"Cymbal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wives and children. Of all the gems that adorn the priestly diadem, none is so precious and indispensable in the eyes of the people as the peerless jewel of chastity. Without this pearl the voice of a Hyacinthe "becomes as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal;" with it, the humblest missioner gains ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... falling-off in his appetite at tea-time, which surprised and disturbed his mother, for she had filled the house with fragrant suggestions of good things coming, in honor of Mr. Lindsay, who was to be her guest at tea. And chiefly the genteel form of doughnut called in the native dialect cymbal (Qu. Symbol? B. G.) which graced the board with its plastic forms, suggestive of the most pleasing objects,—the spiral ringlets pendent from the brow of beauty; the magic circlet, which is the pledge of plighted affection,—the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... over her left shoulder, is carried through a ring, from which hangs a seal. On her arms and shoulders appear to have stood two lions, which formed side supports to the mirror that was attached to the figure's head. If the face of the cymbal-player cannot boast of much beauty, and her figure is thought to "lack distinction," still it is granted that the tout ensemble of the work was not without originality, and may have possessed a certain amount of elegance.[877] ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... golden ewer containing the hallowed blood of atonement, and the censer streaming [fn95] clouds of fragrance, in the hands of the trembling descendant of Aaron approaching the inner sanctuary of the INVISIBLE AND ALMIGHTY; three hundred sons of song, accompanied with psaltery and cymbal, and "the harp with a solemn sound," resounding the attributes of HIM WHO IS, AND EVER SHALL BE;[fn96] and hundreds of thousands of worshippers prostrating their foreheads on the pavement in awe and extacy, as the temple shines forth with the Shechinah, streaming ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... silver. The officers of the various corps, the trumpeters and the musicians, covered with gold and silver lace, are dazzling to look at; the kettledrum suspended at the saddle-bow, overcharged with painted and gilded ornaments, is a curiosity for a glass case; the Negro cymbal-player of the French guards resembles the sultan of a fairy-tale. Behind the carriage and alongside of it trot the body-guards, with sword and carbine, wearing red breeches, high black boots, and a blue coat sewn with white embroidery, all of them unquestionable ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of these unimportant people of the Ridge may here take up again for a moment the trailing clouds of glory that shimmer over John Barclay's office in the big City. For here there is the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of great worldly power. Here sits John Barclay, a little gray-haired, gray-clad, lynx-eyed man, in a big light room at the corner of a tower high over the City in the Corn Exchange Building, the brain from which a million nerves radiate that run all over the world and move thousands ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... name, accentuated proudly by the liveried servants, and announced in a resounding voice, sounded in Jenkins's drawing-rooms like the clash of a cymbal, one of those gongs which, in fairy pieces at the theatre, are the prelude to fantastic apparitions. The light of the chandeliers paled, every eye sparkled at the dazzling perspective of the treasures of the Orient, of the showers of the sequins and of pearls ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... stately palms! Clashing your cymbal tones, In thro' the mystic moans Of pines at solemn psalms: Ye myrtles, singing Love's inspired song, We ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... its desire both to startle and to find true expression. He has not followed those great novelists who write French a child may read and understand. He calls the moon 'a spiritual gray wafer'; it faints in 'a red wind'; 'truth beats at the bars of a man's bosom'; the sun is 'a sulphur-colored cymbal'; a man moves with 'the jaunty grace of a young elephant.' But even these oddities are significant and to be placed high above the slipshod sequences of words that have done duty till they are as meaningless as the imprint on ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... (thrush). orphan, often. putty, puttee. pedal, peddle. police, pelisse. principal, principle. profit, prophet. rigour, rigger. rancour, ranker. succour, sucker. sailor, sailer. cellar, seller. censor, censer. surplus, surplice. symbol, cymbal. skip, skep. tuber, tuba. whirl, whorl. wert, wort (herb, obs.). vial, viol. ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... last night we had been kept awake by the drumming and fifing, singing and shouting, weeping and howling, pulling at accordions and striking the monotonous Shingungo. Merolla names this cymbal Longa, and describes it justly as two iron bells joined by an arched bar: I found it upon the Tanganyika Lake, and suffered severely from its monotonous horrors. Monteiro and Gamitto (p. 232) give an illustration of what is known in the Cazembe's ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... nor Antony but rather Serapio. Let no one think that he was ever consul or imperator, but only gymnasiarch. He has himself of his own free will chosen the latter title instead of the former, and casting away all the august terms of his own land has become one of the cymbal players from Canopus.[65] Again, let no one fear that he can give any unfavorable turn to the war. Even previously he was of no ability, as you know clearly who conquered him near Mutina. And even if once he did attain to some capacity through campaigning with us, be well assured ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... and the viol and cymbal, Instead of the lyre, the guitar and the flute, He has but the dry, wither'd Ram's-horn, the symbol Of gloom and despondence; the ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... listens to a minister, the subjects about which men really care, are always personal. How many of us are truly interested as to the best mode of governing India? But in a question touching the character of a prime minister we all muster together like bees round a sounding cymbal." ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (2)And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. (3)And though I bestow all my goods in food, and though I give up my body that I may be burned, and have not love, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation."... "But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth, for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... And the populace all round him shouted: 'Glory! Glory! Glory to the immortal Julius! He has comforted us in our sorrow, in our great woe! He has bestowed on us verses sweeter than honey, more musical than the cymbal's note, more fragrant than the rose, purer than the azure of heaven! Carry him in triumph, encircle his inspired head with the soft breath of incense, cool his brow with the rhythmic movement of palm-leaves, scatter at his feet all the fragrance ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... course of the twelve hours was displayed; while, at the end of each hour, the number of brazen balls which were requisite to mark the division of time, were thrown out from above, and falling consecutively on a cymbal below, struck the hour required. In like manner a number of horsemen issued forth from windows placed around the dial; while a number of other clock-work miracles attested the height which the mechanical arts had reached ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... Without the resolution of the people of the Colonies to resort to arms, and without the guiding military genius of Washington, the Declaration of Independence would be naught in history but the vision of doctrinaires, a mockery of sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Let us never forget that it was that resolution and that genius which made it the vitalizing force of a great nation. It takes service and ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... sails, the music-ship, Over the moonlit sea, And the trumpet that the captain blows Is the only rudder the vessel knows, As we sail so merrily, The fiddles, and fifes, and drums, and horns All carry the ship along, It shapes its course by the cymbal clash To the land of ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... out to, the greater the sum. Judge, then, of Kooloo's esteem. Nor is the allusion to the ciphers at all inappropriate, seeing that, in themselves, Kooloo's profession turned out to be worthless. He was, alas! as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; one of those who make no music unless the clapper ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... that remind us most forcibly of the loss of youth! We are brought so closely in contact with the young and with the short-lived pleasures that once pleased us, and have forfeited all bloom. Happy the man who turns from "the tinkling cymbal" and "the gallery of pictures," and can think of some watchful eye and some kind heart at home; but those who have no home—and they are a numerous tribe—never feel lonelier hermits or sadder moralists ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... yet apt the verse, More ponderous than nimble; For since grimed War here laid aside His Orient pomp, 'twould ill befit Overmuch to ply The Rhyme's barbaric cymbal. ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... of Chinese cymbal, with a powerful and sonorous tone produced by the vibrations of its metal, consisting mainly of copper and tutenag or zinc; it is used by some vessels instead of a bell. A companion of Sir James Lancaster in 1605 irreverently ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... use of the sinews of animals for stringed instruments would also prevent the educated classes from learning to play them. Thus no stringed instruments are permitted to be used in temples, but only the gong, cymbal, horn and conch-shell. And this rule would greatly discourage the cultivation of music, which art, like all the others, has usually served in its early period as an appanage to religious services. It has been held that instruments were originally employed at temples and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... or greater fete day can pass without the gipsy band having ample work to do in the form of playing for the people. Their instruments are the fiddle, 'cello, viola, clarinet, tarogato (a Hungarian specialty), and, above all, the cymbal. The tarogato looks like a grand piano with the top off. It stands on four legs like a table and has wires drawn across it; on these wires the player performs with two little sticks, that are padded at the ends with cotton-wool. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... forty-eight hours, during which the cold was intense. I wondered at the liquid sea, which refused to freeze in such a temperature. The clear, cold sky overhead looked like a steel-blue cymbal, that might ring, could you smite it. Our breath came and went like puffs' of smoke from pipe-bowls. At first there was a long gauky swell, that obliged us to furl most of the sails, and even send down t'-gallant-yards, for fear ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... winds through the fertile land of Xeres. The infidel host was far inferior in number to the Christians; but then it was composed of hardy and dexterous troops, seasoned to war, and admirably armed. The camp shone gloriously in the setting sun, and resounded with the clash of cymbal, the note of the trumpet, and the neighing of fiery Arabian steeds. There were swarthy troops from every nation of the African coast, together with legions from Syria and Egypt, while the light Bedouins were careering about the adjacent plain. What grieved and incensed the spirits ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... have iron elbows fastened to their centres and jointed to levers, and are wrapped in fleeces of wool. In the tops of the cylinders are openings, each about three digits in diameter. Close to these openings are bronze dolphins, mounted on joints and holding chains in their mouths, from which hang cymbal-shaped valves, let down under ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... not prophesied in Thy name? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me you that work iniquity;" and on these of St. Paul: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." "I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest, perhaps, when I have preached to others, I ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... made its way as rapidly as the rugged nature of the mountains would permit, guided by Hamet el Zegri, the bold alcayde of Ronda, who knew every pass and defile: not a drum nor the clash of a cymbal nor the blast of a trumpet was permitted to be heard. The mass of war rolled quietly on as the gathering cloud to the brow of the mountains, intending to burst down like the thunderbolt ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... these days who laugh at such a love as mine, but they who do this have never entered into the secret of life's joy. I do not expect to be understood by such, and my words to them will be but as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal; but to those whose hearts have been filled with a great absorbing love, I know that my tale will have a meaning, simple as it may be, and badly, as I am afraid, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... tyrant hand As your hate of Venus' hest your manly forms unmann'd, Gladden your souls, ye mistresses, with sense of error bann'd. Drive from your spirits dull delay, together follow ye To hold of Phrygian goddess, home of Phrygian Cybebe, 20 Where loud the cymbal's voice resounds with timbrel-echoes blending, And where the Phrygian piper drones grave bass from reed a-bending, Where toss their ivy-circled heads with might the Maenades Where ply mid shrilly lullilooes the holiest mysteries, Where to fly here and there be wont the she-god's ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... whispered. "Look at the thing. It's insane. A nigger hammering a scarlet phallus against a cymbal moon." ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... in and out of the unglazed window, and fluttered all around him; the morning sunbeams came in, too, and made a nimbus round his golden head, like that which his father gilded above the heads of saints. Raffaelle worked on, not looking off, though clang of trumpet, or fanfare of cymbal, often told him there was much going on worth looking at down below. He was only seven years old, but he labored as earnestly as if he were a man grown, his little rosy ringers gripping that pencil which was to make him in life and death famous ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... The sweetest thing in life Is the music of the fife And the dancing of the fair. You see their baskets emptying Of waffles all home-made. They quaff the nectar sparkling Of freshest lemonade. What crowds at Punchinello, While the showman beats his cymbal! Crowds everywhere! But who is this appears below? Ah! 'tis the beauteous village queen! Yes, 'tis she; 'tis Franconnette! A fairer girl was ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... ways, to raise strength out of weakness, to make him who cannot rise from his bed, nor stir in his bed, come home to me, and in this sound give me the strength of healthy and vigorous instructions? O my God, my God, what thunder is not a well-tuned cymbal, what hoarseness, what harshness, is not a clear organ, if thou be pleased to set thy voice to it? And what organ is not well played on if thy hand be upon it? Thy voice, thy hand, is in this sound, and in this one sound I hear this whole concert. I hear thy Jacob call unto his ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... We were too early in the street to gather much of a crowd. Those who were out hailed us heartily, and at the corner of Grand street or thereabouts an ardent individual from a fourth-story window, plying two boards cymbal-wise (clap-boards, say), initiated a respectable noise. And so round the corner and into the armory at Centre Market. The campaign was over, and a few days after we were paid ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... celestial, and a silver din, As though imprisoned angels played within; Hushed in my heart my fragrant secret dwells; If thou wouldst learn it, Paul of Tarsus tells;— No jangled brass nor tinkling cymbal sound, For in my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... are all that a wise man would desire to assemble; "for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love." BACON'S ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. [13:2]And if I have prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. [13:3]And if I deal out all my property to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body ...
— The New Testament • Various
... culture, indeed, suits not all persons. Geniuses must be explored, and the manner of instructing proportioned to them. But there is one thing which suits all persons, and without which knowledge is nothing but "a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal": this is the supernatural culture of the soul, or the habitual endeavor of man of rendering himself more pleasing in the sight of God by the acquisition of solid Christian virtues, in order thus to reach his ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... her children wept, but Mr Great-heart and Mr Valiant played upon the well-tuned cymbal and harp for joy. So all departed to their respective ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... and near 400 Surveyed the tangled ground, Their center ranks, with pike and spear, A twilight forest frowned, Their barded horsemen, in the rear, The stern battalia crowned. 405 No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang, Still were the pipe and drum; Save heavy tread, and armor's clang, The sullen march was dumb. There breathed no wind their crests to shake, 410 Or wave their flags abroad; Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake, That shadowed o'er their road. Their vaward ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... carols the musicians pause for rest, the cymbal-player throws his cymbal on the floor, and the candle-lighter does the same thing with his tray, and into these the master of the house deposits his gifts to his parish church, and if they are a newly-married ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... pretence! Be not a cymbal-tinkling fool! Sound understanding and good sense Speak out with little art or rule; And when you've something earnest to utter, Why hunt for words in such a flutter? Yes, your discourses, that are so refined' In which humanity's poor shreds you frizzle, Are unrefreshing as the mist and ...
— Faust • Goethe
... her light. The stars were few, and doubtful near the moon, but shone like diamonds in the dark spaces between the clouds. The rugged fortress lay swathed in the softness of the creamy light. No noise broke the stillness, save the dull drum-beat of their horses' hoofs on the turf, or their cymbal-clatter where they crossed a road, and the occasional shrill call from ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... faults are as honest as he himself, the inherent defects of his genius. No writer of our day stands more sturdily for the idea that, whereas art is precious, personality is more precious still; without which art is a tinkling cymbal and with which even a defective art can conquer Time, like a garment not all-seemly, that yet cannot ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Jericho they heard the noise of the shovel.(545) From Jericho they heard the noise of the wooden wheel which the son of Kattin made for the laver. From Jericho they heard the voice of Gabini the herald. From Jericho they heard the sound of the cornet. From Jericho they heard the sound of the cymbal. From Jericho they heard the voice of the song. From Jericho they heard the clang of the horn, and some say even the voice of the High Priest at the time when he mentioned the Name on the Day of Atonement. From ...
— Hebrew Literature |
