"Flute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beautiful of all instruments. There was none older and none more wonderful in the world than the fiddle. To prove this to me, he went on to tell me that the fiddle was always the leading instrument of any orchestra, and not the trumpet or the flute. And this was simply because the fiddle was the mother ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... at a Dutch seaport, with a larger sum of money than he had ever before possessed. He took passage for London, where he landed a few days after, in total ignorance of the place and the language. His brother welcomed him with German warmth, and assisted him to procure employment,—probably in the flute and piano manufactory of ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... That merry whistler, passing her poor cast-out son in his lonely, half-furnished house, whose dark, shadowy walls she could see across the field, smote her as sorely as he smote him. It seemed to her that she could hear that flute-like melody even as far as Charlotte's door. In spite of her stern resolution to be just, a great gust of wrath shook her. "Lettin' of him come courtin' her when it ain't six weeks since Barney went," she said, quite out ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... civilized being had ever listened to such a strain before. Surely not, I thought, else the fame of so divine a melody would long ago have been noised abroad. I thought of the rialejo, the celebrated organbird or flute-bird, and of the various ways in which hearers are affected by it. To some its warbling is like the sound of a beautiful mysterious instrument, while to others it seems like the singing of a blithe-hearted child with a ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... filled with fruit, And song of meadow lark and song of flute; Far from the city there are lover's fields, Lips eloquent ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... the rear and spacious rooms where they entertained a great deal. Not long ago, I saw a fascinating drawing of a party in Georgetown in the fifties. It represented four musicians intent upon playing a bass viol, a cello, a violin, and a flute; a few of the company standing near by with curls and puffed coiffures, and among them a tiny man, side-whiskered, so short that he barely reached the shoulders of the ladies. He must, of course, have been Prince Iturbide. There was never anyone quite like him. He was a Mexican, ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... more slowly, watching him with interest. She wondered what he would find it necessary to do. She heard him begin a low, flute-like whistling, and then saw the antlered head turn towards him. The woodland creature moved, but it was in his direction. It had without doubt answered his call before and knew its meaning to be friendly. It went towards him, stretching out a tender sniffing nose, and he put ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... catches a distant gleam of the snow plant, an exquisite sharp note of color, of true Roman shade, such as Rossetti loved to introduce into his pictures, shrill like the vibrant wood of the flute. When a ray of the sun happens to strike this it gleams like a flaming fiery sword, symbol of that which marked the entrance to Paradise. One can circumvent this guard here, and when he is in these hills he is not far removed from a country well worth protecting by ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... thunderbolt. pike, lance, spear, spontoon[obs3], javelin, dart, jereed[obs3], jerid[obs3], arrow, reed, shaft, bolt, boomerang, harpoon, gaff; eelspear[obs3], oxgoad[obs3], weet-weet, wommerah[obs3]; cattle prod; chemical mace. Phr. en flute; nervos ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Charles Lamb's, and the first calumet of peace which was ever smoked between a European and an Indian. Among other musical instruments, I noticed the lyre of Orpheus and those of Homer and Sappho, Dr. Franklin's famous whistle, the trumpet of Anthony Van Corlear, and the flute which Goldsmith played upon in his rambles through the French provinces. The staff of Peter the Hermit stood in a corner with that of good old Bishop Jewel, and one of ivory, which had belonged to Papirius, the Roman senator. ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The dulled bronze jangle of cow-bells came soothingly to him. An owl called a little way off. Swallows flashed by in long graceful flights. A bat circled near, indecisively, as if with a message it hesitated to give. Once he heard the flute-like ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... front of one, and roll out as before. Repeat this until it has got 4 turns, taking care to keep the edges as even as possible, and for the last time roll out a good deal larger than the dish. Put a band of paste on the dish, wet this and lay on the cover. Flute the edges neatly. Brush over with egg. Cut the trimmings of paste into leaves, &c., and decorate the pie, putting a rose in the centre. Brush these also with egg. Make one or two slits to let out the steam, ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... guide led the way with unerring instinct through the forest. We had gone some distance, when we heard a deep, loud, and long-sustained flute-like note. It was that of a bird. The young Indian stopped, and pointing ahead, uttered the word nira-mimbeu, which I afterwards ascertained meant fife-bird, evidently from the peculiar note we had just heard. The whole party stopped ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... so deep that it touches the heart like melancholy—in the common drama of the opera? How gay and joyous is the beginning! Mirth, hilarity, entrancing sound, brilliant color, the note of a trumpet calling to heroism, the beseeching of the concordant strings, and the soft flute inviting to pleasure; scenes placid, pastoral, innocent; light-hearted love, the dance on the green, the stately pageant in the sunlit streets, the court, the ball, the mad splendor of life. And then love becomes passion, and passion thwarted hurries on to sin, and sin lifts to the heights ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... correctly, I think the singing of fine hymns and pleasant ballads at home will prove most delightful to them all, besides bearing good fruit morally and physically. A family happy enough to have a little higher endowment, and a little more cultivation, so that one plays a violin, one a flute, and so on, may have a little private orchestra which may give as much enjoyment, and, all things considered, may be as elevating, as the perfect work of great musicians. It seems to me that any father ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... there 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
... amidst the ordinary inclemency of a London May, and he was sitting with his window open, though there was a fire in the grate. As he sat, dreaming rather than thinking, there came upon his ear the weak, wailing, puny sound of a distant melancholy flute. He had heard it often before, and had been roused by it to evil wishes, and sometimes even to evil words, against the musician. It was the effort of some youth in the direction of Staple's Inn to soothe with music the savageness of ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... I requested, sent me a letter of introduction to a friend of hers, a Monsieur Gironac, who lived in Leicester Square. He was a married man, without family. He obtained his livelihood by giving lessons on the flute, on the guitar, and in teaching French during the day, and at night was engaged as second violin in the orchestra of the Opera House; so that he had many strings to his bow, besides those of his fiddle. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... concourse of young men and women in vehicles and on horseback, and in expectation of great fun, were wending their way to Yabtree—nearly every trap containing a fiddle, concertina, flute, or accordion in readiness for ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Man with a flute, A sarpint ran into his boot; But he played day and night, Till the sarpint took flight, And avoided that man ...
— Book of Nonsense • Edward Lear
... had got off so much easier than he anticipated. Indeed, so little did he think of his father's command, that he felt in no hurry to obey it. Instead of going to bed, he sat awhile at the window, listening to the music of a flute which some one in the neighborhood was playing upon. Presently Ralph and George, who slept in the same chamber with him, came up to keep him company. They amused themselves together for some time, and Oscar quite forgot that he had been sent to bed, until the door suddenly ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... was fond of music, and in early days was proficient on the flute, contributing to the programme of many a concert for charity in those days when amateurs did so ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... showed 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
... stitches! The ruffles ran up and down, and over and across, and three times round. Being white, the garments were of course changed daily. In the intervals of baby-tending, the mother snatched a few minutes here and a few minutes there to starch, iron, flute, or crimp a ruffle, or to finish off a dress of her own. This "finishing off" was carried on for weeks. When her baby was asleep, or was good, or had its little ruffles all fluted, and its little sister's ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... had filled, and so had the broad hall and the rooms on the other side of the hall, where there were tables for whist. The imported orchestra waited in the ballroom on the third floor, but a local harp, 'cello, violin, and flute were playing airs from "The Fencing Master" in the hall, and people were shouting over the music. Old John Minafer's voice was louder and more penetrating than any other, because he had been troubled with deafness for twenty-five years, heard his own voice but faintly, and liked ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... for women as a rule laugh too loudly, and the sound of their merriment partakes more of the nature of a goose's cackle than any other sort of natural melody. But this large, soft and silvery, was like a delicately subdued cadence played on a magic flute in the distance, and suggested nothing but sweetness; and at the sound of it Gervase started violently and turned sharply round upon his friend Murray with a look of ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... said Bassett, more and more perplexed. "It's not in my book, but I remember once reading, when I was at school, that spiders are sometimes attracted by the sound of a flute." ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... goods? In a spirit of fun, at first, the women of the Fort, as well as the men, began offering household goods or personal gear; a frying pan against a baby-bag, a pair of corsets against a medicine flute, a bureau against a war bonnet. Then, bitten by the craze, they kept on till everything was matched and all the goods tied up in bundles, according to the established custom, to lie in the big, ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... yon tall poplars tune your flute: Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill, The slow blue rumour of the hill; Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold, And ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... a story of a Grecian flute-player who charged double fees for pupils who had been taught by inferior masters, on the ground that it was much harder to undo bad habits than to ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... thee: Ye weavers in saffron and haze and Tyrian purple, Tell yet what range in color wakes the eye; Sorcerer, release the dreams born here when Drowsy, shifting palm-shade enspells the brain; And sound! ye with harp and flute ne'er essay Before these star-noted birds escaped from paradise awhile to Stir all dark, and dear, and passionate desire, till mine Arms go out to be mocked by the softly kissing body of the wind— Slave, send Vashti to ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... promoting the intimacy, and his son laid himself out to please. There was, moreover, rankling in Mary's heart the impression that Mark was being harshly judged by her mother; this helped to draw her closer to him. He was, besides, an excellent performer on the flute, and would sometimes come over on lesson mornings and accompany her, much to the annoyance of ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... the little maiden up 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 too humble for that! He went to the servants' quarters, and the men and ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... a page from a novel," the flute-like voice murmured, "that this lucky picture should have brought us together again, as it strangely ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... The silvery 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 ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... overseers domineered over them, and stormed at them as violently as though they were the most abject slaves. They were allowed no privileges such as their former habits impelled them to seek. If they played a flute in the hearing of the overseer, they were commanded to be silent instantly. If they dared to put a gold ring on their finger, even that trifling pretension to gentility was detected and disallowed by the jealous overseer. (These things were specified by Mr. G. himself.) They were ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 'em inside out, an' it seems beyond a doubt As if there weren't enough to dust a flute (Cornet: Toot! toot!)— Before you sling your 'ook, at the 'ousetops take a look, For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... looked, alternately in fear and wonder, at those terrible warriors with their swords always raised, those beautiful huntresses shooting the arrow which never left the bow, and those shepherds in satin breeches always playing the flute at the feet of the perpetually smiling shepherdess. Sometimes, when the wind blew behind these hanging pictures, it seemed to me that the figures themselves moved, and I watched to see them detach themselves from the wall, and take their places in the procession! But these impressions were ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... breath of all ages it is, From Teos, and Lesbos, and Ind; Through the years, like a shuttle of gold, Runs the wonder of song on the wind— The wonder of flute and of lyre, A music made mellow and meet For Sappho, the princess of song. Oh, the South ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... first quartered at Ghent, where, amidst the din of garrison riot and murderous brawls, we hear the gentle sound of Wolfe's flute, and where he studies the fortifications, already anxious to prepare himself for the higher walks of his profession. From Ghent the army moved to the actual scene of war in Germany, suffering of course on the march from the badness ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... we heard was something like this: the sound of a bell, tolling at regular intervals, like the throbbing of a life begun; about it an accompaniment of hopes, inducements, fears, the flute, the violin, the violoncello, promising, urging, entreating, inspiring; the life beset with trials, lured with pleasures, hesitating, doubting, questioning; its purpose at length grows more certain and fixed, the bell tolling becomes a prolonged undertone, the flow of a definite life; the music ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... standing in the shade of a large warehouse; the line of slates making a crescent of the full moon, and amid the reverberating yards and brickways Kate's voice sounded as penetrating and direct as a flute. The exquisite accuracy of her ear enabled her to give each note its just value. Dick was astonished, and he said when she ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... made a sign of assent. Like the Athenian virgins with the baskets sacred to Ceres, twelve young girls, bearing on their heads baskets filled with pomegranates and apples, entered the room with a light step, in time to the music of an invisible flute. They placed the baskets on the table, the flute ceased, and ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... Shakspeare himself has left us many pictures of the village drama. Doubtless he had seen many a Bottom in the old Warwickshire hamlets; many a Sir Nathaniel playing "Alissander," and finding himself "a little o'erparted." He had been with Snug the joiner, Quince the carpenter, and Flute the bellows-mender, when a boy we will not question, and acted with them, and written their parts for them; had gone up with them in the winter's evenings to the Lucy's Hall before the sad trouble with the deer-stealing; and afterwards, when he came to London ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... we often find associated with them in these cases the remains of no other plant. The Sigillaria were remarkable for their beautifully sculptured stems, various in their pattern, according to their species. All were fluted vertically, somewhat like columns of the Grecian Doric; and each flute or channel had its line of sculpture running adown its centre. In one species (S. flexuosa) the sculpture consists of round knobs, surrounded by single rings, like the heads of the bolts of the ship carpenter; in another (S. reniformis) ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Franz, "it is worth twenty dinners to have you hear the opera. I have longed so every night to have you there, and to have you on the stage! my highest wishes are granted. Oh! Marie, when you make a great point, I shall have to take my flute from my mouth and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... were shown him he refused to believe they were the work of the lad of fifteen. The very subjects chosen by the boy showed something out of the common. One was a sort of home idyl: two shepherds were in a little orchard close, one playing on the flute, the other listening; some sheep were browsing near. The men wore the blouse and wooden shoes of Millet's country; the orchard was one that belonged to his father. The other drawing showed a starry night. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Jose he saw the Spanish flag floating over the roof of the alcalde's office, while the hollow beating of a drum, the bucolic quavering of a flute, and the snapping of castanets, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... phenomena marked with the marvellous. The properties of Sound are next in interest; among them we find explained the wonder of singers breaking glasses with their great power of voice; the automaton flute-player, talking engines, echoes, &c. The Mechanical causes are less numerous: among them we are glad to see noticed the feat of lifting heavy persons, which we ourselves have often seen accomplished; but Sir David Brewster does not supply the cause. As the matter may be new ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... supper"); [Order, 14th September, 1730 (in Forster, i. 372).] food to be cut for him, no knife allowed. Room is to be opened, morning, noon and evening, "on the average not above four minutes each time;" lights, or single tallow-light, to be extinguished at seven P.M. Absolute solitude; no flute allowed, far from it; no books allowed, except the Bible and a Prayer-Book,—or perhaps Noltenius's MANUAL, if he took a hankering for it. There, shut out from the babble of fools, and conversing ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... consisted of the Royal Oak, of 74 guns, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Malcolm; the Diadem and Dictator, two sixty-fours, armed en flute; the Pomone, Menelaus, Trave, Weser, and Thames, frigates, the three last armed in the same manner as the Diadem and Dictator; the Meteor and Devastation, bomb-vessels; together with one or two gun-brigs, making in all a squadron of eleven or twelve ships ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... diversions of London we enjoy at Edinburgh, in a small compass. Here is a well conducted concert, in which several gentlemen perform on different instruments — The Scots are all musicians — Every man you meet plays on the flute, the violin, or violoncello; and there is one nobleman, whose compositions are universally admired — Our company of actors is very tolerable; and a subscription is now on foot for building a new theatre; but their assemblies ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... carved slabs, at intermediate distances, was placed almost every instrument that may claim a votary. Of viols, from the violin to the double bass,—of instruments of brass, from trombones and bass kettledrums even unto trumpet and cymbal,—of instruments of wood, from winding serpents to octave flute,—and of fiddles of parchment, from the grosse caisse to the tambourine. Nor were ancient instruments wanting. These were of quaint forms and diverse constructions. Mr. Graeme would descant for hours on an antique species of spinnet, which he procured from the East, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... British lyre be mute, Nor thrill through all its trembling strings, With oaten reed and pastoral flute While ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... begins to applaud; meanwhile the scene is changed, the fire and water taken from the MAGIC FLUTE begin to play, above appears the open temple of the sun, the sky is clear and Jupiter sits within it, beneath Hell with Terkaleon, cobalds and witches on the stage, many lights, etc. The audience ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... they left the table, Wardor proposed their calling on a Roman family, who were spending the summer in the town. They found the house they occupied crowded with guests, who, having finished dinner, were busily employed dancing to the music of two guitars and a flute; that is, the younger part of them, while the elders applauded vociferously, entering into the amusement with a reckless spirit of fun and good nature, which people who have to keep shady nine tenths ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of all the out-door accessories of a London life are the strains of fugitive music which one hears in the quiet by-streets or suburban highways—strains born of the skill of some of our wandering artists, who, with flute, violin, harp, or brazen tube of various shape and designation, make the brick-walls of the busy city responsive with the echoes of harmony. Many a time and oft have we lingered entranced by the witchery of some ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... prey are creeping forth for their night's hunting. The porters' tents are ranged in a wide semicircle, and their camp-fires show little groups of men squatting about them. Somewhere one is playing a tin flute, another is playing a French harp, and some are singing. It is a picture never to be forgotten, and rich with a charm that will surely always send forth its call to the restless soul of the man who goes back to ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, That makes ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Who could drive a knife in a man's back with a braver air of deviltry than Benvenuto Cellini? And yet he could turn himself from the deed and devote himself to the producing of a Perseus, or to playing the flute well enough to attract the attention of a Pope. And his own countrymen, the Borgias, had as pretty a talent for assassination as they ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... weary of the sameness. Now, the sun, whose ardour was already melting into the tenderness of evening, shone upon a broad valley, where the grass stood high in rich meadows separated from other meadows and green cornfields by hedges, from the midst of which rose many a tall tree. The blackbird's low, flute-like note sounded above ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... 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 ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... at the Brant House, but dancing in a quiet way every evening to a flute, violin, and violoncello, played by some of the waiters. For a time Burnham and Salsbury did not mingle much in these festivities, but loitered about the halls and piazzas, very elegantly dressed and barbered (Thomas was an unrivalled coiffeur), ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... the other side, the foremost figure is that of Mary Magdalen, carrying the jar of ointment in her hand, and behind her stands St. Augustine with a bishop's staff, looking toward John. At the feet of St. Cecilia are scattered various instruments of music, a viol, cymbals, the triangle, flute, and others. They are broken, and some of the pipes of the regal held by St. Cecilia are falling from their place,—all seeming to indicate the inferiority of earthly music to the celestial harmonies. Of the five saints depicted, ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... Her voice joins in melody with her mother, who, like all German mothers, seems only her daughter's self, subdued by an additional twenty years. The bow of one violin is handled with the air of a master by an elder brother; while a younger one, an university student, grows sentimental over the flute. The same instrument is also played by a tall and tender-looking young man in black, who stands behind the parents, next to the daughter, and occasionally looks off his music-book to gaze on his young mistress's eyes. He is a clerk in a public office; and on next Michaelmas ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... plays, had learned Latin against his father's will, had filled his mind with the ideas of deistic philosophers, and had seemed likely to become a dreamer instead of a ruler. But the dogged determination of his father, King Frederick William I, to make something out of Frederick besides a flute-playing, poetizing philosopher, had resulted in familiarizing him with elaborate financial reports and monotonous minutes of tiresome official transactions. Young Frederick, however, learned to like the details of administration and when he came to the throne ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Not far off, sir. He was sitting by the bank of the stream playing on his flute; and Miss Barbara, she had climbed one of my apple-trees,—she says they are your trees.' ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... be here asserted, be he ever so sensible or sagacious, that he doth not stand in need of assistance with regard to those things which he is ignorant of; otherwise he might play on the flute or any other instrument, who had never learned, and perform just as well; but without teaching, the hands will do nothing; whereas, if there be a master, we quickly learn, and are soon ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... an excellent Drill-sergeant;—had good talents every way, and was a man of probity and sense. He played beautifully on the flute too, and had a cheerful conversible turn; which naturally recommended him still farther to Fritz; and awoke or encouraged, among other faculties, the musical faculty in the little Boy. Rentzel continued about him, or in sight of him, through life; advancing gradually, not too fast, according to real ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... the most eminent philosophers and orators of the day, but that his moral character was not of the best. He was a large, thick-set, florid, full-bearded man, with large lips, black hair and eyes, and swarthy skin. His voice was sweet and flute-like, and he had evidently perfected himself in the graces of elocution. He spoke with a great deal of animation and action; in fact, he ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... came the careless ripple of a flute, showering light and sensuous music. There was a dare-devil lilt and sway to the flippant strains and Aunt Agatha covered her face with ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... more dismal could have been desired by the most fastidious taste. The gentleman of a vocal turn was head mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest took anything they could get. The youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into a flute. He didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better. If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would have ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... from the very commencement of human existence a source of melody: but so far as musical instruments are concerned, it is probable that percussion came first, then wind instruments, and lastly, those with strings: first the Drum, then the Flute, and thirdly, the Lyre. The early history of Music is, however, unfortunately wrapped in much obscurity. The use of letters long preceded the invention of notes, and tradition in such a matter can ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... that the drum antedates all other musical instruments are to be found on every hand. For wherever in the anthropological history of the world we hear of the trumpet, horn, flute, or other instrument of the pipe species, it will be found that the drum and its derivatives were already well known. The same may be said of the lyre species of instrument, the forerunner of our guitar (kithara), tebuni or Egyptian harp, and generally ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... by certain undulatory and saltatory movements within, it was occupied. Presently the head of a youth emerged, with closed eyes and flushed features. He indulged in a series of groans and spasmodic kicks, that subsided once more, only to recommence. A flute projected from ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... to which of them,—don't now, dear persecuting reader, unsettle our brains by asking. Enough it is that both in Roman and English law the rights of neighborhood are past measuring. Has a man a right to play the German flute, where the partitions are slender, all day long in the house adjoining to yours? Or, supposing a beneficent jury (beneficent to him) finds this to be no legal nuisance, has he a right to play it ill? Or, because juries, when tipsy, will wink at anything, does the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Victoria's heart leap. It was the first time she had heard the music of Africa, except a distant beating of tobols coming from a black tent across desert spaces, while she had lain at night in the house of Maieddine's friends; or the faint, pure note of a henna-dyed flute in the hand of some boy keeper of goats—a note pure as the monotonous purling of water, heard in ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... than regale himself and a harem with western alleged amusement. There are police, and lights, and municipal regulations. In fact, Zanzibar has come on miserable times from certain points of view. But there remains the fun of listening to all the rumors borne by sea. "Play on the flute in Zanzibar and Africa as far as the lakes will dance!" the Arabs say, and the gentry who once drove slaves or traded ivory refuse to believe that the day of lawlessness is gone forever. One rumor then is worth ten facts. Four white men singing behind the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... pertained to an army. The Dorian conquerors brought with them a peculiar sort of music—the Dorian style, serious, strong, even harsh. It was military music; the Spartiates went into battle to the sound of the flute so that ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... assembled and two demons came among them and the old men took the great Baho and the nwelas and chased them away. When they were returning, and were not far north from, their village, they met the Lenbaki (Cane-Flute, a religious society still maintained) of the Horn family. The old men would not allow them to come in until Msauwu appeared and declared them to be good Hopituh. So they built houses adjoining ours and that made a fine, large village. Then other Hopituh came ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... my sense of woe. In the midst of the pleasure-hunting throng, I would close my eyes, and see before me the obscure cavern, where was garnered the mortality of Idris, and the dead lay around, mouldering in hushed repose. When I again became aware of the present hour, softest melody of Lydian flute, or harmonious maze of graceful dance, was but as the demoniac chorus in the Wolf's Glen, and the caperings of the reptiles ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... in the Magic Flute! How lovely it is!" Kate whispered. "If you were my knight, I should put on you the task of caging that lovely ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... a moment fixed her liquid eyes on the secretary of legation. She always seemed to be translating the prose of your speech into the finer rhythms with which her own mind was familiar. "Do you think anything's really new?" she then began to flute. "I'm very fond of the old; you know that's a weakness of we Southerners." The poor lady, it will be observed, had another weakness as well. "What we often take to be the new is simply the old under some novel ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... of readjustment until finally were procured the services of one of the charwomen from the Bronx Theater, who prepared the meals and could flute Zoe's collars to ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... critical scholar at a very early age; he was an astronomer, a mathematician, and there were few branches of science in which he was not versed. When young, his Quaker habits did not prevent him from taking lessons in music and dancing. I have heard him accompany his sister-in-law with the flute, while she played the piano. When not more than sixteen years of age he was so remarkable for steadiness and acquirements that he was engaged more as a companion than tutor to young Hudson Gurney, who was nearly of his own age. One spring morning Young came ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... So in he ran to the shop, bought them, and sent them off to Ireland. The money with which he bought the bulbs was borrowed, and now he left Leyden to make the tour of Europe burdened already with debt, with one guinea in his pocket, and one clean shirt and a flute as his luggage. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... air, and then gave to one of the priests, who placed them before a statue of Buddha, but without lighting them. The music was performed by three men, one of whom twanged a stringed instrument, while the second struck a metal globe, and the third played the flute. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of these public minstrels,—1, those who play such vulgar instruments as the flute and drum; 2, those who play on the ballafond, which is the marimba of Angola and South America, and on the harp; 3, those who sing the legends and battle-songs of their country, or who improvise satires or panegyrics. This last class are dreaded, though despised. They are richly ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... military band than when it is performed upon a piano, and not only the size but also the texture of the resultant form will be very different. There will also be a similar difference in texture between the result of a piece of music played upon a violin and the same piece executed upon the flute. Again, the excellence of the performance has its effect, and there is a wonderful difference between the radiant beauty of the form produced by the work of a true artist, perfect alike in expression and execution, and the comparatively dull and undistinguished-looking ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... ear for poetical numbers, or that it was stopt 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 Philosopher says (Polit. viii, 6), "Teaching should not be accompanied with a flute or any artificial instrument such as the harp or anything else of this kind: but only with such things as make good hearers." For such like musical instruments move the soul to pleasure rather than create a good disposition within it. In the Old Testament instruments ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the teepee they sang, and they danced to the mighty Unkthee, While the loud-braying Chn-che-ga rang and the shrill-piping flute and the rattle, Till Anptuwee [70] rose in the east —from the couch of the blushing Han-nn-na. And then at the dance and the feast sang the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... visitor, in a silvery, flute-like voice, which the girl could not but admire. "You will forgive me for calling so soon? My old friendship with Mr. Brooke—whom I have known for years—made me anxious to see you, dear, as soon as possible. You will receive me also as a friend, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the beautiful terraced walk, through her father's garden, till she reached a beautiful arbor on the brink of the river, where she had spent so many happy hours. Here was her guitar, her father's flute, and the book they had last read together. She seated herself upon the richly cushioned seat, and looked upon the winding waters that seemed mocking her sad heart as they danced sparkling on beneath ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... me, my friend," Roncivalli answered. The liquid Italian played against the German guttural like the warble of a flute answering the snarl of a violoncello. "I am doing what I know. Until our friend Rossano came to England I had a place from which he was good enough to depose me. You may say what you like, Herr Sacovitch, but the independence of my country is ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... of 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
... catch, Jimmy," he proceeded, "a beautiful rainbow catch, which we will flute presently in the moonlight. Do you know ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... "back himself for a slashing article against any man in England!" He would not only write, but fight on a pinch; was a good scholar, and as savage in his manner as with his pen. Mr. Squinny is of exactly the opposite school, as delicate as milk-and-water, harmless in his habits, fond of the flute when the state of his chest will allow him, a great practiser of waltzing and dancing in general, and in his journal mildly malicious. He never goes beyond the bounds of politeness, but manages to insinuate a great deal that is disagreeable to an author in the course of twenty ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the interpretation of the mystic notice to others fast enclosing him, and turned away as the white bull was led by. The boy sat in the basket, followed by a procession; after them again, the woman with the goats; and behind her the flute and tabret players, and another procession ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... tree still preserved its upright form and abundant foliage as in the days of peace. The groups of pines recalled the columns of ruined temples. Some were still standing erect, but without their crowns, like shafts that might have lost their capitals; others were pierced like the mouthpiece of a flute, or like pillars struck by a thunderbolt. Some had splintery threads hanging around their cuts ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was selected to present the board to us, and we prepared tea and cakes for those who would come. On the day appointed at 2 P.M., we heard a lot of fire-crackers, rockets, and guns, and a band playing the flute and bugle at the same time. The 'merit board,' consisting of a black board with four big carved and gilded characters in the centre, and with red cloth over it, was carried into our guest hall by four men, and set on the centre table. The characters ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... night through the only sound has been the long-drawn note of the bamboo flute, as the seller passes by, and the wind that wailed and whistled and seemed to bring with it spirits of the other world who came and taunted me that I did not save my son. Why, why did I not save him! What is honour, what is this country, this fighting, quarrelling, ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... due civility, that you will send me a copy of each of the two works for pianoforte and flute, with variations. As for the receipt, you shall have it to-morrow; and I also beg you will forward it forthwith. Give my compliments to Herr Artaria, and thank him from me for his kind offer of an advance, but as I have received from abroad the money due to me, I do not ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... been working hard all day to keep her liege lord away from the Cross Roads tavern so that he might be presentable at night, and capable of performing his part, together with his eldest son, who played the flute. She was out in the kitchen now, very large and important with the office of head waiter, her hoops in everybody's way, and her face radiant with satisfaction, as she talked to Mrs. Markham about what we better ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... election of a Trierarch; elsewhere pay is being distributed, the Pallas figure-heads are being regilded, crowds are surging under the market porticos, encumbered with wheat that is being measured, wine-skins, oar-leathers, garlic, olives, onions in nets; everywhere are chaplets, sprats, flute-girls, black eyes; in the arsenal bolts are being noisily driven home, sweeps are being made and fitted with leathers; we hear nothing but the sound of whistles, of flutes and fifes to encourage the work-folk. That is what you assuredly ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... 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
... inheritors of their empire, had a passion for music, and delighted in a great variety of musical instruments, has long been known and admitted. The repeated mention by Daniel, in his third chapter, of the cornet, flute, harp sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music—or, at any rate, of a number of instruments for which those terms were once thought the best English equivalents—has familiarized us with ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... whole being translated into music, with hair dishevelled and feet hardly touching the ground, the girl suggested an orange-leaf dancing on a sunbeam. The rasping street-organ, perchance, brought to her melodious reminiscences of some flute-playing Savoyard boy, brown-limbed and ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... this I should like to relate here that one of his seemingly gross but really innocent diversions was occasionally visiting a certain black house of prostitution, of which there were many in St. Louis. Here while he played a flute and some one else a tambourine or small drum, he would have two or three of the inmates dance in some weird savage way that took one instanter to the wilds of Central Africa. There was, so far as I know, no payment of any kind made in connection with this. ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... dies, For boist'rous war ill-chosen. He was skill'd To tune the lulling flute, and melt the heart; Or with his pipe's awak'ning strains allure The lovely dames of Lydia to the dance. They on the verdant level graceful mov'd In vary'd measures; while the cooling breeze Beneath their swelling garments wanton'd o'er Their snowy breasts, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth |
