"Musician" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but the dancing lacked animation, and but few took part in it. When the little girl began to dance with her grandmother, I seated myself on a small ledge not far from the musician. Immediately the shaman stopped playing and the dancing ceased. In an almost harsh voice, and greatly excited, he called to me, "Come and sit here, sir!" He was evidently very anxious to get me away from the ledge, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... closed for the night, and there was little more to be obtained. So she took her last stand in front of a fine old house in Kensington Square, in whose windows lights were still burning. It was the home of Barech, the great musician. As the tones of Nell's voice broke on the stillness of the night, he paused in the work he was doing, and after a moment rose and threw open the window. With amazement he saw the little childish figure standing in the light of the street lamp, and while his artist's ear drank ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... charge us, in their unimaginable stupidity, with failing to appreciate our lines, especially when they are Shakespeare's—with being unliterary. You might—good Heavens!—as well accuse a painter of not being a musician! Our business lies behind the words—they are our mere medium! Rosalind wasn't literary—why should I be? But don't indulge me in my shop, if it bores you," Hilda added lightly, aware as she was that Miss Livingstone was ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... tambourine to do crewel work on a tapestry picture. It was a large subject—The bard Ossian playing his harp to Malvino. Ossian seated on the front of some brown rocks, Malvino seated before him, her hands folded across his knees, full of tender regard for the gentle musician. This work was her pastime and recreation. She selected the worsteds and worked her needle out and in, shading and coloring and outlining with the skill of an artist in paints. Three years she worked on this picture, ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... shrinking a little: "I think Miss McQuinch knows it by heart." Then, still anxious to be affable to the workman, she added, "Lord Jasper says you are a great musician." ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... secret—the old musician's secret; Catherine Booth's secret; Bunyan's secret; Paul's secret; the secret of all who have learned the text ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... the piano was detached, a being apart from this scene of quiet, absorbed in his piano, which gave forth the turbulence which had been in the soul of the great composer. The expression upon the dark face of the young musician was rapt and eager, until he crashed the chords to their triumphant conclusion when he sank back in his chair with a gasp, his head bent forward upon his breast, his dark gaze fixed upon the keys which still echoed ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... disappeared behind the elbow of Black Wind Mountain. "There's something wrong with your horse. Listen! He's not loping evenly." The soft cadence of eight hoofs on earth had somewhere a lighter and then a heavier note; the ear of a good horseman tells in a minute, as a musician's ear at a false note, when an animal saves one foot ever so slightly, to come ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Irishman, who has a pretty good education, lives with him most of the time; he is quite a musician and is teaching me to play the violin. 'Mike' they call the Irishman, and my friend is 'Jack'; the other miners nicknamed him 'Lone Jack,' but nobody, I suppose, knows ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... singer. It generally begins by screeching harshly; then follow three or four flute-like notes, which seem to indicate that the bird could be a musician if it would only persevere. But it will not take the trouble. It goes on repeating its 'Lor-e-oh!' just as its tree-top companions, the cicadas, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... me to be a great actress," she resumed; "but you know what an admirable musician my father was. He has taught me to sing, so that I can satisfy the critics, as well as please the public. There was what they call a great success last night. It has earned me an engagement for another year to come, and an increase ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... forth an ecstatic song—a song so out of proportion to his tiny body that he was fairly shaken by his own tumult—trills and whistles, calls and chuckles, all incoherently mingled and shouted forth in glorious hysteria. Miss Gordon looked up at the mad little musician and her face grew sad. She had recognized the cause of her renewed longing for home. At the little gate of her Edinburgh garden there grew just such a hawthorn, and the perfume of this one was telling her not of the joy ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... half-hours listening to their "work." They were oblivious of his presence, either flushed and absorbed with the passion of their music, or wiping their foreheads and chatting and laughing companionably in pauses to rest. That the young musician loved her with an ardency that was almost painful, was patent to Graham; but what hurt him was the abandon of devotion with which she sometimes looked at Ware after he had done something exceptionally fine. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Mauthner by name, was a little hump-backed Jew, who seemed to know every man and woman (especially woman) worth knowing in Vienna. Through him I made the acquaintance of several families of the middle class, - amongst them that of a veteran musician who had been Beethoven's favourite flute-player. As my veneration for Beethoven was unbounded, I listened with awe to every trifling incident relating to the great master. I fear the conviction left on my mind was that my idol, though transcendent amongst musicians, was a bear ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Leon's intellectual foibles. But these were extremely few. Towards the end of the proceedings at Valladolid the Inquisitionary judges there summoned before them Juan Galvan, a young theological student who lodged with Salinas, the blind musician. Galvan testified that for about two years he had discussed matters of theology, mathematics, and astrology with Luis de Leon.[172] It may astonish some that Luis de Leon toyed with the pseudo-science of astrology: ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... that this musical artist is offered an exceptionally good salary to appear in vaudeville with another musician, who performs equally well upon two or three, or even more, very different instruments. He accepts the offer; he and his partner "open" in the act; and, after a week or two, in order to "build up" the act as well as to become capable of playing another kind of instrument, ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... friendship or acquaintance I enjoyed. Mr Edwin Ogden was well known in the neighbourhood as being about one of the best local singers of his day. Many townsfolk will remember Edwin, together with William Haggas, another old musician, teaching a singing-class. Ogden was a shoemaker by trade but he dabbled more in music than in wax and leather. For many years he held the position of leading chorister at St. Anne's Roman Catholic Church. He also "gave of his talents" on frequent occasions ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... brother from a town in Missouri, and it was this woman who had given her thoughts form, who had indeed started her thinking of the inadequacy of her life. The brother, a studious, quiet man, worked as a chemist in a manufacturing plant somewhere at the edge of town. He was a musician and wanted to become a composer. One evening during the winter his sister Kate had brought Clara to the apartment where the two lived, and the three had become friends. Clara had learned something there that she did not yet understand and never did get clearly ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... Haliburton Memorials:—"The said Thomas Scott died at Monklaw, near Jedburgh, at two of the clock, 27th January, 1823, in the 90th year of his life, and fully possessed of all his faculties. He read till nearly the year before his death; and being a great musician on the Scotch pipes, had, when on his deathbed, a favorite tune played over to him by his son James, that he might be sure he left him in full possession of it. After hearing it, he hummed it over himself, and corrected it in several of the notes. The air ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... was only recruited last summer. I used to ride horse on the Canawl, and, as I can blow a horn first-rate, I expect I will soon be able to play on a bugle, and then, when I get to be musician, you know, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... thinker of all time, but there was no room in his brain for an impure thought. Notwithstanding he was still a young man, being but fifty years of age, nevertheless he had attained distinct success and fame as a musician, composer, scientist, inventor, architect, and athlete. He endeavored to unravel all the mysteries of nature which attracted his attention. One of the many occult forces he experimented with was human magnetism. It was his belief ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... couple more with evidently the kettle-drums, hung from their necks and beaten, like an Indian tom-tom, at both ends. Then the chief musician came with a large wooden harmonicon hung from his neck. This instrument, the marimba, he beat with a couple of round hammers, bringing forth a barbarous, modulated kind of music, not unlike that of the marrow-bones ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... mildest kind, and has, if not reconciled, partly conciliated critics by throwing in some tolerable minor personages. Pelagie, Constance's lively friend, has a character which he could somehow manage without Richardsonian vulgarity. Her amiable father, an orchestra musician, who manages to find des jolies choses even in a damned piece, is not bad; and, above all, Pelagie's lover, and, till Edmond's misconduct, his friend, M. Ginguet—a modest Government clerk, who adores his mistress, is constantly snubbed by her, but has ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... pals,' and didn't want to look like the 'boring people' who were to be avoided like the plague, and only asked to the big evenings, which were given as seldom as possible, and then only if it would amuse the painter or make the musician better known. The rest of the time you were quite happy playing charades and having supper in fancy dress, and there was no need to mingle any strange element ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... ignorant of anatomy can not appreciate either sculpture or painting! A knowledge of optics, of botany and of natural history, are necessary, equally to the artist or to the connoisseur; a knowledge of acoustics to the musician and musical critic. "No artist," says Mr. Spencer, "can produce a healthful work of whatever kind without he understands the laws of the phenomena he represents; he must also understand how the minds of the spectator or listener will be affected by his work—a question of psychology." ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... drawing is all that can be really taught, and is as necessary to the painter as the practising of exercises is to the musician, that his powers of observation and execution may be trained. But the vital matter of art is not in all this necessary training. And this fact the student should always keep in mind, and be ever ready to give rein to those natural enthusiasms which, ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... Music,—well, I am not a musician, and in any new Opera when there is no one tuneful phrase as in Aida or Tannhaeuser, which, at the very first hearing, anyone with half an ear can straightway catch, and reproduce next day till everyone about ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... never any reproaches. He taught me all that I know in the way of what you might call accomplishments, and they were of a strangely varied order— a smattering of Latin and Greek, a good deal of French, history, literature, and even dancing, as well as music, for he was an excellent musician. Our meager income ceased with my father's life, and I had to choose what I should do to earn my board and keep, like Orphant Annie, in Whitcomb Riley's poem. There appeared to be three avenues open to me. I could be a governess, domestic servant, or dressmaker. I had already earned something ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... musician, who had fearfully concealed his unholy instrument from the minister's eyes all afternoon, mounted upon a table, and after much screwing up and letting down and strumming of notes, now high and squeaky, now low and ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... final impression we receive from the work of Robert Browning is that of a great nature, an immense personality. The poet in him is made up of many men. He is dramatist, humorist, lyrist, painter, musician, philosopher and scholar, each in full measure, and he includes and dominates them all. In richness of nature, in scope and penetration of mind and vision, in energy of passion and emotion, he is probably second among English poets to Shakespeare alone. In art, in the ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... much in the world before the Revolution, and her position in the family of the Duc d'Orleans, together with her great versatility of talent, had given her a certain vogue. Author, musician, teacher, moralist, critic, poser, egotist, femme d'esprit, and friend of princes, her romantic life would fill a volume and cannot be even touched upon in a few lines. After ten years of exile she returned to Paris, and her salon at the Arsenal was a center for a few celebrities. Many of these ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Dear old hymns, she loved, and some of the old classics. "Stupid old things without any tune," Kate called them. But Marcia persevered in playing them until she could bring out the beautiful passages in a way that at least satisfied herself. Her one great desire had been to take lessons of a real musician and be able to play the wonderful things that the old masters had composed. It is true that very few of these had come in her way. One somewhat mutilated copy of Handel's "Creation," a copy of Haydn's "Messiah," and a few fragments of an old book of Bach's ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... find in the manuscripts any passage whatever which throws any light on Leonardo's great reputation as a musician. Nothing therein illustrates VASARPS well-known statement: Avvenne che morto Giovan Galeazze duca di Milano, e creato Lodovico Sforza nel grado medesimo anno 1494, fu condotto a Milano con gran riputazione Lionardo al duca, il quale molto si dilettava del suono della ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... many years before the war Uncle Guy was the star performer at these functions in Wilmington. With whip in hand, he danced and pranced, and in sport flogged children who had been naughty during the year. But to us, who were youngsters in the seventies, Uncle Guy is most vividly remembered as a musician—a clarionet soloist—a member of the Shoo Fly Band, whose martial music will ever ring in the ear ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... had met Ragged Sailor before. He was quite a musician and carried his tiny golden accordion in the sailor blouse ...
— Grasshopper Green and the Meadow Mice • John Rae
... of young Wilberforce, which he did in a handsome manner. This was not all; the Missionary Society wanted to send Wilberforce to Africa in September of that year, and as he went along they had him at other studies. He had become an excellent musician, both vocal and instrumental. He had been studying theology and read Hebrew well. He had also taken a course of reading in medicine, so that he might be of service to the bodies as well as the souls of his brethren. Marvellous as it may seem, all of this was ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... up a poem about you. You are the musician with the sweet tones of your voice, and I am a brother-artist, ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... executed for their crime, all, with the exception of a single one, asseverated that Anne Boleyn was innocent, and that they had never been in her presence. The only one who accused the queen of illicit intercourse with him was James Smeaton, a musician. [Footnote: Tytler.] But he had been promised his life for this confession. However, it was not thought advisable to keep this promise, for fear that, when confronted with the queen, he might not have the strength to sustain his assertion. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... pleased with an old white-headed musician, who stood at the main hatchway, with his enormous bass drum full before him, and thumping it sturdily to the tune of "God Save the King!" though small mercy did he have on his drum-heads. Two little boys were clashing cymbals, and another was blowing a fife, with his cheeks puffed ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... hope you're not still angry about that musician. I told you, at the time, that he was just helping me with an ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... Salisbury, who married first Henry Thrale, the English brewer, and second an Italian musician named Piozzi; but her fame rests on her friendship of twenty years with Doctor Samuel Johnson, of whom she wrote reminiscences, described by ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... were so far along as a result of a busy adolescence, Fraeulein Elsa, as Gard discovered, was in her way not behind. She knew English and French pretty well and was quite an accomplished musician, able to play from memory on the winged Pleyel almost whole books of classic music. She could paint fairly well in oil and was now taking up etching with enthusiastic assiduity. She could sew, cook, run the house. In brief, her days were ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the vessel in which I sailed, among the few passengers, Mrs. and Mr. John Gilbert, a well-known dramatic couple, who were extremely agreeable and genial, the husband abounding in droll reminiscences of the stage; a merry little German musician named Kreutzer, son of the great composer; and a young Englishwoman with a younger brother. I rather doubted the "solidity" of this young lady. By-and-bye it was developed that the captain was in love with her. Out of this, I have heard, came a dreadful tragedy; for the love drove ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... whispers, "Git 'em to stay up 'way late to-night!" And Bob, perhaps remembering that we go back home to-morrow, winks at the little fellow and whispers, "You let me manage 'em! Stay up till broad daylight if we take a notion—eh?" And Billy dances off again in newer glee, while the inspired musician is plunking a banjo imitation on his enchanted instrument, which is unceremoniously drowned out by a circus-tune from Doc that is absolutely inspiring to every one but the barefooted brother, who drops back listlessly to his old position on the floor and sullenly renews ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... he give her a guitar lesson. Now Mike himself was a sad musician, and the sound of him fandangoin' uncertainly up and down the fretful spine of that instrument was a tribulation I'd put up with on account of friendship, pure and simple, but when that discord-lovin' lady cliff-dweller set all evenin' in our tent and scraped snake-dances out ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... young musician, later the well-known composer and Concert Director, Victor Bendix, I plunged into the mysteries of thorough-bass, and went so far as to write out the entire theory of harmonics. I learnt to express myself in the barbaric language of music, to speak of minor scales in fifths, to understand ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... athletic team. Select men of diverse gifts. One should know something about nature study, another about manual training, another a good story-teller, another a good athlete or baseball player, another a good swimmer, another a musician, etc. Always remember, however, that the chief qualification should ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... his Majesty himself, with the exception of the Princess Pauline, who had profited by the lessons of Blangini, and sang tolerably well. In respect of his voice, Prince Eugene showed himself worthy to be the adopted son of the Emperor; for, though he was a musician and sang with fervor, it was not in such a manner as to satisfy his auditors. In compensation, however, Prince Eugene's voice was magnificent for commanding military evolutions, an advantage which Count Lobau and General Dorsenne also possessed; and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... that there was a mother, too, and that Herr Crippen has said she was an American and very lovely. I believe her family would have nothing more to do with her because she married a German musician. And then, you see, child, Betty has had many advantages that Esther has not had. It was because Dick and I began slowly to realize that perhaps we had been cruel to Esther in depriving her of her little sister ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... had come to reside in the city, professing himself a member of a noble Italian family. Giuseppe Rossini was poet, orator, and musician. As poet and orator he was pleasing and graceful; as a musician he excelled. He was a brilliant and not obtrusive conversationalist. His enthusiastic expressions of admiration for our free institutions won him favor with all classes. In the fashionable ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... daughters, that the most handsome, industrious, and accomplished man the world has ever seen, his own nephew, in fact, thinks of marriage, and that his conditions are this and that; he tells his nephew that the most beautiful and amiable creature in Germany, a brilliant musician, a fluent linguist, a devoted daughter, and a person of simple housewifely tastes, lives next door to him, the uncle. Except for the housewifely tastes, it sounds, and in fact is, rather like a courtship in the Arabian Nights so far. The prince hears of the princess, ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... we played with a musician one night!" exclaimed a Shadow in another group, to which the king had first directed a passing thought, and then had stopped to listen.—"Up and down we went, like the hammers and dampers on his piano. But he took his revenge on us. For after he had watched us for half an hour in the ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... writer, m. Henry Thrale, a wealthy brewer, and, after his death, Gabriel Piozzi, an Italian musician. Her chief distinction is her friendship with Dr. Johnson, who was for a time almost domesticated with the Thrales. Her second marriage in the year of Johnson's death, 1784, broke up the friendship. She wrote Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, a work which ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... a sound of music; it is some one playing a cornet. The air the unseen musician is playing sounds familiar. He is only practising—learning—— Ye gods! Is there no place where one can get away from that air? But yet, does not it speak volumes for the remoteness of this harbourage of repose to realise that the unseen musician is only now learning "The ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... latter: and when the Spartans destroyed and sacked the city of Thebes, they spared the house that had been inhabited by PINDAR, in respect to that great poet's memory. TERPANDER too, a lyric poet and musician is related by AElian to have appeased a tumult at Sparta by the sweetness of his notes and the fire of his poetry. They would not, however, endure either poetry or music which did not breathe exalted sentiment, and produce a beneficial impression on ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... white-and-gold the famous band, every man of which was a musician, presently began to send forth the sweet strains of a Waldteufel waltz, and Stafford found Lady Clansford for the first dance. Though he had paid little attention to Howard's remarks about Maude Falconer, he remembered ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... been playing? Good, I'm so glad: Bernard can hardly ever stand it. See the first fruits of your bracing influence! Oh, the Polonaises . . ." And then he in his turn began to play, but not the melancholy fiery lyrics that had soothed Laura's unsatisfied heart. Val, a thorough musician, went for sympathy to the classics. Impulsive? There was not much impulse left in this quiet, reticent man, who with his old trouble fresh on him could sit down and play a chorale of Bach or a prelude of Mozart, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... momentary access of favor always excited in the mob by the presence and prestige of power. It was towards Greece and the East that a tendency was shown in the tastes and trips of Nero, imperial poet, musician, and actor. L. Verus, one of the military commandants in Belgica, had conceived a project of a canal to unite the Moselle to the Saone, and so the Mediterranean to the ocean; but intrigues in the province and the palace prevented its execution, and in the place of public works useful ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... painter has won more European acceptance than any of our other artists, though this is partly due to his persistence in knocking at the doors of the Paris salons, and gaining the universal prestige of admission there. There is, unfortunately, no such place to focus the attention of the world on a musician. Yet, through the success of American musical students among their rivals abroad; through the concerts they are giving more and more frequently in foreign countries; through the fact that a number of European music houses ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... the plea that was stuck up in a church in the West, in the old rough days, when a dissatisfied auditor of the sermon, or the organist, was likely to express his disapproval with a gun. The notice up in front of the choir read like this: "Please don't shoot the musician, he's doing his level best"—I make ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... thanks to him, the Continent has had to join in a giddy race of armaments, drying up the sources of economic development and exposing our finances to a crisis which we shrank from discussing. We must have done with this crowned comedian, poet, musician, sailor, warrior, pastor; this commentator absorbed in reconciling Hammurabi with the Bible, giving his opinion on every problem of philosophy, speaking of everything, saying nothing." M. Clemenceau ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... uplifts us. With the rhythmic waltz, The lyric prelude, the nocturnal song Of love and languor, varied visions rise, That melt and blend to our enchanted eyes. The Polish poet who sleeps silenced long, The seraph-souled musician, breathes again Eternal eloquence, immortal pain. Revived the exalted face we know so well, The illuminated eyes, the fragile frame, Slowly consuming with its inward flame, We stir not, speak not, lest we ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Hayward was the only white officer, the Negro commission-holders at that time being Captain Marshall, Captain Fillmore, Lieutenant Lacey, Lieutenant Reed and Lieutenant Europe. The latter was attached to the Machine Gun section but became later the famous musician of the outfit. He was the only Negro officer who remained with the regiment throughout, the others being superseded or transferred after ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... drawer-of-water, trader, fur-packer, and interpreter. These offices he held professionally. When "off duty," and luxuriating in tobacco and relaxation, he occupied himself as an amateur shoemaker, tailor, musician, and stick-whittler, to the no small advantage of himself and his fellow-outcasts, of whom there were five or six, besides the ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... the police might think I had designs against the house. I didn't know you were a musician. Miss Mayhew, I'm always finding out something new about you, and I'm going to ask you this evening to sing again for me a ballad the melody of which reminded me of a running brook. It took hold on my fancy and has been running in my head ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... "my music teacher spoke very kindly to-day, and said I had made much more advancement than any of his pupils. He also said if I only had the opportunity I would be much above mediocrity as a musician. I do wish, papa, that an opening might occur. Ella Fair has been to Toronto for a year taking lessons from one who is considered among the best teachers in Canada, and yet my teacher told me to-day that neither her touch ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... of them with arms, some in uniform, the majority without either. They were all singing "Tipperary" with its Celtic croon and minor tones. So far apparently, the war had not produced a great war poet or musician, nothing had been written anything like "Tommy Atkins" or "Soldiers of the Queen." Surely war songs were not all "Made ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... dashed into the open, and looked intently up across the wild meadow. Nothing unusual was to be seen, but a great crashing could be plainly heard among the bushes. To Dane that sound was similar to a discordant note to a trained musician's sensitive ear. He had often heard it before, and knew its meaning. It always meant danger, and ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... celebration of the "Santa Cruz," an enterprising family will get up a singing bee. Perhaps a wheezy organ will be brought to light, and the musician then officiates behind the instrument. His bare feet work the pedals vigorously, and his body sways in rhythm with the strains. As the performance is continuous, arriving or departing guests do not disturb the ceremony. There seems to be a special song for this occasion, the words of ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... us, as a matter of fact, a little of the poet, of the sculptor, of the musician, of the painter, of the prose writer: but how little, as compared with those who are so called, precisely because of the lofty degree in which they possess the most universal dispositions and energies of human nature! How little does a painter possess of the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... with the air of a man who has at last an opportunity to show that he can dare all for love. Personally, I have a suspicion that he poured his month's savings at the bandmaster's feet, and begged him to do this thing for the most wonderful lady in the world; or perhaps the bandmaster was really a musician, and his musician's heart was touched—lonely there amid the beef—to think that there was really some one, invisible though she were to him, some shrouded silver presence, up there among the beefeaters, ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... opened and there emerged a stout German musician. "Herr Captain! I was in Winchester before I ran away and joined der Union. Herr Captain, I haf seen this man. I haf seen him in der grey uniform, with der gold sword and der sash. And, lieber Gott, dot horse is known! ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... with these was Daines Barrington, a burly, square man. Lamb also mentions Burton, "a jolly negation," who drew up the bills of fare for the parliament chamber, where the benchers dined; thin, fragile Wharry, who used to spitefully pinch his cat's ears when anything offended him; and Jackson, the musician, to whom the cook once applied for instructions how to write down "edge-bone of beef" in a bill of commons. Then there was Blustering Mingay, who had a grappling-hook in substitute for a hand he had lost, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... possessed her father's joyous disposition as well as his memory and fondness for ancient Border legends and poetry. Like him, she was thoroughly alive to peculiarities of character, and laughed at them good-naturedly. She was not a musician, had little voice, but she sang Scotch songs and translations from the Gaelic with, or without, harp accompaniment; the serious songs with so much expression, and the merry ones with so much spirit, that she charmed everybody. The ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... confused you," replied Prescott. "It's the musician of the guard—the bugler—who plays the march. It's a strain that is played, the first note beginning just as the reveille gun is fired, at the minute of six in the morning. Then, just five minutes later ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... superb idea which has so inconveniently visited him. His companions make allowances for him: men of genius are often thus. At other times he is absorbed in meditation upon his art: address him, and he makes no reply, fails to hear. While engaged upon his statue of Handel, he decides that the great musician must have possessed an ear of exceeding symmetry, and searches everywhere for a model. He scrutinizes the ears of all his acquaintances. Suddenly he pounces upon Miss Rich, the daughter of the Covent Garden manager. 'Miss Rich,' he cries, 'I must have your ear for my Handel!' In Westminster Abbey ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... 'Akeeli's tent, and found with him the formidable Shaikh Fendi el Faiz of the Beni Sukh'r, and a musician with his rebabeh. A slave was making coffee on a fire of dried camel's dung, although it was in the fast of Ramadan. We conversed guardedly about Deab and the rest of the 'Adwan, and the camp at Dahair el Hhumar. 'Akeeli then had brought in for his amusement a wild beast called a ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... commanding, her face long but queenly and intelligent, her eyes quick and fine. She had grown up amidst the liberal culture of Henry's court a bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled musician, and an accomplished scholar. Even among the highly-trained women who caught the impulse of the New Learning she stood in the extent of her acquirements without a peer. Ascham, who succeeded Grindal and Cheke in ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... a musician, as I understand. Which reminds me," added Miss Gascoigne, eager to plunge into her mission, which, in her strange delusion, she earnestly believed was a worthy and righteous one, in which she had embarked for the family ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... First a wave of pride and a sweet little thrill of vanity went all over her; and then she looked Ramonti in the eyes, and a tremendous throb went through her heart. She hadn't expected that throb. It took her by surprise. The musician had become a big factor in her life, and she hadn't been aware ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... know. Just yesterday I was saying to Harry Haydock: if he would read poetry, like Longfellow, or if he would join the band—I get so much pleasure out of playing the cornet, and our band-leader, Del Snafflin, is such a good musician, I often say he ought to give up his barbering and become a professional musician, he could play the clarinet in Minneapolis or New York or anywhere, but—but I couldn't get Harry to see it at all and—I hear you and the doctor went out hunting yesterday. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... fineness of perception, and a swiftness of intuition almost unrivalled. He had a power of weighing almost by instinct the constituent elements of character, which seemed to me something like the power of tonality in a musician, the gift of recognising, by pure faculty, what any notes may be, however confusedly jangled on an instrument. It was wonderful to me how often his instantaneous judgments proved more sagacious than our ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... laughingly, "I believe I must plead guilty to being somewhat of a musician, though I have not touched an instrument for ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... of art and a respectful servant of every muse, all whom the public had failed to patronize,—painter, actor, poet, musician,—turned, like dying sunflowers to the sun, towards the pitying smile of Sir Sedley Beaudesert. Add to these the general miscellaneous multitude who "had heard of Sir Sedley's high character for benevolence," and one may well suppose what a very costly reputation he had set up. In fact, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... setting forth of a loftier morality, and the enthusiasm which makes the foulest nature aspire to and reach its heaven-touching heights, are found together there. To it poet and painter, architect and musician, owe their noblest themes. The good news of the world is the story of Christ's life and death. Let us be thankful for its form; let us ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... nation is ripe for such a change, the advent of a man of genius will accomplish it. Around him the particles crystallize and take form and beauty. Such a man was David,—a brave soldier, a great captain, a sagacious adventurer, an artist, musician, and poet, a man of profound religious experience; he was, more than all these, a statesman. By his great organizing ability he made a powerful nation out of that which, when he came to the throne, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... flying wits must have three wings—art, meditation, exercise. Genius is in the instinct of flight. A boy came to Mozart, wishing to compose something, and inquiring the way to begin. Mozart told him to wait. "You composed much earlier?" "But asked nothing about it," replied the musician. Cowper expressed the same sentiment to a friend: "Nature gives men a bias to their respective pursuits, and that strong propensity, I suppose, is what we mean by genius." M. Angelo is hindered in his childish ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... decorations. The operas, or lyric tragedies, which, from the number of times they have been performed, appear to have obtained the greatest success, are those of GLUCK. The originality, the energy, the force and truth of declamation of this great musician were likely to render him successful, especially among the French, who applauded the two last-mentioned qualities on ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... course, be folly for you to select a profession which requires special talent. No matter how you might concentrate and apply yourself, you could never be a great poet, a great artist, or a great musician. ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... took the Doctor's fancy. He had a great arched skull, the forehead and the hands of a musician, and a pair of haunting eyes. It was not merely that these eyes were large, or steady, or the softest ruddy brown. There was a look in them, besides, which thrilled the Doctor, and made him half uneasy. He was sure he had seen such a look before, and yet he could not remember ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were then to me devoid of interest, and the only incident to break in on my visions was when I gave the alarm of swarming, and the ranch folks rushed out with pots, pans, and buckets of water. I think the opening line of "Signa" was "It was only a little lad," yet he had dreams of becoming a great musician, and having all Europe at his feet. Well, I was only a little lad, too, but why could not I become what ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... and there was a heightened color in it as she answered: "Your friend is a philosopher, besides a fine musician, and I quite believe you. I have had such experiences—but I think these fancies, if fancies they are, are best forgotten. Still, tell me, did you dream or imagine ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... very closely associated in China. Every literary man is supposed to be more or less a painter, or a musician of sorts; failing personal skill, it would go without saying that he was a critic, or at the lowest a lover, of one or the other art, or of both. All Chinese men, women and children seem to love flowers; and ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... to be sure, but there were times when his mistakes, echoed from her lips, struck upon his ear, and though he might not always know how to correct them, he was prompt to suggest changes, testing each, as a natural musician judges music, by ear. Dissatisfied with his own standards, he was all the more impatient to depart on the expedition after mental tools, despite the dangers that might beset ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... which was a time of great festivity, he suddenly reappeared, blew a new and beguiling air on his pipe, and immediately every child in the city felt as if a hand had seized him and ran pell-mell after the musician as he climbed the mountain, in which a door suddenly opened, and through that door all, save a lame boy, passed ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... fire of wood Erect the rapt musician stood; And ever and anon he bent His head upon his instrument, And seemed to listen, till he caught Confessions of its secret thought,— The joy, the triumph, the lament, The exultation and the pain; Then, by the magic of his art, He soothed the throbbings of ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... side of some furze bushes; but she had kept her eyes away, being a little afraid of tramps. On being challenged, however, she turned and looked, and then she saw that this was no ordinary tramp, but an itinerant musician well known along the south coast by the name of Singing Sal. She was a good-looking, trimly-dressed, strapping wench of five-and-twenty, with a sun-tanned face, brilliant white teeth when she laughed, and big brown eyes that were at once ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... MUSICIAN: (Singing) I languish night and day, my suffering is extreme Since to your control your lovely eyes subjected me; If you thus treat, fair Iris, those you love, Alas, how ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... a novelty in Northern Ohio. Julia played with a real skill and expression, and her father, though no musician, loved to listen, and more to hear her sing, with her clear, strong, sweet voice, and so she played and sang ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... as ever. Not content with your former exploit, when Ino leapt with Melicertes from the Scironian cliff, and you picked the boy up and conveyed him to the Isthmus, one of you swims from Methymna to Taenarum with this musician on his back, mantle and lyre and all. Those sailors had almost had their wicked will of him; but you were not ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... of that period, a new chord was but seldom won from the unused lyre. The Talmud[108] has a quaint tale on the subject: Higros the Levite living at the time of the decadence of Israel's nationality, was the last skilled musician, and he refused to teach his art. When he sang his exquisite melodies, touching his mouth with his thumb, and striking the strings with his fingers, it is said that his priestly mates, transported by the magic power of his art, fell prostrate, and wept. Under the Oriental trappings of ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... live in when he grew up. He had planned so many lives for himself: a general, like Caesar, he was to conquer the world and die murdered in a great marble hall; a wandering minstrel, he would go through all countries singing and have intricate endless adventures; a great musician, he would sit at the piano playing, like Chopin in the engraving, while beautiful women wept and men with long, curly hair hid their faces in their hands. It was only slavery that he had not foreseen. His race had dominated ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... The sound evidently came from the Mission garden; but in his ignorance of the language he could not even interrogate his Indian housekeeper. On the third night, however, his hymn was uninterrupted by any sound from the former musician. A sense of disappointment, he knew not why, came over him. The kindly overture of the unseen player had been a relief to his loneliness. Yet he had barely concluded the hymn when the familiar sound again struck his ears. But this time ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... The young musician had little chance of redress, his antagonist was a head taller than himself, and, besides, he would not have dared lay down his fiddle to fight, lest ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... seemed strange to me that so few parents place in their children's hands that beautiful story entitled the "Carved Cartoon." It is a book of breathless interest, containing the adventures of a young artist and a boy musician during the great London plague ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... as well as draw teeth? The particularity of this man put me into a deep thought, whence it should proceed, that of all the lower order barbers should go farther in hitting the ridiculous, than any other set of men. Watermen brawl, cobblers sing; but why must a barber be for ever a politician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician? The learned Vossus says,[349] his barber used to comb his head in iambics. And indeed in all ages, one of this useful profession, this order of cosmetic philosophers, has been celebrated by the most eminent hands. You see the barber in "Don Quixote,"[350] ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... himself, continuing to observe Esther's frightened expression and nervous manner, but only answering good-naturedly: "Certainly she won't mind. Please use the piano whenever you like, for Betty hates practicing and I don't care much for a man musician, especially a poor ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... variations on their powerful instrument. The noises that ruin health, temper, and power of work; the noises that cause an incalculable waste of time, money, and power, are all voluntary, and perhaps preventable. Let us examine the working hours of the nervous or irritable musician, mathematician, man of letters, or member of Parliament. On second thoughts, the last may be omitted, as if he cannot sleep in a tedious debate, his case is ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... around the room for Hund, and not seeing him till her lover reminded her that Hund was the musician. "Hund does seem dull enough to be sure," said she, smiling; "I hope I do not ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... in England, a class-mate of his, who was an excellent musician, had given him lessons; and that after a time he had become very fond of it, and had practised much during his ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... ago, a boy was born in Italy who grew up to be one of the most accomplished artists of his own or any other age. Besides excelling as a sculptor, modeller, and medallist, he was a musician, an author, and an admirable swordsman; and popes, kings, and other great princes eagerly employed him, and vied with each other to secure his services. His ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... bereavement are strangely mingled in the exquisite maternal mood, the one heightening the other. All great joys are serious; and emotion must be measured by its complexity and the deepness of its reach. A musician may draw pretty notes enough from a single key, but the richest music is that in which the whole force of the instrument is employed, in the production of which every key is vibrating; and, although full of solemn touches and majestic ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... ass between two panniers, and gaping at me like a blunderbuss. I had never seen a face so predestined to be astonished, or so susceptible of rendering the emotion of surprise; and it tempted me as an open piano tempts the musician. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it sometimes strikes me that even to appreciate them you must have a touch of their sensibility. A critic who is apt to be sensible was complaining the other day that Matisse had only one instrument in his orchestra. There are orchestras in which fifty instruments sound as one. Only it takes a musician to appreciate them. Also, one hears the others talking about "the pretty, tinkley stuff" of Mozart. Those who call the art of Matisse slight must either be insensitive or know little of it. Certainly Matisse is capable ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... accompaniment of the piano and stringed instruments rose a fresh, flexible woman's voice, chanting the mystic words of the master with such expression and power as would have given even him delight. Camors, himself a musician, was capable of appreciating the masterly execution of the piece; and was so much struck by it that he felt an irresistible desire to see the performers, especially the singer. With this impulse he climbed the little hedge bordering the road, placed himself on the top, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... quarter. A sagacious cleric, the Abbe Perrin, heard, either at Florence or in Paris, from the company of Italian singers brought over in 1645, Peri's "Eurydice," which made a great impression upon him, and he suggested to a musician of his acquaintance, Robert Cambert, the production of another work in similar style. Several things in this account appear strange, but strangest of all, the total ignorance that prevailed in Paris ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... tune, but it is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he doesn't say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approximate word. I will furnish some circumstantial evidence in support of this charge. My instances are gathered from half a dozen pages of the tale called Deerslayer. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... when the day came she led the solo and duet with the precision of a musical box, but with such an expenditure of nerve-power that she was prostrated by the effort. She was considered quite a musician at St. Catherine's, but by this time the dire method of teaching had had its effect. Her confidence and her memory for music were gone, the beauty of her touch spoilt, and the further development of her talent ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... she hoped would fall on Rose's devoted head. But, during her talk with Mr. Hammond, some of her anger had cooled down. He had touched on great subjects, and Prissie's soul had responded like a musical instrument to the light and skilled finger of the musician. All her intellectual powers were aroused to their utmost, keenest life during this brief little talk. She found that Hammond could say better and more comprehensive things than even her dear old tutor, Mr. Hayes. Hammond was abreast ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... God's name paint! but don't let the family go to the devil. There's Madame Ratignolle; because she keeps up her music, she doesn't let everything else go to chaos. And she's more of a musician than you are ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... listened to him and followed his advice; but there were not a few careless ones who went over to join the party of the governor and the priests. The women were induced to go to the church to listen to an organ which had been brought out from France, while one of the priests, who was a good musician, instructed them in the art of singing. Fresh saints were set up, and additional ornaments were introduced, and on festal occasions the whole church was wreathed with flowers, imitating the custom of the heathens at their feasts of "Flora," and other festivals. These attracted the ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... told him; "the accordion is an impossible instrument, a thing entirely vulgar. I know, for I am a musician, and played the violin at the Opera Comique. You think I am lying; but you are young and life is strange. I can tell you this: I, Janin, once led the finale of Hamlet. I saw that the director was pale; I leaned forward and he gave me the baton. I knew music. There were five ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... house," was hurriedly cleansed by the slaves, and carefully returned. The floor was again cleared, the violin sounded, and soon they were performing another "break down," with all the wild abandon of the African character,—in the very midst of which, the music suddenly ceased, and the old musician assumed a listening attitude. Every foot was motionless; every face terrified, and every ear listening for ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... collecting and publishing all the Scotch songs, with the music, that can be found. Songs in the English language, if by Scotchmen, are admitted, but the music must all be Scotch. Drs. Beattie and Blacklock are lending a hand, and the first musician in town presides over that department. I have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and every information remaining respecting their origin, authors, etc., etc. This last is but a very fragment ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... dressed in red with a huge straw hat, began a waltz, Yvette grasped her companion and they danced so long and madly that everybody looked at them. The guests, standing on the tables, kept time with their feet; others threw glasses, and the musician, seeming to go mad, struck the ivory keys with great bangs; swaying his whole body and swinging his head covered with that immense hat. Suddenly he stopped and, slipping to the deck, lay flat, beneath his head-gear, as if dead with fatigue. A loud laugh ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... master of the school was a musician, and he discovered one day that his unruly pupil could sing. He was an expert in the development of the boy soprano and he soon realized that in young Caruso he had a veritable treasure. He was shrewd enough to keep his discovery to himself for some time, for he determined to profit by the ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... in fact, and assailed the boys roughly at first, with no result but to make matters worse. Then he tried gentleness, and succeeded. The boys stopped their capers and joined his class. Sam, especially, became a distinguished member of that body. He was never a great musician, but with his good nature, his humor, his slow, quaint speech and originality, he had no rival in popularity. He was twenty now, and much with young ladies, yet he was always a beau rather than a suitor, a good ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... constantly at work upon his last opera, 'L'Africaine,' from 1838 until 1864, and his death found him still engaged in retouching the score. It was produced in 1865. With a musician of Meyerbeer's known eclecticism, it might be supposed that a work of which the composition extended over so long a period would exhibit the strangest conglomeration of styles and influences. Curiously ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... subjects. On that background [151] of the silence of Venice, so impressive to the modern visitor, the world of Italian music was then forming. In choice of subject, as in all besides, the Concert of the Pitti Palace is typical of everything that Giorgione, himself an admirable musician, touched with his influence. In sketch or finished picture, in various collections, we may follow it through many intricate variations—men fainting at music; music at the pool-side while people fish, or mingled with the sound of the ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... a voice that was melody itself, yet she never sang. I always fancied her hands were a musician's hands, yet she never played. This was the more singular as her mother had been a great singer, and her father, while he had never risen above the desk of chef d'orchestre in a local playhouse, was ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... conversation flagged. Goneril tried to imagine what a great musician could be like: long hair, of course; her imagination did not get much beyond the hair. He would of course be much older now than his portrait. Then she watched Angiolino cutting the corn, and learned how to tie the swathes ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... were eliminated from his life. He was to be no errant musician, improvising according to his mood; the score he was to play was before him, and he must play it note for note, paying strict attention to rests, keys, andantes, fortissimos, pianissimos. He had been born to this, had been made conscious of his destiny from babyhood, but never ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... twenty persons, who made more noise with their applause than a hundred ordinary guests, for enthusiasm was exacted by Madame Strahlberg. Profiting by the ovation to the Hungarian musician, Jacqueline made a movement toward the door, but just as she reached it she had the misfortune of falling in with her old acquaintance, Nora Sparks, who was at that moment entering with her father. She was forced to sit down again and hear all about Kate's marriage. ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... beautiful and executed with much diligence. In like manner, he portrayed in a picture the Florentine Barbara, a famous and most lovely courtesan of that day, much beloved by many no less for her fine culture than for her beauty, and particularly because she was an excellent musician and sang divinely. But the best work that Domenico ever executed was a large picture wherein he made a life-size Madonna, with some angels and little boys, and a S. Bernard who is writing; which picture is ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... wayfarer, also, in former times was but a goer of ways, a man afoot, whether on pilgrimage or itinerant with his wares and cart and bell. Does the word not recall the poetry of the older road, the jogging horse, the bush of the tavern, the crowd about the peddler's pack, the musician piping to the open window, or the shrine in the hollow? Or maybe it summons to you a decked and painted Cambyses bellowing ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... among some brave young woods. The laird's horse was standing saddled at the door as I came up, but himself was in the study, where he received me in the midst of learned works and musical instruments, for he was not only a deep philosopher but much of a musician. He greeted me at first pretty well, and, when he had read Rankeillor's letter, placed himself obligingly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... often heard in childhood, and had so wondered at its strange title, that I could but remember it. It was 'The Devil's Dream.' Were I a poet, I would write the words to it;—but then, too, I would need be a musician to compose a suitable new tune to the words! The rattling, reckless notes should be varied by those sad enough to make an unlost angel weep—an unlost angel, for, to the hot eyes of the lost, no tears can come. 'The Devil's Dream'—perhaps it is of Heaven. Doubtless, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the cross-examination which were not strictly evidence. He also referred in high terms to the prisoner's defence. He spoke of him as a man of more than ordinary intellectual ability, who, with the gift of an orator, had played upon the various emotions of the jury as a clever musician plays with an instrument of which he is a master. And then, little by little, he went back to what he called "the cold hard facts of the case." From the pure lawyer's standpoint, his summing-up was perhaps just, but ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... after closely scrutinizing his questioner's face. "Do you know, I fear it would be as hopeless as for the musician to pour his notes into ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... nothing at all, for a pleasant stroll along the Sacred Way (Sat. I, ix).[1] A man whom he hardly knew accosts him, ignores a stiff response, clings to him, refuses to be shaken off, sings his own praises as poet, musician, dancer, presses impertinent questions as to the household and habits of Maecenas. Horace's friend Fuscus meets them; the poet nods and winks, imploring him to interpose a rescue. Cruel Fuscus sees it all, mischievously apologizes, will not help, and the shy, amiable poet walks ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... alone—instead of these three indispensable artists, they commit them (in two-thirds of the lyric theatres of Europe) to the superintendence of a single man, who has no more idea of the art of conducting than of that of singing, who is generally a poor musician, selected from among the worst pianists to be found, or who cannot play the pianoforte at all—some old superannuated individual, who, seated before a battered out-of-tune instrument, tries to decipher a dislocated score which he does not know, strikes false chords major, ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... night they found that the ladies had spent a pleasant day, bathing, riding, and visiting some Boston friends who were stopping at the Springfield House, a short distance from them. Bessie had found more pleasure in the company of the young musician and his friends, having attended one of the morning musicales which they were accustomed to have by themselves In the hall of the Athenaeum. Tom and his father had much to tell of their ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... with himself for bright sayings, which he always accompanied with a cock of the eye. The musician not showing any visible appreciation of the manager's metaphor, Perkins immediately proceeded to ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... place to 1916, one by one the professional choir-men got called up for military service, and finally came the turn of the organist and choirmaster himself, he being just inside the limit of age. The organist, besides being a splendid musician, happened to be a skilled mechanic, so he was not sent abroad, but was given a commission, and sent down to Aldershot to superintend the assembling of aircraft engines. By getting up at 5 a.m. on Sundays, he was able to be in London in time to ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... districts where there were scores of Cornish Miners. There was a widow there with whom my brother lived and worked all the time for about two years. He was quite a musician this widow bought him a high grade Stewart Banjo and then she fell in love first with his playing and then with his banjo and lastly of all with him. Love stole my partner. I have had many but none like Lone Lee The Mountain Musician. After loosing ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... ground is the base song, 'The Owl is abroad' attributed to Henry Purcell?" To which I reply, the mistake—for mistake it is—originated with Dr. Clarke (afterwards Clarke Whitfield), who inserted it in his Beauties of Purcell. How little this musician knew of the "beauties" of Purcell is exhibited in his work; and how little he knew of the style and peculiarities of the music of the period, is shown by his insertion of the song in question. Dr. Clarke's mistake ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... suddenly startled and take to wing. But no insect had ever emitted quite such a sound in my hearing. This could not be an insect. It was worth while to look and make sure of the identity of the odd musician. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... important message to you," Mr. Frog went on. "And thinking the weather might be cooler than you liked, I made you that fine coat so you could stay out here in your tree and listen to what I have to tell you.... I hear—" he said—"I hear that you're a musician." ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the swift plane, no faltering in its stride. The beat of the engines was as rhythmical to experienced ears as the regular swing and lilt of some perfectly rendered piece of music to the ears of a master musician. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... have been as pleased to know that his extraordinary performance had solved a difficulty, effaced his other graces, and enabled them to place him on the moral pedestal of a mere musician, to whom these eccentricities were allowable and privileged. He shared the admiration extended by the young ladies to their music teacher, which was always understood to be a sexless enthusiasm and a contagious juvenile disorder. It was also a fine advertisement for the organ. Madame ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... In the alphabet and the scale there are some letters and notes which combine with others, and some which do not; and the laws according to which they combine or are separated are known to the grammarian and musician. And there is a science which teaches not only what notes and letters, but what classes admit of combination with one another, and what not. This is a noble science, on which we have stumbled unawares; in seeking after the Sophist we have found the philosopher. He is the master who discerns ...
— Sophist • Plato
... educated up to "Poet and Peasant." They always give the prize to the Paynesville Military Band, which has a five-foot painted bass drum and has to play "Over the Waves" for a concert piece, because they haven't got a decent cornet player in town. Sometime they will get a real musician to judge these contests, and then we will ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... from an inside pocket. It was a recent gift from the minister of his parish, who knew and shared Tiddy's weakness for the pen, and it filled his soul with joy. He fingered the thin sheets of writing-paper lovingly, as a musician touches the strings, and thoughtfully sucked the indelible pencil which Mrs. Tiddy had bought for him as a parting present when she said good-bye ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... don't object to Miss Lapidoth's singing at our party on the fourth? I thought of engaging her. Lady Brackenshaw had her, you know: and the Raymonds, who are very particular about their music. And Mr. Deronda, who is a musician himself and a first-rate judge, says there is no singing in such good taste as hers for a drawing-room. I think ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... were many Negro musicians who were always ready to furnish music from their banjo and fiddle for the frolics. If a white family was entertaining, and needed a musician but didn't own one, they would hire a slave from another plantation to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... indulgence, until the doubled rose-leaf is painful; and this inconsistent with muscular perfection. Again; there is a perfection of muscular action consistent with exquisite sense, as in that of the fingers of a musician or of a painter, in which the muscles are guided by the slightest feeling of the strings, or of the pencil: another perfection of muscular action inconsistent with acuteness of sense, as in the effort of battle, in which a soldier does not perceive his wounds. So that ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... year of my stay in Rome, I became quite intimate with a comrade in the Academy named Desroziers. He was a musician and a man of distinguished and very observing mind, who would probably have gone far in his art if malarial fever had not put an end to him the following year. Suddenly the idea took possession of ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Montier's anticipated evening ended, and another set in. The sympathies of a condition, the opposite to that of which he had been so happily conscious, pressed too closely against him. The musician could not, for the life of him, have played with becoming spirit through any one of all the strains of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long thin fingers in ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... Dunning, William Scott (the famous Lord Stowell), Sir Robert Chambers, and the amazingly versatile Sir William Jones. Boswell and Langton are also cultivated country gentlemen; Sir Joseph Banks stood for science, and three other names show the growing respect for art. The amiable Dr. Burney was a musician who had raised the standard of his calling; Garrick had still more conspicuously gained social respect for the profession of actor; and Sir Joshua Reynolds was the representative of the English school of painters, whose works still impress upon us the beauty of our great-grandmothers ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... things went right with him to-morrow that music,—or the musician who made it,—would be his own for the rest of his life. Was he justified in expecting that she would give him so much? Of her great regard for him as a friend he had no doubt. She had shown it in various ways, and after a fashion that had made it known to all the world. But so ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... face betokened the liveliest interest. Mr. Waddington sat like a musician listening to an ill-played rendering of his favorite melody. Burton thrust his hand ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we were moving; and, although those who responded to this call were in varied disguises, one, perhaps, coming up to us as a petty chief with a mounted escort, another as a merchant with a bullock cart to draw his packages of goods and a servant in attendance, yet another as a juggler or a musician, we could instantly recognize them as belonging to our brotherhood of Bowani by the secret signals ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... A divine saint, son of Brahma. He is the eloquent messenger of the Gods, a musician of exquisite skill, and the inventor of the vina or Indian lute. He bears a strong ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI |
