"Flute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... company applauded, and Aristophanes[67] was beginning to say something in answer to the allusion which Socrates had made to his own speech, when suddenly there was a great knocking at the door of the house, as of revelers, and the sound of a flute-girl was heard. Agathon told the attendants to go and see who were the intruders. "If they are friends of ours," he said, "invite them in, but if not say that the drinking is over." A little while afterward they heard the voice of Alcibiades resounding in the court; he was in a great state ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... borrowed his description of the vocal organs from Ferrein, his notion of the mechanics of tone-production was very crude. "The air of the lungs operates on the larynx in singing exactly as it operates on the head of the flute." ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... if possible I disliked him more when he walked out of the house than when he walked in; though why I should have done so I do not know, for he was a harmless body. Perhaps it was because he played the flute, which I have always thought contemptible ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... in many different tones," said the Doctor. "The Thrasher's song is like some one talking cheerfully; the Meadowlark's is flute-like; the Oriole's is more like clarion notes; the Bobolink bubbles over like a babbling brook; while the dear little brown striped Song Sparrow, who is with us in hedge and garden all the year, sings pleasant ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... breast of the pretended sorceress, listening to her voice. The sacred writers speak of the charming of adders and serpents; and nothing, says he, is more notorious than that the eastern Indians will rid the houses of the most venomous snakes, by charming them with the sound of a flute, which calls them out of their holes. These anecdotes seem fully confirmed by Sir William Jones, in his dissertation on the musical modes of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... disaster of the "Aimable" affirm that she was wilfully wrecked, [Footnote: This is said by Joutel and Le Clercq, and by La Salle himself, in his letter to Seignelay, 4 March, 1685, as well as in the account of the wreck drawn up officially.—Proces verbal du Sieur de la Salle sur le naufraqe de la flute l'Aimable a l'embouchure du Fleuve Colbert, MS. He charges it, as do also the others, upon Aigron, the pilot of the vessel, the same who had prevented him from exploring the mouth of the Mississippi on the sixth of January. The charges are supported ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... Sometimes singing his own songs, or lending his aid in awaking to musical life the leaves and boughs of the trees; whistling melodies among the reeds; entering the recesses of a hollow column, and causing to issue from thence a pleasing, flute-like sound; blowing his quiet, soothing lays in zephyrs; or rushing around our dwellings, singing his tuneful yet minor refrain,—in these, and in even other ways, does this mighty element of the Creator contribute to the ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... envoy of the Duke of Ferrara, written on March 8. He wrote: "The comedy was recited and well acted, and at the end of each act there was an intermezzo with fifes, bag-pipes, two cornets, some viols, some lutes and a small organ with a variety of tone. There was at the same time a flute and a voice which pleased much. There was also a concert of voices which did not come off quite so well, in my opinion, as ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... and clear as the reed of a flute, but all sounds had the quality of music at that ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... violins, which can interpret their "eternal passion, eternal pain," so thrillingly? I never, I regret to say, heard the "Serenade" sung in a way which seemed to me adequate,—not to compare with the way in which Remenyi plays it. Those wonderful lyrical instruments the violin, the 'cello, and the flute have an almost exclusive right nowadays to some of the greatest songs. Few singers attempt the "Adelaide" or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... 't was like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, 365 That makes the heavens ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... litters, where, holding a mirror in their hands, and sparkling with ornaments and precious stones, they lay outstretched, nude, fan-carrying slaves standing by them, and surrounded by a swarm of boys, eunuchs and flute-players; ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... garden, which I sweated in heaps and then dried, obtaining thus a substitute for tobacco; so that what with Yram, the language, visitors, fives in the garden, smoking, and bed, my time slipped by more rapidly and pleasantly than might have been expected. I also made myself a small flute; and being a tolerable player, amused myself at times with playing snatches from operas, and airs such as "O where and oh where," and "Home, sweet home." This was of great advantage to me, for the people of the country were ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... floated up to us the tinkling of the samisens in the tea-houses; the high, sweet voice of a dancing girl as she sang the story of an old, old love; the sad notes of the blind masseur as he sought for trade by the pathos of his bamboo flute; the night-taps from the far-away barracks. Off to the west we could see the fast-disappearing lights of ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... instruments, so that he was glad to be freed from the fantastic humors of Furibon. One day as he was walking in the garden, finding the heat increase, he retired into a shady grove and began to play upon the flute to amuse himself. As he played, he felt something wind about his leg, and looking down saw a great adder: he took his handkerchief, and catching it by the head was going to kill it. But the adder, looking steadfastly in his face, seemed to beg his pardon. At this instant one of the ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... accomplished by a modification of force in striking the note—but to give the tones a darker, more sombre quality, or colour. To vary the tone-colour, a violinist or 'cellist draws the bow across the strings close to, or distant from, the bridge, in accordance with his desire for a reed-like or flute-like quality of tone. Anyone who has listened to the performance of the slow movement in Paganini's Concerto in D, by an Ysaye or a Mischa Elman, will have remarked how the skilful use of varied tone colour and other devices imparts ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... them till, as they neared the house-boat, the high, keen notes of a flute floated out upon the ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... faint, as if far away—a flute, then a clarinet, a trumpet, growing louder, nearer, deeper, heavier, the loud notes rolling like far-off thunder, then dying into melody as sweet as the song of a bird. Never had Robert heard any music so delightful. Looking towards the loft, he saw the gilded ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... of Aeolus" to be meant led Gray to insert this note: "Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments, [Greek: Aiolis molpe, Aiolides chordai, Aiolidon pnoai aulon], Aeolian song, Aeolian strings, the breath of the Aeolian flute." ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... in interesting King Frederick of Prussia in his new instrument to the extent of persuading him to purchase outright all he had finished. There were some fifteen of these, which were placed in the rooms at the palace. This demonstrates the King's love for music. He was a flute player of considerable ability. One of the court musicians was Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, son of the great master, and King Frederick had expressed a desire to hear the elder Bach play upon the new invention. For some time old Sebastian was obstinate and tartly ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... hired the bar-room to give a concert in, and pasted up written advertisements of his performance in various parts of the town. He sent free tickets to the preacher and schoolmaster, and the landlord's family went in for nothing. Nobody else came, though he played on the flute and harmonium, besides the dulcimer, and sang Lilly Dale, and Roll on, Silver Moon, so touchingly that the landlady wiped her eyes at their mere memory. As he had no money to pay stage-fare further, ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... every day Glaucon had to lead the sheep up to pasture on Mount Pelion, and watch them while they ate. There was nothing else to do, and he would have found the time very long, if he had not been able to play on a flute. So he played very often and very beautifully, as he sat under the trees and watched the wonderful blue sea afar ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... heard something,"—began Ned hesitatingly. He half turned his head towards Lilias, and then once more stared down at his plate, while she continued for him, in her sweet flute-like voice— ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to the firm ground. He would have restored the broken branch to the place from which it had been torn, but "everything in its place" cannot always be managed, and therefore he stuck the piece in the ground. "Grow and prosper till you can furnish a good flute for them up yonder," he said; for he would have liked to play the "rogue's march" for my lord the baron, and my lord's whole family. And then he betook himself to the castle, but not into the ancestral hall, he was ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Dream without thought of pain or heed of ill, Watching the long warm silent hours take flight, And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill, From the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill, Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering One to another glorying in ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... under the seditious pretext that the length of the Office of incensing was too long to be filled up entirely by singing, M. Widor, seated at his desk, rolled forth stale fragments of music splashed about above, imitating the human voice and the flute, the bagpipe and the bassoon, or indeed, tired of affectations, he blew furiously on the keys, ending by imitating the roll of locomotives over iron bridges, letting ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... the fifth, and Angel chanted in that flute-like treble of his, that made passersby ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... should often misunderstand its own strength, and seek it where it is weakest, is indeed no new phenomenon in its history. Frederick the Great prides himself more on his flute-playing than on his kingship; and it is not so very long ago that in our very midst a university professor called the happiest day of his life not that on which he discovered a new Greek particle, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... an orchestra, concealed behind the high altar, set up a tooting from bagpipes, and flute, and violin, which served as a prelude to the appearance of the shepherds, who ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... 'ee a great missment," Elias observed to him, after a pause. "The Psa'ms, these three Sundays, bain't what they was for lack o' your enlivenin' flute—I can't say they be. An' to hear your very own name called forth in the banns wi' Ruby's, an' you wi'out part nor ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gondolier, held their way alike to the common centre of amusement. The hurried air and careless eye; the measured step and jealous glance; the jest and laugh; the song of the cantatrice, and the melody of the flute; the grimace of the buffoon, and the tragic frown of the improvisatore; the pyramid of the grotesque, the compelled and melancholy smile of the harpist, cries of water-sellers, cowls of monks, plumage of warriors, hum of voices, and the universal movement ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... perpetual night. The wind scarcely swayed its dense and plumy branches. It merely turned up the silvery sides of the five-fingered clusters of needles which responded with a low melancholy voice like an aeolian harp, or those minor chords composed under its shade by my friend the Flute Player of Bellingham. In the woods when the pines sing it is not these I hear but the lone tree by the Barber mansion. It was the only tree in my reach I had never climbed. I was afraid of its dark mysterious recesses—also of ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... and antheming a lonely grief. Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find Many a fallen old Divinity Wandering in vain about bewildered shores. Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 10 And not a wind of heaven but will breathe In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; For lo! 'tis for the Father of all verse. Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue, Let the rose glow intense and warm the air, And let the clouds of even and of morn Float in voluptuous fleeces o'er the hills; Let the red wine within the goblet ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... lusty voice but mellow— Callow pedant! I began To instruct the little fellow In the mysteries known to man; Sung the noble cithern's praise, And the flute of dear old Pan, And the ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... Sound the flute! Now it's mute! Bird's delight, Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky,— Merrily, Merrily merrily, to welcome ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... dweller among our fields and meadows is frequently heard giving his high, pleasing, flute-like whistle with its variations; his beautiful yellow breast with its black crescent is not so frequently seen in life, for they are usually quite shy birds. They artfully conceal their nests on the ground among the tall grass of meadows, arching ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... menacing; but the girl pushed fearlessly forward, singing like a robin, while the rain slashed over her, and the thunder boomed and re-echoed from crag to crag like warning guns in magnificent alarums. "I love this!" she cried, her clear voice piercing the veil of water like a flute note. "Don't you?" ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... morning. So prepared, we need not much wonder at what followed. Csar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when suddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a flute. This phantom was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human, so far as its lineaments could be traced in the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the story, on any hypothesis which would explain it out of Csar's individual condition, is, that others saw it as well ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... her head. She had a rich soprano voice, and was the leading singer in the Centre Church choir. The two brothers also had fine, manly voices, and the family circle was often enlivened by quartette singing and flute playing. Mr. Bull kept a very large wholesale drug store on Front Street, in which his two sons, Albert and James, were clerks. The oldest son, Watson Bull, had established a retail drug store at the sign of the 'Good Samaritan.' A large picture ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... of the Imperial Palace called the Seir-y[o]den; and upon these mattings were placed four tables of offerings to the Star-deities. Besides the customary food-offerings, there were placed upon these tables rice-wine, incense, vases of red lacquer containing flowers, a harp and flute, and a needle with five eyes, threaded with threads of five different colors. Black-lacquered oil-lamps were placed beside the tables, to illuminate the feast. In another part of the grounds a tub of water was so placed as to reflect the light ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... bottom of the bed, from the right-hand corner; and, moving in a semi-circle, would pass slowly on and disappear in the left. Moreover I beheld the shapes of castles and houses, of horses and riders, of plants, trees, musical instruments, theatres, dresses of men of all sorts, and flute-players who seemed to be playing upon their instruments, but neither voice nor sound was heard therefrom. And besides these things I beheld soldiers, and crowds of men, and fields, and certain bodily forms, which seem hateful to me even now: groves and forests, and divers other things which ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... a tomato singing a song about the derby, to an American tune that was stale in 1907. Yet another, and we are in the midst of a tedious ballet founded upon "Carmen," with the music reduced to jigtime and a flute playing out of tune. A fourth—and we suffer a pair of comedians who impersonate Americans by saying "Naow" and "Amurican." When they break into "My Cousin Carus'" we depart by the fire escape. We have now spent eight dollars on divertisement and have failed to be diverted. We ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... conscious that another life, intimate yet remote, hovered round them all the while. Sounds of music came to them at intervals; sometimes it was the doleful tones of a violin, sometimes the quiet plaint of a flute; again it was the reed-like voice of some unseen singer which sang ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... be taken with a spasm of desire to play upon the recorders or the Bavarian single flute, and would pester my father to let ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... The everlasting hum and seething of myriad life satisfies and soothes me. I feel as if something were going on in the world, else why all this shouting, and bedecking of every weed in its best, this endless strain from every tiny weed or great oaken flute? All that cannot sing, dances; the gnats in the air and the long-legged spiders on the water. Even the ants and beetles, the workers that are quoted for examples by hoarding men, run about doing nothing, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... degree in a few weeks, and he kept school somewhere out on the prairie. The other did not graduate before the cholera came. He was a native of Vermont, and he played the clarionet in our church choir. The instrumental music came from the clarionet, from a violin, and a flute. The choir came from France and Germany, Old England and New England, Ireland, Alsace, and Belgium. It was divided into two hostile camps, and the party which first took possession of the gallery took precedence in the music for that day only. There was a want of harmony. One morning when the priest ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... always the best prose has a certain rhythmic emphasis and cadence: in Milton's grander passages there is a symphony of organs, the bellows of the mighty North (one might say) filling their pipes; Goldsmith's flute still breathes through his essays; and in the ampler prose of Bacon there is the swell of a summer ocean, and you can half fancy you hear the long soft surge falling on the shore. Also in all good writing, as in good reading, the pauses suffer ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... where he was bound, or how soon he would be back. He passed along walking very straight as became a uniformed soldier, whistling a march-tune, now and then interrupting himself to introduce a clear flute-like note. ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... I had brought two bottles of mellowed wine from the cellar. We drank to the good fortune of Gaspard and Veronique. Then we had singing. Gaspard knew some love songs in dialect. We also asked Marie for a canticle. She stood up and sang in a flute-like voice ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... it was, that, like good Father Philip in the romance of The Monastery, they seemed utterly unable to change their tune. "Cherry ripe!" "Cherry ripe!" was the universal cry of all the idle in the town. Every unmelodious voice gave utterance to it; every crazy fiddle, every cracked flute, every wheezy pipe, every street-organ was heard in the same strain, until studious and quiet men stopped their ears in desperation, or fled miles away into the fields or woodlands to be at peace. This plague lasted for a twelvemonth, until the very ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... drank, then Kasya gathered some forget-me-nots, and John with his knife made a flute from the willow bark, on which, when he had finished, he began to play the air which the shepherds play in the eventide on the meadows. The soft notes floated away with ineffable tenderness in this secluded spot. Shortly he removed the flute and listened intently as if to catch an echo returning ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... "Flute! some fashionable assembly that will bore me beyond endurance," he sighed. "With you alone, Lisette, have I known true happiness—the train rides on summer nights that were joyous because we loved; the simple meals that were ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... Miss N. Glover did me honor by her presence, for she is older than cousin Sally and of her acquaintance. We made four couple at country dansing; danceing I mean. In the evening young Mr. Waters[13] hearing of my assembly, put his flute in his pocket and played several minuets and other tunes, to which we danced mighty cleverly. But Lucinda[14] was our principal piper. Miss Church and Miss Chaloner would have been here if sickness,—and the Miss Sheafs,[15] ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... the flute player jubilantly and buries her twitching fingers into the flesh of her breasts. "What is ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... but, as they 'never perform out of' the island, their renown is purely local. The mulatto, Urriola, is famous for his performances on the cornet-a-piston and the double-bass, and his young son is a favourite flute-player. Lino Boza is the name of a distinguished negro performer on the clarionet. He is also a popular composer of Cuban dance music. These musical geniuses are all free, and reside in La Calle del Rey Pelayo—a quarter of the town much ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... took him to business of a morning; the boat brought him back to the happiest of homes, where he would while away the long evenings by reading out the fashionable novels to the ladies as they worked; or accompany his wife on the flute (which he played elegantly); or in any one of the hundred pleasing and innocent amusements of the domestic circle. Mrs. Chuff covered the drawing-rooms with prodigious tapestries, the work of her hands. Mrs. Sackville had a particular genius for ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... are all deliciously tender and the juice has run from them—about twenty minutes should be enough—then add a cupful of cream and let this boil. As a last touch squeeze in the juice of a lemon." When Luisa Tetrazzini was going mad with a flute in our vicinity she varied the monotony of her life by sending pages of her favourite recipes to the Sunday yellow press. Unfortunately, I neglected to make a collection of this series. A passion for cooking caused the death of Naldi, a buffo singer of the early Nineteenth Century. Michael Kelly ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the fortifications of Avaricum, and of many another city; and here too were carried specimens of the olives and vines, and other curious plants of the newly won land; here was the breastplate of British pearls that Caesar dedicated to Venus. A band of flute-players followed, and then came the white oxen that were to be sacrificed, their horns gilded and flowers hung round them, the sacrificing priests with wreathed heads marching with them. Specimens of bears and wolves from the woods and mountains came next in order, and after them waved ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ball-room, to what maid or matron soever lacked a partner at either; and on the Sundays, he read prayers in the public room to all who chose to attend. He was also a deviser of charades, and an unriddler of riddles; he played a little on the flute, and was Mr. Winterblossom's principal assistant in contriving those ingenious and romantic paths, by which, as by the zig-zags which connect military parallels, you were enabled to ascend to the top of the hill behind the hotel, which commands so beautiful ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... the birds and rabbits. Near by flows the Ocmulgee, where the boys, inseparable in sport as well as in the more serious aspects of life, were wont to fish. Here Sidney cut the reed with which he took his first flute lesson from the birds in the woods. Above the town were the hills for which the soul of the poet longed ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... motion and of look, the smooth And swimming majesty of step and tread, The symmetry of form and feature, set The soul afloat, even like delicious airs Of flute or harp." ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... friends, who, much to the disgust of his fellow boarders, is constantly playing an adagio movement in B flat upon a flute, (that may not be the correct musical term, but no one will ever know it unless you tell,) informs me that you are astute; another friend, who makes cigar stumps into chewing tobacco, says, you're "up to snuff." Assuming ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... would needs hear me play upon my German flute. To have told my honest natural visitants, Really gentlemen I play very ill, and put on such airs as we do in our genteel companies, would have been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their request. I gave them ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... Epithalamium or Epos of the marriage of Vinia and Manlius, and the Parcae in that of Peleus and Thetis. Sir Richard laid great stress on the following in his notes, headed "Compare with Catullus, the sweet and tender little Villanelle, by Mr. Edmund Gosse," for the Viol and Flute—the XIX ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... also those produced by the human larynx. Such reenforcement is effected in two general ways—by sounding boards and by inclosed columns of air. Stringed instruments—violin, guitar, piano, etc.—employ sounding boards, while wind instruments, as the flute, pipe organ, and the various kinds of horns, employ air columns for reenforcing their vibrations. In the use of the sounding board, the vibrations are communicated to a larger surface, and in the use of the air column ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... Goldsmith, and often did it echo with Oliver's boisterous mirth; for "it had become the favourite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars, whom he delighted in collecting around him, in entertaining with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality, and in occasionally amusing with his flute, or with whist, neither of which he played very well!" Here Goldsmith occasionally wound up ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... bracelets and anklets, and they are armed with clubs, wooden swords, and bows and arrows. Their music, too, is also similar to that of their forefathers. Their instruments consist of a sort of pipe or flute made of reed, and a drum composed simply of a hoop with a skin stretched upon it. To the inharmonious sound of these instruments, accompanying monotonous Quichua songs, the dances commence with those solemn movements with which the Incas used to worship ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... by prejudice against the harmony of Milton's. Was there ever anything so delightful as the music of the Paradise Lost? It is like that of a fine organ; has the fullest and the deepest tones of majesty with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute: variety without end, and never equaled, unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doctor has little or nothing to say upon this copious theme, but talks something about the unfitness of the English language for blank verse, and how apt it is, in the mouths of some readers, to degenerate into declamation. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the old fisherman, and all were glad that they had found each other again, and they hung the bird in its cage on the wall. But the second son could not settle at home, and took his cross-bow and went a-hunting. When he was tired he took his flute and played on it. The king happened to be also hunting, and hearing the music went up to the youth and said, "Who has given thee leave to hunt here?" "O. no one." "To whom dost thou belong, then?" "I am the fisherman's son." "But he has no children." "If thou wilt not believe it, come with me." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... the stones lent ear When soft he touched his lute; And beasts came trooping nigh to hear When Orpheus played his flute. ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... supposed that during these two years he had been a melancholy lover. It might, perhaps, have been better for him had his disposition led him to that line of life. Such, however, had not been the case. He had already abandoned the flute on which he had learned to sound three sad notes before he left Guestwick, and, after the fifth or sixth Sunday, he had relinquished his solitary walks along the towing-path of the Regent's Park Canal. To think of one's absent love is very sweet; but it becomes ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... players sit or stand round the room in a circle. The leader assigns to each some musical instrument, as harp, flute, violincello, trombone, etc., and also selects one for himself. Some well-known tune is then given out, say "Yankee Doodle," and the players all begin to play accordingly, each doing his best to imitate, both in sound and action, the instrument which has been assigned to him, the effect being generally ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... sword beating his drum in the print of the Enraged Musician, would of itself rise up against so sweeping an assertion. But I think it will be found to be true of the generality of his countenances. The knife-grinder and Jew flute-player in the plate just mentioned, may serve as instances instead of a thousand. They have intense thinking faces, though the purpose to which they are subservient by no means required it; but indeed it seems as if it was painful to Hogarth to contemplate ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... intended for commercial life, borrowed a work on thorough-bass and a flute and proceeded to try the wings of his muse. A melodeon supplanted the flute, and when he was sixteen he attained the glory of a piano, a rare possession in those times. (Would that it were rarer now!) He took a few lessons and played a church-organ ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... is embroidered raiment of saffron and shining sea-purple. Indolence is your pleasure, your delight the luxurious dance; you wear sleeved tunics and ribboned turbans. O right Phrygian women, not even Phrygian men! traverse the heights of Dindymus, where the double-mouthed flute breathes familiar music. The drums call you, and the Berecyntian boxwood of the mother of Ida; leave arms to men, and lay ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... teachers, music became a customary part of the education of ladies. Many of the planters themselves in their leisure moments indulged in this delightful amusement. Robert Carter had in his home in Westmoreland County a harpsichord, a piano-forte, an harmonica, a guitar and a flute, and at Williamsburg an organ. He had a good ear, a very delicate touch, was indefatigable in practicing and performed well on several instruments. Especially was he fond of the harmonica, and spent much time in practicing upon it. His skill ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... its closes were— As if the hand of Music through The sombre robe of Silence drew A thread of golden gossamer; So pure a flute the fairy blew. Like beggared princes of the wood, In silver rags the birches stood; The hemlocks, lordly counselors, Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, In beechen jackets patched and gray, Seemed waiting spellbound all the day That low, entrancing ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... always got up with a flat iron), a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him. On his taking the recorders,—very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door,—he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, "And don't you do it, neither; you're a deal worse than him!" ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Buddha images. Meantime, the temple resounded with the mingling strains of three musicians, one of whom struck a metal ball, while another scraped a stringed instrument, and a third educed shrill notes from a kind of flute. ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... the actor Artemus Ward describes as having played Hamlet in a Western theatre, where, there being no orchestra, he was compelled to furnish his own slow music and to play on a flute as he died. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... exuberant power of expression, could ever say how her existence was enriched and made beautiful through music. Artists who sang to her, or those who rehearsed the finest music on the piano or violin or flute, or those who brought their pictures and put them before her while she listened,—they alone, in a measure, understood what these things signified, and how she was lifted quite away by them from the ordinary level of life. They were inspired to do for her what they could seldom do for ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... first time enjoyed the pleasures, of highly-polished society. Mrs Courtenay was an admirable performer upon the harp; Miss Emma Courtenay, her niece, was a delightful pianist; and my host himself was no mean amateur upon the flute. Our evenings would pass quickly away, in reading Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Metastasio, or the modern writers of English literature after which we would remain till the night had far advanced, enjoying the beautiful ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... suiting accent and gesture to the subject matter through the whole first three acts of that exquisitely humorous opera, the Primate of Fiji. Sometimes he hummed the tune over to himself as he went; sometimes he played a few notes upon his flute by way of striking the key-note; sometimes he rose from his seat in his animation, and half acted the part he was reading with almost unconscious and spontaneous mimicry. He read through the famous song of ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... he was not personally acquainted; but he had ascertained privately, from a musical frequenter of the house, who invariably brought his flute with him, and who was understood to be the oldest friend of the family, that Mr. Slapman owned a large property in wild land in Pennsylvania, not a hundred miles from New York; that he was improving it, and selling ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... all musical, and proposed having little concerts. One of the gentlemen played on the violin, and the other on the german-flute. The instruments were brought in, with all the eagerness that attends putting a new scheme ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... faint, flute-like note Jill thought that she must have awakened from sleep or delirium, and, it must be confessed, really did not care which was the solution of the mystery; sinking back into a state of apathy so exhausted was she, until the three camels came to a standstill, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... doorway, Murmuring to himself, and saying: "Thus it is our daughters leave us, Those we love, and those who love us! Just when they have learned to help us, When we are old and lean upon them, Comes a youth with flaunting feathers, With his flute of reeds, a stranger Wanders piping through the village, Beckons to the fairest maiden, And she follows where he leads her, Leaving all things ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... restores the lower stage and the palace of Theseus. His wedding festivities have begun. The hard-handed men of Athens perform their crude interlude, made all the more grotesque by the awkwardness of Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. In the character of Thisbe, it is his part to fall upon the sword and die, thus ending the play. Imagine the delight of the courtly auditors when the clumsy man in the part of the disconsolate lady falls, not upon the blade, but upon ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... no good of a song, but a melancholy sort of a song. I'd as lief be listening to a saw going through timber. Wait, now, till you will hear myself giving out a tune on the flute. ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... peasant, when the moon shall light her bright lamp in the star-spangled heavens, and shed her silvery rays across the plain, the hunter may lead forth the village belle, and foot it merrily on the mossy greensward, to the sound of the bagpipe and the rustic flute, by fountains which never cease their monotonous but soothing plaint, and under the long shadows of the ancient oaks and ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... elegant, the most correct poet; and, at the same time, the most harmonious (a circumstance which redounds very much to the honour of this muse) that England ever gave birth to. He has mellowed the harsh sounds of the English trumpet to the soft accents of the flute. His compositions may be easily translated, because they are vastly clear and perspicuous; besides, most of his subjects are general, ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... celebrated Snetzler, and esteemed one of the best specimens of his art. It has three sets of keys, from F in alt, to GG. The stops in the great organ are, the stopped diapason, two open diapasons, flute, and principal, trumpet and baffoon, all entire, the 12th, 15th, sesqui-altera, cornet and clarion. In the ch. organ, are two diapasons and principal. In the swell two diapasons, principal, hautboy ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... streets of the town, that a lady, looking from her window, made exclaim. The kind face, the pleasant voice, attracted him; in a moment after, while she was yet thinking of it, the door was pushed partly open, a dark boy, smiling, appeared, followed by the unslung tray, and a voice like a flute said,— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... music, of which he knew something, having learned it, as he learned his drawing, without a master; but he preferred the naive songs of the country, or the melody of a flute; to the most scholarly concert-music. (15/16.) In the intimacy of the modest chamber which serves as the family salon, with its few shabby and old-fashioned pieces of furniture, he plays on an indifferent harmonium little airs of his own composition, ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... and grit out something through his teeth that stimulated my circulation. I skipped over the wheels and put my left onto his neck, fingering the keys on his blow-pipe like a flute. Then I give him a toss and gathered up the lines. Say! it was like the smell of grease-paint to an actor man for me to feel the ribbons again, and them mules knew they had a chairman who savvied 'em too, and had mule talk pat, from soda ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... assiduously, took hard physical training, regulated his diet for the cultivation of his voice, which was not naturally of the best, and probably became not at all a bad amateur. His monstrous self-conceit did the rest. Besides singing to the harp, he was prepared to perform upon the flute and the bagpipes, and to give a dance afterwards. All this, of course, was undignified and ridiculous, but it was scarcely tyranny. Doubtless there was sufficient suffering among the audience, but that cruelty was hardly deliberate. In ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... leader of the Mozart Society, in which she was soprano soloist. He writes: "Let us thank God it was light with her at the evening of life." This was indeed true. A few hours before the end, when seemingly at the very brink, strength was given to sing in her remarkably clear, flute-like tones the verse, "God moves in a mysterious way." We sang this at her funeral; also by her request, "O mother, dear Jerusalem." These constituted a part of the memorial service at ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... get on very fast in this way. In the second column of the very first page he met with A as a note in music. This led him to the study of music. He bought a flute, and took some lessons, and attempted to accompany Elizabeth Eliza on the piano. This, of course, distracted him from his work on the Encyclopaedia. But he did not wish to return to A until he felt perfect in music. ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... sensations to find among my scholars so many large girls. I have said that I had never been in the habit of running after the girls, and I never had. I was one of those quiet young men who read poetry, buy pictures and statues, and play the flute on still, moonlight evenings. Not that I was indifferent to female charms, or let beauty pass by unnoticed. In fact, I was keenly alive to the beautiful in all its forms. I had seen, in the course of my life, a great many handsome faces, which, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... Apollo's sons repair - Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair In unison their various tones to tune, Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Attunes to order the chaotic din. Now all seems hush'd—but no, one fiddle will Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... begins. All interrupt again with "Sh-h." Curtain is raised, and enter ETHEL, dressed as a child of 1840, in white and green. She comes forward and sings ("Henrietta"), with orchestral accompaniment, a flute obligato being a feature of the latter, which, every little while, indulges in loud variations, entirely drowning the singer's voice, much to her annoyance, and the only half-suppressed amusement of the guests. As she reaches the chorus all (at ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... human skull, into which a young Dionysus, smooth, brown and sidelong as the St. John of the Louvre, poured a stream of wine from a high-poised flagon. At the lady's feet lay the symbols of art and luxury: a flute and a roll of music, a platter heaped with grapes and roses, the torso of a Greek statuette, and a bowl overflowing with coins and jewels; behind her, on the chalky hilltop, hung the crucified Christ. A scroll in a corner of the foreground ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... love for the farm, which had belonged to his father; an old flute, on which his father used to play, was more of a treasure to him. Often in summer, as day faded, and the dews of night descended; when the clear lights in the valley were set twinkling one by one, leaving the uplands to the winds and stars, ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... and mellow as a Phrygian flute sounding softly on moonlight nights through acacia and oleander groves, but the scorn burning in her eyes was intolerable, and before it the old man seemed to shrink, while a purplish flush swept across his ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... cap he wore it during the dessert, to the satisfaction of all present. At night, mere ordinary acquaintances were bidden, and dancing went on till very late, formerly to the music of one violin, but for the last six years Monsieur Godard, who was a great flute player, contributed the piercing tones of a flageolet to the festivity. The cook, Madame Baudoyer's nurse, and old Catherine, Madame Saillard's woman-servant, together with the porter or his wife, stood looking on at the door of the salon. The servants always received three ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... the tamarisks, or any fir, he sat down to watch the meadow, thinking there was nothing in the world more beautiful than the moving of shadows of trees and clouds over young grass, and nothing more beautiful than a young shepherd playing a flute: only one thing more beautiful—a young girl carrying an amphora I She passed out of the shadows, wearing a scarlet haik and on her arms and neck a ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... physician to spare my hearing as much as possible, he almost fell in with my present frame of mind, although many a time I was carried away by my sociable inclinations. But how humiliating was it, when some one standing close to me heard a distant flute, and I heard nothing, or a shepherd singing, and again I heard nothing. Such incidents almost drove me to despair; at times I was on the point of putting an end to my life—art alone restrained my hand. Oh! it seemed as if I could not quit this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... far-reaching, mournful tones, giving a minor note to the nocturnal concert. Now and then a fish sprang from the water and fell back with a splash, and the water itself kept up a soft babble like the notes of a living flute. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... playing in blossoming parks by the river, Playing on white-pillared piers where the lightfooted thousands are dancing, Dancing at night in the breeze flowing fresh from the sea and the river; Music of flute and guitar from the lovers afloat on the water, Music of happy young voices far-flying across the bright ripples, Bright with high-glittering ships and the low rosy lanterns of lovers, Bright with the stars overhead and the stars of the city beside them, Their city, the heaven they know, and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... tremulous female voice raised a hymn, another caught it up, and another—voices strong and beautiful; alto voices soft as flute notes blended with the rich bass notes and triumphant tenors that welled from the choir, and floated in from the windows, until the body of the church itself seemed almost to sway with the rhythmic ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... brothers, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, unless I speak to you by a revelation, or by a knowledge, or by a prophecy, or by a doctrine? [14:7]So of irrational objects making a sound, whether a flute or harp; if it makes no distinction of sounds, how shall it be known what is played on the flute or harp? [14:8]For also if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for the battle? ...
— The New Testament • Various
... flute, The melancholy lute, Were night-owl's hoot To my low-whispered coo - Were I thy bride! The skylark's trill Were but discordance shrill To the soft thrill Of wooing as I'd woo - Were I ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... sounds. There was the murmur of rills which flowed over a carpet of flowers; there was, in the foliage above, the song of the nightingale, and the prolonged and tender cooing of the dove; there were, in the groves around, the tones of the flute, the instrument which sounds the call to pleasure, and summons to the banquet chamber the festive procession and the bridal train. Beneath the shelter of tents, or of light booths with walls formed by the skilful interlacing of a green mass of boughs, through ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... must be premised, is a city man, who travels in drugs for a couple of the best London houses, blows the flute, has an album, drives his own gig, and is considered, both on the road and in the metropolis, a remarkably nice, intelligent, thriving young man. Pogson's only fault is too great an attachment to the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... can't understand a word they say; their philosophy is too much for me. I am mountain-bred; smart city-language is not in my line; sophists and philosophers are not known in Arcadia. I am a good hand at flute or pipe; I can mind goats, I can dance, I can fight at a pinch, and that is all. But I hear them all day long, bawling out a string of hard words about virtue, and nature, and ideas, and things incorporeal. They are good enough friends ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... the society, the missionaries of Rio Meta have continued at San Miguel de Macuco a fine church choir, and musical instruction for the Indian youth. Very lately a traveller was surprised to see the natives playing on the violin, the violoncello, the triangle, the guitar, and the flute. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... sunny afternoon in June, and old Enoch, sitting in the shade of the garden bushes, called forth sweet tones from his flute. No score was before him; that from which he played was scored on his heart. Being in that ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... handling of first love a venerable toad, which smiled upon her, she placed the interesting animal so that it could crawl up and nestle in her bosom, 'Poor child of dank, of darkness, and of dripping,' exclaimed she, in her flute-like notes, 'who sheltereth thyself under the wet and mouldering wall, so neglected in thy form by thy mother Nature, repose awhile in peace where princes and nobles would envy thee, if they knew thy present lot. But that shall ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ourselves. His majesty must be shaped like a dwarf—that's quite necessary; but when he is lifted to the throne, the creatures heap upon him all sorts of wondrous gifts. They teach him to play the fiddle, flute, and clarinet like an angel. They put him up to the art of manufacturing wonderful clocks—of eclipsing the sun and moon, and all that kind of thing. They once had a dwarf king, a shoemaker, and that fellow never had his equal. Whenever he took it into his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... swifts sailing by overhead and screeching: just about as high again as the houses. Lord, how them birds did fly. And there was the other young fellows, what were not out walking, standing about by the roadside, just doing nothing at all. One of them had a flute: Jim Booker, he was. Those were great days. The bats used to come out, flutter, flutter, flutter; and then there'd be a star or two; and the smoke from the chimneys going all grey; and a little cold wind going up and down like the bats; ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... were Lord of Tartary, Trumpeters every day To every meal should summon me, And in my courtyard bray; And in the evening lamps would shine, Yellow as honey, red as wine, While harp, and flute, and mandoline, Made music ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... drawers, there were on one wall telescopes, swords, and naval caps; on another a compact library. Above my head, stretching diagonally across the bed, was an object which caused me no little surprise and much speculation. In appearance it resembled a giant flute with finger holes that no man of mortal mould could have covered. Not till next morning did I discover that this tube was part of a system of air-distributing pipes, supplied by fanners worked by steam, whereby fresh air is driven to ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... it, and he at once recognised it from its botanical description. It was the celebrated "cow parsnip." Its stem was jointed and hollow, and Lucien had heard that the Indians called it in their language "flute stem," as they often used it to make their rude musical instruments from, and also a sort of whistle or "call," by which they were enabled to imitate and decoy several kinds of deer. But there was ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... speaking, being the zampognaro, for it is he who carries the zampogna or classical bag-pipe of Southern Italy, whilst his companion is the cennamellaro, so called from his ear-splitting instrument, the cennamella, a species of primitive flute. The zampogna may be described as first cousin to the historic bag-pipes of Caledonia, for the sounds emitted strongly resemble the traditional "skirling" of the pipes; but no Scotchman even could ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... and at last the Holy City—Jerusalem—came into full view, the wonderful Temple of Israel showing plainly above the other buildings. The bands of pilgrims, of which the family of Joseph formed a part, formed into orderly array and led by flute-players they solemnly marched into the streets of the Holy City, singing and chanting the Sacred Songs used by the faithful upon this solemn occasion. And the boy walked with the rest, with bowed head, and eyes that seemed to see things far removed from ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... enquiries. He told me, a great many years ago, 'he believed he had dedicated to all the Royal Family round[4];' and it was indifferent to him what was the subject of the work dedicated, provided it were innocent. He once dedicated some Musick for the German Flute to Edward, Duke of York. In writing Dedications for others, he considered himself as by no means speaking his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... cooled and made receptive to music by the joyous quarter of an hour in the buffet, we heard Mme. Gautier sing "Le Cid," by Massenet, and the Princess Tekau accompany her effectively on the piano. A solo de piston, a violin, a flute, all played by Tahitians, entertained us, and then came the fun. M. X—— was down for a monologue. Who could it be? He bounced on the stage in a Prince-Albert coat and a Derby hat, rollicking, truculent, plainly exhilarated. Why, it was ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... he is at his concert, playing the flute. 'Tis his dessert after dinner, and he treats himself to it every day. Did he fix ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... all the processions of the seasons. How do hand and vision protect man? Hunters use sharp spears for keeping back wild beasts, but Livingstone, armed only with eye beams, drove a snarling beast into the thicket, and Luther, lifting his great eyes upon an assassin, made the murderer flee. What flute or harp is comparable for sweetness to the voice? It carries warning and alarm. It will speak for you, plead for you, pray for you. Truly it is an architect, fulfilling Dante's dictum, "piling up mountains of melody." Serving the soul well, the body becomes sacred by ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a heap o' sojus had on nice buttons an' had plumes in dere hats. Dey wus singin' an' playin' on a flute dis song, 'I wish I wus in Dixie,' an' dey went in de big house an' broke up ebery thing. Dey say to me, 'you are as free as a frog,' an' dey say to my pa, 'all your chillun are free.' Dey say 'little niggers is free as a frog' an' we ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... taking care of them as to health, and doing every thing to make them happy, acquired over them the greatest power. The elephants learned to love music. They were at first frightened by the loud instruments; but, after a while, became very fond of all, particularly of the gentle flute, at which they would show their delight by beating time with their great feet. The keepers accustomed them to the sight of great multitudes of people. At one time, when a particular exhibition of the docility of elephants ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... of this story, represents the Black Cat as identical with Glooscap,[20] and the Sable as a boy who had a flute by which he could entice to himself all the animals. The story of the sticks is similar, but the cutting up of the serpent is not mentioned. He says that Black Cat, who is preparing his arrows, and will return ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... The images stamped so carefully on his sensitive brain became his most precious treasures. Over and over he dwelt on them. Ever in memory his feet climbed the steps to the Acropolis or walked beneath stately orange-trees, beating a soft rhythm to the sound of flute and viol. For Achilles was by nature one of the lightest-hearted of children. In Athens his laugh had been quick to rise, and fresh as the breath of rustling leaves. It was only here, under the sooty sky of the narrow street, that his face ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... effulgent path by which the righteous proceed is identical with thee). Thou art he that appears in the firmament in the heart encased in the body of every creature.[119] Thou art he who enters into the cranium (brain) of every creature. Thou bearest the wrinkles of age. Thou bearest the bamboo flute. Thou hast also the tabour. Thou bearest the musical instrument called Tali. Thou hast the wooden vessel used for husking grain. Thou art he who covers that illusion which covers Yama.[120] Thou art an astrologer inasmuch as thy understanding is always directed towards the motion ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Quintet organized in Boston—August Fries, first violin, Francis Riha, second violin, Edward Lehman, viola and flute, Thomas Ryan, viola and clarinet, Wulf Fries, violoncello. This was a pioneer organization in Chamber Music, and traveled extensively ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... exasperating idiot, who played the flute, had established himself. Like all poor players, he affected the low, mournful notes, as plaintive as the distant cooing of the dove in lowering, weather. He played or rather tooted away in his "blues"-inducing strain hour after hour, despite ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... named Evius, with the quarters which belonged of right to EUMENES, the most worthy and renowned of all the Grecian generals. Eumenes boldly remonstrated, and told Alexander that he plainly saw the best way to acquire promotion in his army would be to throw away arms, and learn to play upon the flute or ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... could not sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... a five-holed flute was heard behind the trees in the island, playing several airs in a minor key. Another flute answered. This interchange of musical phrases lasted for two or three ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... fewest. Almost every season we had a dancing-school. Singing-schools, too, there were every winter. There was also a small band of music in the village, and serenades were not uncommon. We, boys used to give them on the flute to our favorites. But when the band came to serenade us, I shall never forget the commotion it made in the house, and the delight we had in it. We children were immediately up in a wild hurry of pleasure, and my father always went out ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... he was lucky enough to provoke a laugh, a little light gay trill, sudden and brief like three notes on a flute. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland |
