"Fiddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... skies lifted somewhat and a four-horse waggon appeared, or rather two mules and two horses on a common freighting waggon, in which Lyman Hamblin and two others were playing, as nearly in unison as possible, a fiddle, a drum, and a fife. While we were admiring this feat we heard Jack's hearty shout and saw our waggon returning under his charge from Salt Lake with supplies, with a cook stove for our kitchen, and with a new suit ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... night; I never do in a strange bed. I feel a little indigestion, which one must expect at this time of the year. Carrie and I returned to Town in the evening. Lupin came in late. He said he enjoyed his Christmas, and added: "I feel as fit as a Lowther Arcade fiddle, and only require a little more 'oof' to feel as fit as a 500 pounds Stradivarius." I have long since given up trying to understand Lupin's slang, or asking ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... scrape execrably on a violin. He had many little puppet soldiers, whom, hour after hour, he would marshal on the floor in mimic war. He would dress his own servants and the maids of Catharine in masks, and set them dancing, while he would dance with them, playing at the same time on the fiddle. ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... now and then, He groped and fiddled doggedly along, His worn face glaring on the thoughtless throng The stony peevishness of sightless men. He seemed scarce older than his clothes. Again, Grotesquing thinly many an old sweet song, So cracked his fiddle, his hand so frail and wrong, You hardly could distinguish one in ten. He stopped at last, and sat him on the sand, And, grasping wearily his bread-winner, Stared dim towards the blue immensity, Then leaned his head upon his poor old hand. He may have slept: he did not speak nor stir: His gesture ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... Mrs. Lathrop, it was another road o' hills, 'n' I must say 's the sight made my blood run cold for the third time in one day. F'r a minute I thought seriously o' jus' takin' a train away ag'in 'n' lettin' Cousin Marion fiddle alone f'r another fifty years, f'r I give you my word o' honor, Mrs. Lathrop, 's I was 'most dead, 'n' Lord only knows what made me keep on, f'r what came after was enough to shake my faith in the Lord forever 'f I really believed ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... hubbub was Carlisle city that day; yet, as the two entered the courtyard of the castle, James was aware of another sound, rising clear above the tumult of the town—strains of music, surely, that came from a fiddle. As they stepped under the inner gateway and approached the Norman Keep, the fiddler himself came in sight playing with might and main, under a barred window about six feet from the ground. By the fiddler's ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... thought Paul, as he led the way with Miss Mary Mutlow, "if Dick were ever to hear of this, he'd think it funny. Oh, if I ever get the upper hand of him again——. How much longer, I wonder, shall I have to play the fool to this infernal fiddle!" ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... And the wastes and the woodland beauty and the happy fields we till, And the homes of ancient stories, the tombs of the mighty dead, And the wise men seeking out marvels and the poet's teaming head. And the painter's hand of wonder, and the marvellous fiddle-bow, And the banded choirs of music—all those that do and know. For all these shall be ours and all men's, nor shall any lack a share Of the toil and the gain of living in the days when ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... it is as unexplainable as the poem itself is untranslatable. It has that inexpressible cadence and inflection of the Norse dialect which you feel (if you have the conditions for recognizing it) in the first word a Norseman addresses to you. It has that wonderful twang of the Hardanger fiddle, and the color and sentiment of the ballads sung and the legendary tales recited around the hearth in a Norwegian homestead during the long winter nights. With Bjoernson it was in the blood. It was his soul's accent, the dialect of his thought, the cadence of his emotion. ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the counter, or seated at numerous small tables, men were drinking villainous liquor, smoking and talking, and paying but scant attention to the strains of the fiddle or the accordion, save when some well-known air was played, when all would join in a boisterous chorus. Some were always passing in or out of a door which led into a room behind. Here there was comparative quiet, for men were gambling, and ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... and gardens, and the sloping lawns blazed with flowers. My mother said it was much prettier than Kaskaskia; not crowded with traffic; not overrun with foreigners. Everybody seemed to be making a fete, to be visiting or receiving visits. At sunset the fiddle and the banjo began their melody. The young girls would gather at Barbeau's or Le Compt's or Pensonneau's—at any one of a dozen places, and the young men would follow. It was no trouble to have a dance every evening, and on feast days and ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... had a passion for violins, and ran himself into debt because he bought so many and such good ones. Once, when visiting his father's house at Ipsden, he shocked the punctilious old gentleman by dancing on the dining-table to the accompaniment of a fiddle, which he scraped delightedly. Dancing, indeed, was another of his diversions, and, in spite of the fact that he was a fellow of Magdalen and a D.C.L. of Oxford, he was always ready to caper and ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... fighting for Pancho Villa in Mexico; and the instant the European conflict started, Freyberg realised that he might do better in Europe. He therefore deserted Villa, and set out afoot for San Francisco. His splendid constitution stood him in good stead, and he arrived there as fit as a fiddle, soon afterwards winning enough money in a swimming race to take him to London. In the English capital he received a commission as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Division, and his promotion has ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... disport, how then? For that once, said Sir Aymeris, I should bid them disobey their lady. Said Birdalone: And how if they disobeyed thee, and obeyed me? Quoth Sir Aymeris: If they bring thee back safe, they may chance to sing to the twiggen fiddle-bow, that they may be warned from such folly; but if they come back without thee, by All-hallows the wind of wrath shall sweep their ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... their true function is to work in the theatres and halls to beguile the audiences and divert their thoughts from the terrible reality of German invasion. With each step that the Germans draw nearer the mummers redouble their efforts to excite laughter. Thus did NERO fiddle. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... tragedy. The rehearsals, where "the only grave person present was Mr. Liston!—the tragic heroines sauntering languidly through their parts in bonnets and thick shawls,—the untidy ballet-girls" (there was a dance in "Foscari") "walking through their quadrille to the sound of a solitary fiddle,"—she was never weary of calling up for the amusement of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... been caught near his home by a sudden shower while on horseback, and had dashed in for shelter. While the rain beat outside and while Shiro was preparing one of his famous suppers, Crane had suggested that she pass the time by playing his "fiddle." Dorothy realized, with the first sweep of the bow, that she was playing a Stradivarius, the like of which she had played before only in her dreams. She forgot her listeners, forgot the time and the place, and poured out in her music all the ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... glad it is not serious," Saunders said. "I have seen him break down before. He is too intense, too strenuous; whatever he does he does with every nerve in his body drawn as taut as a fiddle- string." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... round about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life. While others are filling their memory with a lumber of words, one-half of which they will forget before the week be out, your truant may learn some really useful art: to play the fiddle, to know a good cigar, or to speak with ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who have "plied their book diligently," and know all about some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl- like demeanour, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... took its name, Few critics can unriddle: Some say from 'pastrycook' it came, And some, from 'cat' and 'fiddle.' ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... have the gypsies now, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The authorities have sent them away. But we've Jews that play the cymbals and the fiddle in the village, so one might send for them. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... these neighborhood vengeances. It is a low house at the side of a ravine, down whose steep slope the beech forest steps persistently erect, as if distrusting gravitation. Thirty Confederates had gathered in that house at a country-side frolic, and the fiddle sang deep in the night. The mountain girls are very pretty, having dark, opalescent eyes, with a touch of gold in them at a side glance, slight, rather too fragile figures, and the singular purity of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... fire, things weren't going exactly as I had left them. Pridgin was reported to be working hard—a most alarming symptom. It was commonly surmised that he could not stand playing second or third fiddle to Crofter; and as Tempest was apparently content to be second, Pridgin had come to the painful conclusion that the only comfortable place for him in Sharpe's was Number One. It was extremely inconvenient all round; for it made it necessary ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... took his place at the head of the table, where he had sat ever since the father left it. Uncle Neil was very much beloved, but he was in no sense the head of the family. He was a gay, easy-going body, given to singing songs and playing the fiddle, and not at all calculated to keep a virile group of boys and girls in order. So, John, the eldest son at home, was the real head of the family, and his mother's support. For John was wise and strong and many, many years ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... toes Had once as many as we; When they said, "Some day you may lose them all," He replied, "Fish fiddle de-dee!" And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink Lavender water tinged with pink; For she said, "The World in general knows There's nothing so good for ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... hot and cold just to think of it, and my heart thumps with agitation. I don't feel happy exactly, but very excited and important. I have such a lonely feeling sometimes, and I do so long for someone to love me best of all. At home, though they are all kind enough, I am always second fiddle, if not third, and it is nice to be appreciated! I could never care for Wallace in that way, but I like him to like me. It makes things interesting, and I was feeling very flat and dejected, and in ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that his friend in the expedition was not Colonel Perez, who had insultingly dubbed him the Second Fiddle (or Charango). He attached himself therefore with the fidelity of a spaniel to Mr. Marcoy, walking alongside and resting his arm on the pommel of his saddle. After an hour's traverse of a comparatively desert plateau called the Pedregal, covered with rocks and smelling of the patchouli-scented ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... Howe as a statesman, was, nevertheless, a thousand times of more moment and concern with his band of Bleu followers in the House of Commons, than a dozen Howes, and the consequence is that we find for four years the great old man playing second fiddle to his inferiors, and cutting a far from heroic figure in the arena."[18] What Holton said by way of warning to Brown was realized in the case of Howe. He was "the noblest ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... peril of unfloored abysses, while we trespassed and pried and pervaded, snatching a scant impression from sorry material enough, clearly, the sacred edifice enjoyed a credit beyond that of the profane; but when both were finished and opened we flocked to the sound of the fiddle more freely, it need scarce be said, than to that of the psalm. "Freely" indeed, in our particular case, scarce expresses the latter relation; since our young liberty in respect to church-going was absolute and we might range at will, through the great city, from one place of worship ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... groupe suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door customers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's fiddle. Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are surrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their ball is mending by Master Keep himself, under the joint superintendence of Ben Kirby and Tom Coper, Ben showing much verbal respect and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... laden with lumber. Bargetown it might have been called; it was a veritable floating colony of French and Swede, Irish and Scotch, jabbering and smoking by day and lying quietly at night under the stars, save for the occasional jig and scrape of the fiddle of some active Milesian. Here, had I fully known it, was my chance for observation, but I was ignorant at that time of the ways of these people and did not venture among them. But the man in the velvet coat interested me. He gesticulated the whole time most violently, waved ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... that a more delightful collection of notes was never appended to any poem. Would that all commentators had so assiduously illustrated their text. Here is none of the literary indolence by which nine out of ten works are disfigured, nor the fiddle-faddle notes which some folks must have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... come to hear it, Jean!" cried they: "but take care of your fiddle or you will get it ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... pulling at his white whiskers. 'There ain't a better judge of musical instruments in the whole world than what I am. I had an uncle,' says he, 'that was a partner in a piano-factory, and I've seen thousands of 'em put together. I know all about musical instruments from a pipe-organ to a corn-stalk fiddle. There ain't a man lives, sir, that can tell me any news about any instrument that has to be pounded, blowed, scraped, grinded, picked, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... thus employed, the rest walked about the room, and talked and laughed and sang, so as to drown the sound of the files. Presently they heard from the other side of the building the loud tones of a fiddle, the player evidently keeping his bow going at a rapid rate. Then came the sounds of laughter and the stamping of feet, as if ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... evening, had suddenly demanded a popular song from Mr. Nokes, he (Triplet), seeing the orchestra thinned by desertion, and nugatory by intoxication, had started from the pit, resuscitated with the whole contents of his snuff-box the bass fiddle, snatched the leader's violin, and carried Mr. Nokes triumphantly through; that thunders of applause had followed, and Mr. Nokes had kindly returned thanks for both; but that he (Triplet) had hastily retired to evade the manager's acknowledgments, preferring to wait an opportunity like the ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... it, then, but for your majesty to call for a fiddle, and amuse yourself, like Nero, while your city ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... guide of this afternoon, have just seated themselves in the corner of the drawing room where I am writing, and are playing, one the fiddle, and the other the guitar. Perhaps they are trying to get up a "hop," later, but there do not seem materials enough for it, and their tune is at present squeaky—jerky—with an attempt at an adagio. The nigger ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... interval here when the supporters of each party gathered round and gave advice and encouragement. The lady seemed as fresh as a fiddle, but the man was very exhausted and had to have a spirituous stimulant. After a quarter-of-an-hour's interval ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... do so hang about ye, So whimper, and so hug, I know it Gentlemen, And so intice ye, now ye are i'th' bud; And that sweet tilting war, with eyes and kisses, Th' alarms of soft vows, and sighs, and fiddle faddles, Spoils all our trade: you must forget these knick knacks, A woman at some time of year, I grant ye She is necessarie; but make no business of ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... musical ship's company," he says, "and cheered our way into exile with the fiddle, the accordion, and the songs of all nations, good, bad or indifferent—Scottish, English, Irish, Russian or Norse—the songs were received with generous applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very spiritedly rendered in a powerful Scotch accent, varied the proceedings; and once ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... hired to teach a few of them about. I could learned if I'd had or been 'round somebody knowed something. He read to us some. He read places in his Bible. Anything we have and ask him. We didn't have books and papers. I loved to play my fiddle, call figures, and tell every one what to do. I didn't take stock in reading and writing ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... the screech of a fiddle could be heard or the lazy music of an accordion, coming from some "Sailors' Home." Steps of dancing with rattle of iron-shod boot-heels clicking over sanded floors, the hoarse shout of the "caller-off," and now and again angry tones with cracked feminine falsettos broke on the air; and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... but 'a portee' of that company. Points of history, matters of literature, the customs of particular countries, the several orders of knighthood, as Teutonic, Maltese, etc., are surely better subjects of conversation, than the weather, dress, or fiddle-faddle stories, that carry no information along with them. The characters of kings and great men are only to be learned in conversation; for they are never fairly written during their lives. This, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the beauty of the night. The lovely southern sky was studded with stars; the breeze laden with perfumes that only a Texas prairie knows; and the air full of melody,—the deep laughter of the cowboys lounging about the bunk-house, and the sweet tone of Shady's fiddle as he played to the ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... Virginian dishes, and learned many new culinary secrets from my lord's French man. We have heard how exquisitely and melodiously he sang at church; and he sang not only sacred but secular music, often inventing airs and composing rude words after the habit of his people. He played the fiddle so charmingly, that he set all the girls dancing in Castlewood Hall, and was ever welcome to a gratis mug of ale at the Three Castles in the village, if he would but bring his fiddle with him. He was good-natured and loved to play for the village children: so that Mr. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... strings of this ukeke, the Hawaiian fiddle, are tuned to [e]; to [b] and to [d]. These three strings are struck nearly simultaneously, but the sound being very feeble, it is only the first which, receiving the sharp impact of the blow, gives out enough volume to make a ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... silver-plated wedding ring. The nuns had presented a supply of skim-milk and butter. Mr. Spear provided jam, pickles, and coal-oil for the lamps. The Mounted Police contributed two dollars to pay for the "band"—the fiddle and the concertina—and ammunition enough for the feu de joie. The friends and relations had given a plentiful store of fresh, dried, and pounded fish; and had also furnished a lavish supply of moose, caribou, and bear meat; as well ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... they are back home here under the roofs of thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage of the hours far ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my cheek, though their dampness never penetrated; but in between these hammer ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... Miss Panney. "The young man and that Cicely Drane of yours have agreed to marry each other, and I suppose the old lady will live with them, and Miriam will have to get down from her high horse and agree to play second fiddle, or go to school again. She is too ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... to stand! The music-master could not stand it, But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand, As savage as a bandit, Made up directly to the tattered man, And thus in broken sentences began: "Com—com—I say! You go away! Into two parts my head you split— My fiddle cannot hear ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... terrace with a wild garden all round. It must have been very pretty before the war, even in its deserted state it is very nice; forget-me-nots and bits of lake and stream everywhere. I feel as fit as a fiddle and am ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... him into the church. Was there ever an uglier woman? Two of her front teeth were gone, and she was bald. Fortunately for her, Beauty draws us with a single hair, or she had not netted Calfsfoot. Now what a miserable time he has of it. She is a vixen. You know what fiddle-strings are made of; well, I'm told she supplies her own. But why should I dwell on infelicitous unions of this kind? It was obvious to every rational creature from the first—and to him most concerned—that ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... post-office on his way down and he had the Boston morning paper in his hand. Of course he was filled to the brim with war news. We discuss little else in Bayport now; even the new baby at the parsonage has to play second fiddle. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the mountains, and monumental stones are erected over warriors, who "buckled on their belts," and fell in single combat. From Hallingdal went forth the national Polska (the Halling), and only the Hardanger-fela (the Hallingdal fiddle) can rightly give its wild, extraordinary melody. Most beautiful are the flowers of remembrance which the Christian antiquity exhibits, and the eternal snow upon the crowns of the ancient mountains is not more imperishable ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... very well-devised beginnings. At the fifth Sir Richmond was suddenly conclusive. "It's no use," he said, "I can't fiddle about any more with my ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... is my riddle, So I'll fall back on my fiddle; For I'd stan' myself on en' To accommodate a frien' Nex' do', nex' do'— To accommodate a ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... They are very rarely old, as many of the organ- grinders are; they are not so handsome as the Italians of the north, though they have invariably fine eyes. They arrive in twos and threes; the violinist briefly tunes his fiddle, and the harper unslings his instrument, and, with faces of profound gloom, they go through their repertory,—pieces from the great composers, airs from the opera, not unmingled with such efforts of Anglo-Saxon genius ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... playing, but that's not doing anything; and, if he had done nothing, there would ha' been no fiddling. You understand me, miss, I know: work comes before music, and makes the soul of it; it's not the music that makes the doing. I'm a poor hand at saying without my fiddle, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... wood, he dismissed him and his attendants, though much against their will, and proceeded on his journey unarmed; from too great a presumption of security, preceded only by a minstrel and a singer, one accompanying the other on the fiddle. The Welsh awaiting his arrival, with Iorwerth, brother of Morgan of Caerleon, at their head, and others of his family, rushed upon him unawares from the thickets, and killed him and many of his followers. Thus it appears ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... rope, now taut, and resembling a huge "fiddle string," as Bandy-legs remarked, testing it as he passed along. It led them to the brow of an abrupt little descent, a sheer drop of perhaps twenty feet. Down this slope they followed the rope with their eyes and then discovered it was attached to a large and heavy barrel that could almost be called ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... illiterate peasant for a meal's meat; a scrivener better paid for an obligation; a falconer receive greater wages than a student; a lawyer get more in a day than a philosopher in a year, better reward for an hour, than a scholar for a twelvemonth's study; him that can [378]paint Thais, play on a fiddle, curl hair, &c., sooner get preferment than a philologer ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... was a young man I should have been ashamed to have spent as much time at my looking-glass as if I'd been a girl. I could make myself as smart as any one when I was going to a dance, or to a party where I was likely to meet pretty girls; but I should have laughed myself to scorn if I'd stood fiddle-faddling at a glass, smirking at my own likeness, all ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... abide with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle and we danced." ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... branch! I loved my little sister Anna, too. But what did they do to her behind those marble walls? Did you fiddle for her? What was she when they let her go? My pretty little Anna! The fires of hell for those damned green stones of yours, Stefani! She heard of them and wanted to see ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... sciences. He becomes a compleat connoisseur in dressing hair, and in adorning his own person, under the hands and instructions of his barber and valet de chambre. If he learns to play upon the flute or the fiddle, he is altogether irresistible. But he piques himself upon being polished above the natives of any other country by his conversation with the fair sex. In the course of this communication, with which he is indulged from his tender years, he learns like a parrot, by rote, the whole ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... trample down all this sentimental fiddle-de-dee, what was the plain English of the case so far as she was concerned? Unbidden, innumerable circumstances stored from local knowledge offered themselves as guides for argument. Take any girl of that class—well, what are her chances? Why, you are ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... technique with a certain supercilious contempt, as though it were a mere negligible and inferior element in an artist's equipment and not the art itself, the mere virtuosity of an accomplished fiddler who seems to say anything with his fiddle, and has never really said anything in his whole life. To the artist technique is another matter. It is the little secret by which he reveals his soul, by which he reveals the soul of the world. Through technique the ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... poetize the tragedy of one's own life is fatuous; it is like enjoying one's dizziness on the brink of a precipice, or the pangs of sickness without seeking a remedy. But to poetize the tragedy of others, to fiddle while Rome is burning, is brutal. Nevertheless, though it is not commonly possible to do things on Nero's scale, precisely the same attitude is the commonest thing in the world, and is fostered by the whole aesthetic ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... disorderly street we proceeded to the street of the Princess of Pleasure wherein I saw many English, French, Italians and Paynims. The Princess is very fair to behold, with mixed wine in one hand, and a fiddle and a harp in the other; and in her treasury, innumerable pleasures and toys to gain the custom of everybody, and retain them in her father's service. Yea, many were wont to escape to this pleasant street to drown their grief for losses and debts they had ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... was to be a grand frolic at Bob Mosely's, to greet the hunters. This Bob Mosely was a prime fellow throughout the country. He was an indifferent hunter, it is true, and rather lazy to boot; but then he could play the fiddle, and that was enough to make him of consequence. There was no other man within a hundred miles that could play the fiddle, so there was no having a regular frolic without Bob Mosely. The hunters, therefore, were always ready to give him ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... accountant, John Tipp. He neither pretended to high blood, nor in good truth cared one fig about the matter. He "thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in Threadneedle-street, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... clever playing attracted the attention of the leader, a big fellow named Spaun, who sat immediately in front of him. On turning round to ascertain who it was that was bringing forth such excellent tone from his fiddle, and, moreover, playing with such precision, Spaun discovered it to be 'a small boy in spectacles, named Franz Schubert.' From that moment big Spaun became little Franz's intimate friend and counsellor. To him one day ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... teacher, and then lowered her eyes. Her beautiful little face was beginning to have its usual effect upon most of the ladies present. Some of the stony despair had left it; the color came and went in her cheeks. She ceased to fiddle with her apron, and clasped her two little ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... to make bombs or automatic bankrobbers; he just wanted to fiddle with the stack, see what it would do. He turned it over in his hands a couple of times, then shrugged, got up, went over to his closet, and put the thing away. There wasn't anything he could do with it until he'd bought ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... does a considerable trade in wine. It is immortalized in the Nibelungenlied in the person of "Volker von Alzeie,'' the warrior who in the last part of the epic plays a part second only to that of Hagen, and who "was called the minstrel (spilman) because he could fiddle.'' It became an imperial city in 1277. In 1620 it was sacked by the Spaniards and in 1689 burnt by the French. Annexed to France during the Napoleonic wars, it passed in 1815 to the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... spoken to."' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 20, 1773. Boswell writing of this Tour said:—'I also may be allowed to claim some merit in leading the conversation; I do not mean leading, as in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in examining a witness—starting topics, and making him pursue them.' Ib. Sept. 28. One day he recorded:—'I did not exert myself to get Dr. Johnson to talk, that I might not ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... fiddle fit to tear the heart out of your body, and reads big books till God knows what hour in the mornin'. His father, he says he don't know what to do with him ... There's a big, bad devil of a Polack down ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... brass or latten; but when silver became popular table spoons of silver were procured whenever it was possible to afford them, and a collection including in the varieties the Apostle and the seal top, and its various developments from the rat-tail to the fiddle, is obtainable. As regarding spoons Westman has written: "The spoon is one of the first things wanted when we come into the world, and it is one of the last things we part with ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... success. As for the conversation with which the Prince is credited, it is of the most amazing kind. We find him on one page gravely discussing the depression of trade with Mr. Ezra P. Bayle, a shoddy American millionaire, who promptly replies, 'Depression of fiddle-sticks, Prince'; in another passage he naively inquires of the same shrewd speculator whether the thunderstorms and prairie fires of the West are still 'on so grand a scale' as when he visited Illinois; and we are told in the second volume that, after ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... was leifer to have at his bedde's hedde Twenty books clothed in blacke or redde Of Aristotle and his philosophie Than robes riche or fiddle or psalterie." ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... safest in the long run—when a versifier suspects that he lacks the true inspiration, he had better try the confidence game, and induce the public to admire by writing that which no one can understand. It would seem, too, that writing poetry and playing on the fiddle have this much in common, that a true genius at either is fit for nothing else. The amateurs can take care of themselves, but the born-masters display an amiable worthlessness for every thing but their art. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... ought to know that it isn't right to neglect the boy that's come to do a day's work with you. (Going to the door) Many's the day I put in with the scythe in Ireland, and in England too; I did more than stroll with the fiddle, and I saw more places than where fiddling brought me. (Brian MacConnell comes to the door) I was just going out to you, Brian. I was telling the girl here that it's not right to neglect the boy that's giving you a day's work out of his ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soul sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of the Paradise where we might live, if ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... and you had trod on both of 'em at once, and, then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood and ivory anvils—don't talk to me, I know the difference between a bullfrog ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man's head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like—A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby—A train of a fiddle-stick!—quoth my father—which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of a candle.—I declare, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Society's Home Galleries." It was a line we found under some babies' photos on the society page of a great newspaper printed in New York City. Professor Gluckstein and his son Rudolph played the "Star-Spangled Banner" on the piano and fiddle during ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... mention is made of money spent on behalf of one person in his house, he puts at the side of the page a clay pipe, rudely drawn; an entry of the payment of wages to another servant has a jug of ale; another a quill pen; another a couple of brooms, as the housemaid; a fiddle for the dancing master for his daughter; payment made to the sexton or parish-clerk has a representation of the village church by its side, and the window-tax a small lattice-window; and on the days ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... used to play the fiddle, left a girl here with child; and though I gave her two tayes in silver to bring up the child; she killed it as soon as it was born, which is a common thing in this country. The whistle and chain belonging to Mr Foster, the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... him a very thorough inspection in the rubbing room after breakfast, but could find nothing wrong. "Sure, you're as sound as Colin Meagher's fiddle, me boy. Where is it it ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... kitchen, however, besides being the warmest, was by far the gayest place. Here we watched our dinner cooked, and ate it afterwards; heard of wars and rumours of wars; listened to heroic ballads, chanted by a warrior, and accompanied by a species of one-stringed fiddle; and made the acquaintance of two very fashionable young men. One was the bishop's nephew, a handsome lad about seventeen, who was, on account of his youth, very shy and modest, and acted as cavaliero servente to the kitchen-maid. The other was a remarkably good-looking and well-dressed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... rather than have her son seen in the city with that specimen. Accordingly, when the hour for retiring arrived, she ordered Corinda to show him into the "east chamber," a room used for her common kind of visitors, but which Joel pronounced "as neat as a fiddle." ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... a man and a stranger, a walkin' up and puttin' his arm round her, and huggin' her up to him as clost as he can; that act, that a woman would resent as a deadly insult and her incensed relatives avenge with the sword, if it occurred in any other place than the ball-room and at the sound of the fiddle. The utter inconsistency of her meetin' it with smiles, and making frantic efforts to get more such affronts than any other woman present — her male relatives a lookin' ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... and be done with the horror. And whiles we crawled thus round and round within this narrow space, ever and anon above the stealthy rustle of his movements, above his stertorous breathing and evil muttering, above the wild throbbing of my heart rose the wail of the fiddle and the singing: ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... day of his triumph came. At the end of the month the master read off the class-list, and, much to his disgust, George Dawkins found himself playing second fiddle ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... Dance and song The shepherd for the dance was dress'd, With ribbon, wreath, and coloured vest, A gallant show displaying. And round about the linden-trees, They footed it right merrily. Juchhe! Juchhe! Juchheisa! Heisa! He! So fiddle-bow was braying. ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the singing of hymns being very beautiful. The bearing of these Christianized Hottentots was in complete contrast to that of a Dutch family whom he visited as a medical man one Sunday. There was no Sunday; the man's wife and daughters were dancing before the house, while a black played the fiddle. ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... world forsooth, nor the world for you! and if that is not flying in the face of your Creator, and wanting to know better than Providence!—And then you say, 'you cast a gloom by your mere presence.' Fiddle-de-dee! It was not much in the way of gloom that Molly brought back with her from her three days' visit to you—or if that is gloom—well, the more your presence casts of it the better—that is all I can say. Ah, but you should have seen her, poor ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... in dexterity. Then another fear assailed him. How would he get through his work? for most of it had passed through Jonah's nimble fingers. Ah well, it was no matter! He was a lonely old man with nothing but his fiddle to bring back ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... saints! I think you are right, Clement Maldon," he muttered. "Beneath that black dress of yours you are a man like the rest of us, are you not? You have a heart, you have members, you have a brain to think with; you are a fiddle for God to play on, and however much your superstitions mask and alter it, out of those strings now and again will come some squeak of truth. Well, I am another fiddle, of a more honest sort, mayhap, ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... out one evening at ould Tom Dundon's wake; an' whatever came betune them, she made no more about it but just draws her cloak round her, and away wid herself and the sarvant-girl home again, as if there was not a corpse, or a fiddle, or a taste of ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... music, and dancing with serious, incongruous elegance. Round and round the circle he footed it, his long thin legs twinkling in absolute accord with the complicated jig that his long thin fingers were ripping out of the cracked and raucous fiddle. A very plain, stout young woman, with a heavy red face and discordantly golden hair, shuffled round after him in a clumsy pretence of dancing, and as the couple faced Mrs. Pat she saw that the old man was blind. Steam was rising from his domed bald ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... she said to herself, recalling some of the dances and the good-night leave-takings at that time. "It's because he is so put upon by everybody now. What with Juan Can in one bed sending for him to prate to him about the sheep, and Senor Felipe in another sending for him to fiddle him to sleep, and all the care of the sheep, it's a wonder he's not out of his mind altogether. But I'll find a chance, or make one, before this day's sun sets. If I can once get a half-hour with him, I'm not afraid after that; I know the way it is with men!" said the confident Margarita, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... such days of activity as will possibly cause us to forget the reality of things. We want, as Lord Mount-Temple said, the Deep Church as well as the High and Low. Yes, let us have orchestras in churches if you will, but I don't want the man to go into a place of worship with his fiddle-case under his arm and the idea in his mind that he is going to take part in a ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... away at the kite line, which was as taut as a string on a bass fiddle. Suddenly there was a loud snap and the cord parted. Sam and Dick fell back from the edge of the cliff, while the entangled kites soared away for ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... the Athenian, which was haughty and arrogant, in taking so much to himself, had been a grave and wise observation and censure, applied at large to others. Desired at a feast to touch a lute, he said, He could not fiddle, but yet he could make a small town, a great city. These words (holpen a little with a metaphor) may express two differing abilities, in those that deal in business of estate. For if a true survey be taken of counsellors and statesmen, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... nonsense talk, which meant nothing. Now when the woman addressed this funny kind of talk to him, he answered her in her own way, as he imagined, readily enough: "Hey diddle-diddle, the cat's in the fiddle, fe fo fi fum, chumpty-chumpty-chum, with bings on her ringers, and tells ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... He's not even told one of his fine friends what his brother does; he says it's for the sake of his school. He's living a lie for his own pride. He's got himself made master of a college, fine as a fiddle, and he cares more about that than about his brother. With all his prayers and his sermons in church every Sunday, he'd let me go to the dogs rather than live out the truth. He thinks I've gone to the devil now, because I left him in ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... seen many Midsummer-eves under different skies, but never such a one as this. So far, far from all that one associates with this evening. I think of the merriment round the bonfires at home, hear the scraping of the fiddle, the peals of laughter, and the salvoes of the guns, with the echoes answering from the purple-tinted heights. And then I look out over this boundless, white expanse into the fog and sleet and the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... looks of you, I should say it was wearing your nerves to fiddle-strings. Ever take ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... "Fiddle-de-dee!" replied her mother, sharply. "All girls like to go to what promises to be a pleasant party. It is only right and proper they should, unless they are unwell. Is there anything the ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... whole soul, once fair and blooming—I swear it—with its leaves fresh from the dews of heaven, one rank leprosy, this man who, rolling in riches, learned to cheat and pilfer as a boy learns to dance and play the fiddle, and (to damn me, whose happiness he had blasted) accused me to the world of his own crime!—here is this man who has not left off one vice, but added to those of his youth the bloodless craft of the veteran knave;—here is this man, flattered, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... through a forest and thought of all manner of things, and when nothing was left for him to think about, he said to himself, "Time is beginning to pass heavily with me here in the forest, I will fetch hither a good companion for myself." Then he took his fiddle from his back, and played so that it echoed through the trees. It was not long before a wolf came trotting through the thicket towards him. "Ah, here is a wolf coming! I have no desire for him!" said the musician; but the wolf came nearer and said to him, "Ah, dear musician, how ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... is, I tell you! A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, A fire to thaw our thumbs, (poor fellow! The paw he holds up there's been frozen,) Plenty of catgut for my fiddle, (This out-door business is bad for strings,) Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... Cambridge University by the scholarships and prizes which he had won. One beautiful little dark-eyed daughter of seven was playing in a West End Theatre as the dormouse in "Alice in Wonderland." She was second fiddle to Alice herself, also, and could sing all her songs. Her pay was some five pounds a week, poor enough for the attraction she proved, but more than all the rest of the family put together earned. At that time I never went to theatres. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... saddles and bridles, all English too, with a good deal of ammunition and baggage. The consternation of the tories was so great that they never dreamt of carrying off anything. Even their fiddles and fiddle bows, and playing cards, were all left strewed around their fires. One of the gamblers, (it is a serious truth) though shot dead, still held the cards hard gripped in his hands. Led by curiosity to inspect this strange sight, a dead gambler, we found that the cards ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... he became a conductor, was a world-famous performer on the double bass, that big growling brute of an instrument popularly known as the bull fiddle. In those days all that was visible of his impressive person was his head, one of his ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... night in a disguise, and abuse the women and affront the men whom he met, and sometimes to beat them, and sometimes to be beaten by them. This was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures; his chiefest in the day was to sing and play upon a fiddle, in the habit of a minstrel, upon the public stage; he was prouder of the garlands that were given to his divine voice (as they called it then) in those kind of prizes, than all his forefathers were of their triumphs over nations. He did not at his ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... trip I 'd have taken you. It was just what you needed—a week of lolling around a deck in the hot sun with the sea winds blowing over your face. That's what you want to do—get out under the blue sky and soak it in. If you don't believe it, look at me. Fit as a fiddle; strong as a moose. You said you wanted to sprawl in the sunshine,—why the devil don't you take a week off ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... time I belonged to the ship I was away on detached duty. Scarcely had I joined her, when I was sent on shore in command of a party of men to clear a transport lying in Rhode Island. While I was engaged in this far from pleasant duty I had to put up at the Cat and Fiddle Tavern, kept by a certain Mrs Grimalkin. To cover her sympathy with the rebels she used to exhibit on all public occasions an exuberance of loyalty which I thought rather suspicious. By watching her narrowly I was not long in discovering that she kept up a ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... I cannot court thy sprightly eyes, With the base-viol plac'd between my thighs; I cannot lisp, nor to some fiddle sing, Nor run upon a high-stretch'd minikin; I cannot whine in puling elegies, Entombing Cupid with sad obsequies; I am not fashion'd for these amorous times, To court thy beauty with lascivious rhymes; I cannot dally, caper, dance, and sing, Oiling my saint with supple sonneting; I cannot ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... of old-fashioned courtesy and heart-kindness. He knew Borrow well, and quite discredited the innuendoes and insinuations of many Norwich folk about him. It was a joke with the Murray circle that "big Borrow was second fiddle at his home, and there is ample testimony that his wife was a capable manager and looked after his affairs, literary as well as domestic." Though Borrow boasted of his proficiency in the Norfolk dialect, Mr. ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... give you my fiddle, They'll think that I'm gone mad, For many a joyful day My fiddle and ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous
... "Quidam, Anglice a Certain Person," in other words Walpole himself. Quidam pours gold into the pockets of the four patriots, drinks with them, and then, when the 'bottle is out' (a too frequent occurrence at Sir Robert's table) takes up his fiddle, strikes up a tune and dances off, the patriots dancing after him. But even this is not all. "Sir," says the author, "every one of these patriots have a hole in their pockets as Mr Quidam the fiddler there knows; so that he intends to make them ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... guard the fairy tree. When the king had pronounced sentence everyone was very sorry, because the little fellow was a favourite with them all. No fairy harper upon his harp, or piper upon his pipe, or fiddler upon his fiddle, could play half so sweetly as he could play upon an ivy leaf; and when they remembered all the pleasant moonlit nights on which they had danced to his music, and thought that they should never hear or dance to it any more, their little hearts were ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... by 'Lina.) "How that made me gnash my teeth, for I had suspected that I was only playing second fiddle for Alice Johnson, 'darling, precious ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... "Fiddle-de-dee. What does Marianna know about it? She's more stupid than I took her to be; she a country girl and doesn't even know mushrooms? Pick them, pick them. They're good. They're your father's favourite dish when they're fried in butter and ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... himself would undoubtedly have said, 'fit as a fiddle,' or 'right as rain.' His cheeks were rosy, his eyes sparkling. He had his arms akimbo, and his feet planted wide apart. His grey bowler rested on the back of his head, to display a sleek coating of hair plastered down over his brow. In his white satin tie shone a dubious but large diamond, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... o'clock returning boat and sat, filled with pleasant fatigue, against the rail in the bow, listening to the Italians' fiddle and harp. Blinker had thrown off all care. The North Woods seemed to him an uninhabitable wilderness. What a fuss he had made over signing his name—pooh! he could sign it a hundred times. And her name was as pretty as she was—"Florence," he ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... his fiddle along, and those were wonderful tunes he drew from the strings. Sometimes he explained what they meant, his words running along in monotone that yet kept time to the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... loose boxes and a loft where a ball could have been held—and where, indeed, many a one was held, when all the young farmers and stockmen and shearers from far and near brought each his lass and tripped it from early night to early dawn, to the strains of old Andy Ferguson's fiddle and young Dave Boone's concertina. Norah had been allowed to look on at one or two of these gatherings. She thought them the height of human bliss, and was only sorry that sheer inability to dance prevented her from "taking the floor" with Mick Shanahan, the horse breaker, who had paid ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce |
