"Musical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by a single passage, in which he spoke of 'poor, unheard Missouri' she being then without a representative in Congress. His tall, tossing form, his long, sweeping gestures, and, above all, his musical yet thrilling tones, made an impression upon me which I can ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... gathered for worship, she was present with the children, and joined in the singing, for she had a fine, melodious voice. There was no organ on board the ship, neither did the colonists have musical instruments. Yet they sang so wondrously that it was a pleasure to listen to them. The hymns were learned by heart, not only by the older members, but also by the children, who joined their clear young voices with those of their fathers ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... and reach it and follow it. I wish I had space to tell all about this old man, who gave me hospitality out there. He was from New England and was lonely, and had brought out at great expense a musical box to cheer him. Of this he was very proud, and though it only played four silly hymn tunes, yet, as he and I listened to it, heavy tears came into his eyes and light tears into mine, because these tunes reminded him of his home. But I have no time to do more than mention ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... dinners I found myself one evening at Mrs. Amyot's side. The dimple came out at my greeting as punctually as a cuckoo in a Swiss clock, and I detected the same automatic quality in the tone in which she made her usual pretty demand for advice. She was like a musical-box charged with popular airs. They succeeded one another with breathless rapidity, but there was a moment after each when the cylinders scraped ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... covering long, water-shaped reefs; or rising knolls, like hills, and long depressions which held shadows darker by far than the gloom of the night. They walked along, sometimes yards apart, sometimes side by side. They forgot Ruskin and Carlyle—they remembered Thoreau's "Cape Cod" and talked of the musical sands which they could hear now under their own feet. In the silence they heard river voices; murmurings and tones and rhythms and harmonies; and Terabon, who had accumulated a vast store of information from the ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... children of the South. Sighs, as from the boughs of Yggdrasil, ever breathed through his poetry from of old. He was a smith, an artificer, and a delver in mines from the beginning. The old Teutonic Pan was far more musical and awe-inspiring than his Grecian counterpart The Noon-spirit of the North was more wild than that of the South. How all the ancient North was alive in its Troll-haunted hillocks, where clanged the anvil of the faery hill-smith, and danced and banqueted the Gnome and Troll,—and in its streams ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... shout, and the cliffs reverberate the sound. O, what joy for a shy man to feel himself so solitary, that he may lift his voice to its highest pitch without hazard of a listener! But, hush!—be silent, my good friend!—whence comes that stifled laughter? It was musical,—but how should there be such music in my solitude? Looking upwards, I catch a glimpse of three faces, peeping from the summit of the cliff, like angels between me and their native sky. Ah, fair girls, you may make yourselves merry at my eloquence,—but ...
— Footprints on The Sea-Shore (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of me I heard his voice, deep and musical, droning a weird kind of chant that seemed to be utterly everlasting. It was not loud, but rather like a deep organ note that carries a long distance. In a while he came nearer, walking unconcernedly with his face to the sky. Over and over and over the chant continued; ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... see him now. I used to watch for him from my nursery window, and as soon as he came in sight I flew down to my mother for a penny, and then went into the garden and stood beside him whilst he played. My mother gave me a musical-box on my birthday; it was in the shape of a barrel-organ, and had a strap which I could hang round my neck. I used to take this box with me, and standing beside the Italian, I imitated his every movement, holding my little organ just as he held his big ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... not good prose; it is merely blank verse of an inferior quality, and we hope that Mr. Coleridge in his next novel will not ask us to accept second-rate poetry as musical prose. For, that Mr. Coleridge is a young writer of great ability and culture cannot be doubted and, indeed, in spite of the error we have pointed out, Demetrius remains one of the most fascinating and delightful novels that has ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... our mate's place at the wheel and sent him forward. Tom Yeager leaned on the ship's rail and looked away across the glassy waters of the Pacific. I remember that he was humming, as was his fashion, a snatch from a musical comedy. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... my little experiment might interest you," he said. "You see how it is? The dormant intelligence of my curious cousin is like the dormant sound in a musical instrument. I play upon it—and it answers to my touch. She likes being played upon. But her great delight is to hear me tell a story. I puzzle her to the verge of distraction; and the more I confuse her the better she likes the story. It is the greatest fun; you really must ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... she won't revel when our Nat begins to buzz too near her Daisy. Of course you see what all that means? As musical director I am also his confidante, and would like to know what advice to give,' said Laurie soberly. 'Hush! you forget that child,' began Jo, nodding towards Bess, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Our hardy captain is not a soft-hearted man; but I saw him wipe a tear from his eye as the chant ceased. I have not sought to color the picture. There was a wonderful pathos about it. We had not heard the song before; and I am inclined to believe it extempore,—one of those musical efforts which persons in what we term the savage state will sometimes make when their feelings are touched by new and strange influences. Even after the song had ceased, the girls, as if under its spell, stood holding out their white hands to us. I can ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... new to him. Also he took to reading poetry. Scott's "Marmion," about the only piece of verse with which he had been on speaking acquaintance, he abandoned for fragments of "Locksley Hall" and "Lucille." His musical taste underwent like change. The rollicking college airs he was accustomed to whistle with more vigor than accuracy gave place to "Tell Me, Pretty Maiden," and "Annie Laurie." These he executed quite as inaccurately, but—and this ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... ascertain the lucky times. When a person of note dies, the kindred clothe themselves in canvas or sackcloth, and accompany the body to the funeral, both men and women, people being employed to play on musical instruments, and singing all the way prayers to their idols; and being come to the place, they cast into the fire in which the body is burnt, many pieces of cotton paper, on which figures of slaves, horses, camels, stuffs of silk and gold, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... within in order to respond to that which comes from without, just as there must be a musical ear ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... such a remarkable irritation of nerves, that he could not bear to hear the tuning of instruments, and therefore at a performance this was always done before he arrived. A musical wag, who knew how to extract some mirth from Handel's irascibility of temper, stole into the orchestra, on a night when the Prince of Wales was to be present, and untuned all the instruments. As soon as the prince arrived, Handel gave the signal for beginning, ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... simple and sparse and very hard. A bust here, a picture there, a coloured plate, a crucifix, and a Madonna and Child in a niche: that was all the decoration save tapestry. An hour glass, a pepper mill, a compass, an inkstand, stand for utility, and quaint and twisted musical instruments and ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... men seemed to dwell upon these peculiarities of versification as being distinctively ecclesiastical and therefore spiritually edifying, and brought up the musical rear of such couplets with long-drawn and profoundly impressive "shy-un's" and "i-tee's;" but these irregularities found little favor in the eyes of the younger people, who had attended singing-school and learned to read buckwheat notes under ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... that of the other, by which the little Pilgrim knew somehow, without knowing how, that she had come here as a child, and grown up in this celestial place. She was tall and fair, and came along with so musical a motion, as if her foot scarcely touched the ground, that she might have had wings: and the little Pilgrim indeed was not sure as she watched, whether it might not perhaps be an angel; for she knew that there ...
— A Little Pilgrim - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... is but dimly lit with lamps covered with pale pink shades. The soft musical tinkling of a fountain, hidden somewhere amongst the flowering shrubs, adds a delicious sense of coolness to the air. The delicate perfume of heliotrope mingles with the breath of the roses, yellow and red and amber, that, standing in their ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... with the full consciousness of doing so to the reproduction of shape and color. Music since Wagner's time goes in the opposite direction,—tries to be, not only a harmony of sound, but at the same time the philosophy of harmony. I sometimes think a great musical genius of the future will say, as ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... manifestations of one and the same capacity, viz., for experiencing sensations of any kind whatsoever. We could no more be capable of feeling pleasure, while incapable of feeling pain, than we could be sensitive to musical harmonies, while insensible to musical discords; besides which, monotony of sensation annihilates sensation. On this point we may invoke against the pre-evolutionist Mill a modern scientific authority like Professor Fiske, who expresses himself to the effect that "without the ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... smile to be coaxed out of Ellen; something had happened that she did not want to tell him. At last he got out of her that the two musical clowns had gone off without paying. They had spoiled her good bed-clothes by lying in them with their clothes on, and had made them so filthy that nothing could be done with them. She was unwilling to tell Pelle, because ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... agreeable, even musical. Raven concluded he must have been strangely moved to break into that mad "Hullo." It had been more, he thought, that wild repetition with the echo throwing it back, like the Gabriel hounds. But Raven took no notice of the question. He spoke ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... little one turned and ran away. Cram could hear the gentle, soothing tones of the mother striving to console her child,—the one widowed and the other orphaned by the tidings he bore. Even then he noted how musical, how full of rich melody, was that soft Creole voice. And then Madame d'Hervilly appeared, a stately, dignified, picturesque gentlewoman of perhaps fifty years. She greeted him with punctilious civility, but with manner as distant as ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... told me so; and at Rose Cottage; and the woodland at the outskirts of our grounds hides it from the Hall; and a man and woman could meet and plot unobserved; but, god-mother mine, let us away to dress; the first bells are sounding their sweet musical invitation, and I shall try to forget Mrs. Haughton; for, among Christ's gifts to men, I perhaps have not valued that most excellent gift ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... England, but even at the risk of dispelling an illusion under which most Oxford men have labored, and which every member of Christ Church has indulged in from 1680 to the present time, touching the fancied superiority of mighty Tom, it must be confessed that it is neither an accurate nor a musical bell. The note, as we are assured by the learned in these matters, ought to be B flat, but is not so. On the contrary, the bell is imperfect and inharmonious, and requires, in the opinion of those best informed, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... be that the people will not wrangle; by abrogating, to the utmost degree, wise rules under the heavens, the people will, at length, be able to take part in deliberation. By putting to confusion the musical scale, and destroying fifes and lutes, by deafening the ears of the blind Kuang, then, at last, will the human race in the world constrain his sense of hearing. By extinguishing literary compositions, by dispersing the five colours and by sticking the eyes of Li Chu, then, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... made no reply. Then Jennie's musical voice rang out on the frosty air, but still the hunter gave no sign that he knew he had been addressed. He did not move an ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... busy preparing for the arrival of the Bishop. His throne had been set at one end of the school-hall, and at the other the carpenters had erected a stage for the performance of King Cophetua, a musical sketch written by Miss ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... fashions, of the last novel, rattling away on these subjects as if her whole soul were wrapped up in the discussion. It was almost a monologue. Maltboy's part consisted of "Yes;" "I think so too;" "We agree perfectly," and adjectives of admiration occasionally thrown in. That musical voice! He could have listened with rapture to its ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... in the very species of an Italian singer such an innate, fantastical pride and caprice, that the government of them (here at least) is almost impracticable. This distemper, as we were not sufficiently warn'd or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce a sensible auditor in the Kingdom that has not since that time had occasion to laugh at the several instances of it. But what is still more ridiculous, these costly canary birds have sometimes infested the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... three hours' leave of absence—took a glass too many—stayed over the time, and his friend, Sergeant Smith, feeling anxious for Penn—'s welfare, went after him and had him arrested as a deserter—and here he is! 'Nix my Dolly,'" etc. etc.; and he settled again into his musical reverie. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... other, mingle in jarring confusion. Indeed, when the parlor is large and high, a genuine pipe-organ built in a recess and harmonizing in finish with the woodwork of the room is not only the finest decoration possible, but the most appropriate musical instrument. Those families who possess an old-fashioned piano, such as thin and tinkly "square," are advised to have it overhauled and refinished by a competent piano-repairer, and preserved, if only for practice by the children. In case such an instrument has ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... boy," said Drysdale to Tom, as they trotted off out of the yard; and Tom couldn't help envying them as he followed, and watched the dog cart lessening rapidly down the empty street, and heard the notes of the yard of tin, which Blake managed to make really musical, borne back on the soft western breeze. It was such a pleasant morning ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to be transported to the world under ground, where he meets with some surprising adventures. Many strange creatures inhabit this new world; trees, for instance, are introduced, endowed with speech, and musical instruments discuss questions of philosophy and finance. Amongst the characters, those geniuses, who perceive everything at a glance, but penetrate nothing, are conspicuous. People of quick perception, whom we use to admire, are despised by the Potuans, ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... the way this is printed that makes some miss its value. It is, like all the best he wrote, a song; it needs the varying time of human expression, the effect of tone, the repose and the re-lifting of musical notes; illuminated thus it greatly charmed, and if any one would know the order of such a tune, why, it should follow the punctuation: a cessation at the third line; a rise of rapid accents to the thirteenth, and then a change; the last three lines of the whole ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... garlands and rich hangings. Then placing the covered body of the king with that of his queen on that excellent bier decked out so brightly, they caused it to be carried on human shoulders. With the white umbrella (of state) held over the hearse with waving yak-tails and sounds of various musical instruments, the whole scene looked bright and grand. Hundreds of people began to distribute gems among the crowd on the occasion of the funeral rites of the king. At length some beautiful robes, and white umbrellas and larger yak-tails, were brought for the great ceremony. The ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... took the perfumes and garlands, and all the musical instruments, and five hundred suits of apparel, and went to the Upavattana, to the Sala Grove of the Mallas, where the body of the Blessed One lay. There they passed the day in paying honor, reverence, respect, and homage to the remains ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... Prussian Majesty, and his Polish ditto, with their respective suites, are lodged. Kinglike wholly, in extensive green palaces ready gilt and furnished; such drawing-rooms, such bedrooms, "with floors of dyed wicker-work;" the gilt mirrors, pictures, musical clocks; not even the fine bathing-tubs for his Prussian Majesty have been forgotten. Never did man or flunky see the like. Such immense successful apparatus, without and within; no end of military valetaille, chiefly "janizaries," ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... bookshelves. Clocks, old slow clocks, all telling different time, all over the house. The house was very neat, but in odd corners there were all those odd family things that Russians collect, china of the worst period, brass trays, large candlesticks, musical boxes, anything you please. Only in the dining-room there was some attempt at modernity. Bad modern furniture, on the walls bad copies of such things as Somoff's 'Blue Lady,' Vrubel's 'Pan' and one of Benoit's 'Peter the Great' water-colours. Beyond this room the house ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... in its pristine purity and perfection, I should have but little further use for opera. It seems to me that to the elevated mind and the sensitive spirit the hand-organ and the nigger-show are a standard and a summit to whose rarefied altitude the other forms of musical art may not hope ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... the middle of the day, but even then in the shadow dwelt a cold breath—of the winter, or of death—of something that humanity felt unfriendly. To Gibbie, however, bare-legged, bare-footed, almost bare-bodied as he was, sun or shadow made small difference, except as one of the musical intervals of life that make the melody of existence. His bare feet knew the difference on the flags, and his heart recognized unconsciously the secret as it were of a meaning and a symbol, in the change from the one to the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... excitement, distanced the choir, and the organ, and the congregation, and almost brought the entire musical service to ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... discussions of health and food, recriminations and wrangling, there came to be laughter and good-humored chatter all the day long, each sister striving with all her strength to preserve the new-found harmony of the Home. There were musical evenings, when Miss Abigail opened the melodeon and played "Old Hundred," and Abraham was encouraged to pick out with one stiff forefinger "My Grandfather's Clock." "Hymn tunes" were sung in chorus; and ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... witch than I am a warlock," said the honest smith: "a poor, broken hearted thing, that, if she hath done evil, has dreed a sore weird for it. Be kind to her. And you, my musical damsel, I will call on you tomorrow morning, and carry you to the waterside. This old woman will treat you kindly if you say nothing to her ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... beautiful passages that the poet ever wrote. In deserts of preaching we find, almost within sight of one another, delightful oases of purest poetry. Besides being prolix, Wordsworth is often cumbrous; has often no flight; is not liquid, is not musical. He is heavy and self-conscious with the burden of his message. How much at his best he is, when, as in the admirable and truly Wordsworthian poem of Michael, he spares us a sermon and leaves us the story. Then, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... intellectuals—the artistic, the illuminated, the musical sorts. I—I wish I knew more of them. They were my father's friends—some of them." She looked over her shoulder to see where Selwyn was, and whether he was listening; smiled at him, and turned, resting one hand on the window seat. "So many kinds ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... so uplifted by the success of my experiment that I determined to go farther, and when towards evening of the same day a group of my husband's friends came to tell him that they had booked a box at a well-known musical comedy theatre, I begged to be ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... dampened my musical ardor, I did not leave off studying my Rameau, and, by repeated efforts, was at length able to understand it, and to make some little attempts at composition, the success of which encouraged me to proceed. The Count de Bellegrade, son of the Marquis ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the field by the men, and ground into meal by the women. The sound of the grinding is heard in the street and is usually accompanied by a song that sounds weird but musical. The meal is ground into different grades of fineness and when used for bread is mixed with water to form a thin batter which is spread by the hand upon a hot, flat stone. It is quickly baked and makes ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... indispensable. But, from the stand-point of English poetry, SALOME is a production of more than marked ability—it is a boldly conceived, genially executed, oftentimes a truly superb poem. The repentance of SALOME has a broad lyrical and musical sweep which seems like an opera of grand passions when the trivial associations of the opera are forgotten. In the concluding scenes we seem to feel the inspiration of GOETHE and of AESCHYLUS, for the author has combined with rare tact the spirit of avenging fate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... decision, courage, and intelligence, and handsome, as well, and in his dark, piercing eyes there was a strange mixture of gentleness and a fiery nature combined. In a voice strangely musical for a man's, ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... felt happiness warming her; for in the Virginian's tone about Trampas was something now that no longer excluded her. Thus he began his gradual recital, in a cadence always easy, and more and more musical with the native accent of the South. With the light turn he gave it, its pure ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... afflicting catastrophe, or the idea of a dreadful spectacle, touches in so lively a manner as to enable the brain to give play to his lachrymal organs, which cause him to shed tears; a sign by which we recognize the effect of great grief, of extreme anguish in the human being. The man in whom musical sounds excite a degree of pleasure, or produce very remarkable effects, is said to have a sensible or a fine ear. In short, when it is perceived that eloquence—the beauty of the arts—the various objects that strike his senses, excite in him very lively emotions, he is said to possess ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... said he—a clearer, more musical voice than his I have never heard—"I thank you for this honor. As you know, I opposed the platform you saw fit to adopt. I have nothing to retract. I do not like it. But, after all, a candidate must be his own platform. And I bring my public record as proof of my ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... wine very freely. You cannot imagine how much he is delighted with the liberty of conversing with me. He has explained to me many pieces of Arabian poetry, which, I observe, are in numbers not unlike ours, generally of an alternate verse, and of a very musical sound. Their expressions of love are very passionate and lively. I am so much pleased with them, I really believe I should learn to read Arabic, if I was to stay here a few months. He has a very good library of their books of all kinds; and, as he tells me, spends the greatest part ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... profound, and distinguished. It seems to me, however, that what the cultivated man or woman requires is the ability to read a score intelligently rather than to play it—to distinguish the threads, the values, of a musical composition, to have a quickened ear rather than a disciplined hand. I owe to my friend, Mr. Graham Wallas, the suggestion that the piano is altogether too exacting an instrument to use as the practical vehicle for such instruction, and that something simpler and cheaper—after ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... appeal—it was actually a cry for protection. Her father, she said, had determined to devote her to the stage, and already had taken steps to sell her—she said she used the word advisedly—for so many years to the impresario of the 'Fenice' at Venice, her voice and musical skill being such as to give hope of her becoming a prima donna. She had, she said, frequently sung at private parties at Rome, but only knew within the last few days that she had been, not a guest, but a paid performer. Overwhelmed with the shame and indignity of this false position, she implored ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... treatment of my mother relieves him from that distinction. He is in the Far East, China, I think. I have not seen him in more than five years. He deserted my mother. That's all there is to that side of my story. I appeared in two or three of the musical pieces produced in London two seasons ago, in the chorus. I never got beyond that, for very good reasons. I was known as Hetty Glynn. Three weeks ago I started for New York, sailing from Liverpool. Previously I had served in the capacity ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Centipede Ranch that housed the treasure, and in company with Willie, made his way to the ponies. Two other figures joined them, one humming in a musical baritone the strains ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... be no more curse,"—and here the reader's musical voice rose into deeper and steadier sweetness—"but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... on the half and quarter hours a few bars from the "Pre aux Clercs." Every seven and a half minutes sounded a few jangling sweet notes, and thus the air over the old town of Malines and the small hamlets surrounding it both day and night was musical with the bells of ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... rang up through the midst of a sudden silence. The sons and daughters of the Love-Star instantly ceased their own soft musical conversation, and Zaidie sang the old plantation song through for the first time that a human voice had sung it ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... face, the swaying poplars, or sighing reeds which had once piped an alluring music in his ears, and which he longs to hear again. He lives not in too frail a world, but in too narrow a world, and he should adventure out into new worlds in the old quest. He, has become a master of delicate and musical rhythms. I remember reading Seumas O'Sulivan's first manuscripts with mingled pleasure and horror, for his lines often ran anyhow, and scansion seemed to him an unknown art, but I feel humbly now that he can get a subtle quality into his music which I could not ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... studies the behavior of animals. Genetic psychology, as it is sometimes called, i.e., the study of mental heredity. {6} and development, dovetails with the general biological science of genetics, so that we find biologists gathering data on the heredity of feeble-mindedness or of musical ability, while psychologists discuss the ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... kept still a moment you'd know," the Hermit said. "Listen!" He held up his hand and they all stood still. There came faintly to their ears a musical ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... sign to me to ring the bell. I first touch the great lips with my hand very lightly; and a musical murmur comes from them. Then I set the beam swinging strongly; and a sound deep as thunder, rich as the bass of a mighty organ—a sound enormous, extraordinary, yet beautiful—rolls over the hills and away. Then swiftly follows another ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... was a hill which was almost split in twain by a gorge or gully, down through which a brook leaped and hounded and tumbled, rolling its musical "r's." The four started up the long incline, the women gathering the belated flowers and the men picking up curious sticks or sending boulders hurtling down the hillside. Higher and higher they mounted till the summit was reached. Hill after hill ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... quickly his mild manners and reserve had put the girl at her ease. She looked perfect that afternoon and he yearned to begin painting her; but his scheme of action demanded time for its perfect fulfillment and ultimate success. He let the little timorous chatterbox talk. Her voice was soft and musical as the cooing of a wood-dove, and the sweet full notes chimed in striking contrast to her uncouth speech. But Joan's diction gave pleasure to the listener. It had freedom and wildness, and was almost wholly innocent of ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... generally to the Versification. We may observe of HONINGTON GREEN, and most of the Poems in rhyme in this Collection, that they are strongly accentuated: and if red with a close attention to accent and emphasis, the rhythm is musical and energetic; where to a careless Reader it might ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... the present; and believe me, those two will be happier far, and far more blessed, in a few short years hence, than ever you or I shall be in all the unreckonable cycles of this or any future world." Ram Lal sighed as he uttered the last words, and he was gone; yet the musical cadence of the deep-drawn breath of a profound sorrow, vibrated whisperingly through the room where I lay. Poor Ram Lal, he must have had some disappointment in his youth, which, with all his wisdom and superiority ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... and the criminal in heroes;—the spirited where we expect to come across the sordid, and the mean where we look for the grand, but the supernatural and magical mingle with the real and practical;—the sound of trumpets comes from hills where it is known there are no musical instruments; shrieks of departed ghosts issue from the tombs of mothers; incidents by sea and land are accompanied by wonderfully sublime circumstances; shipwrecks have whatever make up such scenes ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... the whole night, to the most noisy demonstrations of joy. Numerous parties of men and women perambulate the streets, singing couplets, called villancicos, which are exclusively applicable to this feast, and playing on two species of musical instruments, having the most abominable sound, called raveles and zambombas, which are never used but on this occasion. The churches are filled with people, who are far from conducting themselves with that decorum and moderation ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... enough to show the wily half-breed that he must do something if possible to re-establish his credit. He therefore volunteered another song, which was gladly accepted and highly appreciated; for, as we have said, La Certe possessed a really good and tuneful voice, and these immigrants were a musical people. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Congo," that poem which so sympathetically catches the spirit of the uplift of the Negro race through Christianity, that weird, musical, chanting, swinging, singing, sweeping, weeping, rhythmic, flowing, swaying, clanging, banging, leaping, laughing, groaning, moaning book of the elementals, was inspired suddenly, one Sabbath evening, as the poet sat in church listening to ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... It was a pleasant summer rain that plashed gently on the leaves of the great elms and locusts, and tinkled musically in the roadside puddles. Less musical was its sound as it drummed on the top of the great landau which was rolling along the avenue leading to Fernley House; but the occupants of the carriage paid little attention to it, each being buried in her own thoughts. The night was dark, ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... Director of the Musical and Dramatical School of the Philharmonic Society; A. BRANDUKOV, Inspector of same school; ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... to sing and whistle; and while he showed Jack what constituted a proper breakfast for a horse and how these useful beasts should be groomed, he kept up a running fire of comment and good-natured musical effort that made up in volume what it lacked in depth. By the time Warren's pails were full and the barn work done, the three boys were on a friendly footing and they marched into breakfast to the tune of "There Were Three ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... might feel as his fingers touched the stops and keys. Alton had lived simply in close touch with nature, and though he had read much, his thoughts had something of the pristine purity and vigour of the land he dwelt in, and were in a fashion musical; but now and then the girl venturing overfar chanced upon a chord that rang harsh and discordant, and shrinking a little recognized, she fancied, the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... very famous? Are you sure, Magnus, that this is really a portrait," &c. &c. And I hear my own voice, as if in the far distance, giving them all sorts of information, biographical and critical, out of a battered little volume called The Theatre of Musical Glory; or, Opinions upon the most Famous Chapel-masters and Virtuosi of this Century, by Father Prosdocimo Sabatelli, Barnalite, Professor of Eloquence at the College of Modena, and Member of the Arcadian Academy, under the pastoral name of Evander Lilybaean, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... that she would have lost her head, let loose her temper and her tongue, and have become insubordinate. But the quickness of perception which had revealed practical potentialities to old Reuben Vanderpoel, revealed to her the value of French which was perfectly fluent, a voice which was musical, movements which were grace, manners which had a still beauty, and comparing these things with others less charming she listened and restrained herself, learning, marking, and inwardly digesting ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... time ago there lived in a little hut in the midst of a bare, brown, lonely moor an old woman and a young girl. The old woman was withered, sour-tempered, and dumb. The young girl was as sweet and as fresh as an opening rosebud, and her voice was as musical as the whisper of a stream in the woods in the hot days of summer. The little hut, made of branches woven closely together, was shaped like a bee-hive. In the center of the hut a fire burned night and day from year's end to year's end, though it was ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... judge of it.' GOLDSMITH. 'He is what is much better: he is a worthy humane man.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, that is not to the purpose of our argument[660]: that will as much prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian.' GOLDSMITH. 'The greatest musical performers have but small emoluments. Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year.' JOHNSON. 'That is indeed but little for a man to get, who does best that which so many endeavour ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... crudely coloured and gaudy. In the first, a red man was reposing serenely upon what appeared to be a range of mountains, with a musical instrument in his hand, a crown upon his head, and a smile upon his face. In the second, a similar man was screaming at the pitch of his lungs, while half-a-dozen black creatures were battering him with poles ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the number of pauses, or musical bars, which, in an heroic verse, is commonly two, increased ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... talent; especially if his talent be not so actively employed as to make him desire only relaxation where he seeks companionship,—the accomplishment of facility in intellectual interchange, the charm that clothes in musical words ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The latter has on its left jamb a very small carving of the Crucifixion. Within note (1) in the chancel some interlaced work on the N. and a piscina on the S.; (2) in the E. corner of the S. aisle a musical epitaph; (3) in one of the N. windows of the nave some fragments of ancient glass (the figure is said to be that ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... musical instrument. Silk pink brocade piano cover. Photo of Olivia in frame. Photo of George Marden in frame. Photo of Dinah in frame. Photo of Brian in frame. E.P. mirror. Blue china bowl containing flowers. Quantity ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... also musical, so far as breeding would allow, stood for a good deal to Gyp, who had built up about her a romantic story of love wrecked by pride from a few words she had once let drop. She was a tall and handsome woman, a year older ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... other subjects. The military achievements of their ancestors, the New Zealanders celebrate with the highest pleasure, and spend much of their time in diversions of this sort, and in playing upon a musical instrument, which partakes of the nature of a flute. With respect to their language, it is far from being harsh or disagreeable, though the pronunciation of it is frequently guttural; nor, if we may judge from the melody of some kinds of their songs, is it destitute of those qualities, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... inheritance of the effects of use? Why are we to suppose that "minor traits" such as the "aesthetic perceptions" cannot have been evolved by natural selection (p. 20) or by sexual selection? Darwin holds that our musical faculties were developed by sexual preference long before the acquisition of speech. He believes that the "rhythms and cadences of oratory are derived from previously developed musical powers"—a conclusion "exactly opposite" to that arrived at by Mr. Spencer.[12] The emotional susceptibility ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... since, I have been attracted by unusual sounds, and have surprised a flock of crows which were evidently watching a performance by one of their number. Once it was a deep musical whistle, much like the too-loo-loo of the blue jay (who is the crow's cousin, for all his bright colors), but deeper and fuller, and without the trill that always marks the blue jay's whistle. Once, in some big woods in Maine, it was a hoarse bark, utterly unlike ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... many delightful talks upon all sorts of subjects, profound and otherwise. Esther often played, with exquisite skill, selections from musical masters. At his request she sang songs of grand, refined sentiment and of ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... the musical reader may feel on hearing that James Ollerenshaw was equal to performing the Hallelujah Chorus on a concertina (even one inlaid with mother-of-pearl) argues on the part of that reader an imperfect acquaintance with the Five Towns. In the Five ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... in all cases, rest directly on the thing under consideration and not on what is written about it. Without a thorough knowledge of music, including its history and development, and, above all, musical "sympathy," individual criticism is, of course, valueless; at the same time the acquirement of this knowledge and sympathy is not difficult, and I hope that we may yet have a public in America that shall be capable of forming its own ideas, and not be ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... Ike had been drinking the alcohol, day by day," he answered in his musical voice. "The barrel just did 'em two weeks. Just because I talk foolish talk, Mr. Dennis, ain't a sign that I don't feel bad. I don't want the Boss to speak to ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... were happy in singing, or, they gained favor by singing. The expression is obscure. The verb auat is applied to the singing of birds, the crowing of cocks, and generally to the natural sound made by any animal, and, in composition, to the sound of musical instruments, as, auatzah, to play on the flute, to blow ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... told you," replied the fat man. "I am a clown—a musical clown.... I interpret comic romances.... I dress up as a negro, I play the banjo!" This jovial individual began humming an air which was the rage of ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... for white men's boots or shoes. He tried several pairs, but his huge flat foot would not enter them, and finally he threw down the last one tried by him with a Spanish exclamation not fit to be printed in these pages. That language is a musical one, but its oaths are very harsh in sound. A battered "stove-pipe" hat was found among the spoils turned over to Captain Chancy. Placing it on his head jauntily, he turned to us, saying, Adios, and went strutting ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... evidences of our folly", Prue said, as she bundled them out of sight. The contents were so charming that everybody forgot their little difference of opinion. There was a fine large kaleidoscope, the first she had ever seen, for Mollie; a charming musical box, with a long list of tunes printed inside the lid and a little gilt key to wind it up with, for Prudence; a Winsor and Newton paint-box for Grizzel; Five Weeks in a Balloon, by Jules Verne, for Hugh; and a Punchinello doll ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton |
