast army. The royal forces are drawn out for battle. Full catalogues are given of the regiments on both sides; their ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he could afford to despise pedantry: did he meet a traveller who amused his fancy he would give him the pass-word ('the fiddler's paid,' or what not), as though the highway had not its code of morals; nor did he scruple, when it served his purpose, to rob the bunglers of his own profession. By this means, indeed, he raised the standard of the Road and warned the incompetent to embrace an easier trade. While he never took ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... how Hopewell found it, and strung it himself, and used to play on it slyly, and so taught himself to be a fiddler, before his mother had any idea he knew one note from another. She was extremely deaf at the last and could not hear him playing at odd ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... neighboring rag-shops attend to buy, and candle-makers send their agents to collect fat and grease. Every individual brings his own food, for the proprietor of the house finds lodging only, and not board. The atmosphere reeks with the smell of herrings and fried sausages. After supper is finished, a fiddler—one of their number, paid for his services by contributions of tobacco and beer—strikes up some merry music; dancing commences, and goes on till midnight, and often far into the morning. Save in such houses, such dancing and such dancers were never seen. The lame cast aside their crutches, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fairies or human, without music was a thing not to be thought of. So, although at first some fairies grumbled and held back, and were quite sulky about it, even muttering other grumpy words, they at last all agreed, and Puck sent for the fiddler to make ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... A poor ragged fiddler had spent the whole of one bitter winter morning playing through the dreary streets without any taking pity upon his plight. As he came to the cathedral he felt an overmastering desire to enter and pour out his distress in the presence of his Maker. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... would, hey? All I got t' say is that yer nerve gits me. An' ye stand a pretty good show of bein' rounded up for more'n thirty days, too. Well, ye've had yer joke; mebbe ye have th' price t' pay th' fiddler. Turn here." ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... well-practiced plunge, and very little toil of body, two ancient sailors, one considerably older than the other, inasmuch as he was his father, yet chips alike from a sturdy block, and fitted up with jury-stumps. Old Joe pulled rather the better oar, and called his son "a one-legged fiddler" when he missed the dip of wave; while Mordacks stood with his leg's apart, and playing the easy part of critic, had his sneers at both of them. But they let him gibe to his liking; because they knew their ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... put down riots by magic; and how much Ninus surpassed in abilities any of his successors on the throne of Assyria. The moderns, Sir William owns, have found out the circulation of blood; but, on the other hand, they have quite lost the art of conjuring; nor can any modern fiddler enchant fishes, fowls, and serpents by his performance. He tells us that "Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus made greater progresses in the several empires of science than any of their successors have since been able to reach"; which is just as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... your native land. But your patriotism recalls dangerously the restaurant Magyar, the fiddler in the frogged coat. You draw from your violin passionate laments. In a sort of ecstasy you celebrate Hungaria. Then, smiling brilliantly, you ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... no," said Tarleton, haughtily; "we can drink not with the Don; but we'll have the wine, and he shall drink it. Meanwhile, Don, tell us what possible combination of circumstances made thee fiddler, barber, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the head of the procession to kindle it. Failure to light the fires would, in the popular belief, have exposed the fields to the greatest danger. At Revin the young folk, besides dancing round the fire to the strains of the village fiddler, threw garlands of flowers across the flames to each other.[468] In the Vosges it is still customary to kindle bonfires upon the hill-tops on Midsummer Eve; the people believe that the fires help to preserve the fruits of the ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... fortune, we again got into deep water, and in half an hour anchored off the town in a favourable position for cannonading it. We then landed our force, consisting of all the marines, with the drummer and fiddler, besides a party of small-arm men from the blue jackets, all armed with muskets, bayonets, and cutlasses. The officers, in addition to their swords, carried pistols in their belts. A feu-de-joie was now fired, for the double purpose of creating an awe among the crowd, and ascertaining that ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... remember me, Miss Trent, but I knew your father well enough, and I knew you when you was a little 'un. In those days I had the "Green Man" in the Cut; your father often enough gave us a toon on his fiddle. A rare good fiddler he was, too! Give us a song ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... fiddler is a full-blooded Chipewyan. In some dancing academy in the woods he has learnt a "call-off" all his own, and proud indeed is he of his stunt. We manage to copy it down in its entirety, fighting mosquitoes the while and dodging out into the open now and again for ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... it's beyond his natural strength; but it is more likely that he was badly taught. Many teachers set their pupils on to strain, and stretch, so that they get used up, body and mind, in a few months. Depend upon it, the same thing is true in other arts. I once taught a fiddler that used to get a hundred guineas for playing two or three tunes; and he told me that it was just the same thing with the fiddle—that when you laid a tight hold on your fiddle-stick, or even set your teeth hard together, you could do nothing but rasp like the fellows that play in bands ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... reft of pin, her play-bill from above; Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap, Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap; But, wiser far than he, combustion fears, And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers; Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl, It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl, Who from his powder'd pate the intruder strikes, And, for mere malice, sticks it ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... and pleasure for the night. I cried until I could cry no more. However, I was determined I would not be done out of my sport after being at the expense of coming, so I went round and borrowed some pins, and pinned up my shirt tail as well as I could. I then went into the dance, and told the fiddler to play me a jig. Che, che, che, went the fiddle, when the banjo responded with a thrum, thrum, thrum, with the loud cracking of the bone player. I seized a little Sambo gal, and round and round the room we went, my money and ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... when this good substantial fare Has gien 'em satisfaction, They side(2) all t' chairs, an' stand i' pairs, Wi' heels i' tune for action. See-sawing, t' fiddler now begins The best that he is able; He rosins t' stick an' screws up t' pins An' jumps up on to t' table, To ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... God knows! Probably you would find a blanchisseuse on the ground floor, and on the fourth a poet or perhaps a musician, like our fiddler of Louise. This is the real Bohemia, you know—not the conscious Bohemia, but the true one, that is lawless simply because it knows ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... tarnal Greaser," exclaimed Dick, "your jig's danced, an' you must settle with the fiddler. If I only had you out on the prairie, I'd larn you a few things I reckon you never heern tell on. Come here, you keerless feller, an' tell me if you 'member what I said to you yesterday! ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... Betsy generously offered "to pay the fiddler," as she termed it, "provided 'Tilda would never let it get to Silverton that Betsy Barlow was seen inside a playhouse!" To Mrs. Tubbs it seemed impossible that Aunt Betsy could be in earnest, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... have an end; even the stanchest mountain fiddler will reach at last his limit of endurance and must needs be refreshed and fed. There was a sudden significant flourish of frisky bowing, now up and again down, enlisting every resonant capacity of horsehair and catgut; the violins quavered ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... completing the first volume, appeared in 1836 and 1837. The value of these stories was not at first perceived, and they sold slowly. Andersen was more successful for the time being with a novel, O.T., and a volume of sketches, In Sweden; in 1837 he produced the best of his romances, Only a Fiddler. He now turned his attention, with but ephemeral success, to the theatre, but was recalled to his true genius in the charming miscellanies of 1840 and 1842, the Picture-Book without Pictures, and A Poet's Bazaar. Meanwhile the fame of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... cosmopolitan productions. A famous Italian opera star has rhymed in her native lingo; a popular French acrobat—possibly one of a company of strolling equestrians—has immortalised himself in Parisian heroics. M. Pianatowsky, the Polish fiddler, has scrawled something incomprehensible in Russian or Arabic—no matter which; while Mein Herr Van Trinkenfeld comes out strong in double Dutch. Need I add that the immortal Smith of London is in great force in the book, or that ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... being missed at the ball. But later, or rather the next day, I recrossed the road and began a search for the money which I was confident had been left in the woods opposite, by the person I had been following. I found it, and when the man here present who, though a mere fiddler, has presumed to take a leading part in this interview, came upon me with the bills in my hand, I was but burying deeper the ill-gotten ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... to his opinion, "though I am sure you must have pretty nigh all the books in the world already. But I never can desire—I may be wrong—but I never can desire, that my son, and the grandson of the Marquis of Esmond, should be a fiddler." ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... new top couple starting off again as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... to say to the little yellow fiddler, after an evening's frolic at the Interpreter's, "Davids, clear away the tables and the glasses, and play fishes-hornspikes."[55] He was a kind, affectionate creature, and his devotion to "Monsieur Johns" and "Madame Johns" ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... an itinerant fiddler. The character is a skit on Anthony Munday, the dramatist.—Chettle, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... capstan—off we go, As the fiddler swings us round, With a yeo heave ho, And a rum below, Hurrah ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... relieved from her plight by the fact that as the fiddler stopped and the faint applause died out, she saw Mr. Harrison coming towards her. Mr. Harrison had somehow succeeded in extricating himself from the difficulty in which his hostess had placed him, and had no doubt guessed that Helen was no better ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... was chatting amicably to the parents till the last of her small performers should appear, seemed suddenly turned to stone, with mouth gaping and eyes wide. The old fiddler, who was rather short-sighted, struck up the strains, and the dancers began to dance. The audience relaxed, leaning back in their chairs to enjoy the scene. Miss Dewhurst was still frozen. There were murmured comments. "How curious to have that boy there! ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... answered, brightly. "I carry that just as a fiddler carries his fiddle—ready for a ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... the Amazonian species. She tripped up Pat Morgan, and laid that athlete suddenly on his back, upon the grass plot before the hall door, to his eternal disgrace, when he 'offered' to kiss her, while the fiddler and tambourine-man were playing. She used to wring big boys by the ears; overawe fishwives with her voluble invective; put dangerous dogs to rout with sticks and stones, and evince, in all emergencies, an adventurous spirit ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... old-time country fiddlers—all of them, black or white—how wonderful they were! They have always been the wonder and the despair of all musicians who have played by rule and note. The very way that the country fiddler held his fiddle against his chest and never against his shoulder like the trained musician! The very way that the country fiddler grasped his bow, firmly and squarely in the middle, and never lightly at the end like a trained musician! The very way that he let go and went off and kept on—the ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... herd was inclined to be very tractable. Flood, with all his experience, well knew that if stampeded cattle ever got into a known trail, they were certain to turn backward over their course; and we were now paying the fiddler for lack ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... to the broken shutter and looked in. Around the blackened walls of the room stood a bleared mob, applausively watching, through a fog of smoke, the contortions of an old woman in a red calico wrapper, who was dancing in the centre of the floor. The fiddler—a rubicund person evidently not suffering from any great depression of spirit through the circumstance of being "out on bail," as he was, to Joe's intimate knowledge—sat astride a barrel, resting his instrument ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... girl by the name of Sadie, and a small red-head, tragically faded, with soft brown eyes that should never have looked upon Bullard's. Two men rose and took them as the tune, an old-fashioned waltz, began to ripple under the fingers of the fiddler, who was a born musician, and the four swung down between the tables and the bar. The Golden Cloud was in full swing, running free for the night, though the soft twilight was scarcely faded from the beautiful ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... comfortable, were of coarse homespun—the product of their own labour. The sources of amusement were limited. The day of the harmonium or piano had not come. Music, except in its simplest vocal form, was not cultivated; only the occasional presence of some fiddler afforded rare seasons of merriment to the delight ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... expression. Gregory Hawtrey was a little casual in speech, but so far most of the young women he bestowed an epithet of that kind upon had attached no significance to it. They had wisely decided that he did not mean anything. In another moment or two the Scottish fiddler's voice ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Fiddler, n. a New South Wales and Victorian name for a species of Ray, Trygonorhina fasciata, Mull. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... of King Arthur, and Chevy Chase too, of which even your fellow-sinner Sidney cannot deny that every time he hears it even from a blind fiddler it stirs his heart like a trumpet-blast. Speak well of the bridge that carries you over, man! Did you find your Redcross Knight in Virgil, or such a dame as Una in old Ovid? No more than you did your Pater and Credo, you renegado baptized ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... to remember. For one sometimes hears ignorant persons speak of technique with a certain supercilious contempt, as though it were a mere negligible and inferior element in an artist's equipment and not the art itself, the mere virtuosity of an accomplished fiddler who seems to say anything with his fiddle, and has never really said anything in his whole life. To the artist technique is another matter. It is the little secret by which he reveals his soul, by which he reveals the soul of the world. Through ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... strokes of labour as of the evening hour when the professional village story-teller cries "cric-crac" and begins his tale of the loup-garou, or rouses the spirit of a pure patriotism by a crude epic of some valiant atavar; when the parish fiddler brings them to their feet with shining eyes by the strains of O Carillon. They are not less respectful to the British flag, nor less faithful in allegiance because they love that language and that land of their memories which they know full well is not the Republican ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... robbed him of all his cash and valuable effects, had eloped from his house with one of his own customers, who appeared in the character of a French count, but was in reality no other than an Italian fiddler; that, in consequence of this retreat, he, the husband, was disabled from paying a considerable sum which he had set apart for his wine merchant, who being disappointed in his expectation, took out an execution against his effects; and the rest of his creditors ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... scatch. On a side-board was placed for us, who had come off the sea, a substantial dinner, and a variety of wines. Then we had coffee and tea. I observed in the room several elegantly bound books and other marks of improved life. Soon afterwards a fiddler appeared, and a little ball began. Rasay himself danced with as much spirit as any man, and Malcolm bounded like a roe. Sandie Macleod, who has at times an excessive flow of spirits, and had it now, was, in his days of absconding, known by the name of M'Cruslick, which it seems was the designation ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... the fiddler scraped out the tune of their Lancers. Few really knew what had happened, and the newly-made marquis had to fight his way through women who, in skin-tight dresses, danced with wantoning movements of the hips, and threw themselves into the arms of men, to be, in true kitchen-fashion, whirled ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... said a farmer, who was standing by, "he's gone to get drunk; he is the biggest old drunkard in the countryside, and yet they do say he was gentleman once, and the best fiddler in London; but he can't be depended on, so no ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... pealings, of course they do! and the third fiddler, little Tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits. Ho, ho, ho, I can't bear it (mimicking); take me out! Ha, ha, ha! O what a one she is! She'll be the death of me. Ha, ha, ha, ha! ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... fiddle," cried Judith peremptorily. A chair was set upon a table in the corner, the rather reluctant Wade hoisted to it, and soon "Weevily Wheat," as the twitting tune comes from the country fiddler's jigging bow, was ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... maladies came thick upon him. His asthma tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made their appearance. While sinking under a complication of diseases, he heard that the woman whose friendship had been the chief happiness of sixteen years of his life had married an Italian fiddler; that all London was crying shame upon her; and that the newspapers and magazines were filled with allusions to the Ephesian matron, and the two pictures in Hamlet. He vehemently said that he would try to forget her existence. He never ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... plain that an alliance with a foreign fiddler was certain to shock British respectability. It is the old story of the quarrel between Philistia and Bohemia. Nor was respectability without much to say for itself. Piozzi was a Catholic as well as a foreigner; to marry him was in all probability to break ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... at her. "I shall not open 'the fiddler's bill' until—until I have to." At the door he turned. She had risen and was kneeling on the sofa, her elbow on its low arm, her chin upon her hand, her eyes staring into the fire. He came ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... this speech, Princess Altamira bade the king, her father, good-bye, and was on the point of leaving the royal presence, when the handsome figure of Felisberto, the blind fiddler, was seen to approach. ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... there in Maine, anyhow? She hadn't written for some time; and he hadn't had a word from Peter Champneys. And when Marcia came home and found out he'd been meddling—well, the meddler would have to pay the fiddler, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... promise. He had enjoyed the consideration for his promise; his notes were secure and the hypothecated bonds had been redeemed. He was on his feet and Governor, thanks to Elton's interposition, and now he was called on to do his part—to pay the fiddler. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... third fiddler was different. He was a man after Buster Bumblebee's own heart. He seemed to love to make music and never tired of coaxing the jolliest tunes out of his old fiddle that anybody could hope to hear. He only laughed when his ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... dance waxed warm again. The fiddle shrieked, the government stogies thundered upon the puncheon floor; but soon it was evident that all things were not as they had been from the beginning. Confusion first fell upon the fiddler. His dulcet notes, as they whirled through their lofty flight, reeled, and staggered, and fell, to give place to anathemas, steady and well sustained. Smoke filled the tent, and came creeping out through every ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... cordiality. He looked up and there was an old pal, with whom he had been associated in many a merry bout and pleasant felony; he had not seen the man for two years; a friendly glass was offered and accepted. Two girls were of the party, to oblige whom Robinson's old acquaintance sent for Blind Bill, the fiddler, and soon Robinson was dancing and shouting with the girls like mad—"High cut," "side cut," "heel and toe," "sailor's ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... typical conflict, the conflict between the individual and that which, in Ireland, has much authority, the family group. This particular conflict was shown again in "The Fiddler's House." where the life, not of the actual peasants, but of rural people with artistic and aristocratic traditions, ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum |
