"Minstrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hastings may have arisen from a reporter's using the figurative expression that William the Conqueror "put his eye out." Nor, after reading the account of the landing of the Austrian children, can I believe the tale of the minstrel Taillifer who sprang into the water to lead the Normans in landing. And as for the time-honoured phrases, "Take away that bauble!" and "England expects every man to do his duty," I don't believe ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... sufficed of explanation: joy took the place of despair, exultation of tears, and the minstrel, Anselm, heard, with feelings of emotion difficult to describe, that the wretched man whom he had saved from starvation was the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... where you will, above or below, there is no human presence, only the earth and shaken forest. And right overhead the song of an invisible singer breaks from the thick leaves; from farther on a second tree-top answers; and beyond again, in the bosom of the woods, a still more distant minstrel perches and sways and sings. So, all round the isle, the toddy-cutters sit on high, and are rocked by the trade, and have a view far to seaward, where they keep watch for sails and like huge birds utter their songs in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eighth century: "He was an excellent harper, a most eloquent Saxon and Latin poet, a most expert chanter, or a singer, a doctor egregius, and admirably versed in scriptures and liberal sciences." The minstrel was a regular and stated officer of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Poetry is always the earliest form of literature; song the earliest form of poetry. The Muse adapts her lessons to the nation's infancy and adds the charm ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... way stopped at the gate of Abbotsford, and sent in my letter of introduction, with a request to know whether it would be agreeable for Mr. Scott to receive a visit from me in the course of the day. The glorious old minstrel himself came limping to the gate, and took me by the hand in a way that made me feel as if we were old friends; in a moment I was seated at his hospitable board among his charming little family, and here I have been ever since.... I cannot tell you how truly I have enjoyed the hours ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... evening; they had a minstrel show, with Kennicott surprisingly good as end-man; always they were encircled by children wise in the lore of woodchucks and gophers and rafts and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... be in your best voice: you're the minstrel of the Manor, you know, and be sure you have a pretty gown and a new ribbon. You must not be dressed in russet, though you are a singing-bird.' Or perhaps, 'It is your turn to be courted next, Tina. But don't you learn any naughty proud airs. I must have ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... door, and called out angrily to know what "that infernal noise" meant. The Count instantly got up from the piano. "Ah! if Percival is coming," he said, "harmony and melody are both at an end. The Muse of Music, Miss Halcombe, deserts us in dismay, and I, the fat old minstrel, exhale the rest of my enthusiasm in the open air!" He stalked out into the verandah, put his hands in his pockets, and resumed the Recitativo of Moses, sotto voce, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... music at hand. Now and then there would be a stately ball, with rich gowns and flashing jewels, and the grounds ablaze with lights, and a full orchestra, and special trains from the city. Or a whole theatrical company would be brought down to give an entertainment in the theatre; or a minstrel show, or a troupe of acrobats, or a menagerie of trained animals. Or perhaps there would be a great pianist, or a palmist, or a trance medium. Anyone at all would be welcome who could bring a new thrill—it mattered nothing at all, though the price might ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... monarch minstrel swept, The king of men, the loved of Heaven, Which Music hallowed while she wept O'er tones her heart of hearts had given,— Redoubled be her tears; its chords ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... ballads of Lachlin, the Raid of Dermid, the Battle of the Boyne, and in singing "My Pretty, Pretty Maid," or woodmen's "Come all ye's." His voice was unusually good, except at the breaking time; and any one who knew the part the minstrel played in Viking days would have thought the bygone times come back to see him among the roystering ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a little and came to a goodly cage, than which was no goodlier there, and in it a culver of the forest, that is to say, a wood-pigeon,[FN63] the bird renowned among birds as the minstrel of love-longing, with a collar of jewels about its neck marvellous fine and fair. He considered it awhile and, seeing it absently brooding in its cage, he shed tears and repeated ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... see clearly once more, I perceived that Gussie was now seated. He had his hands on his knees, with his elbows out at right angles, like a nigger minstrel of the old school about to ask Mr. Bones why a chicken crosses the road, and he was staring before him with a smile so fixed and pebble-beached that I should have thought that anybody could have guessed that there sat one ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... we had sighed for, where the weary voyageur could read the journal of some other sailor, whose bark had ploughed, perchance, more famous and classic seas. At the tables of the gods, after feasting follow music and song; we will recline now under these island trees, and for our minstrel call on ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... and launch boats; to sail them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell. None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great, impressive picture ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the Hutchinson family. It is mean and petty. Songs are the soul and life of the camp, and McClellan's heroic deeds have not yet found their minstrel. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... There was placed in charge of our division the most powerful plain-ranger in the service of the company, the one person of all others, who might control the natives in case of an outbreak—and that man was Cuthbert Grant. Pierre, the minstrel, and six clerks were also in the party; but what could a handful of moderate men do with a horde of Indians and Metis wrought up to a ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... only make out that it addressed the sensibilities of the auditors on the score of starvation; but by his side stalked the policeman, offering no interference, but watchful to hear what this rough minstrel said or sang, and silence him, if his effusion threatened to prove too soul-stirring. In my judgment, however, there is little or no danger of that kind: they starve patiently, sicken patiently, die ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... streams in my spirit I bear; Farewell, and a blessing be with thee, green land! On thy hearths, on thy halls, on thy pure mountain air, On the chords of the harp, and the minstrel's free hand, From the love of my soul, with my tears it is shed, As I leave thee, green land of ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... open and they passed into the hall and ascended the stairs to the Executive Chamber without challenge. Little Tad, the President's son, who ran the House to suit himself at times, was in his full dress suit of a lieutenant of the army and had ordered the guard to attend a minstrel show he was ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... "Minstrel," cried the fierce king, "sing us some stirring song of the days of old; plenty of the fire of the old ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... minstrel or pondering Poet her castle gate closes: Ever her kindly cheer—ever her praise sincere Falls like the dew on faint roses. And when her Pennillions rhyming She mates to her triple harp's chiming, In her green ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... blessed calm,— Deep dying melodies of even,— Those Nyack Bells; like some sweet psalm, They float along the fields of heaven. Now laden with a nameless balm, Now musical with song thou art, I tune thee by an inward charm And make thee minstrel of my heart. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... days. I doubt whether they had any more amusement than the swine or the cows had. Looking after the fowls or the geese, hunting for the hen's nest in the furze brake, and digging out a fox or a badger, gave them an hour's excitement or interest now and again. Now and then a wandering minstrel came by, playing upon his rude instrument, and now and then somebody would come out from Lynn, or Yarmouth, or Norwich, with some new batch of songs for the most part scurrilous and coarse, and listened to much less for the sake of the ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... table at one end of the room is the crowd of American students singing in a chorus. The table is full now, for many have come from dinners at other cafes to join them. At one end, and acting as interlocutor for this impromptu minstrel show, presides one of the best fellows in the world. He rises solemnly, his genial round face wreathed in a subtle smile, and announces that he will sing, by earnest request, that popular ballad, "'Twas Summer and the Little Birds were Singing in ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... charming poem: a most interesting story, generous, finely-drawn characters, and in many parts the finest poetry. But for an old prepossession—an unconquerable prepossession—in favour of the old minstrel, I think I should prefer this to either the Lay or Marmion. Our pleasure in reading it was increased by the sympathy and enthusiasm of ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... {90c} He had not raised the spear ere his blood streamed to the ground; {90d} This was the price of mead in the hall, amidst the throng; Hyveidd Hir {90e} shall be celebrated whilst there remains a minstrel. ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... composition even for its melody; and very few, indeed, can gather from the silent notes the full effect of its splendid combinations. Yet even here the great master has analogous compensations. The idle amateur, the boarding-school girl, the street minstrel, and the barrel-organ, reflect his more palpable beauties; and, subjecting them to the severe test of incessant reiteration, make us wonder that "custom cannot stale" the infinite variety that is shut up even in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... head as he struck the chords of his harp with a bold and vigorous hand. I learnt that they were uncle and niece. I shall not readily forget the effect of these figures, or of the songs which they sang; especially the sonorous notes of the mastersinger, or minstrel. He had a voice of most extraordinary compass. I quickly perceived that I was now in the land of music; but the guests seemed to be better pleased with their food than with the songs of this old bard, for he had scarcely received a half ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... "Yes, just that—their minstrel, you understand. And that's what my people were, 'way back, minstrels. All the way over on the ship, when the people were weeping for homesickness, or sitting dreaming about the new land, or falling sick, or getting wild and vicious, it was ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... thou! in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth,[k] Muse! formed or fabled at the Minstrel's will! Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,[l][20] Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred Hill: Yet there I've wandered by thy vaunted rill;[m] Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine,[1.B.] Where, save that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... you were a Donna of old Castile And a Troubadour were I, I'd sing at night beneath your room And weave you dreams in a minstrel's loom With rainbow tears and the roses' bloom And star-shine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... too shall be gone, but my name shall be spoken, When Erin awakes and her fetters are broken Some minstrel shall come in the summer's eve gleaming, When Freedom's young light on his spirit is beaming, And bend o'er my grave with a tear of emotion, Where calm Avonbui seeks the kisses of ocean, Or plant a wild wreath from the banks of that river, O'er the heart and the harp ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... "And the minstrel's harp shall sleep no more, but wake her boldest chords to welcome such a guest to Oakwood's aged ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... of Provence, father of Queen Margaret of Anjou (wife of Henry VI. of England). A minstrel-monarch, friend to the chase and tilt, poetry, and music. Thiebault says he gave in largesses to knights-errant and minstrels more than he received in revenue (ch. xxix.).—Sir W. Scott, Anne ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... country's minstrel! in whose crystal verse With tranquil joy we trace Her native glories, and the tale rehearse ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... our days of Fairy song and dance, it is not surprising that we are told that the beautiful Welsh melody, Toriad y Dydd, or the Dawn of Day, is the work of a Fairy minstrel, and that this song was chanted by the Fairy company just as the pale light in the east announced the approach of ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... to sing and play the harp at the feast of the installation of an abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury (1309). When the bishop of Winchester visited the cathedral priory of St. Swithin or Old Minster, a minstrel was hired to sing the song of Colbrond the Danish giant—a legend connected with Winchester—and the tale of Queen Emma delivered from the ploughshares (1338). Payments to minstrels were commonly made by monks: at Bicester Priory, for example (1431), and at Maxstoke, where mimi, joculatores, jocatores, ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... disarrange the careful adjustment of his eye-glass, or disturb the poise of his beaver: to ladies, on the contrary, he was all "effusion," as the French say, dashing off his hat as if he metaphorically flung it at their feet for a gage d'amour, not of battle—just like an Ethiopian minstrel striking the gay tambourine on his knee in a sudden flight of enthusiasm. All in all, Horner was essentially a ladies' man, his points lying in that way; and, although what is popularly known as "harmless," he ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the world he left When to that visionary realm of song His spirit fled from bonds of flesh bereft; And on the vision he lay musing long, As o'er his soul rude minstrel-echoes throng, Old measures half-disused; and grasp'd his pen, And drew his cottage-Christ for ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... every blossom find a voice, And sing a strain to me; I know where I would place my choice, Which my delight should be. I would not choose the lily tall, The rose from musky grot; But I would still my minstrel call The blue "Forget-me-not!" ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... accounts of quarrels and bloodshed, and that I might read no more of it unless I felt inclined. But I now did feel inclined very strongly, and read on with increasing astonishment and delight. I was intoxicated with the fiery narratives of the blind minstrel,—with his fierce breathings of hot, intolerant patriotism, and his stories of astonishing prowess; and, glorying in being a Scot, and the countryman of Wallace and the Graham, I longed for a war with the Southron, that the wrongs and sufferings of these ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Congo The Santa Fe Trail The Firemen's Ball The Master of the Dance The Mysterious Cat A Dirge for a Righteous Kitten Yankee Doodle The Black Hawk War of the Artists The Jingo and the Minstrel ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... the housekeeper of the lean man, who sat just in front of him, tells me what seemed to startle him the most. The first thing was when two of the officers came out with blackened faces like Christy minstrel boys and began to dance. Arick was sure that they were really black and his own people, and he was wonderfully surprised to see them dance this new European style of dance. But the great affair was the magic-lantern. The hall was made quite dark, which was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dear moon-of-my-delight—the probables, the possibles, the highly unlikelies, and the impossibles. Never an echo to the minstrel's wooing song. No, my dear, we have got to take to the boats this time. Unless, of course, some one possessed at one and the same time of twenty thousand pounds and a very confiding nature happens to drop ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... get my mind on my work, and something—anything, provided it is trivial enough—turns me aside. Just now I saw a spider-web, and that made me think of Bruce, and thence I went by way of Walter Scott to Palestine, and when I came to I was writing a song for—who was the minstrel?—to sing outside of the ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... or grass. It is called the Venus Mount. In this mountain dwells Lady Venus, one of the deities of the heathen times. She is also called Lady Holle; and every child in and around Eisenach has heard about her. She it was who lured Tannhauser, the noble knight and minstrel, from the circle of the singers of the Wartburg ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... what was then Cook's Court, and is now Chapman Place. Who Cook was I know not. The "Province Street" of to-day was then much more fitly called "Governor's Alley." For boys do not know that that minstrel-saloon so long known as "Ordway's," just now changed into Sargent's Hotel, was for a century, more or less, the official residence of the Governor of Massachusetts. It was ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... Thomas Percy, fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore. "The reviver of minstrel poetry in Scotland was the venerable Bishop of Dromore, who, in 1765, published his elegant collection of heroic ballads, songs, and pieces of early poetry under the title of 'Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry.' The plan of the work was adjusted in concert with Mr. Shenstone, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... and dun. I thought of the Sultan Gingerbeer, In his palace beside the Bendemeer, With his Afghan guards and his eunuchs blind, And the harem that stretched for a league behind. The tulips bent i' the summer breeze, Under the broad chrysanthemum-trees, And the minstrel, playing his culverin, Made for mine ears a merry din, If I were the Sultan, and he were I, Here i' the grass he should loafing lie, And I should bestride my zebra steed, And ride to the hunt of the centipede: While the pet of the harem, Dandeline, Should fill me a crystal bucket ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... there my steps have been; These feet have pressed the sacred shore; These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne— Minstrel! with thee to muse, to mourn, To trace again those fields of yore, Believing every hillock green Contains no fabled hero's ashes, And that around the undoubted scene Thine own "broad Hellespont" still dashes,— Be long my lot! and cold were he Who ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; Chiefs, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... indeed, silence was the better prayer, and this was the true explanation of the Talmudical saying: "If speech is worth one piece of silver, silence is worth two." And this, likewise, was the meaning of the verse in 2 Kings ch. iii. v. 15: "When the minstrel played, the spirit of God came upon him." That is to say, when the minstrel became an instrument and uttered music, it was because the spirit of God played upon him. So long as a man is self-active, he cannot receive the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... convent near Madrid, to save her from the persecutions of the clergy, who have been trying for reasons of their own to give the beautiful maiden to the King. Casilda confesses to her brother that she is in love with an unknown cavalier, who entertains a like passion for her, but Carlo, a poor minstrel, considers that his sister, a milliner, does not stand high enough in the social scale to permit a lawful union ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Richard Middleton The Passion-Flower Margaret Fuller Norah Zoe Akins Of Joan's Youth Louise Imogen Guiney There's Wisdom in Women Rupert Brooke Goethe and Frederika Henry Sidgwick The Song of the King's Minstrel Richard Middleton Annie Shore and Johnnie Doon Patrick Orr Emmy Arthur Symons The Ballad of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. Grief was our minstrel of things that endure. Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate. Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure. Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing. Now, we may win, but, O, where is the worth? Memory and true love," ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... of literary fame Parentage of Scott Birth and childhood Schooling and reading Becomes an advocate His friends and pleasures Personal peculiarities Writing of poetry; first publication Marriage and settlement "Scottish Minstrelsy" "Lay of the Last Minstrel;" Ashestiel rented The Edinburgh Review: Jeffrey, Brougham, Smith The Ballantynes "Marmion" Jeffrey as a critic Quarrels of author and publishers; Quarterly Review Scott's poetry Duration of poetic fame Clerk of Sessions; Abbotsford bought "Lord of the Isles;" "Rokeby" Fiction; fame of great authors ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... want to dance as I had never yet danced: beyond all heavens did I want to dance. Then did ye seduce my favourite minstrel. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... entertainment offered by Torsington-on-Sea must be further sought for from a donkey-chair, the donkey attached to which has many a long year ago lost what it ever possessed in the shape of "spirit," a cast-off Nigger Minstrel, with a concertina that is somewhat out of order, and a lovely "public-house" tenor, who is heard only after dark, but with a voice so sweet and true in tone, that one wonders how it is that instead of thrilling the High Street of Torsington-on-Sea for possibly the few ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... "I've got a minstrel company on the road, and wouldn't mind paying the traveling expenses of a smart boy who will distribute programmes and make ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... Street with Wallack's Theater, was a succession of more or less historic playhouses. At Eighth Street was the Old New York Theater; a few doors away was Lina Edwins's; almost flanking the cigar-store and ranging toward the south were the Olympic, Niblo's Garden, and the San Francisco Minstrel Hall. Farther down was the Broadway Theater, while over on the ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... 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 his flying fingers kissed the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round; Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... had played several selections the musicians moved up before a hastily constructed stage. Plays or musical farces, written and acted by cadets, are often presented. In Dick's plebe summer, however, the choice had been for a minstrel show. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... "Little minstrel-bard of Coneri The son of the King has come with two or three— Nay, with a whole bright flock of paroquets, Crimson, silver, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... longer flight, With folded arms upon her heart's high swell, Floating the while in circles of delight, And whispering to her wings a sweeter spell Than she has ever aim'd or dar'd before— Shall I address this theme of minstrel lore? To whom but her who loves herself to roam Through tales of earlier times, and is at home With heroes and fair dames, forgotten long, But for romance, and lay, and lingering song? To whom but her, whom, ere my judgment knew, Save but by intuition, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... princess, as the minstrel finished, rose slowly and tremulously from her cushions, and taking the blossom of a nettle from her bosom, placed it in the hands of the happy Acota, saying, with a great deal of piety, "It ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the heart thereof the pin of my girdle-buckle, and stroked it every morning with an oak-bough over which she had sung spells. But dost thou not remember, Gold-mane, how that one day last Hay-month, as ye were resting in the meadows in the cool of the evening, there came to you a minstrel that played to you on the fiddle, and therewith sang a song that melted all your hearts, and that this song told of the Wild-wood, and what was therein of desire and peril and beguiling and death, and love unto Death itself? Dost ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... not long in returning; he was followed by two men-at-arms, who held between them the discomfited minstrel. Envy alone could have described the lutanist as ill-favored; his close-fitting garb, wherein the brave reds of autumn were judiciously mingled, at once set off a well-knit form and enhanced the dark comeliness of features less French than Italian in cast. The young man now stood silent, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... jarl and hersir, while yet the world was young, And sagas of gods and heroes the grim-lipped minstrel sung, With the beak of his open galley in the sunset's scarlet flame, Over the wild ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... he might pattern after him to reach still greater heights of holiness. The same night an angel came to him and said, "If thou wouldst excel all others in virtue and sanctity, strive to imitate a certain minstrel who goes begging and singing from door to door." The hermit, much chagrined, sought the minstrel and asked him how he had managed to make himself so acceptable to God. The minstrel hung down his head and replied, "Do not mock me, holy father; I have performed ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... with Philip of France to keep Richard in prison while he got possession of the throne. It is not certainly known how the news of Richard's captivity reached England. One account relates that it was carried by Blondel, a minstrel who had accompanied the King to Palestine. He, it is said, wandered through Germany in search of his master, singing a song, which he and Richard had composed together, at every castle he came to. One day, as he was thus singing at the foot of a tower, he heard the well-known voice ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... chair, for the room had grown cold and his body ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone. Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from the other the two state drawing-rooms,—a broad half-story colonnade, with central opening and corners draped ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... how much people always remembered and thought of Alfred, by there being many more stories told of him than of almost any other of the old Kings. One story is that Alfred, wishing to know what the Danes were about and how strong they were, set out one day from Athelney in the disguise of a minstrel or juggler, and went into the Danish camp, and stayed there several days, amusing the Danes with his playing, till he had seen all that he wanted, and then went back without any one finding him out. This is ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... then, the fate of that high-gifted man, The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, The orator—dramatist—minstrel, who ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... does old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers, Raise a flame in the breast, for the war laurell'd wreath, Near Askalon's Towers John of Horiston[1] slumbers, Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... mark its operations, and, with the aged and infirm General Scott at the head of a little army, and no encouragement except from the Abolitionists, many of whom had never seen a colored man outside of a minstrel performance, the President stole incog. into Washington, like a man who had ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... and tears, in sun and showers, The minstrel and the heather, The deathless singer and the flowers He ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Then evening fell. He arose to go; and I agreed to drive him on his way. He demanded a pipe, and produced a package of very common shag. By great good luck my sexton had about him his own short black dudheen, which accordingly the Minstrel filled and fired. Wild language occupied the way, until we shook farewell at Combe. 'This,' said Tennyson, 'has indeed been a day to be remembered.'" Hawker had a presentiment that they would never meet again, and they never did, though Tennyson visited ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... plighted to sir John de Walton, governor of Douglas Castle. She first appears under the name of Augustine, disguised as the son of Bertram the minstrel, and the novel concludes with her marriage to De Walton, to whom Douglas Castle had been surrendered.—Sir W. Scott, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... will be led away from the bedside by the tenderness of neighbours, and the cries of the orphan brood will be stilled. And yet this present indubitable suffering and loss does not touch me like the sorrow of the woman of the ballad, the phantom probably of a minstrel's brain. The shoemaker will be forgotten—I shall be forgotten; and long after, visitors will sit here and look out on the landscape and murmur the simple lines. But why do death and dying obtrude themselves at the present moment? On the turret opposite, about the distance of a gun-shot, is ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... in the hall. And it was a hall, here, at Dapplemere, wide, and high, and with a minstrel's gallery at one end; a hall that, years and years ago, had often rung with the clash of men-at-arms, and echoed with loud, and jovial laughter, for this was the most ancient part ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... minstrel's song has charmed you: but I must remember what is right, for songs cannot alter justice; and I must be faithful to my name. Alcinous I am called, the man of sturdy sense; and Alcinous I will be.' But for all that Arete besought him, until she ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... dilapidated stone-wall,—a spot for all the world congenial to this tiny recluse, whose whole life, we may say, is one long game of hide-and-seek. Altogether the song was repeated twenty times at least, and to my thinking I had never heard it given with greater brilliancy and fervor. The darling little minstrel! he will never know how grateful I felt. I even forgave him when he sang thrice from a living bush, albeit in so doing he spoiled a sentence which I had already committed to "the permanency of print." Birds ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... Elf the minstrel, With womanish hair and ring, Yet heavy was his hand on sword, Though ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton
... by my bed, I looked out at it, and saw that I was high up; down in the street the people were going to and fro, and there was a knot of folks gathered about a minstrel, who sat on the edge of a fountain, with his head laid sideways on his shoulder, and nursing one leg on the other; he was singing only, having no instrument, and he sang the song I had tried to listen to, I heard some ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... you this second volume of "THE MODERN SCOTTISH MINSTREL," as a sincere token of my estimation of your long continued and most disinterested friendship, and of the anxiety you have so frequently evinced respecting the promotion of my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the waiting time with demanding "What is the matter?" with this or that favorite demagogue. In the sixties, it patly answered any problem. At the presidential election-time of Lincoln's success, a negro minstrel, Unsworth, was a "star" at "444" Broadway, dressing up the daily news drolly under this title—that is, ending each paragraph ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... leader; but his follower replied: "The money is not due till sunset, master, and Our Lady is true, and so is Sir Richard; have no fear." "Do you three walk up through the willow plantation to Watling Street, as you did last year, and bring me a guest," said Robin Hood. "He may be a messenger, a minstrel, a poor man, but he will come ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... his earlier years, Fraught with hot sighs, sad laughters, kisses, tears; Fresh-fluted notes, yet from a minstrel who Blew them not naively, but as one who knew Full well why ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... betrays some signs of the change referred to in that once familiar street song, which my friend, the great American surgeon, inquired for at the music-shops under the title, as he got it from the Italian minstrel, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of the little Norman chapel; for he was a puny, ailing child, apt to scandalize his father and brother, and their warlike retainers, by being scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest, and preferring the seat at this mother's feet, the fairy tale of the old nurse, the song of the minstrel, or the book of the Priest, to horse and hound, or even to the sight of the ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wine-filled cup, the rose, the minstrel; yet While we lack love, no bliss is here: where ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... spring? Can thy weak warbling dare approach the thrush Or blackbird's accents in the hawthorn bush? Or with the lark dost thou poor mimic, vie, Or nightingale's unequal'd melody? These other birds possessing twice thy fire Have been content in silence to admire." "With candor judge," the minstrel bird replied, "Nor deem my efforts arrogance or pride; Think not ambition makes me act this part, I only sing because I love the art: I envy not, indeed, but much revere Those birds whose fame the test of skill will bear; I feel no hope arising to surpass, Nor with their charming songs my own ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... no, you'll rather emulate The Minstrel Boy, and we shall find you Storming its barred and bolted gate With reams of lyrics slung ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... Bruce told her, "after the holidays we have entertainments at the Hall, and Dr. Dudley lets his boys give a minstrel show. We each have a dance during the winter—one at the Academy and one at the Hall; and if you know some of the boys beforehand it's lots easier to ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... pet sheep (many old people take delight in odd numbers); and to this may be added seven bonnet-pieces of Scottish gold, and a broadsword and spear, which their ancestor had wielded with such strength and courage in the battle of Dryfe Sands, that the minstrel who sang of that deed of arms ranked him only second to the Scotts ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... hall Shields gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrels all, Chanting his glory: When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter's hand, Mute did the minstrel stand To hear ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... close as we can," said Bunny. "Maybe if it's Fred we can tell, no matter if he is blacked up like a minstrel." ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... which her devoted knight had hitherto gazed on the beautiful features, and fair form, and lustrous eyes, of the lovely Rebecca; eyes whose brilliancy was shaded, and, as it were, mellowed, by the fringe of her long silken eyelashes, and which a minstrel would have compared to the evening star darting its rays through a bower of jessamine. But Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to retain the same class of feelings towards a Jewess. This Rebecca had foreseen, and for this very purpose she had hastened to mention her father's name ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... briskly or cleverly as Mr. Nash, but still well enough. Edward Davies, for instance, has quite clearly seen that the alleged remains of old Welsh literature are not to be taken for genuine just as they stand: 'Some petty and mendicant minstrel, who only chaunted it as an old song, has tacked on' (he says of a poem he is discussing) 'these lines, in a style and measure totally different from the preceding verses: "May the Trinity grant us mercy in the ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... Alfred, wishing to know the strength of the Danish camp, assumed the disguise of a minstrel, and stayed in the Danish camp for several days, amusing the soldiers with his harping and singing. After he had made himself master of all he required, he returned back to his own ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... with stern regard Upon the gentle minstrel bard, And said in tones abrupt, austere— "Why, Bracy? dost thou loiter here? "I bade thee hence!" The bard obey'd, And turning from his own sweet maid, The aged knight, Sir Leoline Led forth the ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... of a new-world minstrel, strayed from some proper habitat to that rude and dissonant America which, as Baudelaire saw, "was for Poe only a vast prison through which he ran, hither and thither, with the feverish agitation of a being created to breathe in a purer world," and where "his interior life, spiritual ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... with the Dante Alighieri face, guided by the pressure of Sam's knees, bore that wandering minstrel sixteen miles southeastward. Nature was in her most benignant mood. League after league of delicate, sweet flowerets made fragrant the gently undulating prairie. The east wind tempered the spring warmth; wool-white clouds flying in from the Mexican Gulf hindered the direct rays of the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... in the manner and for the purpose I have shown you. As I still believed you capable of remorse and confession, I twice allowed you to see I was on your track: once in the garb of an itinerant negro minstrel, and the second time as a workman looking in the window of the pawnshop ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... Tudors), restricted to the amusements of knight and noble, no doubt presented more of pomp and splendour than the motley and mixed assembly of all ranks that now grouped around the competitors for the silver arrow, or listened to the itinerant jongleur, dissour, or minstrel, or, seated under the stunted shade of the old trees, indulged, with eager looks and hands often wandering to their dagger-hilts, in the absorbing passion of the dice; but no later and earlier scenes of revelry ever, perhaps, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of our going home content, there we waited until the curtain went up. It was a dreary piece of business, varied by horse-play considered "kind o' rough" by even the more boisterous among us. Sometimes it was given, minstrel-wise, in the time-honored panoply of burnt cork; again, poor weary souls! they lacked even the spirit to blacken themselves, and clinging to the same dialogue, played boldly in Caucasian fairness, with ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... become, professionally, a creature of the night. He was abroad at the, same hours as the burglars and garroters, and other owls and weasels of society. Fink & Co. (Bog was the Co.) had secured the bill posting for three theatres and one negro-minstrel hall. This they called their heavy business. Carrying the huge damp placards, had already given to Bog's shoulders a manifest tendency to roundness, which he was constantly trying to overcome by straightening up. Fink, who was the veteran bill poster of the town, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... accents go straight to the heart through the ear, and whose simple severity never suffers us to mistake their meaning. But, besides these gods, there were heroes of the race whose fame and glory were in every man's memory, and whose mighty deeds were in every minstrel's mouth. Helgi, Sigmund, Sinfjoetli, Sigurd, Signy, Brynhildr, Gudrun; champions and shield- maidens, henchmen and corse-choosers, now dead and gone, who sat round Odin's board in Valhalla. Women whose beauty, woes, ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... role of regaling the blackbird, the minstrel of the forest, the Balaninus adds another—that of moderating the superfluity of vegetation. Like all the mighty who are worthy of their strength, the oak is generous; it produces acorns by the bushel. What could the earth do with such prodigality? The forest would stifle itself ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... take all the credit for evolving it, but I don't care! I've put our names down for a mandoline and guitar duet, and said we'd be ready to help with any accompaniments they like. Meg Howell just jumped at that. It seems Patricia Marshall and Clarice Nixon are going to sing a Christy Minstrel song, and she thought our instruments would add to the effect no end. I tell you we shall score. Did ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... which was maintained by the various military orders, who devoted themselves, in the bold language of the age, to the service "of God and the ladies." So that the Spaniard may be said to have put in action what, in other countries, passed for the extravagances of the minstrel. An example of this occurs in the fifteenth century, when a passage of arms was defended at Orbigo, not far from the shrine of Compostella, by a Castilian knight, named Sueno de Quenones, and his nine companions, against all comers, in the presence ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... sorrowing minstrel at the casement stands And bends before the sun that gilds his wires, And prays a blessing on his faltering hands, That they may serve his lady's ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... lengths in front she scours along, She's bringing the field to trouble; She's tailing them off, she's running strong, She shakes her head and pulls double. Now Minstrel falters and Exile flags, The Barb finds the pace too hot, And Toryboy loiters, and Playboy lags, And the BOLT of Ben Bolt ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... they hitched a kind of nigger minstrel show right on to it—banjos and thingumajigs in front of the curtain while they was changin' scenes, and they hitched the second act right on to that. Nobody come out of the theatre at all. Funny notion, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sun was hot, the minstrel (as surely he may be called who carries a musical box) was more than once in two minds about turning back. He perspired under his absurdly ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... arcade of two lancet apertures, supported by four columns of serpentine. Within the vestry is a two-light lancet window; and let into the eastern wall is a small slab, having four grotesque figures, one blowing a kind of bagpipe, the others dancing. This is said to have been a portion of a "minstrel pillar," it is apparently Saxon, and is probably a relic from the original fabric. The chancel arch is of red and black bricks, in alternate bands, the capitals nicely carved in stone, supported by small serpentine columns. ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... 10. Hans von Buelow's symphonic poem, "The Minstrel's Curse," given by the Symphony ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... who had a phenomenal memory, said that if all the copies of Milton's Paradise Lost were to be destroyed, he could reproduce the book complete, from memory. In early life he was a great admirer of Walter Scott's poetry, and especially the "Lay of the Last Minstrel", and could repeat the whole of that long poem, more than six hundred lines, from memory. And at the age of fifty-seven he records—"I walked in the portico, and learned by heart the noble fourth act of the Merchant of Venice. There are four hundred lines. I made myself ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... as a prisoner in one of his castles. Afterwards, the duke gave him up for a large sum of money to the Emperor of Germany. All this time Richard's wife and mother had been in great sorrow and fear, trying to find out what had become of him. It is said that he was found at last by his friend, the minstrel Blondel. A minstrel was a person who made verses and sang them. Many of the nobles and knights in Queen Eleanor's Duchy of Aquitaine were minstrels—and Richard was a very good one himself, and amused himself in his captivity by making ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge |
