"Minstrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... land which was so much a woodland, that a minstrel thereof said it that a squirrel might go from end to end, and all about, from tree to tree, and never touch the earth: therefore was that ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... have set in, and our ancestors in hall or cottage assemble round the blazing hearth, and listen to the minstrel's lays, and recite their oft-told tales of adventure and romance. Sometimes they indulge in asking each other riddles, and there exists at the present time an old collection of these early efforts of wit and humour which are not of ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... free— While breaking away the heartstrings Of our nation's harmony. Sadly it floateth from us, Sighing o'er land and wave; Till, mute on the lips of the poet, It sleeps in his Southern grave. Spirit and song departed! Minstrel and minstrelsy! We mourn ye, heavy hearted,— But we ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... large tree and sings for half an hour together. The song is not one uninterrupted strain, but a repetition of short notes, "commencing loud, and rapid, and full, and by almost imperceptible gradations for six or eight seconds until they seem hardly articulated, as if the little minstrel were unable to stop, and, after a short pause, beginning again as before." Baskett says that in cases of serenade and wooing he may mount the tip sprays of tall trees as he sings and abandon all else to melody till the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... huissier, door-keeper, Fr. huis, door, Lat. ostium. I conjecture that Lusher is the French name Lhuissier, and that Lush is local, for Old Fr. le huis; cf. Laporte. Wait, corruptly Weight, now used only of a Christmas minstrel, was once a watchman. It is a dialect form of Old Fr. gaite, cognate with watch. The older sense survives in the expression "to lie in wait." Gate is the same name, when not ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... battle-field, like the vega of Granada, in which Christian and Pagan displayed the characteristics of their peculiar warfare; and many a deed of heroism was performed, which wanted only the song of the minstrel to shed around it a glory like that which rested on the last days of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... visited the tabooed clerk in his own room. Before he reached the door, he heard Specht's shrill voice singing the celebrated song, "Here I sit on the green grass, with violets around;" and looking in, he saw the minstrel, in poetical attitude, so enjoying his own melody, that he stood without for a few moments, not to disturb the inspiration. Specht's room was by no means large, and his invention had been exercised for years in giving it a special and distinguished character. Indeed, he had succeeded by ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... 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 ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... her want of practice since she left Edinburgh would be no obstacle to her success. To which Miss Devine replied, by asking him to name the window out of which she was to present her compliments to the English minstrel. "As to that, Betty," said he, "I leave you to select your own ground; but take care that you don't miss fire"—an observation which took the stable-boy, Bill Mack, by the greatest surprise, as, from Betty's powers of administration ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... 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 of all kinds will play such tricks upon us; but whether ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... this dandy in one's capacity of teacher of the mixed primary that very morning, when he had been given permission by Mr. Garvan to make an announcement at the school concerning special privileges granted school-children at the "high-class minstrel performance" given at Lally's Opera House. To be unhampered now by the timidities of office, and ready to pick up the gage of coquetry his saucy glance threw down. And so, after the smallest second's hesitation,—the ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... Pratt to me, "go in front of the curtain and make a rip-staving speech—I know you can do it. Say that at the urgent solicitation of the manager, you have consented to appear to-morrow night as Jem Baggs, in the Wandering Minstrel." ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... he hears it, it is a new world and a free country, and the gates of heaven are not shut against him.... It changes all hours to an eternal morning. It banishes all trivialness. It reinstates me in my dominion, makes me the lord of creation, is chief musician of my court. This minstrel sings in a time, a heroic age, with which no event in the ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... minstrel, the treasure of time; [10] A rainbow of rapture, o'erarching, divine; The God-given mandate that speaks from above,— No place for earth's idols, ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the coming time, Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, Good-bye! Good-bye!—Our hearts and hands, Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, Cry, God be with him, till he stands His feet among the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... care to defend himself. He had drifted up toward the northern barbarians with the idea that they would well reward a minstrel who could offer them something more than their own crude chants. It had been a mistake; they didn't care for roundels or sestinas, they yawned at the thought of roses white and red under the moon of Caronne, a moon less fair than my lady's eyes. Nor ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... 