"Viol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vibrate sympathetically. Thus a very etherial, magical quality of tone is produced, especially in the upper ranges of the instrument. In the middle register, passages played forte or fortissimo will have a richness comparable to the G string of a violin. The effect is analogous to that of a viol d'amour which has, as is well known (stretched underneath the strings, which produce the actual tone) a set of additional strings, freely vibrating. Although this "una corda"[220] pedal may be used in a dynamic sense ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... comes Monkton, close to Maiden Castle. The church is Norman, much restored. St. Martin follows; a picturesque hamlet with a fine church, the last in the west of England to dispense with clarionet, flute and bass-viol in the village choir. On sign-posts as well as colloquially this hamlet is known as "Martinstown." Steepleton boasts a stone spire, rare for Dorset, and a curious and very ancient figure of an angel on the outside wall declared by ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... replied, "I cannot rest because of the sweet song of the nightingale, whose music has cast a spell upon my heart. No tune of harp or viol can compare with it, and I may not close my eyes so long as his song ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... heap of stones, and down to the road and to their companions they came, and showed them what they had done. Now when Feeble-mind and Ready-to-halt saw that it was the head of Giant Despair indeed, they were very jocund and merry.[269] Now Christiana, if need was, could play upon the viol, and her daughter Mercy upon the lute; so, since they were so merry disposed, she played them a lesson, and Ready-to-halt would dance. So he took Despondency's daughter, named Much-afraid, by the hand, and to dancing they went in the road. True, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... this my ancestor was not only of a a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court; you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the tilt-yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of honour, and the greatest beauty of her time; here she stands the next picture. You see, Sir, my great-great- ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... let the viol's pleasing swifter grow— Let Music's madness fascinate the will, And all Youth's pulses with the ardour thrill! Hast thou, Old Time, e'er ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... enthusiastic. He thundered, he roared, he whooped, he howled, he jarred the windows, he sawed the air, he split the horizon with his clarion notes, he tipped over the table, kicked the lamps out of the chandeliers and smashed the big bass viol over ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... beautiful old parish church in one of the midland counties; the building was in a most deplorable state of dilapidation, and the communion-rail formed a music-stand, while inside were placed an orchestra of two fiddles and a bass-viol. The minister received, for the first three years he officiated, the exorbitant remuneration of thirty pounds a year; since which time he has taken the duties of parish schoolmaster, the salary of which, increased by a ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... he could never enjoy her, his soft thought of love was changed to a great sadness. And because deep thoughts engender melancholy, it was counselled unto him by certain wise men that he should make his study of canzonets for the viol and soft delightful ditties. So made he the most beautiful canzonets and the most delightful and most melodious that at any time were heard." (Histoire des Dues et des Comtes de Champagne, by M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, t. iv. pp. 249, 280; Chroniques ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Marsh through the night: an infinity of flutings and tinklings made by tiny amphibia,—like the low blowing of numberless little tin horns, the clanking of billions of little bells;—and, at intervals, profound tones, vibrant and heavy, as of a bass viol—the orchestra of the great frogs! And interweaving with it all, one continuous shrilling,—keen as the steel speech of a saw,—the stridulous ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... a violin. More correctly a viol-din. (The joke is not new.) What you are listening to with such evident delight are the sweet strains of Penny Durkin's violin." Amy looked at the alarm clock which decorated a corner of his chiffonier. "Penny is twelve minutes ahead of time. He's ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... tone warned her of a crisis, and she put forth her cunning to avert it. "And, you—you will not love me less?" her voice vibrant as the string of a viol. "I am a princess, but yet a woman. In me there are two, the woman and the princess. The princess is proud and ambitious; to gain her ends she stops at nothing. As a princess she may stoop to trickery and deceit, and step back untouched. But the woman-ah, well; for this fortnight I ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Strawberry Hill. A flourish and a sliding bow, and you know one another! Sir Edward, who resembles not Horry in his love for the twittle-twattle of the town, is a passable performer on the bass viol, and a hermit—the Hermit of Pall Mall. But the rules of that Hermitage are not too severe, child. 'Tis known there ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny. But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and look at these two f-shaped spout-holes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass-viol, and these .. spiracles, the apertures in its sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass —this green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the crown, and the Southern fishers the bonnet of the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... of the viol, and its strings they may try all, For the heart's dance, outvie all, the songs of the dairy! White and red are a-blending, on thy cheeks a-contending, And a smile is descending from thy lips of the cherry; Teeth their ivory disclosing, like dice, bright round rows in, An eye unreposing, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... cornice, sits a figure on each side; one represents Poetry, crowned with laurel, holding a scroll in one hand, the other with a pen in it, and resting on a book; the other, Painting, with a pallet and pencils, &c.: on the sweep of the arch lies one of the Muses, playing on a bass-viol; another of the Muses, on the other side, holding a trumpet in one hand, and the other on a harp. Between these figures, in the middle of the sweep of the arch, is a very large pannel in a frame of gold; in this pannel is painted, on one side, a Woman, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... delight and Al-Abbas said to her, "Brava, O damsel!" Then he bade the fifth damsel come forward and sing (now she was from the land of Syria and her name was Rayhanah; she was passing of voice and when she appeared in an assembly, all eyes were fixed upon her), so she came forward and taking the viol (for she was used to play upon all instruments) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... and harpes, let them strike vp: where there be loud Cymbals and well tuned Cymbals, let them ring, let them sing the praises of God for this our most happy deliuerance; let trumpet and tongue, viol & voice, lute & life, witnes our hartie reioycing in the Lord. If our true zeale were more fierie within, it would doubtlesse break forth into moe publike workes, then it doth, against that bloody brood ...
— An Exposition of the Last Psalme • John Boys
... feast, The cheery welcome, all are o'er: The music of the viol ceased, The gleesome ring around the floor. No glad communion greets the hour, That welcomes in a Saviour's birth, And Christmas, to a hostile power, Yields all the sway that made ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! (11.) Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them! (12.) And the harp and the viol, and tabret and pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. (18.) Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope. (20.) ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... to be a large dining-room. At the upper end of it stands a chamber-organ on a cupboard, with a curtain drawn before it. On each end of the cupboard, which is covered with a carpet of tapestry, stands a flower-pot of flowers, and on the cupboard are laid a lute, a base-viol, a pint pot or ewer covered in part with a cloth folded several times, and Boetius de Consolatione Philosophiae, with two other books upon it. By this cupboard stands a daughter of Sir Thomas More's, putting on her right-hand glove, and having under her arm a book bound in red Turkey leather ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... great honor, as a king's daughter. And they would have given her to her lord a king of Paynim, but she had no mind to marry. There dwelt she three days or four. And she considered by what device she might seek far Aucassin. Then she got her a viol, and learned to play on it; till they would have married her one day to a rich king of Paynim, and she stole forth by night, and came to the seaport, and dwelt with a poor woman thereby. Then took she a certain herb, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... years of age, Mistress Alice was required to educate herself anew. Erasmus assures his readers that "though verging on old age, and not of a yielding temper," she was prevailed upon "to take lessons on the lute, the cithara, the viol, the monochord, and the flute, which she daily practised ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... appointment, that of cembalist of the orchestra. The duty of the cembalist is to preside at the piano. Only a good musician would be capable of filling such a position, as all the accompaniments were played from the score. He held this for two years, afterward playing viol in the orchestra for several years more. This work in the orchestra was later of the greatest possible benefit to him in composing. There was no salary at first, but the post had an important bearing on his life, as he was obliged to attend all the rehearsals ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... which was generally far superior to the style of the Troubadours. In performing their works, they did not, like their western brethren, have recourse to hired accompanists, or Jongleurs, but supported the vocal part by playing on a small viol. The Jongleurs were essentially a French institution, and no class of musicians similar to them existed in Germany. The Minnesingers, like the Troubadours, were amateurs, and aimed to keep free from the taint of professionalism. ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... nearer to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass—this green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the "crown," and the Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right Whale; fixing ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... thee! the first crowd was made of a horse-head. 'Tis true, the finding of a dead horse-head Was the first invention of string instruments, Whence rose the gittern, viol, and the lute: Though others think the lute was first devis'd In imitation of a tortoise-back, Whose sinews, parched by Apollo's beams, Echo'd about the concave of the shell: And seeing the shortest and smallest gave shrill'st sound, They found out frets, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... all the world of France No singer half so sweet: The first note of his viol brought ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay! For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay, Once more the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms thou sport'st thy merry night, Trail'st the long mop, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Without doubt. You must have three voices—a tenor, a soprano, and a bass, who will be accompanied by a bass-viol, a theorbo, and a clavecin for the chords, with two violins to play ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... up. From their corner came a medley of mellow sounds, the subdued chirps of the violins, the dull bourdon of the bass viol, the liquid gurgling of the flageolet and the deep-toned snarl of the big horn, with now and then a rasping stridulating of the snare drum. A sense of gayety began to spread throughout the assembly. At every moment the crowd increased. The aroma of new-sawn ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... in its shape and colour and decorative value, while in simple raiment of beautiful design knights and ladies wandered in rich flower gardens, and rode with hawk on wrist through long green arcades, and sat listening to lute and viol in blossom- starred bowers or by cool gracious water springs. Upon the other hand, when the Gothic feeling died away, and Boucher and others began to design, they gave us wide expanses of waste sky, elaborate perspective, posing nymphs and shallow artificial treatment. Indeed, Boucher ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... make we moan For loss that doth enrich us yet With upward yearnings of regret? Bleaker than unmossed stone Our lives were but for this immortal gain Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain! As thrills of long-hushed tone Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine With keen vibrations from the touch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... still retained in use to this day. I was seasoned to that kind of poetry in my early days by the verses of Tate and Brady, which I used to hear "entuned in the nose ful swetely," accompanied by vigorous rasping of a huge bass-viol. No wonder that Scotland ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... articles, viz. my rose collard neglejay with green robins, my yellow damask, and my black velvets with the short hoop; my bloo quilted petticot, my green mantel, my laced apron, my French commode, Macklin head and lappets and the litel box with my jowls. Williams may bring over my bum-daffee, and the viol with the easings of Dr Hill's dockwater and Chowder's lacksitif. The poor creature has been terribly stuprated ever since we left huom. Pray take particular care of the house while the family is absent. Let there be a fire constantly kept in my brother's chamber and mine. The ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... had learned, was an extraordinary fine musician. We had, of course, no music such as was possible in town; but she had taught a maid to play upon a fiddle, and herself played upon the bass-viol; and the two together would play in the Great Chamber after supper for an hour or two, when the dishes were washed. In this manner we had many a corrant and saraband; and I was able to prick down for them too ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... while consenting Britons praise, These votive measures deign to hear! For thee my Muse awakes her lays, For thee the unequal viol plays, The tribute of a soul sincere. Nor thou, illustrious chief, refuse 200 The incense of a nautic Muse! For ah! to whom shall Neptune's sons complain, But him whose arms unrivall'd rule the main? Deep on my grateful breast Thy favour is imprest: ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... devoted. Reading at sight was at that day, even more than now, a common accomplishment among the educated. The English queen Elizabeth was quite fond of music, and was somewhat accomplished in the art, performing upon the lute, virginals, and viol. She often charmed the attaches of and visitors to her court by her skilful performances. During her reign, and by her encouragement, the cultivation of this noble art received a new and strong impulse in England, and several composers and performers ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... world of ancient pastoral before our eyes. The grouping of the figures is like that in the famous Venetian Pastoral of Giorgione; in both alike are the shadowed grass, the slim pipes, the hand trailing upon the viol-string. But the execution has the matchless simplicity, the incredible purity of outline, that distinguishes Greek work from that of all ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... the Moresco fashion. Ojeda himself could not surpass him in feats of horsemanship, and particular mention is made of a favourite mare, which he could make caper and carricol in strict cadence to the sound of a viol; beside all this, he was versed in the legendary ballads or romances of his country, and was renowned as a capital performer on the guitar! Such were the qualifications of this candidate for a ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... Deborah Clarke, who libelled her as "a termagant." She was pretty, and had golden hair, which one connects pleasantly with the late sunshine she brought into Milton's life. She sang to his accompaniment on the organ and bass-viol, but is not recorded to have read or written for him; the only direct testimony we have of her care of him is his verbal acknowledgment of her attention to his creature comforts. Yet Aubrey's memoranda show that she could ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... honour of Nicolette, and would have married her to a mighty king of Paynim. But Nicolette had no mind to marry anyone but Aucassin, and she devised how she might get news of her lover. One night she smeared her face with a brown ointment, and dressed herself in minstrel's clothes, and took a viol, and stole out of her father's palace to the seashore. There she found a ship that was bound for Provence, and she sailed in it to Beaucaire. She took her viol, and went playing through the town, and came to the castle. Aucassin ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... introduced the bass viol into the services of the Church, and thus began to break down the ancient Puritanical prejudices against musical instruments. He was also the first to use the pitch-pipe in order to ensure some degree of certainty in "striking up the ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... ofttimes would he find utterance in the French tongue; the strains of the divine whisperings which his ear had caught he would express in a French song of joyous exultation, and making the gestures of one playing a viol, he would sing in French of ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... produced such wonderful effects. This instrument was composed of an hollow frame, over which several strings were thrown, probably in some such manner as we see them in an harp, or a dulcimer. They did not so much resemble the viol, as the neck of that instrument gives it peculiar advantages, of which the Ancients seem to have been wholly ignorant. The Musician stood with a short bow in his right hand, and a couple of small thimbles ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... Longaville, and the sun-steeped leaves made a tempered aromatic shade about them. Afterward they had drawn grass-blades to decide who should accompany the Lady Ursula to the summer pavilion, that she might fetch her viol and sing them a song of love, and in the sylvan lottery chance had favored ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... have any Wine that is turned, put in a little Viol or Glass full of it, and keep it close stopped, and within four days it will come ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... he smelt the perfume of myrtles and roses, and looking out of window saw a garden that descended in successive declivities to the sea. Signora Loreta, standing at his bed's head, took up her viol and began playing ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... answered, her voice melodious as a viol. "Can sorrow burden thine and mine go light?" she wooed him. "Is happiness possible to me when thou art downcast? In there I felt thy melancholy, and thy need of me, and I am come to share thy burden, or to bear it all for thee." Her arms were raised, and her fingers interlocked ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... the lid of a boiling pot, and presently sends a boy for his viol. At this, when it came, he snatched, and set to plucking a chord here and a chord there, grinning ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... learned these forty years, My native English, now I must forego; And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, Or being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... indeed a great preacher. I have a little faded card in my possession now: "Mrs. Henry W. Beecher." "Will ushers of Plymouth Church please seat the bearer in the Pastor's pew." And in the Pastor's pew I sat, listening to that magnificent bass-viol voice with its persuasive low accent, its torrential scorn! After the sermon I went to the Beechers' home. Mr. Beecher sat with a saucer of uncut gems by him on the table. He ran his hand through them from time ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... cannot court thy sprightly eyes, With the base-viol plac'd between my thighs; I cannot lisp, nor to some fiddle sing, Nor run upon a high-stretch'd minikin; I cannot whine in puling elegies, Entombing Cupid with sad obsequies; I am not fashion'd for these amorous times, To court thy beauty ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... reputation of St. Mary's Chapel was increased rather than diminished. As a young man himself at that time, he was peculiarly attractive to the young, and the singing was very different from the rustic psalmody of my native village, in spite of the fact that we had a bass-viol at all times, and on highly-favoured occasions such an array of flutes and clarionets as really astonished the natives ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... saints with well-combed beard and placid, vacant gaze, seated in well-ordered masses, holy with the purity of inanity; of divine dolls with pallid flaxen locks, floating between heaven and earth, playing upon lute and viol and psaltery; raised to faint visions of angels and blessed, moving noiseless, feelingless, meaningless, across the flowerets of Paradise; of assemblies of saints seated, arrayed in pure pink, and blue and lilac, in an atmosphere of liquid gold, in glory. And thus Fra Angelico worked ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... Close and firm he held it as if he were holding down a struggling world. And lo! The struggling world grew quiet. The vain babbling of the parched lips ceased. Then did he speak. Aye—Mary, Martha, Anna—to hear his voice—deep like unsounded depths, mellow like the music of the viol and restful as when small waves play upon smooth shores. Twice did he speak. There was stillness. His eyes were fastened kindly on the face of her who lay beneath his touch. Then did she open her eyes. Her lips did part in a smile. She arose and by the open casement did stand to breathe deep of ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... between the fore and main masts, serving to stretch a rope, heave upon the jeers, and take the viol to. Very seldom used. It is indeed deemed the spare capstan, and is frequently housed in by ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... services with reluctance, continue in them by constraint, and quit them with gladness? And of how many of these persons may it not be affirmed in the spirit of the prophet's language: "The harp, and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands?" Are not the youth of one sex often actually committing, and still more often wishing for the opportunity to commit, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... children, now rejoice,— Now—for the holidays of life are few; Nor let the rustic minstrel tune, in vain, The crack'd church-viol, resonant to-day, Of mirth, though humble! Let the fiddle scrape Its merriment, and let the joyous group Dance, in a round, for soon the ills of life Will come! Enough, if one day in the year, If one brief day, of this brief life, be given ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... small folks at home—and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young folks go up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you ever heard. For what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar, a cornet, and a bass viol to trip the quadrille ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... Zacharias writes the name on his knee. Below this again is the Dance of Herodias, the first of these frescoes to be uncovered and ruined in the process. But even yet, in the perfect grouping of the figures, the splendour of the viol player, the frightened gaze of the servants, we may still see the very ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... ladies—"kinder scatterin'"—had gathered in for miles. And yet the place was crowded, as I remember well, 'Twas got for the occasion at "The Morning Star Hotel." The music was a fiddle and a lively tambourine, And a "viol come imported," by stage from Abilene. The room was togged out gorgeous—with mistletoe and shawls, And candles flickered frescoes around the airy walls. The "wimmin folks" looked lovely—the boys looked kinder ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... subscription was set on foot, and they removed to the 'Queen's Head' tavern, in Paternoster Row. Here they were joined by Mr. Woolaston and his friends, and also by a Mr. Franckville, a fine performer on the viol de Gamba. And after a few winters, being grown rich enough to hire additional performers, they removed, in the year 1724, to the 'Castle,' in Paternoster Row, which was adorned with a picture of Mr. Young, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... an octogenarian treble, that seemed to come from high up in the head of Uncle Issy, the bass-viol player; "But cast your eyes, good friends, 'pon a little slip o' heart's delight down in the nave, and mark the flowers 'pon the bonnet nid-nodding like bees in ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... trial: He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addressed: But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw, in Temp's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unlearned minstrel dancing; While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... first Sunday at church, it must be in vain to ask you to imagine our delight when we heard the tuning of a bass-viol in the gallery just before service. We pressed each other's hands most tenderly, looked up at the singers' seats, and then trusted ourselves to look at each other. It was more than we had hoped for. There were also a violin and ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... These were among the things that took Fred's especial attention when he first entered the old village church; but when, instead of an organ, the choir commenced singing to the accompaniment of an old clarionet, a bassoon, and bass viol, Fred was completely astonished, for he had never been in a church before where there was not an imposing-looking instrument, with its large rows of gilt pipes. However, the hymn, in spite of the bad accompaniment, was very sweetly sung, and the service beautifully read in the soft silence of that ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... ecstatic trial; He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best: They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... the melancholy fiddlers. If this comedy can stir the croaking bass-viol to any show of mirth, our work tops Falstaff. Glum folk with beards had best withdraw. Only the young in heart will catch the slender meaning of our play. Let's light the candles and draw ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... in that year feoffee collector for twelve poor alms-people living in Clement-Dane's Church-Yard; whose pensions I in his absence paid weekly, to his and the parish's great satisfaction. My master was no sooner gone down, but I bought a bass-viol, and got a master to instruct me; the intervals of time I spent in bowling in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, with Wat the cobler, Dick the blacksmith, and such like companions: We have sometimes been at our work ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... to help a neighbouring clergyman in the old days when all kinds of music made up the village choir. Unfortunately some difficulty arose in the tuning of the instruments. The fiddles and bass-viol would not accord, and the parson grew impatient. At last, leaning over the reading-desk and throwing up his arms, he shouted out, "Hark away, Jack! Hark away, Jack! ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... images stamped so carefully on his sensitive brain became his most precious treasures. Over and over he dwelt on them. Ever in memory his feet climbed the steps to the Acropolis or walked beneath stately orange-trees, beating a soft rhythm to the sound of flute and viol. For Achilles was by nature one of the lightest-hearted of children. In Athens his laugh had been quick to rise, and fresh as the breath of rustling leaves. It was only here, under the sooty sky of the narrow street, that his face had grown a ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... old-fashioned blue, straight-bodied coat with brass buttons, a buff vest, and nankeen pantaloons which were said to have come down as an heirloom in his family from a remote generation. He was addicted to rather a pompous style of speech. He was very fond of playing the bass-viol, of which he was by no means a very skilful master. He had, as a subject for his mock part, "The Base Violation of all Rules of Harmony." One Sunday evening he had a few friends with him who were singing psalm tunes to the accompaniment of his bass-viol. They made a prodigious noise, not at all ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... attentive to constantly recurring impressions, and readily learns to discern their variations. This difference is clear in the use of musical instruments. The harsh and painful touch of the 'cello, bass-viol, and even of the violin, hardens the finger-tips, although it gives flexibility to the fingers. The soft and smooth touch of the harpsichord makes the fingers both flexible and sensitive. In this respect the ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... me the instrument was called the vielle, in fact—our old English viol; a very ancient instrument, which is represented as being played by one of the minstrels sculptured on the east front of Launceston Parish Church, circ. 1525. On a capital at S. Georges de Boscherville, in Normandy, is ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... rest, and bearing her Medusa shield. Aristotle and Plato, Cicero and Virgil, all on horseback, with attendants in antique armor at their back, surrounded the daughter of Jupiter, while the city band, discoursing eloquent music from hautboy and viol, came upon the heels of the allegory. Then followed the mace-bearers and other officials, escorting the orator of the day, the newly-appointed professors and doctors, the magistrates and dignitaries, and the body of the citizens ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the stately galliard, for this rugged and decayed dungeon of rusty-coloured stone—quitting the gay theatre, for the solitary chimney-nook of a Scottish dog-house—bartering the sounds of the soul-ravishing lute, and the love-awaking viol-de-gamba, for the discordant squeak of a northern bagpipe—above all, exchanging the smiles of those beauties, who form a gay galaxy around the throne of England, for the cold courtesy of an untaught ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... admit of thoughtless amusements—it was entirely a state of probation, not to be enjoyed in itself, or for itself, but purgatorial, remedial, and preparatory. She hated all devices of pleasure as her ancestors did the abominations of popery. A fiddle she could tolerate only in the shape of a bass-viol; and dancing, if practised at all, must be called "calisthenics." The drama was to her an invention of the Enemy of Souls—and if she ever saw a play, it must be at a museum, and not within the walls of that temple of Baal, the theatre. None but "serious" ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... are grouped the stops which imitate the tones of such stringed instruments as the Viola, the Violoncello, the Double Bass, and more especially the old form of Violoncello, called the Viol di Gamba, which had six strings and was ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... a foot long, seal up one end of it hermetically, then put in a very small bubble of Glass, almost of the shape of an Essence-viol with the open mouth towards the sealed end, then draw out the other end of the Pipe very small, and fill the whole Cylinder with water, then set this Tube by the Fire till the Water begin to boyl, and the Air in the bubble be in good part ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... Le viol (says Voltaire) est aussi difficile a faire qu'a prouver. Des Eveques se seroient ils lignes pour une fille? (Hist. Generale, c. xxvi.) His argument is ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... on the receit of your strange-shaped present, while yet undisclosed from its fuse envelope. Some said,'tis a viol da Gamba, others pronounced it a fiddle. I myself hoped it a Liquer case pregnant with Eau de Vie and such odd Nectar. When midwifed into daylight, the gossips were at loss to pronounce upon its species. Most took it for a marrow spoon, an apple scoop, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and I think a nice, well-behaved young gal in the singers' seat of a Sunday is a means o' grace: it's sort o' drawin' to the unregenerate, you know. Why, boys, in them days, I've walked ten miles over to Sherburne of a Sunday mornin', jest to play the bass-viol in the same singers' seat with Huldy. She was very much respected, Huldy was; and, when she went out to tailorin', she was allers bespoke six months ahead, and sent for in waggins up and down for ten miles round; for the young fellers was allers 'mazin' ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... straight ahead, and her old-fashioned bonnet hid her face; but I could discover that something more than usual was working under her cap. I looked at every one of the singers, and then at the players, from the big bass-viol down to the tenor, and not a bit of reason could I perceive for the twitter the heads of our pew had certainly got themselves into. There's a pattern old lady, Prudence Clark, presidentess of the Dorcas Society,—a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Moors of Granada. The Spanish cavalry, in those days, were as remarkable for the skillful management, as for the ostentatious caparison of their horses. Among the troops brought out from Spain by Ovando, one horseman had disciplined his horse to prance and curvet in time to the music of a viol. [208] The joust was appointed to take place of a Sunday after dinner, in the public square, before the house where Ovando was quartered. The cavalry and foot-soldiers had their secret instructions. The former were to parade, not merely with reeds or blunted ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... seemed not due to lightness of heart, but only to weariness of mind. I knew that something had caused him to feel acutely the limitations of his office. One might attribute such feelings to the bass-viol player in an orchestra, who, in whatever whirl of harmony, is permitted to scrape out only a few gruff notes. But there was dear Mrs. Widesworth, so deliciously drugged by the anodynes of Authority that she could shake the chains of custom till ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... pour in torrents, so to make the most of it, we ordered another magnum of strong red wine, and procured from the neighbourhood a blind fiddler, who had acquired a local reputation. His instrument, the favourite one of Servia, is styled a goosely, being a testudo-formed viol; no doubt a relic of the antique, for the Servian monarchy derived all its arts from the Greeks of the Lower Empire. But the musical entertainment, in spite of the magnum of wine, and the jovial challenges of our fellow traveller from the Drina, threw me into a species of ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... give, each to each, a farewell grasp of the hand; and amid that extravagant merriment the lips begin to quiver, and eyes grow dim. Then, two by two, preceded by the miscellaneous band, playing 'The Road to Boston,' and headed by a huge base-viol, borne by two stout fellows, and played by a third, they pass through each hall of the long line of buildings, giving farewell cheers, and at the foot of one of the tall towers, each throws his handful of earth on the roots of an ivy, which, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... refreshments are served. There is a stage at another side, on which low farces are performed, and a tall Punch and Judy box occupies a conspicuous position. Benches and chairs are scattered about, and a raised platform is provided for the "orchestra," which consists of a piano, violin, and a bass viol. The centre of the room is a clear space, and is used for dancing. If you do not dance you must leave, unless you atone for your deficiency by a liberal expenditure of money. The amusements are coarse and low. The songs are broad, and are full of blasphemous outbursts, which ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... he made of a vineyard, with clusters of grapes that showed black, and with the vines hanging from silver poles. And he showed maidens and youths in the vineyard, gathering the grapes into baskets, and one amongst them, a boy, who played on the viol. Beside the image of the vineyard he made images of cattle, with herdsmen, and with nine dogs guarding them. But he showed two lions that had come up and had seized the bull of the herd, and the dogs and men strove to drive them away but were affrighted. And ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... I. Who but I would have known how so soon to win the love of a lady like that? Lucky indeed might they deem themselves, if they did it, those young gallants that go about, day and night, up and down, a strumming on the one-stringed viol, and would not know how to gather a handful of nuts once in a millennium. Mayst thou be by to see when I bring her the rebeck! thou wilt see fine sport. List well what I say: I am not so old as I look; and she knows it right ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... caught on and clapped like mad, Aunt Mary beat the front of the box with her ear-trumpet, and when Clover suggested that she throw some flowers to the heroine she threw the orchids and came near maiming the bass viol for life. Burnett rushed out between acts and bought her a cane to pound with, Jack rushed out between more acts and bought her a pair of opera glasses, Mitchell rushed out between still further acts and procured her one of those ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... ship's bell on the forecastle-head and clangs it horribly in the big foo-foo crises, though Bombini can be heard censuring him severely on occasion. And to cap it all, the fog-horn machine pumps in at the oddest moments in imitation of a big bass viol. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... lock me up to get Quarles's Emblems by heart, and threaten I shou'd lie in the great Room that's haunted, and never let one have any other diversion, than to hear the Chaplain play Jumping Joan upon the Base Viol. ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... in the extreme antiquity of the bow is such as almost to justify the quaint statement of Jean Jacques Rousseau that Adam played the viol in Paradise. ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... Mortimer played first viol in the Court minstrelsy. Up and yet higher up he crept, till he could creep no further, as I writ a few leaves back. On the eve of Saint Pancras was crowned the new Queen of France in the Abbey of Saint Denis, which is to France as Westminster Abbey to us: and there ramped my Lord of Mortimer ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well, and in fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute; speaks good remnants, notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco; swears tersely and with variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity: a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another man's horse to praise, and backs him as his own. Or, for a need, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... other, with a sigh of infinite regret. "I am fond of the violincello, the viola da gamba of medieval times. Properly it is not a viol—not a base viol as some suppose, but a violin of extra large size. That is ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Danforth, his strong voice filling the shop as with the sound of a bass viol, "I consider myself equal to anything in the way of my own trade; though I should have made but a poor figure at yours with such a fist as this," added he, laughing, as he laid his vast hand beside the delicate one of Owen. "But what ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I fall out, as I am master-player in the choir, and my bass-viol strings won't stand at this time o' year, unless they be screwed up a little before the ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... two darling live pigeons, which I have installed in Philemon's cabinet, and a very pretty dove-cote it makes me. For the rest, my husband is coming back with seven hundred francs, which he got from his respectable family, under pretence of learning the bass viol, the cornet-a-piston, and the speaking trumpet, so as to make his way in society, and a slap-up marriage—to use your expression—my ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... stars a mortal influence came, (The mingled malice of their flame,) A skilful angel did the ingredients take, And with just hands the sad composure make, And over all the land did the full viol shake. Thirst, giddiness, faintness, and putrid heats, And pining pains, and shivering sweats, On all the cattle, all the beasts, did fall; With deformed death the country's covered all. The labouring ox drops down before the plough; The crowned victims to the altar led ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... virgins nine! That do our souls incline To noble discipline! Nod to this vow of mine. Come, then, and now inspire My viol and my lyre With your eternal fire, And make me one entire Composer in your choir. Then I'll your altars strew With roses sweet and new; And ever live ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... wrinkled fire is edg-ed sharp; And once more welling through the air, ah me! How the sweet viol plains him to the harp, Whose pang-ed sobbings ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... about and stared approvingly, forgetting cause in effect till Warwick began to laugh like a merry bass viol, and ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott |
