"Harp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it is that all the nation, thus 'all that mighty heart,' through nine hundred miles of space, from Sutherlandshire by London to the myrtle climate of Cornwall, has become and is ever more becoming one infinite harp, swept by the same breeze of ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... prelude to his pleasant strains, Telemachus his head inclining nigh To Pallas' ear, lest others should his words Witness, the blue-eyed Goddess thus bespake. My inmate and my friend! far from my lips Be ev'ry word that might displease thine ear! The song—the harp,—what can they less than charm 200 These wantons? who the bread unpurchased eat Of one whose bones on yonder continent Lie mould'ring, drench'd by all the show'rs of heaven, Or roll at random in the billowy deep. Ah! could they see him once to his ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... pride and ambition of his military career, all were forgotten, and by Ruez's side he was perhaps more of a child at heart than the boy himself. How strange are our natures; how susceptible to outward influence; how attunable to harshness or to plaintive notes! We are but as the olian harp, and the winds of heaven play upon us ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... handsome pieces of mahogany, a bookcase full of books bound in old calf, a table on which are tropical fruits and cooling drinks in earthen jugs, one or two palm-trees, and Caribbean pottery on shelves. In one corner is a harp. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... about him that we do not feel about any other poet and essayist of his time. His poems are the fruit of Oriental mysticism and bardic fervor grafted upon the shrewd, parsimonious, New England puritanic stock. The stress and wild, uncertain melody of his poetry is like that of the wind-harp. No writing surpasses his in the extent to which it takes hold of the concrete, the real, the familiar, and none surpasses his in its elusive, mystical suggestiveness, and its cryptic character. It is Yankee ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony; Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue, Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips, And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... days of its publication. George Ellis playfully observed to Scott that "the personal appearance of the Minstrel who, though the Last, is by far the most charming of all minstrels, is by no means compensated by the idea of an author shorn of his picturesque beard, deprived of his harp, and writing letters to his intimate friends." The Minstrel of the Lay was but a creature of imagination; the Minstrel of "Marmion" ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... cider; citron; clocks; copper manufactures; copper or brass wire; cotton; crayons; crystal (cut and manufactured); cucumbers; fish; gauze of thread; hair, manufactures of hair or goats' wool, &c.; hams; harp-strings; hats or bonnets of straw, silk, beaver, felt, &c.; hops; iron and steel, wrought; japanned or lacquered ware; lace, made by the hand, &c.; latten-wire; lead (manufactures of); leather (manufactures of)—calashes, boots, and shoes, of all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... his art and to the high command God laid upon him, Markham's rebel hand Beats all in vain the harp he touched before: It yields a jingle and it yields no more. No more the strings beneath his finger-tips Sing harmonies divine. No more his lips, Touched with a living coal from sacred fires, Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires. The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak; ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... with him all the time, and he let it out that the old fellow's about ready to tune up his eternal harp." ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... common father and mother, Adam and Eve; yet we are not told that Noah (he was six hundred years old when he went into the Ark) and his family were savages. In the 4th chapter, 21st verse of Genesis, of Jubal-Cain, we learn that "He was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ"; and in the following verse, Tubal-Cain is described as "An instructor of every ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... knees shot out from under him with his restless pain. His right arm was stretched from the bed in a narrow iron frame, reminding me of a hand laid along a harp to play the chords, the fingers with their swollen green flesh extended across the strings; but of this harp his fingers were the ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... was drawing to its close, the blind beggar bade the boy that waited near him fetch his harp. And, as had often before been his practice, he sang in a deep manly voice, to the boy's accompaniment on his harp. But the song that then he sang had never been heard before, nor was its exact like ever heard again; though tradition ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... admitted for Oldham, Dryden disdained to make use of himself. He did not, as has been said of Horace, wilfully untune his harp when he commenced satirist. Aware that a wound may be given more deeply with a burnished than with a rusty blade, he bestowed upon the versification of his satires the same pains which he had given to his rhyming plays ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... I advocate all sports, and exercises, and modes of life that improve the physical organism, I have no respect for bone, and nerve, and muscle in the abstract. Health is a fine harp, but I want to know what tune you are going to play on it. I have not one daisy to put on the grave of a dead pugilist or mere boat-racer, but all the garlands I can twist for the tomb of the man who serves God, though he be as physically weak as Richard Baxter, whose ailments ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... who played upon the harp and sometimes let Nina go with him on his tramps, to sing and play upon her fiddle, but oftener forced her to go alone,—they earned more so, he said) had often told her about the Santa Maria and the Gesu ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... soon over, and then Bessie with trembling fingers managed, with severe self-control, to play 'Bonnie Dundee' to the end without a tear. Another note, however, she could not play, but replaced the cover of her harp in silence. Then Tom and Gem brought in from the garden all the flowers they could find, and a long wreath was made and twined around and over the two pillars ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... with a peculiar charm. The scene is truly suggestive: behind us, purpling in the night-air and silvered by the radiance from above, lie the wolds and mountains tenanted by the fiercest of savages; their shadowy mysterious forms exciting vague alarms in the traveller's breast. Sweet as the harp of David, the night- breeze and the music of the water come up from the sea; but the ripple and the rustling sound alternate with the hyena's laugh, the jackal's cry, and the wild ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... give to our beloved? The hero's heart to be unmoved, The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep, The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse, The monarch's crown, to light the brows? 'He ...
— 'He Giveth His Beloved Sleep' • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... blacksmith of Wainola: "Nothing fine can be constructed From the bones and teeth of fishes By the skillful forger-artist, By the hands of the magician." These the words of Wainamoinen: "Something wondrous might be builded From these jaws, and teeth, and fish-bones; Might a magic harp be fashioned, Could an artist be discovered That could shape them to my wishes." But he found no fish-bone artist That could shape the harp of joyance From the relies of their feasting, From the jaw-bones of the monster, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... rido, -a dry, dried up, barren. arma f. arms, weapon. armar arm, start. armona f. harmony, music, rhythm, concord, peace. armonioso, -a harmonious, melodious. aroma m. aroma, fragrance, scent, perfume. aromoso, -a aromatic, fragrant. arpa f. harp. arrancar tear out, pluck out, wring, wrest, tear away, take away. arrebatar bear away, catch, snatch up, attract, captivate, charm; —se grow furious, rush headlong, give way to passion. arrebolar redden. arrogancia f. arrogance. arrojar throw, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... frivolous and partly disreputable, such as singing, painting, dancing, and driving. Seneca might have argued that there was, at any rate, no great harm in such employments, and that they probably kept Nero out of worse mischief. But we respect Nero the less for his indifferent singing and harp-twanging just as we respect Louis XVI. less for making very poor locks; and, if Seneca had adopted a loftier tone with his pupil from the first, Rome might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero's subsequent buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... did a rushing business during the evening hours, for the dance did not begin until seven. A Mexican orchestra, consisting of a violin, an Italian harp, and two guitars, had come up from Oakville to furnish the music for the occasion. Just before the dance commenced, I noticed Uncle Lance greet a late arrival, and on my inquiring of June who he might be, I learned that the man was Captain Frank Byler ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... appropriate hymn, in which the Supreme Being was acknowledged as the Ruler of the Seasons. This was sung, it must be confessed, by a sadly shrunken choir, stoutly supported, however, by the congregation in the body of the meeting-house, without the sound of tabret, or harp, or other musical instruments; for in those days not even the flute or grave bass-viol, those pioneers of the organ, were permitted in the Sanctuary. To the hymn succeeded a long and fervent prayer, in which Mr. Robinson, the minister (the term Reverend had then a slight papistical twang), after ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Scripture authority for placing these among the most honorable and sustaining parts of the fabric, near the corner-stone: for we are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets." Isaiah with his evangelic clarion. Jeremiah with his pastoral reed of sorrows, and David with his many-voiced harp, sometimes loud in notes of triumph, and sometimes subdued to the voice of weeping, stand out with a marked individuality which becomes the more surprising, the more nearly we examine the distinctive features. They may be likened to those immense but goodly stones, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... lost some of its rigidity; sentences and periods grew rather than were built; phrases were alive, and learnt, if there were a need, to leap and bound. Verse was moulded by the feeling that inspired it; the melodies were like those of an Eolian harp, long-drawn or retracted as the wind swept or touched the strings. Symmetry was slighted; harmony was valued for its own sake and for its spiritual significance. Rich rhymes satisfied or surprised the ear, and the poet sometimes suffered through his ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... hands. It had been reported by Tommy Dare, the leading Newport authority on monkeys, that he had heard him play Brahm's "Variations on Paganini" with his paws on a piano, "Hiawatha" on a xylophone with his feet, and "Home, Sweet Home" with his tail on a harp simultaneously, in Paris a year ago, and that alongside of Jockobinski all other musical prodigies of the ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... drafts and alternative versions of well-known poems thirteen are now printed for the first time. Two versions of 'The Eolian Harp', preserved in the Library of Rugby School, and the dramatic fragment entitled 'The Triumph of Loyalty', are of especial ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... attractive. Not only did Calpurnia sympathize with the glory of her husband abroad, but she could also, like Mrs. Sheridan, add a charm to his talents at home, by setting his verses to music and singing them to her harp,—"with no instructor," adds Pliny, "but Love, who is, after all, the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... conscious of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the idea of playing the classics in "Ragtime," being the first person on the stage to play "Mendelssohn's Wedding March," "Oh Promise Me," "Star-Spangled Banner," etc., in syncopated rhythm or "Ragtime." He was also the first on the stage to do imitations of the harp, bagpipe, mandolin, banjo, etc., on the piano. His act was much imitated all over ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... outside, and the moisture had condensed within, so that it was not easy to see clearly; but they made out that a Creole woman was singing to a group of topers who sat by the fire in a corner of the room. She was middle-aged, but sang sweetly, and was accompanied on the harp by ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the Battalion returned next day to the caves at Ronville, where it was re-organised and re-equipped ready for further action. After four days' rest it again moved up, on the 21st April, this time to dug-outs in the trench system known as "The Harp," the Q.M. Stores remaining in Arras, where on the 22nd April Lieut. Lewis, acting Q.M., was killed by a shell. In "The Harp" fighting stores were issued, as the Battalion was to be in reserve for the attack on the 23rd April. At zero hour, just at dawn on that date, St. George's ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown
... effect was produced by giving each half line two strongly accented syllables. Each full line, therefore, had four accents, three of which (i.e. two in the first half, and one in the second) usually began with the same sound or letter. The musical effect was heightened by the harp with which the gleeman accompanied his singing.. The poetical form will be seen clearly in the following selection from the wonderfully realistic description of the fens haunted by Grendel. It will need only one or two readings aloud to show that many of these strange-looking words are ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Canterbury, I think—I fancy some part of your early Life might be condensed. But I will tell you, if you will allow me, when the time comes: and then you can but keep to your own plan, which you have good reason to think better than mine—though I am very strong in Scissors and Paste: my 'Harp and Lute.' Crabbe is under them now—as usual, once a Year. If one lived in London, or in any busy place, all this would not be perhaps: but it hurts nobody—unless you, who do hear too ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... to him, Hear, Abraham, ile lend you 5s. Will you, my blessed brother. Yes, I will; hear it is. Now we will boath of us go to the gav togeather. One gets his fiddle ready and the other the Tamareen. The harp is too heavy to carry. They go to call at the post office for a chinginargery—they boath come home ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Maud, her confidante and admirer, she was wont to cast a kindly glamour of romance over her own delinquencies. "It's my heart," she would sigh pathetically. "My heart is so sensitive. It's like an Aeolian harp, Maud, upon which every passing breeze plays its melody. I'm a creature of sensibility!" And she rolled her fine eyes to the ceiling, the while Maud snorted, being afflicted with adenoids, and wrinkled her ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... beautiful flower-garden, while beyond were hills and woods; on the other, glass doors opened out upon a grassy lawn, shaded by large trees, and beyond, far away in the distance, rolled the blue sea; all around her she saw the evidences of a father's thoughtful love; a beautiful piano, a harp, a small work-table, well furnished with every requisite; books, drawing materials—everything to give pleasure and employment; while luxurious couches and easy-chairs invited to rest and repose. Several rare pictures, ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... comes back in music soft and sweet, And lo! the Present like a strung harp stands Waiting the sweeping of prophetic hands, To send its living music, loud and fleet, Careering calmly through ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... alone!—awake, my soul—on high The glorious sun his thousand rays has flung Athwart the vaulted sky— Lo! there the heavens their mighty harp have strung, The gold, the silver and the crimson chord, To hymn their evening hymn unto the Lord. Hark! heard ye not that glorious burst of song, Which, touched by hands unseen, those chords sent forth, Bidding the attuned spheres the notes prolong ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... the wind that kisses my tresses? Or is it the harp of Innis thrilling my ear? Or is it the dawn on Ramore that dims ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... writes, in answer to BLUEBELL, who wishes to know when and by whom organs were invented: "Jubal is mentioned in Gen. iv. 21, as 'the father of all such as handle the harp and organ;' but neither the century of its invention nor the name of the inventor can be given. Hero and Vitruvius speak of a water-organ, invented or made by Ctesibius, of Alexandria, about 180 or 200 B.C., so that it may be inferred that other kinds of organs were then ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... there are some points that illustrate the policy on which Mr. Parris acted, and exhibit the skill and vigilance of his management. The motive that led him to harp so constantly upon "firewood" is obvious. It was to create a sympathy in his behalf, and bring opprobrium upon his opponents. But it cannot stand the test of scrutiny: for it had been expressly agreed, as I have said, that he should find his own fuel; and it cannot be supposed that his friends, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... that o'er him grow A harp is hung to catch the evening gale, That sings to him in accents soft and low, And soothes the maiden with its sorrowful wail, Who, as she sits within her greenwood bower, And listens to the teylin's solemn strain, Bethinks her, in her ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... anointed King over all Israel. There is another! David defeating the Philistines in the battle under the mulberry trees. There is one more! "Whose is this image?" It is that of David bringing the ark from Kirjath-jearim, and playing his harp and dancing before it. What a goodly array of pictures! All—all about the glories and successes of David. David paces idly through the halls, he sees the tapestries and paintings, but he regards them not, "My sin is ever before me." He sees only one picture, ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... may, what a striking picture is given of Saul, worn with passion and swept away by ungovernable impulses, 'prophesying' or 'raving' with wild gestures and uttering wilder sounds; and of David, young, calm, giving forth melodies on his harp and songs from his lips, that sought to soothe the paroxysms of fury. Browning has drawn the picture in immortal words, which all who can should read. It has been suggested that Saul did not 'cast' his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... drinking man. He never let it interfere with his work, he generally drank at night and on Sundays. Every night, as soon as his chores were done, he began to drink. While he was able to sit up he would play on his mouth harp or hack away at his window sills with his jackknife. When the liquor went to his head he would lie down on his bed and stare out of the window until he went to sleep. He drank alone and in solitude not for pleasure or good cheer, but to forget the awful ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... and the piano with its yellow keys and its scratched case. But with her inner eyes she beheld a lovely rose-colored room, heaped with soft rugs and satin-lined chairs; fine, soft-grained woods, and a harp studded with rare jewels. ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... lungs. Her idea of lungs, in spite of her time among them and similar objects at a hospital, was what it had always been: that they were things like pink macaroni strung across a frame of bones on the principle of a lyre or harp, and producing noises. She thought the canary had unusual numbers of these pink strings, and all of them of the biggest ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... garth of rhyme; Tales of the framing of all things and the entering in of time From the halls of the outer heaven; so near they knew the door. Wherefore uprose a sea-king, and his hands that loved the oar Now dealt with the rippling harp-gold, and he sang of the shaping of earth, And how the stars were lighted, and where the winds had birth, And the gleam of the first of summers on the yet untrodden grass. But e'en as men's hearts were ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... cared for me, if you have any pity for an unhappy woman, let me in—let me speak to you," were the words I heard her say, in a voice like the wail of harp-strings. Its pathos would have been irresistible to any man, even if he had never loved her. Eagle March let Diana come in, though I heard him protesting that his friend Jim White might arrive ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was over. The bards had sung their heroic songs to the accompaniment of the cruot, or harp; the fool had played his pranks, and the juggler his tricks, and the chief bard, who was expected to be familiar with "more than seven times fifty stories, great and small," had given the best from his list; and as they sat thus ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... a box just like a coffin, and cotton wool—we steal the cotton wool most times. We know where Fortune has got a lot of it put away. Iris does not think it quite right to steal, but the rest of us don't mind. And we have banners, and Orion plays the Jew's harp, and I beat the drum, and Iris sings, and Apollo digs the grave, and the dead 'un is put into the ground, and we all cry, or pretend to cry. Sometimes I do squeeze out a tiny tear, but I'm so incited I can't always manage it, although I'm sure I'll cry when Rub-a-Dub is ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... universe had never before known. But to each of us the most perfect joy will be his own consciousness, existence being then a rapture such as we never experienced. Then the bird is winged, the jewel is set in gold, the flower blooms, the harp receives all her strings, the heir is crowned. No wonder that Paul said, looking through and beyond heaven, "If by any means I might attain unto ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... dinner, where everybody but yourself is a member of an Amateur Dramatic Society." The present writer is not far from agreeing with B, while he has for A a respect which disguises no shadow of a sneer. Crebillon does harp far too much on one string, and that one of no pure tone: and even the individual handlings of the subject are chargeable throughout his work with longueurs, in the greater part of it with sheer tedium. It is very curious, and for us of the greatest importance, to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... A jolly crowd is boarding the 4:56 for a house-party in the suburbs. The gentleman at the right, having been educated abroad, has never learned to play the ukelele, the banjo, the jew's harp or the saxophone, and is, with the best intentions in the world, attempting to contribute his share to the gaiety of the coming evenings by bringing along his player-piano. Would you—be honest!—have recognized his action as a serious social blunder without ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... and feeling, within the circle of personal affectation and preoccupations, of social and educational interests, he abounds in ingenuity and sagacity, in fine criticisms, in exquisite touches. It is like a bee going from flower to flower, a teasing, plundering, wayward zephyr, an Aeolian harp, a ray of furtive light stealing through the leaves. Taken as a whole, there is something impalpable and immaterial about him, which I will not venture to call effeminate, but which is scarcely manly. He wants bone and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that rustic harp, From off that rugged wall, For I must sing another song To suit the Muse's call, For she is bent to sing a poean, On this eventful year, In praise of the philanthropist Whom all his friends hold dear— The Grand Old Man of ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... He will inherit at least half of the largest royal fortune in Europe. The Infanta Eulalie is of lively manners and agreeable physiognomy. She was educated by the Countess Soriente, a lady of New England birth, and is an accomplished player on the harp and guitar. Her instructor was the gifted Cuban negress, who used to perform at Queen Isabella's concerts at ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... what human science and skill have since achieved in taming the great forces of Nature to man's hand, and harnessing them up into his service. Is not all this as if the infernal powers should be appeased and soothed by the melody and sweetness of the Orphean harp and voice? And do we not see how the very elements themselves grow happy and merry in serving man, when he by his wisdom and eloquence has once charmed them into order and concert? Man has but to learn Nature's language and obey her voice, and she clothes him with plenipotence. The mad warring ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... long before. Nothing is more interesting in tracing Virgil's genius, than to note how each fullest development of his talent subsumes and embraces those that had gone before it; how his mind energises in a continuous mould, and seems to harp with almost jealous constancy on strings it has once touched. The deeper we study him, the more clearly is this feature seen. Unlike other poets who throw off their stanzas and rise as if freed from a load, Virgil seems to carry the accumulated burden of his creations about ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... her? But there! The old gentleman's silly, so I have to take him some gingerbread.... Say, I must tell you something funny—he's the cutest young one! I gave him five cents for the missionary box, and he went and bought a jew's-harp! I had to laugh, it was so cute in him. But I declare, sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... there he sat himself in sorrowful reverie upon the selfsame fallen tree. How long he remained there is uncertain, but he was roused by the sound of music which came from the lawn before the farmhouse. Bitterly he smiled, remembering that Wallace Banks had engaged Italians with harp, violin, and flute, promising great things for dancing on a fresh-clipped lawn—a turf floor being no impediment to seventeen's dancing. Music! To see her whirling and smiling sunnily in the fat grasp of that dancing bear! He would stay in this ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... Habichts Burg, Hawk's Castle. Rudolph dismounted, placed the priest on his horse and humbly, cap in hand, led it across the stream. Years after this picturesque event the priest, carefully disguised, attended the Council of Electors and at the psychological moment, produced his harp, burst into song on the subject of Rudolph, and so swayed the Electors that they offered the German crown to that modest and retiring Habsburg. I cannot believe this story of the priest among the ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... enjoying barbarian feasts of beer and hecatombs of lean kine and sheep—is supposed to have been a refined and splendid prince, dwelling in ideal "halls," (doubtless compounded out of the Dublin Bank and Rotunda,) and enjoying the finest music on a double-action harp. As a fact, there is no evidence whatever that the old Irish Pentarchy was much better than any five chieftainships of the Sandwich Islands. Even the historians who laud it in most pompous phrases, like Keatinge, give ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... shape, More fit to string and strike Apollo's lyre, Than bear the shield or wield the sword of Mars! A broken harp, suspended at his side, A faded garland, wreathed about his brow, Tell what he was, and still employ his care. With thin white hand, that trembles at its task, In vain he strives to bind the broken chords, And to their primal melody attune them;— In vain,—for to his efforts still replies A boding ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... music warehouse, a miniature tobacco shop, or branch depot of foreign grammars and dictionaries were before you. Every kind of musical instrument seems to have met with a companion in this tiny apartment. Here are a violin, violoncello, horn, and cornopean; there an old Welsh harp and unstrung guitar. On this shelf are pipes of all sorts and sizes, forms, and nations—the straight English, the short German, and the long Turkish; on that are cigar-boxes, snuff-boxes, and tobacco-boxes of various kinds and appearances. Scattered about the room are play-books without number, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... morning, as he crossed the Plaza, some one called him. The voice made his heart leap; his whole nature responded to it like the strings of a harp to the sweep of a skilful hand. He turned quickly, and saw two young men galloping towards him. The foremost figure was his son—his beloved youngest son—whom he had just been thinking of as well out ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... harp of sweet accord, And in a pleasant psalm your voice attune, And blow the cornet greeting the new moon. Sing, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord, Who killeth and who quickeneth again, Who woundeth and who healeth mortal pain, Whose hand afflicts us, and who sends us peace. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... introduced to her. He explained that love was so important that it could only be discussed lightly. He said that her hair reminded him ... he wished he could think of what, but he had such a bad memory for metaphors. It took him all his time to remember that a harp was like water and Carpentier like a Greek god. It was funny, wasn't it, to have such a weak head. He thought it came from hay fever—he always had hay fever during the third week of May. It came entirely ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... a mind to laugh that he was like to burst; however he contained himself and the physician, having made an end of his song, said, 'How deemedst thou thereof?' 'Certes,' answered Bruno, 'there's no Jew's harp but would lose with you, so archigothically do you caterwarble it.' Quoth Master Simone, 'I tell thee thou wouldst never have believed it, hadst thou not heard me.' 'Certes,' replied Bruno, 'you say sooth!' and the physician went on, 'I know store of others; but let ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... mantle thee invest, Or Chiron lend thee his persuasive lyre, Or Socrates, of pedagogues the best, Teach thee the harp-strings of a youth's desire? ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... the most part of one room and a small kitchen: on the walls of the former the horses' saddles and harness, and the husband's working clothes, manufactured often by the delicate hands of his lady; in one corner, a harp or a piano; on the table, perhaps, a few numbers of the North American or Southern reviews, and some Washington or New York papers. A strange mixture of wild and civilized life. It is thus that our Johnsons, our Livingstons, and Ranselaers, and hundreds, ay, thousands of families, our Jeffersons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... upon a throne, With harp of high, majestic tone, To praise the King of kings: And voice of heaven, ascending, swell, Which, while its deeper notes excel, Clear ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... consultation on the subject of our prospects. Although we both clung to the same top-sail-sheet, we were obliged to hallow to make ourselves heard, the howling of the wind through the rigging converting the hamper into a sort of tremendous Eolian Harp, while the roar of the water kept up a species of bass accompaniment to this music of the ocean. Marble was the one who had brought about this communication, and he was the ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... and when he drew nigh the coast, he called for his harp, and sitting up on his couch on the deck, played the merriest tune that was ever heard in that land. And the warders on the castle wall, hearing him, sent and told King Anguish how a ship drew near with one who harped ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... grassy desert; earth and sky here form a circle as distinct as that traced by a sweep of the compasses. The steppe presents nothing to attract notice but the long line of the telegraph posts, their wires vibrating in the breeze like the strings of a harp. The road could be distinguished from the rest of the plain only by the clouds of fine dust which rose under the wheels of the tarantass. Had it not been for this white riband, which stretched ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... out her gold and diamond repeater, and looked at it. It was long past midnight. She sighed as she remembered the pleasant evenings they had passed together, as her eye fell on the books they had read together, and on her piano and harp, now silent, and thought of all he had said and looked in those days when each ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the blaze Gleams on volumes of old days, Written by masters of the art, Loud through whose majestic pages Rolls the melody of ages, Throb the harp-strings of the heart. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... like many you've seen hereabouts, with a good horse-hair sofy and the mahogany furniture nice and shiny from being varnished every spring, and over the sofy was thrown a fur rug made in lozenges of harp seal and some other fur and a dark fur border. It was real pretty—it was always wonderful to me that folks like Eskimos can make the things they do. There was some little walrus ivory carvings on the what-not, and on the mantel a row of pink mounted shells, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... lest the sound should be dissipated and escape before the sense is affected. Their entrances are hard and horny, and their form winding, because bodies of this kind better return and increase the sound. This appears in the harp, lute, or horn;[237] and from all tortuous and enclosed places ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with throb and swing, Of a plaintive note, and long; 'Tis a note no human throat could sing, No harp with its dulcet golden string,— Nor lute, nor lyre with liquid ring, Is sweet as ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... at a later period of their history. They also appear to have successfully applied it to the cure of diseases. The whole of David's power over the disorder of Saul may, without any miraculous intervention, be attributed to his skilful performance upon the harp. In 1st Samuel, c. xvi., we read that Saul's servants said unto him, "Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee: Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... so harp about Bethel. And I know that dream arose from nothing in the world but because she saw him pass the gate yesterday. Not that she thinks that it was he who did it; unfortunately, there is no room for that; but she will persist ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... if the line had not been made fast to the post, the former would certainly have pulled away from them or dragged them into the river. He lashes the water into foam, and bellows with rage, while they yell with delight and excitement. The stout post is shaken, and the Manila line hums like a harp-string. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... folly so prodigious, reproaches him for this complaining, these regrets. What, is he so soon weary of the marvels with which her love surrounds him? Discontented so soon with being a god? Has he so soon forgotten the old unhappiness? "My minstrel, up! Take your harp! Sing the praise of love, which you celebrate so gloriously that you won the Goddess of Love herself." Tannhaeuser, thus bidden, seizes the harp and warmly entones a hymn of praise to her, which from its climax of ardour, suddenly—as if his lips were tripped by the word "mortal" ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... some one sing to us: lightlier move The minutes fledged with music:' and a maid, Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang. ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... tone, RALPHO, thou always harp'st upon. When thou at any thing would'st rail, 1075 Thou mak'st Presbytery the scale To take the height on't, and explain To what degree it is prophane Whats'ever will not with (thy what d'ye call) Thy light jump right, thou call'st synodical; ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... answered Peter, 'I'll be a termagant again when she's gone; see if I won't. I'll get up an awful racking cough at night, and I'll worry that nasty Mr Martin much more than Dickory has worried him, see if I don't; and I'll sing on the stairs, and I'll whistle awful loud, and I'll buy a Jew's-harp with one of my pennies. I'll turn into a horrid boy! but I suppose you are right about Dickory, Flossy. Here, let's go back as fast as we can to that house you were so 'cute as to take the number of. I'm mis'rible, ...
— Dickory Dock • L. T. Meade
... Gridiron, which recalls the facetious landlord who, on gaining possession of premises once used as a music-house, chose for his sign a goose stroking the bars of a gridiron and inscribed beneath, "The Swan and Harp." It is an interesting note in the history of the St. Paul's Churchyard house that early in the eighteenth century, on the revival of Freemasonry in England, the Grand ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... the choicest legends of the antique world are preserved in silent enactment. On the heavenly sea the Argonautss keep nightly sail towards the Golden Fleece. There Herakles gripes the hydra's heads and sways his irresistible club; Arion with his harp rides the docile Dolphin; the Centaur's right hand clutches the Wolf; the Hare flees from the raging eye and inaudible bark of the Dog; and space crawls with the horrors ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... something still more terrible, voices which he could not interpret, a confusion of voices, which seemed to him to speak in foreign tongues. He had heard mightier storms than this whistle through the rigging, but never before had he heard the wind play on such a many-voiced harp. Each tree had its own voice; the pine did not murmur like the aspen nor the poplar like the mountain ash. Every hole had its note, every cliff's sounding echo its own ring. And the noise of the brooks and ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Montserratian coat of arms centered in the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms features a woman standing beside a yellow harp with her ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... unfortunate enough to be in the neighbourhood of a dump of shells by the roadside at the same moment as a Hun gunner dropped a shell right on the dump. The result was that both these Officers began to soar skywards, as if off for their "harp and wings divine," but eventually found themselves on mother earth once more, the Commanding Officer badly shaken and cut about the face, the strap of his tin hat broken by the force of the explosion, and Pynsent Elliott finding that for some ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... the grotesque element. We carefully studied the gargoyles round the roof, and, in spite of defacements, made out most of them—here a grinning demon with a struggling human being in its clutch—there an odd beast, part human, part pig, clothed in a kind of jacket, playing a harp—dozens of comic, hideous, heterogeneous figures in various ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... branches, or packed away in shell boxes, were taken down, or brought out, and right merrily were they struck or thrummed with the ivory hashi (plectrum). The pretty maids of the Queen put on their ivory thimble-nails, and the Queen again listened to the sweet melodies on the koto, (flat harp), while down among the smaller fry of fishy retainers and the scullions of the kitchen, were heard the constant thump of the tsutsumi (shoulder-drum), the bang of the taiko (big drum), and the loud cries of the dancers ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... of dais. Here, in a carved settle of black wood, sat the chief. Some females, evidently the ladies of his family, were seated on piles of sheepskins, and were plying their distaffs; while an aged man was seated on the end of the dais with a harp of quaint form on his knee; his fingers touched a last chord as Archie entered, and he had evidently been playing while the ladies worked. Near him on the dais was a fire composed of wood embers, which ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Germany, but also along the rocky fjords of Norway, among the Angles and Saxons in their new home across the channel, even in the distant Shetland Islands and on the snow-covered wastes of Iceland, this story was told around the fires at night and sung to the harp in the banqueting halls of kings and nobles, each people and each generation telling it in its own fashion and adding new elements of its own invention. This great geographical distribution of the legend, and the ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... news;—but did they refuse The pledge they loved so well?" "Oh no; for each cup mantling forth to the brim, Did the harp ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... that means that you are more simple, kindly, and truthful. What is more soothing and restorative than to stand quite still in field or forest and listen to the thousand mingled sounds that make up that wondrous melody which Nature is always playing on the numberless strings of her golden harp. Learn the peace which ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Kwaque rule Michael. Kwaque possessed a jews' harp, and, whenever the world of the Makambo and the servitude to the steward grew wearisome, he could transport himself to King William Island by thrusting the primitive instrument between his jaws ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... superbly gowned in their flowing sarongs, wearing their long Papuan pampooties and followed in turn by a group of instrumentalists playing on conchs, nose-flutes and a species of mouth-organ closely resembling the jew's-harp, but much larger and more penetrating in its quality. The crowds in the street were enormous; hundreds of strong women fainted, and the casualties are estimated at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... the slender form, and the sweet girl-face of our new "School Harm"! Say, boys! hev' ye heard an AEolian harp which a Zephyr's tremulous finger twangs? Wa'al, it kinder thrills ye the way I felt when I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... of his perturbation, amazement held him silent. If a shining angel with harp and halo had confronted him with a proposition to rob a church, the situation could not have astonished him more. She ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford |