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, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... song ceased the fair form of May MacLeod appeared at the casement overhead, she waved a fond farewell to her mountain minstrel and closed the window; but the light deprived of her fair face had no charm for him—he gazed once more at the pane through which it beamed like a solitary star, amid the masses of foliage, and was turning away when he found a heavy hand laid ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... now between a year and two years old. On her mother's side she was of low birth. Major Bertram had married beneath him. He had fallen desperately in love with the beautiful daughter of a strolling minstrel. He had married her, found out his mistake when too late, but still, being a chivalrous and honorable man, had done his duty by his ignorant young wife; had never allowed her to guess at his feelings; and after her death had been filled with compunction for not ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... minstrel did not know how well off he was to have been without schooling. This, I think, every one feels at once to be poetry that sings itself. It makes its own tune, and the heart beats in time to its measure. By and by poets will begin to say, like Goethe, "I sing ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... and fifty years of age, is the type of the semi-broken-down showman. In the evolution of the theatrical business in America, the old circus and minstrel men have gradually been pushed aside, while younger men, with more advanced methods, have taken their place. The character is best realized by the way it is drawn ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... of song even unto the mute, he owes all his power and all his fame. It is the gift of Heaven that he is pointed out by the finger of the passer-by as the minstrel of the Roman lyre, that he breathes the divine fire and pleases men. But he is as perfectly appreciative of the fact that poets are born and also made, and condemns the folly of depending upon inspiration unsupported by effort. He calls himself ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... 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 ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... out of sand was a device by which Michael Scot baffled a devil for whom he had to find constant employment. (Cf. Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," and notes.) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... over the human element of the changed and modernised city. The twang of double-stringed lutes, the tinkle of metal tubes, and the elusive melody of silvery gongs, echo from the ages whence dance and song descend as an unchanged inheritance. An itinerant minstrel recites the history of Johar Mankain, the Una of Java, who shone like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought. In the intricate byways of the crumbling Kraton, a professional story-teller ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... fledgling," he said, half jesting, half in scorn. "But knowest thou, to fight in very earnest is something different than to read and chant it in a minstrel's lay? Better hie thee back to Florence, boy; the mail suit and crested helm are not for such as thee—better shun them now, than after they ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... such an accomplished poet as Raymond of Toulouse must be admitted to the contest. "But, at all events," she told her sisters, "that renowned minstrel shall bring no polished work of long study to match against the untutored outpourings of my favourite's heart. Already have I ordained, with my assistant judges, that since some one of the contestants may be tempted to present a poem not his own, plagiarism shall be counted the one unpardonable ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... seeming beggar answers with his prayers: "Bless'd be Telemachus! in every deed Inspire him. Jove! in every wish succeed!" This said, the portion from his son convey'd With smiles receiving on his scrip he laid. Long has the minstrel swept the sounding wire, He fed, and ceased when silence held the lyre. Soon as the suitors from the banquet rose, Minerva prompts the man of mighty woes To tempt their bounties with a suppliant's art, And learn the generous from the ignoble heart (Not but his soul, resentful as humane, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Review" was begun in 1802, and Scott soon became a contributor of critical articles for his friend Mr. Jeffrey, the elder. His chief work was now on "Sir Tristram," a romance ascribed to Thomas of Ercildoune; but "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" was making progress in 1803, when Scott made the acquaintance of Wordsworth and his sister, under circumstances described by Dorothy Wordsworth in her Journal. In the following May, he took a lease of the house of Ashestiel, with an ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... 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 ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... pages of 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
... also said of Aldhelm, one of the leading scholars of the 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 of melody to verse. No nation is destitute of lyric poetry. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... a guitar, and lolling against the old marble fireplace, in an attitude which I am half inclined to suspect was studied, began the little French air of the Troubadour. The Squire, however, exclaimed against having anything on Christmas eve but good old English; upon which the young minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment, as if in an effort of memory, struck into another strain, and, with a charming air of gallantry, gave Herrick's ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... orbs sparkled and gleamed like fairy lamps of fire; and the bowers, in which the "Sultana of the Nightingale" inspired a song from her minstrel lover, assumed the dream-like repose which pervaded the surrounding scenes, and extended its influence to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... smiled. 'The 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
... had perched on its crown, and wild boars fed without fear of man upon its acorns. Troubadours had sung beneath it to lords and ladies seated round, or walking on the grass and commenting the minstrel's tales of love by exchange of amorous glances. Mediaeval sculptors had taken its leaves, and wisely trusting to nature, had adorned churches with those leaves ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... one focus, and pointed and irradiated by the power of genius. As Scott, while carelessly galloping in his youth through Liddesdale, and listening to ballads and old-world stories, was "making himself" into the mighty minstrel of the border—so this big, clumsy, overgrown student, seated in the pit of Drury Lane, or exalted to the one-shilling gallery of Covent Garden, was silently growing into the greatest poet of the stage that, perhaps, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Dowie Dens of Yarrow and the lamented drowning of Willie there have given the stream its 'pastoral melancholy,' and engaged Wordsworth in the renown of the water. For the poetry of Tweed we have chiefly, after Scott, to thank Mr. Stoddart, its loyal minstrel. "Dearer than all these to me," he says about our ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... ancient hemlock wood, in whose cathedral aisles the coolness and freshness seems perennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strain so rapid and gushing, and touched with such a wild, sylvan plaintiveness, that I listened in amazement. And so shy and coy was the little minstrel, that I came twice to the woods before I was sure to whom I was listening. In summer he is one of those birds of the deep northern forests, that, like the speckled Canada warbler and the hermit thrush, only ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... startling paradoxes of thought and personal appearance. I have seen bearing a keg a porter who could speak Latin fluently. I have been in a beer-shop kept by a man who was distinguished in the Frankfurt Parliament. I have found a graduate of the University of Munich in a negro minstrel troupe. And while mentioning these as proof that Breitmann, as I have depicted him, is not a contradictory character, I cannot refrain from a word of praise as to the energy and patience with which the German "under a cloud" in America ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... George Clark, the celebrated negro minstrel, that, being examined as a witness, he was severely interrogated by the attorney, who wished to break down his evidence. "You are in the negro minstrel business, I believe?" inquired the lawyer. "Yes, sir," was the prompt reply. "Isn't ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... strangely confused. And then men of more thought or intelligence, looking more deeply into it, began to consider that the phrase did in very truth express far more serious facts. As in an old Norman tale, he who had entered as a jester or minstrel in comic garb, laid aside his disguise, and appeared as a wise counsellor or brave champion who had come to free the ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of nature, however, in which Dorothea found inspiration. A harp of a single string, she sang as that minstrel might who was implored to make ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... yet—for 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
... pearl trousers, fancy vest—all were black as ink. Hawkins' classic countenance had fared no better. His lips showed some slight resemblance of redness, and his eyes glared wonderfully white; but the rest of his face might have been made up for a minstrel show. ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... Pope's Iliad contains more inaccuracies than can be found in all the Excursion. There is not a single scene in Cato, in which all that conduces to poetical illusion, all the propriety of character, of language, of situation, is not more grossly violated than in any part of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. No man can possibly think that the Romans of Addison resemble the real Romans so closely as the moss-troopers of Scott resemble the real moss-troopers. Wat Tinlinn and William of Deloraine are not, it is true, persons of so much dignity as Cato. But the dignity ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... left, that is, to the ladies' or gentlemen's dressing-rooms, and the stream began to slacken a little, so that they could distinguish individuals, Mr. Joy in turn received and passed a "puritan preacher," a "cavalier soldier," a "Highlander," a "knight," a "minstrel," the "vailed prophet," a "Switzer," a "Chinese mandarin," a "Russian serf," and black, white, and gray, red, yellow, and blue ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... be anything very bad at your age. Have you got into a mess with a girl? Or'—he brightened up at the guess—'are you hopelessly enamoured of the beautiful Finola? That would be most suitable. The bold, bad woman sends the minstrel boy to his death, with his wild harp slung behind him. I could draw tears from the stoniest-hearted elder ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... at a humorous story. His tower-like head and thin, white hair marked him out among a thousand, while any one might swear to his voice again who heard it once, for it had a touch of the lisp and the burr; yet, as the minstrel said, of Douglas, 'it became him wonder well,' and gave great softness to a sorrowful story: indeed, I imagined that he kept the burr part of the tone for matters of a facetious or humorous kind, and brought out the lisp ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... turned from her lover's side and looked out over the courtyard of the castle. Beneath her she saw the cobble-stones all scratched and marred with gray bruises from the horses' hoofs, a faded purple ribbon dropped from the mandolin of a minstrel, three slightly imperfect wassails and a trencher with a nick on the rim, all that had not been used of the wild boar at last night's feast, a peach-stone like a wrinkled almond nestling in a sardine tin. Slowly she ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... completion of the banquet, the minstrel strung his ancient harp, and soon the company tripped lightly on the oaken floor, till the rafters rang with the merry sounds of their midnight revelry. For three days and nights the hunt and the feast continued, and as, at last, the revelries drew to a close, still four dark chieftains ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... reappear. The hiatus afforded a peg from which much unprofitable speculation was suspended. The argument most plausible was that he went home, while one romantic youth suggested a girl. The accusation was never repeated. What? The "Lord" a ladies' man? Tut! One would as soon expect a statue to drill a minstrel show. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... 