"Aeolian harp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heard the sound of some instrument like a mandolin or a zither," said Elinor. "It was just one strain, almost as if the wind had blown over an aeolian harp." ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... they wish for railroad cars. They ride upon the shooting stars: Firmly unite them in a train, And skim along the aerial plain; No locomotive do they need, For their own will propels their speed. The Aeolian harp, with plaintive wail, Sighs responsive to each gale; Its chords are strung 'mid branching trees, And echo to ev'ry passing breeze; Gently they vibrate through the grove, Touching the chords of life and ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Ger. Aolsharfe, Windharfe; Ital. arpa d'Eolo), a stringed musical instrument, whose name is derived from Aeolus, god of the wind. The aeolian harp consists of a sound-box about 3 ft long, 5 in. wide, and 3 in. deep, made of thin deal, or preferably of pine, and having beech ends to hold the tuning-pins and hitch-pins. A dozen or less catgut strings of different thickness, but tuned in exact unison, and left rather slack, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was blowing, and, as Phil spoke, it had stirred the loose strings of the rude Aeolian harp, and a slight melodious sound had arisen, which Phil had thought so beautiful. He drew his breath even more softly, lest he should lose the least tone, and finding that Lisa was really asleep, propped himself up higher on his pillows, and gazed out ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... with curiosity in her eyes, and with her firm little mouth pouted up to a puzzled shape. On reaching the mossy mill- head she found that he had fixed in the keen damp draught which always prevailed over the wheel an AEolian harp of large size. At present the strings were partly covered with a cloth. He lifted it, and the wires began to emit a weird harmony which mingled curiously with the plashing of ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... of hearing her mother sing. The tears ran in streams down Krespel's cheeks; even Angela he had never heard sing like that. Antonia's voice was of a very remarkable and altogether peculiar timbre: at one time it was like the sighing of an Aeolian harp, at another like the warbled gush of the nightingale. It seemed as if there was not room for such notes in the human breast. Antonia, blushing with joy and happiness, sang on and on—all her most beautiful songs, B—— playing between whiles as ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... blended here; that we too must have a past, and that the spirit of our past must be taken up and transmitted before a new type is realized in a new art and a new literature. We can see that Longfellow was essentially a scholar—a receiver of impressions from books; that he was like an AEolian harp, blown upon by many winds, so that his music was in many regards necessarily a melodious echo of what was 'whispered by world-wandering winds.' And we can see, too, that he came into American literary life just as it was passing from the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... the glare of summer, and produce a soft, delicious twilight. My favorite resting place is upon a mossy bank, near which flows a crystal brook whose dancing waters murmur with a melody almost as sweet as the low breathings of an Aeolian harp.—Here, with a volume of philosophic Cowper or fascinating Scott, I sometimes linger until twilight begins to deepen into darkness, and then return to meet with smiles the playful chidings of my husband, for my protracted absence—an offence he can easily forgive, if I present him ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... given him permission to accompany her, they took their way up Willoughby's Lane, whence it was possible to pass into the woodland stretches of the hillside. The day was clear and cold, with just enough wind to wake the aeolian harp of the forest into sound. Once in the woods, they advanced warily. "Listen to the red-polls," ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... ardent vows of repentance; but, alone with 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 brows in the effort to put her fingers on the weak spot ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... voice of a lost soul. When healthiest, as in his Harem picture in the Luxembourg Gallery, it is still in the minor key of that lovely Eastern color-work, such as we see in the Persian carpets, and to me always something weird and mysterious and touching, like the tones of an Aeolian harp, or the greetings of certain sad-voiced children touched by the shadow of death before their babyhood is gone. No color has ever affected me like that of Delacroix,—his Dante pictures are the "Commedia" set in color, and palpitating with the woe of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... whooping howling wilderness, a sort of Malibran. With Lind, Labache and Melba mixed and all combined in one. I'm a grand cathedral organ and a calliope sharp, I'm a gushing, trembling nightingale, a vast AEolian harp. ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... birth, in an occult workshop, of good or bad wood, skilfully or unskilfully made, of this shape or the other; every thing in his life, no matter what we call it, plays upon him, and the instrument sounds for good or evil, as it is well or ill made. You are an AEolian harp—the sound is delightful, whatever breath of fate may touch it; I am a weather-cock—I turn whichever way the wind blows, and try to point right, but at the same time I creak, so that it hurts my own ears and those of other people. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... they were afraid to venture out too far, on account of sharks, which were occasionally seen near the shore. At a certain season of the year there was frequently heard, near the bath-houses, a strain of music, like the Aeolian harp, which had never been satisfactorily accounted for, although many wise heads had pondered over it. Some supposed that it proceeded from a certain kind of small fish, which, in their perambulations through ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... followed, and her voice mingled with it almost imperceptibly. It was one of those gloomy Spanish ballads, dramatic rather than harmonious, that poured forth its mournful strains in the fitful measure of an AEolian harp. There were bursts of pathos that seemed to echo from her very soul. It was fierce, mocking, passionate; tender, wicked, terrible. It sank in sobs of melting compassion; it implored pity and sympathy ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... bow-window where Laura used to sit and watch us, sometimes, when we put off in the boat. Her aeolian harp was in the casement, breaking its heart in music. A delicate handkerchief was lodged between the cushions of the window-seat,—the very handkerchief she used to wave, in summer days long gone. The white boats went sailing beneath ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various |
