"Harp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chosen: and esteem Such scantiness of knowledge our delight: For all our good is in that primal good Concentrate, and God's will and ours are one." So, by that form divine, was giv'n to me Sweet medicine to clear and strengthen sight, And, as one handling skillfully the harp, Attendant on some skilful songster's voice Bids the chords vibrate, and therein the song Acquires more pleasure; so, the whilst it spake, It doth remember me, that I beheld The pair of blessed luminaries move. Like the accordant twinkling of two eyes, Their beamy ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... many a minne-singer has struck his lyre. Nay, Oswald von Wolkenstein, a prince amongst troubadours, wearing his golden chain and brilliant orders, has brought tears from many a gentle eye as he sang to his harp his pathetic elegies, the cruelty of Sabina his lady, and his adventures in England, Spain and Persia. He was a noble, courtly knight, conversing in French, Moorish, Catalonian, Castilian, German, Latin, Wendisch, Lombardic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... haunting song that rose from a thick copse fringing one of the babbling mountain brooks? It mingled sweetly with the patter of the rain upon the leaves. Surely it was the song of the veery thrush! The same rich, melodious strain, sounding as if it were blown through a wind-harp, setting all the strings a-tune at the same time. Too long and closely had I studied the veery's minstrelsy in his summer haunts in northern Minnesota to be deceived now—unless, indeed, this fertile avian region produced another ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... to harp on that. This burning desire had taken possession of him all at once. Somebody had instilled it into him, there could be no other explanation for it. "Who—" she asked hesitatingly—"who has told you—you should question me ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... bath playing a harp, the poor old wives stand by a washtub and play tunes on the washboard, and scrub, and take care of children. I thought the custom of spanking children was an American institution, but it is as old as the ages, for I saw a Turkish mother grab ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... Quackenboss there, and Mrs. Quackenboss the other place, till, for Amelia's sake, I was glad she was not on board to witness it. Long before we sighted Sandy Hook, I will admit, I was fairly sick of Charles's two-stringed harp—Mrs. Quackenboss and the dispatch-box. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... by the magnitude of his master's misfortune, and realizing that it was due in no small degree to his own neglect, was now self-exiled from the lieutenant's roof, and seeking such consolation as he could find at the Harp of Erin outside the walls, a miserable and contrite man,—contrite, that is to say, as manifested in the manner of his country, for Hogan was pottle deep in ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... pleased them; I don't think they are the first to see one's defects, but they are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bow-string,—to a woman and it is a harp-string. She is vibratile and resonant all over, so she stirs with slighter musical tremblings of the air about her.— Ah, me!—said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day,—what color would it not have given to my thoughts, and what thrice-washed whiteness to my words, had I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... his mantle thee invest, Or Chiron lend thee his persuasive lyre, Or Socrates, of pedagogues the best, Teach thee the harp-strings of ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... they traveled they had talked and sung hymns together, like Pilgrim and his friends, and Joe's voice was the loudest and sweetest among them; but now he hanged his harp upon the willows, and could sing the ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Montserratian coat of arms centered in the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms features a woman standing beside a yellow harp with her arm around a ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... had ever an hiatus in her stocking, or a fracture in her gown of finest woof? Ye gods! what an insult to suppose her repairing such! The lady's mental accomplishments and qualifications are as follow:—She sings divinely, plays on the harp (and piano too in modern days) a merveille; occasionally condescends to fascinate on the guitar, and the lute also, should that instrument, now rather antiquated, fall in her way. She takes portraits, and sketches from nature; she understands all languages, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... that this fact was due in great part to the suggestion of jealousy in the manner of the Baroness toward the young girl ever after he had shown so much interest in her welfare. Sensitive to the mental atmosphere about her, as a wind harp to the lightest breeze, Berene felt this unexpressed sentiment in the breast of her "benefactress" and strove to avoid anything which ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... fine young fellow, that midshipman staying here! Why couldn't you fancy him, now? And lots of others! Let alone taking up with a man older and uglier than your own fath—I mean, than the parson! You've no call to hang your harp on a willow tree, on account of the likes ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... man can do may be divinely done. We think greatness entailed or organized in some places or duties, in certain offices or occasions, and do not see that Paganini can extract rapture from a catgut, and Eulenstein from a jews-harp, and a nimble-fingered lad out of shreds of paper with his scissors, and Landseer out of swine, and the hero out of the pitiful habitation and company in which he was hidden. What we call obscure condition or vulgar society is that condition ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... enough to intoxicate all save the trusted ones of the crew; that he and his four associates fired the ship and rowed away, leaving an unhappy woman to a horrible fate. Senhora Vineiro was pale but composed when she saw the manner of death she was to die. She brought from her cabin a harp which had been a solace of her husband and herself and began to play and sing an air that some of the listeners remembered. It was an "Ave Maria," and the sound of it was so plaintive that even Dane stopped rowing; but he set ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... speaking sharp: On the same thing you always harp. A bird one may not catch, Nor find a nest, nor angle neither, Nor from the peacock pluck a feather, But you are on the watch To ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... south. A cloud crosses His Honour's face, a summer cloud dissolving into sunshine. "It is the pomade of Saul:—but it is our own glorious David whose unctuous curls carry the Elysian fragrance." Then taking up his harp and dancing an ecstatic ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... leading to a platform behind the reredos; between them stands an oak altar, the gift of A. N. Welby Pugin in 1831. Above the altar in the central compartment Jesse lies asleep, on the left hand David plays upon his harp, on the right sits Solomon deeply meditating. Above Jesse we have in one carving an amalgamated representation of the birth of Christ and the visit of the Wise Men. On the left hand sits the Virgin Mary with her Child, fully clothed in a long garment, not wrapped ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony; Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue, Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips, And ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... quivering as a harp quivers under the fingers of one who knows, and her whole soul was thrilling to the wild, tumultuous music that he had called into being there. It was almost more than she could bear—this miracle that had been wrought upon ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... a lute and harp, accordant strung With many strings, a dulcet tinkling make To him by whom the notes are not distinguished, So from the lights that there to me appeared Upgathered through the cross a melody, Which rapt me, not distinguishing the hymn." ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... the hearts of its inmates it left an open wound which only long months of patient endurance could heal. When a mother's dust is carried out and laid in the grave, it is the light of the domestic hearth gone out; it is the sweetest string gone from the family harp; that bereavement is like the breath of winter among tender flowers; the live tree around which entwined tender creepers is torn up, and they lie entangled on the ground, disconsolate and helpless, until the Great Father of us all shall give ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... Asked them if I might go,—but no one heard. Then, sick with longing, I arose at last And went unto my father,—in that vast Chamber wherein he for so many years Has sat, surrounded by his charts and spheres. "Father," I said, "Father, I cannot play The harp that thou didst give me, and all day I sit in idleness, while to and fro About me thy serene, grave servants go; And I am weary of my lonely ease. Better a perilous journey overseas Away from thee, than this, ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... Reims is described enthusiastically by the chroniclers of the times. "The whole city turned out before him; the poets chanted odes in his praise, the musicians filled the air with the sound of the vielle [hurdy-gurdy!], of fifes, of tambours, of the psalterion and of the harp." Another admires the richness of the garments: "It is a pleasure to see the embroideries of gold and the coats of jewelled silk sparkle on all the public places, in the streets, in the squares. Old age, the flower of life, petulant youth, all stoop under the weight of ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... not when the harp shall sound The notes we lov'd again, And gentle voices breathe around, I mingle in the strain. Oh! only think you hear me when The night breeze whispers near; In hours of thought, and quiet, then For me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... in music soft and sweet, And lo! the Present like a strung harp stands Waiting the sweeping of prophetic hands, To send its living music, loud and fleet, Careering ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... is true that he might not be happy under this fiery animation, and we fully believe that he was not. Nobody is happy under laudanum except for a very short term of years. But in what way did that operate upon his exertions as a writer? We are of opinion that it killed Coleridge as a poet. "The harp of Quantock" was silenced for ever by the torment of opium. But proportionably it roused and stung by misery his metaphysical instincts into more spasmodic life. Poetry can flourish only in the atmosphere of happiness. But subtle and perplexed investigations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... ever alert to befriend a man, You who were ever the first to defend a man, You who had always the money to lend a man Down on his luck and hard up for a V. Sure you'll be playing a harp in beatitude (And a quare sight you will be in that attitude) Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude, You'll find ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... sacred 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
... mouth of the bay. The steamer from England was coming round the head, and her sea-sick passengers were dense as a crowd on her forward deck, the men with print handkerchiefs tied over their caps, the women with their skirts over their drooping feathers. A harp and a violin were scraping lively airs amidships. The town was like a cock with his tail down crowing furiously in ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... his narrowness, as they almost exceeded belief. Col told us, that O'Kane, the famous Irish harper, was once at that gentleman's house. He could not find in his heart to give him any money, but gave him a key for a harp, which was finely ornamented with gold and silver, and with a precious stone, and was worth eighty or a hundred guineas. He did not know the value of it; and when he came to know it, he would fain have had it back; but O'Kane took care that he should not. JOHNSON. 'They exaggerate the value; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... friends fell away entirely, and the rest became cool and distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most in it. She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own industry. But her scholars fell off one by one now; she was forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the village; the young fellows stopped coming ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... don't harp on that. I'm mad about the girl. I know all you're suffering, and if I ever put on superior airs, I take them back and ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... shoulders against the canvas as we shifted our positions, and the increasing noise of waves on the outer coast-line of the island. And over all whirred the murmur of wind sweeping the tops of the trees like a great harp, and the faint tapping on the tent as drops fell from the branches with a sharp ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty, Crouching over a grave an ancient sorrowful mother, Once a queen, now lean and tatter'd, seated on the ground, Her old white hair drooping, dishevel'd, round her shoulders, At her feet fallen an unused royal harp, Long silent, she, too, long silent, mourning her shrouded hope and heir, Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow because ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... had faded now, Leaving her bosom, cheek, and brow Whiter than sea-foam 'neath the moon; Her low voice as sad wind-harp's tune. ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... "Ragtime," being the first person on the stage to play "Mendelssohn's Wedding March," "Oh Promise Me," "Star-Spangled Banner," etc., in syncopated rhythm or "Ragtime." He was also the first on the stage to do imitations of the harp, bagpipe, mandolin, banjo, etc., on the piano. His act was much imitated all over ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... blew in from the sea a heron cried Honk! and he heard his wings, but not espied The heavy flight. Slow, slow the orb was filled With light, and with the light his heart was thrilled With opening music, faint, expectant, sharp As the first chords one picks out from the harp To prelude paean. Venturing all, he lift His eyes, and there encurtained in a drift Of sea-blue mantle close-drawn, he espies Helen above him watching, her grave eyes Upon him fixt, blue homes of mystery Unfathomable, eternal as the sea, And as unresting. So in that still place, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... who would follow, Fear not to come, For love is for love As dove is for dove; The harp of Apollo Shall lull you to rest, And your head find its ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... and woody fields, Night-winds round his lone hearth sing The fall of Prythian's warlike king!— Now his home of happy rest Is in the bright isles of the west; There, in stately halls of gold, He with the mighty chiefs of old, Quaffs the horn of hydromel To the harp's melodious swell; And on hills of living green, With airy bow of lightning sheen, Hunts the shadowy deer-herd fleet In their dim-embowered retreat. He is free to roam at will O'er sea and sky, o'er heath and hill, When our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... Melessina for her husband, and so behaved to all other suitors as to drive them away. Thus to Don Garcia, she pretended to be a termagant; to Don Vincentio, who was music-mad, she professed to love a Jew's-harp above every other instrument. At last Julio appeared, and her "bold stroke" obtained as its reward "the husband of her choice."—Mrs. Cowley, A Bold ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... was of various kinds: there was one kind which consisted of hymns, another of lamentations; there was also the paean and the dithyramb, and the so-called 'laws' (nomoi) or strains, which were played upon the harp. The regulation of such matters was not left to the whistling and clapping of the crowd; there was silence while the judges decided, and the boys, and the audience in general, were kept in order by raps of a stick. But after a while there arose a new race of poets, men of genius ...
— Laws • Plato
... soul with pure and rapturous felicity, and imbue it with an intense perception of its immortality and blessedness. Now stole the faint, delicious sound of very distant bells—clear, silvery, and sweet—upon mine ear, as the tones of a well-touched harp: sad were they—luxuriously sad; and their unearthly melody infused into my bosom a repose unknown to mortality. As I listened with awe and rapture to that delicate minstrelsy, I seemed to become all soul; tears—far indeed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... objects of popular attachment: the miserable destiny of the outlawed and ruined Westmorland, and the untimely end of Northumberland through the perfidy of the false friend in whom he had put his trust, were long remembered with pity and indignation, and many a minstrel "tuned his rude harp of border frame" to the fall of the Percy or the wanderings of the Nevil. There was also an ancient gentleman named Norton, of Norton in Yorkshire, who bore the banner of the cross and the five wounds before the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... dipping her fingers in a little silver vase of rose-water. "But that little exotic monster of yours, Empson, I hope she really understands no English?—On my life she coloured.—Is she such a rare dancer?—I must see her dance, and hear him play on the Jew's harp." ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat Were now ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... be true, as stated in "The Gates Ajar," that there will be pianos in heaven, haven't the men who learned harp-making, on the theory that it was a permanent business, been grossly deceived, and haven't they an action for damages against somebody, if they can ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... of rhyme; Tales of the framing of all things and the entering in of time From the halls of the outer heaven; so near they knew the door. Wherefore uprose a sea-king, and his hands that loved the oar Now dealt with the rippling harp-gold, and he sang of the shaping of earth, And how the stars were lighted, and where the winds had birth, And the gleam of the first of summers on the yet untrodden grass. But e'en as men's hearts were hearkening some heard the thunder pass O'er the cloudless ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... the Queen, an aged man, Stands lone upon the bank, while he doth scan The horizon with anxious, careworn face, Lest ears profane of Elam's hated race Should hear his strains of mournful melody: Now leaning on his harp in memory Enwrapt, while fitful breezes lift his locks Of snow, he sadly kneels upon the rocks And sighing deeply clasps his hands in woe, While the dread past before his mind doth flow. A score and eight of years have slowly passed Since Rim-a-gu, with ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... was a banner with a lot of lions rampaging over it, and a harp worked in one corner of it. Over that was another banner, with a full moon and a baby moon blazing away on it, and all around them was a whole hail-storm of stars that seemed to catch fire from the ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... could be more natural," was the answer of the gracious man. "Dancing goes hand-in-hand with music; even in Greek days it was the choral revellers that were accompanied by the harp. In the classics there is frequent mention of the dance. With the Romans it belonged to culture, and according to tradition even holy David danced. In the world of to-day it is just indispensable, especially ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... in the court-yard sat Of beggars a motley throng; The meat and drink was more to them Than flute, and harp, and song. ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... large in his bounty, nor yet of such vigorous youth, Nor so daring in deeds, nor to whom his liege lord is so kind, But that he has always a longing, a sea-faring passion For what the Lord God shall bestow, be it honour or death. No heart for the harp has he, nor for acceptance of treasure, No pleasure has he in a wife, no delight in the world, Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing, A yearning uneasiness hastens ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... had expected, at the end of the lane he found Tapin, who had placed L'Eveille in the courtyard; in two words he explained his project. Tapin pointed out to Dubois one man leaning on the step of an outer door, a second was playing a kind of Jew's harp, and seemed an itinerant musician, and there was another, too well ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... courtier, christened Augusta and Sophia, after the two Princesses of that name, and were now called Guss and Sophy: they were both pretty, good-natured girls—one with dark brown and the other light brown hair: they both played the harp badly, sung tolerably, danced well, and were very fond of nice young men. They both thought Kelly's Court rather dull; but then they had known nothing better since they had grown up, and there were some tolerably nice people not very ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... feats, such as robbing watermelon patches, smoking rabbits out of their holes, and the like, and by being great lovers of roasted pigs' tails. These were the ancestors of the renowned congressman of that name.—-Then the Van Hoesens, of Sing-Sing, great choristers and players upon the jew's-harp. These marched two and two, singing the great song of St. Nicholas. Then the Couenhovens, of Sleepy Hollow. These gave birth to a jolly race of publicans, who first discovered the magic artifice of conjuring a quart of wine into a pint bottle.—Then the Van Kortlandts, who lived ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his biographer, that you would choose for a wrestler. He was a good speaker, had a fine musical voice, was a capital carver in wood, and an accomplished illuminator. Like most of the earlier monks of St. Gallen, he was a clever musician, equally skilful with the trumpet and the harp. And the charm about it all was that he was always cheerful and in excellent spirits, and in consequence a general favourite. Nor is this all. Besides being teacher of music in the upper school to the sons of the nobility, he was classical ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... smiled above his harp, And turned his face to the naked sky, Where, blown before the wastrel wind, The thistle-down ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... numbers. The Labrador Eskimos used to depend upon them largely for their living. They can do this no longer, for not every season, as formerly, are there enough seals to supply needs. All of the five varieties of North Atlantic seals are caught on the coast—harbor, jar, harp, hooded and square flipper. The last named is also called the great bearded seal and sometimes the sealion. The first named is the ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... tired of heaven, as he lounged in the golden street; His halo was tilted sideways, and his harp lay mute at his feet; So the Master stooped in His pity, and gave him a pass to go, For the space of a moon, to the earth-world, to mix with ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... I must harp a little more upon this string—Do not you observe, how much your brother's influence has overtopped yours, since he has got into fortunes so considerable, and since you have given some of them an appetite to continue in themselves the possession of your estate, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... explosive projectile. The first music to soothe the savage breast was the soughing of the wind through the trees. Then strings were stretched across a crevice for the wind to play upon and there was the AEolian harp. The second stage was entered when Hermes strung the tortoise shell and plucked it with his fingers and when Athena, raising the wind from her own lungs, forced it through a hollow reed. From these beginnings we have the organ and the ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... considered the world a healthy and not intolerable prison, where each man must get through his day's work as best he might, soiling his fingers as much as necessity demanded—but no more,—so that at the end he might sleep soundly—or perhaps that he might go to heaven and pluck eternally at a harp, or else to hell and burn eternally, just as divines say we will. I never bothered about it, much, so long as there was my day's work at hand, demanding performance. And in consequence I missed the whole meaning ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... calling to mind the benefits granted to his forefathers in days past; he fashioned musical instruments of various sorts, put forth Psalms, and appointed them to be sung with joy, played also himself ofttimes on the harp, being inspired with the grace of the Holy Ghost; he taught the people of Israel to praise God with the whole heart, and with unity of voice to bless and praise Him every day. If so great devotion was then exercised, and celebration of divine praise was carried on before the Ark of ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... thought of leaving Saxony on another visit to Bohemia, and especially Prague, had had quite a romantic attraction for me. The foreign nationality, the broken German of the people, the peculiar headgear of the women, the native wines, the harp-girls and musicians, and finally, the ever present signs of Catholicism, its numerous chapels and shrines, all produced on me a strangely exhilarating impression. This was probably due to my craze for everything theatrical and spectacular, as distinguished from ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... was the student's answer. "There's nothing the Bible doesn't contain. The Saviour was nailed to the Cross bearing his misery to give you a heavenly harp and crown, Tessibel. If you read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you will see it all plainly. You can be happy if you pray and are a good girl while your father is away." Then, desiring to ease the tense-drawn ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... spirit which inspired of old The seer's prophetic song—the voice that spake Through Israel's warrior king. The strains that burst In thrilling tones from Zion's heaven-strung harp, Float down the tide of ages, shedding light On pagan shores and nations far remote: Eternal as the God they celebrate, Their fame shall last when Time's long race is run, And you refulgent eye of this fair world,— Its light and centre,—into darkness shrinks, ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... a sort of harp of ebony wood, taller than herself, and triangular in shape like a delta; she fixed the point in a crystal globe, and with both hands began ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... Christmas night on "Hell fer Sartain." Jes tu'n up the fust crick beyond the bend thar, an' climb onto a stump, an' holler about ONCE, an' you'll see how the name come. Stranger, hit's HELL fer sartain! Well, Rich Harp was thar from the head-waters, an' Harve Hall toted Nance Osborn clean across the Cumberlan'. Fust one ud swing Nance, an' then t'other. Then they'd take a pull out'n the same bottle o' moonshine, an'—fust one ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... "Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring." —Lady ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... published a burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's day, adapted to the ancient British musick, viz. the salt-box, the Jew's-harp, the marrow-bones and cleaver, the humstrum or hurdy-gurdy, &c. Johnson praised its humour, and seemed much diverted with it. He ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... son became a great physician, and all his descendants were celebrated for their proficiency in medicine. The second son was a Welsh Tubal-cain. One of the daughters invented the small ten-stringed harp, and the other the spinning wheel. "Thus," we are told, "were introduced the arts of medicine, manufactures, music, and woollen work!" If, then, there were a family at Myddfai celebrated for their leechcraft, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... Lady Mary said; and the pang in her heart was so great that the very atmosphere was stirred, and the air could scarcely contain her and the passion of her endeavor to make herself known, but thrilled like a harp-string to her cry. Mrs. Bowyer heard the jar and tingle in the inanimate world, but she thought only that it was some charitable visitor who had come in, and gone softly away again ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... skilfully to maintain their authority. By every device they sought to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry, rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on the attention of every man ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... natural: we can only conceive of the best of the spiritual by the best we know of the material; we can imagine no musical instrument in the bands of the angels superior to a harp; no weapon better than a sword ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... sure it is better to put the smoothing-iron under the bed, and the reaping-hook in the window. If a bull has fallen over a rock and been killed, a nail stuck into it will preserve the flesh from the fairies. Music discoursed on a Jew's harp keeps the elfin women away from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel. In Morocco iron is considered a great protection against demons; hence it is usual to place a knife or dagger under a sick man's ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... like so many teams of cart-horses, the delicate blue shadows coming and going upon the cream- white surfaces as the ship rolled with the regularity of a swinging pendulum. Every inch of our running gear was as taut as a harp-string, and through it the wind piped and sang as though the whole ship had been one gigantic musical instrument; while over all arched the blue dome of an absolutely cloudless sky, in the very zenith of which blazed the sun with a fierceness that made all of us eager to seek out such small ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... to that? I spent all my leisure time in the women's house, whither I was unconsciously more and more strongly attracted, not less by the young American's conversation—which was a piquant mixture of animated controversy and unaffected chatter—than by her harp-playing and her clear alto voice. But this did not satisfy sister Clara, who at last hit upon the plan of marrying us. Our common 'foolishness'—that is, our social ideas—made us, she thought, mutually suitable; and though, in her opinion, we should make a pair entirely lacking ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... romantic theme of a love uniting some powerful, uneducated frontiersman and some girl from a politer neighborhood. Pioneer and lady are always almost the same pair in varying costumes; the stories harp upon the praise of plains and mountains and the scorn of cities and civilization. These romances, much value as they have as documents and will long continue to have, must be said to exhibit the frontier as self-conscious, obstreperous, given to insisting ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... of happiness! Unexpectedly you will come across a benefactor! Fortunate enough your mother, your own mother, will have laid by a store of virtue and secret meritorious actions! My advice to you, mankind, is to relieve the destitute and succour the distressed! Do not resemble those who will harp after lucre and show themselves unmindful of the ties of relationship: that wolflike maternal uncle of yours and that impostor of a brother! True it is that addition and subtraction, increase and decrease, (reward and punishment,) rest in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... go with you," said the little Princess. "I will go only to a Prince who can play on a jews-harp." ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... world. From what pathway of eminence were women more traditionally excluded than from the art of sculpture, in spite of Non me Praxiteles fecit, sed Anna Damer?—yet Harriet Hosmer, in eight years, has trod its full ascent. Who believed that a poetess could ever be more than an Annot Lyle of the harp, to soothe with sweet melodies the leisure of her lord, until in Elizabeth Barrett's hands the thing became a trumpet? Where are gone the sneers with which army surgeons and parliamentary orators opposed Mr. Sidney Herbert's first proposition to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... lose his strength, And the braket thistle begin to pine,— The harp shall sound sweet, sweet at length Between the eight and ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... long will this harp which you once loved to hear Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear? How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, While its strings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... bandolon, a harp, and fiddle, and the dances were the waltz, the bolero, and the coona. It is but just to say that finer dancing could not have been witnessed in the saloons of Paris. Even the peon, in his leathern spencer ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... air in "Romeo." Oh! the solo of the clarionets, the beloved women, with the harp accompaniment! Something enrapturing, something white as snow which ascends! The festival bursts upon you, like a picture by Paul Veronese, with the tumultuous magnificence of the "Marriage of Cana"; and then the love-song begins again, oh, how softly! ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... and Cook that preparation came like final evidence of what they had never believed possible—the end of the old Forsyte family on earth. Poor Mr. Timothy must now take a harp and sing in the company of Miss Forsyte, Mrs. Julia, Miss Hester; with Mr. Jolyon, Mr. Swithin, Mr. James, Mr. Roger, and Mr. Nicholas of the party. Whether Mrs. Hayman would be there was more doubtful, seeing that she had been cremated. Secretly Cook ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... entered the room he found the ladies and gentlemen assembled there tripping the light fantastic toe to the music of a harp, piano, and violin. Ernestine L. Rose was president of the occasion, and gave a very interesting sketch of the life and labors of this noble man. After which they had a grand supper, and Lucy Stone replied to the toast, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... eternity. All that is greatest in king or kaiser exists in the poorest of his subjects; and the elements out of which the most delicate and even saintly womanhood is made exist in the commonest woman who walks the streets. The harp of human nature is there with all its strings complete; and it will not refuse its music to him who has the courage to take it up and boldly strike the strings. The great preacher is he who, wherever he is speaking, among high or low, goes straight for those elements which are common to all men, ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... of HARUN-UR-RASHID." Dear, dear, how interesting, now! and, BOBBY, what do you think someone says about "Jack and the Beanstalk"? He says—"this tale is an allegory of the Teutonic Al-fader, the red hen representing the all-producing sun: the moneybags, the fertilising rain; and the harp, the winds." Well, I'm sure it seems ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... knee-deep with the rushing cataracts of water which poured over her to windward, her canvas tugging at the stout spars until they bent and sprang like fishing-rods, and the wind singing through her tautly-strained rigging as through the strings of a gigantic Aeolian harp. The bearings of the chase were promptly taken by Mr Southcott, the master; and a single hour sufficed to show that we were not only fore-reaching, but also weathering upon her. By that time we had brought ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... slur tart cart bur furl star turf first curl gird jerk lard fern bird dart firm scar card char spar hurl lark hurt part arch turn blur purr pert spur hard barn darn carp herd dark burn term hark yard start shirt bark yarn harp sharp clerk skirt chirp park spark shark mark spurt third parch smart churn perch harm ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... Scald took his harp and sang, And loud though the music rang The sound of that shining word; And the harp-strings a clangor made, As if they were struck with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... standing on the threshold, gazed mournfully around him. Not an object in the room was missing. There, in the embrasure of the window, stood her harp; there, on the table, lay her books and drawings; and there, alas! hung the silver chandelier whose solitary light was to have guided him to his bridal. Every thing was there, as before, and yet nothing remained, for she, who had been the soul ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... thou hast seen His proudest temples sink into decay, Grim desolation and desuetude; The silent hush succeed the plaintive hymn, The anthem cease to swell in rhythmic praise, Or vaulted dome re-echo with the sound Of pipe, of organ, harp and dulcimer; The voice of sacerdotal eloquence Become as silent as the unborn thought; The fragrant perfume of the frankincense, The scent of swinging censor and of myrrh, Supplanted by foul odors of decay; The sacred flame extinguished ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... know the hallow'd gift of tongues Comes from the selfsame power that gives us breath: He binds and looseth them at his dispose; And in his name will Dunstan undertake To work this cure upon fair Honorea. Hang there, my harp, my solitary muse, Companion of my contemplation. [He hangs his harp on the wall. And, lady, kneel with me upon the earth, That both our ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... his youth-since its strength could no longer be serviceable to his country-books, his harp, and the sweet converse of his tender Marion, became the occupations of his days. Ellerslie was his hermitage; and there, closed from the world, with an angel his companion, he might have forgotten Edward was lord in Scotland, had not that which was without his little ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Stillness ethereal reign'd, and forth appear'd Elysian creatures robed in fleecy light, Together flocking from celestial haunts, And mansions of purpureal mould; the Host Of heaven assembled to adore with harp And hymn, the First and Last, the Living God; They knelt,—a universal choir, and glow'd More beauteous while they breathed the chant divine, And Hallelujah! Hallelujah! peal'd, And thrill'd the concave ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... a hundred years are buried, In the endless sweep of ages, Nigh a total centenary Hangs its harp upon the willow, Since the rude log-cabin era, When the city on the hillside Was preempted by the stranger, By the stranger surnamed Paulding; Since the pioneer council Came to "Watty" Dunn's old spring, and Met in caucus and selected A foundation for their court-house: ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... made fast to the post, the former would certainly have pulled away from them or dragged them into the river. He lashes the water into foam, and bellows with rage, while they yell with delight and excitement. The stout post is shaken, and the Manila line hums like a harp-string. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... of animal preservation which interest me most are: The rapid decline in numbers of harp seals which we Northern people can get for our boots and clothing. This food and clothing supply, formerly readily obtainable all along the Labrador, helped greatly to maintain in comfort our scattered population. It is ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... behind his haunch, his two old shoes full of cold road-a-wayish water sousing about him, the tips of his two ears out through his old hat, his two shoulders out through his scant tattered cloak, and in his hand a three-stringed harp. ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... booths there was dancing to merry music, in others flowed ale and beer, and in others yet again sweet cakes and barley sugar were sold; and sport was going outside the booths also, where some minstrel sang ballads of the olden time, playing a second upon the harp, or where the wrestlers struggled with one another within the sawdust ring, but the people gathered most of all around a raised platform where stout ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... "you always have these words in your mouth, 'be honest.' Now, as, between ourselves, I do not think that either you or I are leading very honest lives, allow me to ask you why you continually harp upon honesty when we are alone? I can easily understand the propriety of shamming a little before ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... selecting one of hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, "Good! ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Frundsberg considered themselves badly treated by the authorities whom they had served so well, and Frundsberg even composed a lament on his neglect. This he loved to hear sung to the accompaniment of the harp as he swilled down his red wine. The cruel Markgraf Kasimir met a miserable death not long after from dysentery, whilst Cardinal Matthaus Lang, the Archbishop of Salzburg, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... each evening gathered around the cottage, the shadow over my life seemed to deepen and grow more gloomy. Outside the door I could hear the hum of the bees as they flew homeward, the wind-harp played in the yellow pines its softest, sweetest music, and I scented the odor of honeysuckles and roses far away. The rushing of the waters over the stones in the creek tinkled dreamily, but in the midst of all earth's loveliness I was desolate, ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... when I does discourse of things Most holy, to their tribe; What does they do?—they mocks at me, And makes my harp a gibe.' ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... What ere thou art, for thy good caution, thanks Thou hast harp'd my feare aright. But one ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... No discord in his harp, He made such sweetness I was discontent; He knew not the desire To rise from warmth to fire, And with his magic ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... our harp into your hand, The joyful strings, at your command, In doleful sounds no more shall mourn. We, with sincerity of heart, To all your tunes shall bear a part, Unless we ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... table—the fork was to come many long years later; golden ornaments were worn; and a variety of dishes were fashioned, often of precious metals, brass, and even bone. The bedstead became a household article, no longer looked upon with superstitious awe; and musical instruments—principally of the harp pattern—began to find favor in their eyes, and were passed round from hand to hand, like the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... standing on the grass-plot just before the window," said Mr. Aubrey: the tiny voices were thrilling his very heart within him. His sensitive nature might have been compared to a delicate AEolian harp which gave forth, with the slightest breath ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... a flood of crystal. Silent are they all and heedful While the leader on his tower stands, High amid the radiant brightness, Till his silver wand is raised; Then for music every trumpet, Every lute, and every timbrel, Every harp is strung and ready, And for songs wait all the voices. Lo! it falls, and floods melodious Flow from every voice united, Rise from every lute and timbrel, Stream from every harp and trumpet. Noble and majestic cadence, Full of might ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... was a neighbor who played upon the harp and sometimes let Nina go with him on his tramps, to sing and play upon her fiddle, but oftener forced her to go alone,—they earned more so, he said) had often told her about the Santa Maria and the Gesu Bambino. Oh, it was a beautiful story, and—ah! ah! of course ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... mind and matter—lo perpetual change— God's fiat—stamped! The very bones of man Change as he grows from infancy to age. His loves, his hates, his tastes, his fancies, change. His blood and brawn demand a change of food; His mind as well: the sweetest harp of heaven Were hateful if it played the selfsame tune Forever, and the fairest flower that gems The garden, if it bloomed throughout the year, Would blush unsought. The most delicious fruits Pall on our palate if we taste too oft, And Hyblan honey ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... and, aside from the freshness and fascination which this method gave his style, it enabled him to approach his subjects from many sides. The name of the imaginary society was the Davids-bund, probably from King David and his celebrated harp, or perhaps in virtue of David's victories over the Philistines ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... of black wood, sat the chief. Some females, evidently the ladies of his family, were seated on piles of sheepskins, and were plying their distaffs; while an aged man was seated on the end of the dais with a harp of quaint form on his knee; his fingers touched a last chord as Archie entered, and he had evidently been playing while the ladies worked. Near him on the dais was a fire composed of wood embers, which were replenished from time to time with fresh glowing pieces of charcoal ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... and all the Arvernians crowded to his feasts. Bituitus displayed before the Romans his barbaric splendor. A numerous escort, superbly clad, surrounded his ambassador; in attendance were packs of enormous hounds; and in front; went a bard, or poet, who sang, with rotte or harp in hand, the glory of Bituitus and of the Arvernian people. Disdainfully the consul received and sent back the embassy. War broke out; the Allobrogians, with the usual confidence and hastiness of all barbarians, attacked alone, without waiting for the Arvernians, and were beaten at ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... with short intervals to permit of more accurate recollection, good old Sammy opened to us vistas of unending fields of ice whereupon men slew the harp-seals, and pictured to us the manner in which the toll of death sometimes turns against the slayers. He also spoke of fishing schooners tossed by fierce gales, drifting by the side of mountainous bergs of ice rimmed with foam from the billows lashed in fury, and of seams that had opened ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... spell was working now; the poet's hand was sweeping, with a gust of power, that harp of a thousand strings, the wondrous human heart! And I again pursued, in suppressed tones of heart-felt emotion, the pathetic strain that he had evoked with an ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... tribute" received an ovation as it was borne up the aisle by four men, and hauled up on to the stage by a man who came from the side scenes. It was a harp made entirely of flowers, about six feet high. It made quite a screen for me as I went in and out. The card of the harp was brought to me, and I read, "H. P. Stalton, 'Asleep in Jesus,' North Conway." I had no idea what it meant, but mama remembered that some years ago, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... harp as it lists. It has its HIGH NOTES, its LOW NOTES, its heavy notes—and its faltering notes, in the end it is all the same to me provided the emotion comes, but I can find nothing in myself. It is THE OTHER who sings as he likes, well or ill, and when I try to think about it, I am afraid and ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... an innocent child, which made him gentle and amiable as a laughing maiden. Directly this gentleman joined her circle, and her eyes had rested upon him, Madame Imperia felt herself bitten by a strong desire, which stretched the harp strings of her nature, and produced therefrom a sound she had not heard for many a day. She was seized with such a vertigo of true love at the sight of this freshness of youth, that but for her imperial dignity ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... on his face, made him cautious, and restrained his eagerness; while excessive consciousness kept her cheeks dyed with blushes, and her nerves vibrating sweet, wild music, like the strings of some aeolian harp when swept by ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... forth the day before the day was born. So Hero's ruddy cheek Hero betrayed, And her all naked to his sight displayed, Whence his admiring eyes more pleasure took Than Dis, on heaps of gold fixing his look. By this, Apollo's golden harp began To sound forth music to the ocean, Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard But he the bright day-bearing car prepared And ran before, as harbinger of light, And with his flaring beams mocked ugly night, Till she, o'ercome with anguish, shame, and rage, Danged down ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... the staff of Saint Patrick was planted, Where the shamrock grows green from the cliffs to the shore, The land of fair maidens and heroes undaunted, Shall wreathe her bright harp with the garlands ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... opens when the two girls had finished their education and were living in luxury and enjoyment. The days and hours passed merrily by. They would read in the shade, play and sing on the harp, would paint or work at wool, and in the afternoon, when the burning sun had left the world to the shade of evening, they would drive out in a magnificent attelage to the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly |