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 Gorsedd gown— The half of the town Up the ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... number on the same bill reads: "The African Wonder, Carlo Alberto, will sing several new and popular Negro melodies." Collectors of minstrel data ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... accounts of their achievements. But soon a greater amount of leisure and luxury led them to pay for amusement; professed musicians and story-tellers were introduced, and were classed with the ministri or servants, whence came the name minstrel, which was soon confined to them alone. We find Talliefer going before William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings chanting the brave deeds of Charlemagne and making a display of skill in tossing and catching his sword and spear. This union of tricks and music became ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... — N. musician, artiste, performer, player, minstrel; bard &c (poet) 597; [specific types of musicians] accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer^, trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in another village, that other great peasant, Mistral, the singer of Provence, the poet of love and joy, the minstrel of rustic labour and antique faiths, was pursuing, amid the homage of his apotheosis, the incredible ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... manuscript is at Oxford, and the last line has been supposed to give the author's name—Touroude (Latinised "Turoldus")—but this may have been the name of the jongleur who sang, or the transcriber who copied. The date of the poem lies between that of the battle of Hastings, 1066, where the minstrel Taillefer sang in other words the deeds of Roland, and the year 1099. The poet was probably a Norman, and he may have been one of the Norman William's followers in the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... as diverse in kind, as comprehensive in scope, as those of the most versatile negro minstrel. He cuts as many capers in a lifetime as there are stars in heaven or grains of sand in a barrel of sugar. Everything is fish that comes to his net. If a discovery in science is announced, he will execute you an antic upon it before it gets fairly cold. Is a new theory advanced-ten to one while ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... on the scenery of that now noted district of the south of Scotland, blended with the graceful expression of those melancholy remembrances, we doubt not deeply felt, which must ever cast a dark shadow over the minds of the surviving associates of the Great Minstrel. Alas! where can we turn ourselves without being reminded of the transitory nature of this our low estate, of its dissevered ties, its buried hopes, and lost affections! How many bitter endurances, reflected from the bosom of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... not so," answered Froda, his eyes sparkling with happiness. "For well I know that she scorns not my service; she has even deigned sometimes to appear to me. Oh, I am in truth a happy knight and minstrel!" ...
— Aslauga's Knight • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... looked upon a lark in a cage, and heard him trilling out his music as he sprang upwards to the roof of his prison, but we felt sickened with the sight and sound, as contrasting, in our thought, the free minstrel of the morning, bounding as it were into the blue caverns of the heavens, with the bird to whom the world was circumscribed. May the time soon arrive, when every prison shall be a palace of the mind—when we shall seek ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... minstrel sat in his lonely room, Its walls were bare, and the twilight grey Fell and crept and gathered to gloom; It came like the ghost of the dying day, And the chords fell hushed and ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... believe it is characteristic of our season alone. You may be sure April has really come when this little amphibian creeps out of the mud and inflates its throat. We talk of the bird inflating its throat, but you should see this tiny minstrel inflate its throat, which becomes like a large bubble, and suggests a drummer- boy with his drum slung very high. In this drum, or by the aid of it, the sound is produced. Generally the note is very feeble at first, as if the frost was not yet all out of the creature's throat, and only one ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... dining-room 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 ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... Bay of Biscay," "Nelson," under various vocal aspects, as exhibited by the late Braham—these were the songs in which the roaring concertina and strident tenor of Gustus Junior exulted together. "Tell me when you're tired, ladies and gentlemen," said the minstrel solicitor. "There's no conceit about me. Will you have a little sentiment by way of variety? Shall I wind up with 'The Mistletoe ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... 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 morning. They sing with a certain lustiness and Bacchic glee; the volume ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pilgrims who come every year are attracted by this alone, since the abbey had no extraordinary history and no tomb of king or hero is to be found in its precincts. Were it not for the weird interest which the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" has thrown around Melrose, its fame would probably be no greater than that of the abbeys of Jedburgh and Kelso in the same neighborhood. Abbottsford House is only three miles from Melrose, but it is closed to visitors after five o'clock and we missed a second visit, which we should have liked ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... formed and good-looking negroes, caused the spectator to fancy himself in the presence of the famous band of Christy, or some other company of white Ethiopian serenaders. Soon, the opera glass revealed the amusing fact, that, although every minstrel was by nature as black as black could be, yet all the performers had given their faces a coating of burnt cork, in order that their resemblance to Yankee minstrels might be in every respect complete. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to be the simple commoner. Dull at the Chateau! Good Lord! don't I know it!" He paused, lifting his head with a quick, bird-like motion: a cunning smile wrinkled his face and he smote the table with his open hand. "Dull, are they? There, my hedge-minstrel from Valmy, is your welcome ready made. Bring your lute and make pretty Ursula's grey eyes dance to a love song, prude that ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... Thou minstrel of the sunny air, Thy vocal fount is rich with song, And fragrant breezes softly bear Its silver ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... were ordinary nice young clerks, but on becoming better acquainted you would notice certain peculiarities, a looseness of mouth, a restless, nervous inquietude of manner, an indescribable gleam of the eye. They were very fond of performing and singing at amateur minstrel shows and developed a certain comic vein they thought original, though it reminded me of professional corner-men. However, I enjoyed their singing and drinking habits and went to their lodgings several nights to play cards, drink beer, and tell funny stories. One night they asked me to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... offices and the stables were all represented by a row of penthouses and sheds behind the main building. Here lived Charles the page, Peter the old falconer, Red Swire who had followed Nigel's grandfather to the Scottish wars, Weathercote the broken minstrel, John the cook, and other survivors of more prosperous days, who still clung to the old house as the barnacles to some wrecked and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... theatre, very prettily decorated with flags and Japanese lanterns. On a throne covered with the Union Jack, Muriel was seated, the two pugs being on footstools on either side of her to represent lions couchant. Some of the men had blackened their faces, and gave us a really very excellent Christy Minstrel entertainment, in which undreamed-of talent came to light. It is very odd and interesting how one is perpetually finding out something new about the men. Some of the crew we thought the most unpromising when we started, have turned out among our best men, always ready and willing ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... 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 ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... 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 ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... his hand addrest; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best; They would have thought who heard the strain 85 They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round: 90 Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... and came to the seaport, and dwelt with a poor woman thereby. Then took she a certain herb, and therewith smeared her head and her face, till she was all brown and stained. And she had a coat, and mantle, and smock, and breeches made, and attired herself as if she had been a minstrel. So took she the viol and went to a mariner, and so wrought on him that he took her aboard his vessel. Then hoisted they sail, and fared on the high seas even till they came to the land of Provence. And Nicolette went forth and took the viol, and went playing through all the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... to recognise the magnetic influence." Chopin's place among the great pianists of the second quarter of this century has been felicitously characterised by an anonymous contemporary: Thalberg, he said, is a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a sibyl, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... 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," he whispered, "are ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... strange thing to know nothing; for instance, to live in London and to have no notion of the House of Commons, nor indeed of the Queen, except perhaps that she is a rich lady; the police—yes, you knew what a policeman was because you used to be sent to fetch one to make an organ-man or a Christy minstrel move on. To know of nothing but a dark kitchen, grates, eggs and bacon, dirty children; to work seventeen hours a day and to get cheated out of your wages; to answer, when asked, why you did not get your wages or leave if you weren't ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... do, Hugh," chattered the other, for his teeth were rattling together in a way that reminded Hugh of the "Bones" at the end of a minstrel line; if he had ever seen a Spanish stage performance he would have said they made a sound like castanets in the hands of the senorita who gave the national ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... beauteous 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 is the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... often copious and energetic language: but they have no scientific grammar, no definitions of nouns and verbs, no names for declensions, moods, tenses, and voices. Rude societies have versification, and often versification of great power and sweetness: but they have no metrical canons; and the minstrel whose numbers, regulated solely by his ear, are the delight of his audience, would himself be unable to say of how many dactyls and trochees each of his lines consists. As eloquence exists before syntax, and song before prosody, so government may exist in a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... paper. Everybody laughed at the rumour; but everybody remembered it. The land was infinitely remote; and then, as now, romance increases as the square of the distance. There might well be gold there; but more authentic were the reports of fleas, rawhides, and a dried-up coast. Minstrel shows made a good deal of fun of it all, I remember. Then, when we were of a broad grin, came the publication of the letter written by Governor Mason to the War Department. That was a sober official document, and had to be believed, but it read like ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... since, while strolling through the woods, my attention was attracted to a small densely-grown swamp, hedged in with eglantine, brambles, and the everlasting smilax, from which proceeded loud cries of distress and alarm, indicating that some terrible calamity was threatening my sombre-colored minstrel. On effecting an entrance, which, however, was not accomplished till I had doffed coat and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to the thorns and brambles, and, looking around me from a square yard of terra firma, I found myself the spectator of a loathsome ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... and celebrated minstrel, led away by an exaggeration of healthy human desires, has left his friends and gone to live with Venus in the Hoerselberg. He soon tires of her; she tries to keep him; he calls on the Virgin; the hallucinatory dream is shattered, and ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... of Israel have been pent up in cities," it ran. "The stuffy synagogue has been field and forest to them. But then there is more beauty in a heaven visioned by a congregation of worshipers than in the bluest heaven sung by the minstrel of landscapes. They are not worshipers. They are poets. It is not God they are speaking to. It is a sublime image. It is not their Creator. It is ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Kames. Political Economy: Adam Smith. Ethics: Paley, Smith, Tucker. Metaphysics: Reid. Theological and Religious Writers: Campbell, Paley, Watson, Newton, Hannah More, and Wilberforce. Poetry: Comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan; Minor Poets; Later Poems; Beattie's Minstrel; Cowper and Burns. 5. The Nineteenth Century. The Poets: Campbell, Southey, Scott, Byron; Coleridge and Wordsworth; Wilson, Shelley, Keats; Crabbe, Moore, and others; Tennyson, Browning, Procter, and others. Fiction: the Waverley and other Novels; Dickens, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... programme, scrawled in huge, black-paint characters on a white planed board, hung where everyone could read it. There were comic songs and Christy Minstrel choruses by people who had developed vocal talent for this occasion only, and a screaming display of conjuring tricks by an amateur of legerdemain who had forgotten the art, if ever he had mastered it. At every new mistake or blunder, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... pilgrims' tents, rose the terraced hills, the stately palaces, and massive bulwarks of Israel's capital. The daughter of Zion seemed in her pride to say, "I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow;" as lovely then, and deeming herself as secure in Heaven's favor, as when, ages before, the royal minstrel sung, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, ... the city of the great King."(2) In full view were the magnificent buildings of the temple. The rays of the setting sun lighted up the snowy whiteness of its marble walls, and gleamed ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... a minstrel, and travelled to Durham, where King Edward held his court, and where young Bruce, taken captive, was now confined. By making himself known to the Earl of Gloucester, Wallace was able to gain access to Bruce, whose father was now ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... grin as well as other monkeys in cap and jerkin. You're a minstrel or a mountebank, I'll be sworn; you look for all the world as silly as a tumbler when he's been upside down and has got on his heels again. And what fool's tricks hast thou been after, Tessa?" she added, turning to her daughter, whose frightened ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... as it was important to know how numerous those pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified, KING ALFRED, being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man or minstrel, and went, with his harp, to the Danish camp. He played and sang in the very tent of GUTHRUM the Danish leader, and entertained the Danes as they caroused. While he seemed to think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their tents, their arms, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... Never-ending Quest, And Minstrel of the Unfulfilled Desire; For ever tuning thy frail earthly lyre To some unearthly music, and possessed With painful passionate longing to invest The golden dream of Love's immortal fire In mortal robes of beautiful attire, And fold perfection ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... connections he is of the Imperial party—a Ghibellin; but, studying the position of affairs, he becomes convinced that the cause of the Pope is one with the cause of the people. At this moment vast possibilities of political power suddenly widen upon his view; Sordello, the minstrel, a poor archer's son, is discovered to be in truth the only son of the great Ghibellin chieftain, Salinguerra; he is loved by Palma, who, with her youth and beauty, brings him eminent station, authority, and a passion of devoted ambition on his behalf; ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... haunting stuff, absolutely poetic, original, imaginative, passionate, and spiritual. Those who do not consider it crazy may well consider it inspired. Coming after the trite and decorous verse of most of our decorous poets, this poet seems like a minstrel of Provence at a suburban musical evening.... The unseizable magic of poetry is in the queer paper volume, and words are no good ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... Christian hymns. But Bodo loved them, and so did Bodo's betters; the Church councils had sometimes even to rebuke abbots and abbesses for listening to their songs. And the worst of it was that the great emperor himself, the good Charlemagne, loved them too. He would always listen to a minstrel, and his biographer, Einhard, tells us that 'He wrote out the barbarous and ancient songs, in which the acts of the kings and their wars were sung, and committed them to memory';[17] and one at least of those old sagas, which he liked men to write down, has been preserved on ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... It is immortalized in the Nibelungenlied in the person of "Volker von Alzeie,'' the warrior who in the last part of the epic plays a part second only to that of Hagen, and who "was called the minstrel (spilman) because he could fiddle.'' It became an imperial city in 1277. In 1620 it was sacked by the Spaniards and in 1689 burnt by the French. Annexed to France during the Napoleonic wars, it passed in 1815 to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... assembling for banquets and receiving rewards of rings at the hand of the king. These conventional phrases and situations, added to a thorough knowledge of a large number of old Germanic myths, constituted a great part of the equipment of the typical Old English minstrel or scop, such as one finds described in Widsith ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... is the minstrel's Fatherland? 'Tis where the spirit warmest glows, Where laurels bloom for noblest brows, Where warlike hearts the truest vows Swear, lit by friendship's holy brand; There was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... to hear, for Aladdin's fame as a maker of songs had spread over the whole army, and he was called the Minstrel Major. He felt his audience and sang louder. The very sick man turned a little so that he, too, could hear. Only the occasional striking of a match or the surreptitious drawing of a cork interrupted. The ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... fairy melody comes wafted on the gale— Oh! 'tis "Fenella's" sighing lute, in notes of woe and wail: "Claud Halero" catches at the strain, and mourns the minstrel gone, "His spirit rest in peace where sleeps the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... going to be paid. When we open our new and wonderful gym, containing all sorts of up-to-date appliances for physical development, there will be no debt hanging over our heads. We figured on having to give all sorts of entertainments the coming winter, from basket-ball matches to minstrel performances, in order to raise funds to help out; but now we can devote our time to having all the fun going. You also remember the big promise several of the mill- owners made, led by Mr. ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... along the sand-hills. He saw what looked like the momentary and waving figure of the nigger minstrel, and then he saw a heavy running policeman take the turn of the sand-hill with the smooth ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... in Notes on the Months, p.418, the Song "Bryng us in good ale," copied from the MS. song-book of an Ipswich Minstrel of the 15th century, read by Mr Thomas Wright before the British Archological Association, August, 1864, and afterwards published in The Gentleman's Magazine. P.S.—The song was first printed complete in Mr Wright's edition of Songs & Carols ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... sackcloth with a girdle of rope about his loins. Thus apparelled he climbed on foot to the holy mountain of La Verna, above the Val d'Arno, which mountain the Count Rolando of Montefeltro had given, many years before, to St. Francis the minstrel of God and his poor little disciples of the cross, for a refuge and a sanctuary near the sky. At the door of the Friary built upon the land of his forefathers the Count Angelo ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... of Denmark comes, the Royal Bride! O loveliest Rose! our paragon and pride— Choice of the Prince whom England holds so dear— What homage shall we pay To one who has no peer? What can the bard or wildered minstrel say More than the peasant who on bended knee Breathes from his heart an earnest prayer for thee? Words are not fair, if that they would express Is fairer still; so lovers in dismay Stand all abashed before that loveliness They worship most, but find no words to pray. Too sweet for incense! ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fleece on chin, sir? Needs Must she be fair: thou, wrapt in age's weeds, Whose blood, if time have touched it not and stilled, The sun's own fire must once have kindled,—thou Sing praise of soft-lipped women? doth not shame Sting thee, to sound this minstrel's note, and gild A girl's proud face with praises, though her brow Were bright as dawn's? And had her grace no name For men to worship by? ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... testimony. But the testifiers were, to use the old minstrel joke, backward in coming forward that evening. At an ordinary meeting, by this time, the shouts and enthusiasm would have been at their height and half a dozen Come-Outers on their feet at once, relating their experiences and proclaiming their ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... vassals. These include Jerry, the lively retainer, inherited from a long line of comic servants, of whom Sancho Panza is a famous example, and Higginson, a struggling poet, who in virtue of his office of minstrel, addresses the mob, beginning his harangue with the time-honoured apology: "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking." The story ends with the return of Cherubina to real life, where she is eventually restored to her father and to Stuart. The incidents, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... delighted to recognize a well-known face on the minstrel's shoulders, she hastened at the conclusion to give him her compliments. It was the young nobleman who had aided her flight with Clemenceau at Munich, and of whom she had not cherished a second thought! Better than ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... these wild days there is small time for man to work or for woman to weep, and those who would tell a tale must tell it quickly, lest the traveler be out of hearing before the song is ended, and the minstrel be left harping at the empty air and wasting his ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... day in summer, we were sitting in the Boomerang office, I and the city editor, and he was speaking enviously of my salary of $150 per month as compared with his of $80, and I had just given him the venerable minstrel witticism that of course my salary was much larger than his, but he ought not to forget that he ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... that, oft at summer midnight, there, When all is hushed and voiceless, and the air, Sweet, soothing minstrel of the viewless hand, Swells rippling through the aged trees, that stand With their broad boughs above the wave depending, With the low gurgle of the waters blending The rustle of their foliage, a light ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... a command," Rameses replied affably, for he was still holding Masanath's hand and therefore in high good humor with himself. "In truth he said the choice should be thine whether thou wilt or not. He would not insist that a nobleman become his minstrel. But more of this later; the gods ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the faithful stamp of cottage grouping, which distinguished the pencil of a Morland,—in the natural paintings of Crabbe. We have Catullus stealing from his couch, to breathe a new intonation into the harp of Moore; and last of all, we have the votaress of virtue and moral feeling, the Cambrian minstrel, Mrs. Hemans, making melancholy appear as delightful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... courtier's, toying with 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
... "famous colored philosopher of Atlanta, who is a fiction so founded upon fact and so like it as to have passed into true citizenship and authority, along with Bottom and Autolycus. This is all the more worth giving, since it is really negro-talk, and not that supposititious negro-minstrel talk which so often goes for the original. It is as nearly perfect as any dialect can well be; and if one had only some system of notation by which to convey the TONES of the speaking voice, in which Brer Remus and Brer Ab would ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... the Spring prepares: On the four winds are sped my couriers, For thee the towered trees are hung with green; Once more for thee, O queen, The banquet hall with ancient tapestry Of woven vines grows fair and still more fair. And ah! how in the minstrel gallery Again there is the sudden string and stir Of music touching the old instruments, While on the ancient floor The rushes as of yore Nymphs of the house of spring plait for your feet— Ancestral ornaments. And everywhere a ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... names. That which it has given to these "days of liberty" announces the ending of the feasts, and the month of fasting which should follow; carn-ival means, literally, "farewell to flesh!" It is a forty days' farewell to the "blessed pullets and fat hams," so celebrated by Pantagruel's minstrel. Man prepares for privation by satiety, and finishes his sin thoroughly before he begins ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... gave a cantata, sometimes a nigger-minstrel show. The year the interior of the town hall was changed, they took advantage of the time before either the first or second floor was laid, and attempted and achieved an indoor circus. And the year ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... strange contrast with the meditative quiet and lowly duties of these first years, came the crowded vicissitudes of the tempestuous course through which he reached his throne—court minstrel, companion and friend of a king, idol of the people, champion of the armies of God—and in his sudden elevation keeping the gracious sweetness of his lowlier, and perhaps happier days. The scene changes with startling suddenness to the desert. He is "hunted like a partridge ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... no manner of means. No minstrel tricks fotch him to the pass he was at. The hand of the Lord must have laid too heavy on him; no mortal ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... unlettered peoples and tribes have always shown and still show this universal characteristic. As far back as written records go we find stories; even before that time, they were handed down from remote generations by oral tradition. The wandering minstrel followed a very ancient profession. Before him was his prototype—the man with the gift of telling stories over the fire at night, perhaps at the mouth of a cave. The Greeks, who ever loved to hear some new thing, were merely typical of ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Valmiki, with a friend's delight, Graced Sita's offspring with each holy rite. Kusa and Lava—such the names they bore— Learnt, e'en in childhood, all the Vedas' lore; And then the bard, their minstrel souls to train, Taught them to sing his own immortal strain. And Rama's deeds her boys so sweetly sang, That Sita's breast forgot her bitterest ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart has ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... and persuaded the count to surrender the citadel of Toulouse to de Montfort and the papal legate. He travelled in Northern France in order to stir up enthusiasm for the crusade. The legend is related that, hearing one of his love songs sung by a minstrel at Paris, he imposed penance upon himself. He helped to establish the Inquisition in Languedoc, and at the Lateran council of 1215 was the most violent opponent of Count Raimon. To enter into his history in detail ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... has been termed a force, or mode of force, very much as if it were the heat, or light, or motion known to physics. And, in truth, ages before our era of scientific reductions, the energia—the vital energy—of the minstrel's song was undisputed. It seems to me, in spite of all we hear about materialism, that the sentiment imparting this energy—the poetic impulse, at least—has seldom been more forceful than at ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... take this pleasing minstrel by the scruff of his neck and say to him, 'Nice little ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... tears this final devotion may have caused to flow, come from other eyes than his own. And so, with gratulation void of all regrets, let us drink to the continued years, service, happiness of our strong and tender-hearted elder comrade, our white-haired minstrel, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... rich, you poor— What boon shall I confer and make secure? What gift? ask of me, poets, what you will And I will grant it—promise to fulfil." "A kiss," said Joss. "A kiss!" and anger fraught Amazed at minstrel having such a thought— While flush of indignation warmed her cheek. "You do forget to whom it is you speak," She cried. "Had I not known your high degree, Should I have asked this royal boon," said he, "Obtained or given, a kiss must ever be. No gift like king's—no kiss like that of queen!" ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... of 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
... hair and beard stream out behind, giving him a wild, weird aspect that was almost startling, as it helped to impress Max with a feeling of awe which fixed him to his chair. For if he dared to rise he felt that he would be offering a deadly affront to the old minstrel, one which, hot-blooded Highlander as he was, he might resent with his dirk, or perhaps do him a mischief in a more simple manner, by spurning him with his foot as he retreated—in ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Aldebaran began to taste the sweets of great achievement. His name was on the tongue of every troubador, his deeds in every minstrel's song. And though he travelled far to alien lands, scarce known by hearsay even to the folk at home, his fame was carried back, far over seas again, and in his father's court his name was spoken daily in proud tones, as they ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... if God decrees he must be lord of Spain, Shall witness that the Leonese were not aroused in vain; He shall bear witness that we died, as lived our sires of old, Nor only of Numantium's pride shall minstrel tales ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... of Europe to cut the trees; to build 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 ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... naturally receive a share of the minstrel's attention, and "Adam's Wail" before the gates of Paradise is often very touching. In a ballad from White Russia, Adam begs the Lord to permit him to revisit Paradise. The Lord accordingly gives orders to "St. Peter-Paul" to admit Adam to Paradise, to ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... 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
... this land; and all the English critics heap their honours on its brave old Simplicity: our national literary flag, which signalizes us while we float, subsequently to flap above the shallows. One may sigh for it. An ill-fortuned minstrel who has by fateful direction been brought to see with distinctness, that man is not as much comprised in external features as the monkey, will be devoted to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
