"Fiddler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Home" to the Sailors of France. Old foes turn new friends as their reason grows riper; "All hands for Skylarking!" A measure we'll dance, With friendship for fiddler and pleasure for piper. 'Tis a good many years since they sought our white shore; Once more at hands'-grip we are glad to have got 'em. As to Jingos or Chauvinists,—out on the bores! Such Jonahs should promptly be plumped to the bottom; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... which Hadgi gave him to understand, that he had been ruined by his wife, who, having robbed him of all his cash and valuable effects, had eloped from his house with one of his own customers, who appeared in the character of a French count, but was in reality no other than an Italian fiddler; that, in consequence of this retreat, he, the husband, was disabled from paying a considerable sum which he had set apart for his wine merchant, who being disappointed in his expectation, took out an execution against his effects; and the rest of his creditors following his example, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... know a violinist who would say, "If I were not a genius, I could not play so well with such little practice." The poor fellow did not know how poor a fiddler he really was. Well did Strickland Gillilan, America's great poet-humorist, say, "Egotism is the opiate that Nature administers to deaden the pains ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... and sawed away on "Honest John," "The Devil's Dream," "Haste to the Wedding," and "The Fisher's Hornpipe." He lost all sense of being a millionnaire, and returned to his simple, unsophisticated self. The others cheered him because he had gold. I cheered him because he was a good old "corduroy fiddler." ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... to have been called Out of Paganini—founded upon that distinguished fiddler's life, although (as the Author says) "it is necessarily speculative ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... reaching Constantinople in time to witness these festivities. [Sidenote: SESTOS.—TURKISH COLONEL.] The breeze, however, suddenly veering round to the south, swiftly went round the capstan, and merrily did our band, the solitary fiddler, rosin away to the tune of "drops of brandy," while, with every stretch of canvass set, we joyfully proceeded in our course, saluting the Pasha, according to custom, as we came abreast of the village of the ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... crapulous^, dead drunk. woozy [slightly drunk], buzzed, flush, flushed. inter pocula^; in liquor, the worse for liquor; having had a drop too much, half seas over, three sheets in the wind, three sheets to the wind; under the table. drunk as a lord, drunk as a skunk, drunk as a piper, drunk as a fiddler, drunk as Chloe, drunk as an owl, drunk as David's sow, drunk as a wheelbarrow. drunken, bibacious^, sottish; given to drink, addicted to drink, addicted to the bottle; toping &c v.. Phr. nunc est bibendum [Lat.]; Bacchus ever fair and young [Dryden]; drink ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Hierome, "will come with a company of compliments, and hold you up by the arm as you go, and wringing your fingers, will so be enticed, or entice: one drinks to you, another embraceth, a third kisseth, and all this while the fiddler plays or sings a lascivious song; a fourth singles you out to dance, [5073]one speaks by beck and signs, and that which he dares not say, signifies by passions; amongst so many and so great provocations of pleasure, lust conquers the most hard and crabbed ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... things!—and "handling the plastic outlines of the theme with rare emotional skill and mastery of technique," "purest lyricism lifted to heights of poignancy,"—all that sort of stuff, you know. Next time a writer, or, better still, a fiddler or a pianist comes to your town, look in your home paper the morning after, and ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... of the forenoon of that day, dance for a quarter of an hour at least, on the ground adjoining the mausoleum, and after the dance sing the 100th Psalm of the old version, to the fine old tune to which the same was then sung in St. Ives Church; one pound to a fiddler who shall play to the girls while dancing and singing at the mausoleum, and also before them on their return home therefrom; two pounds to two widows of seamen, fishers, or tinners of the borough, being sixty-four years old or upwards, who shall attend the dancing ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... fiddler with a music book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six 10 young followers whose hearts they broke. In came ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... let us stop here," cried Hugh; "Mr. Toil will never dare to show his face where there is a fiddler, and where people are dancing ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... happening up there in Maine, anyhow? She hadn't written for some time; and he hadn't had a word from Peter Champneys. And when Marcia came home and found out he'd been meddling—well, the meddler would have to pay the fiddler, that's all! ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... and her numerous votaries for their own. As the reverend brother thundered out his denunciations of the ungodly goddess he cast his eyes often in the direction of the leading dancer, and from her they would wander to the small fiddler who sat beside the tall hat in a back pew. But somehow neither Lily nor Apollo seemed in the least conscious of any personal appeal in his glance, and when finally the question of the Christmas ball was put to vote, they both rose and unequivocally voted for it. So, ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... opposite to that. I loaded her with presents, was always most assiduous to her, always at her feet, as I may say, yet she nevertheless abandoned me—and for whom? I am almost ashamed to say—for a fiddler.' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Dick an' Piker was each about two thousand ahead, I was slidin' back to taw, an' the old man was payin' the fiddler. We had doubled the edge again at eleven, an' were usin' both the strange decks, changin' every few deals. Then the luck began to settle to Dick. Two out of three times on his own deals, an' every single time on Piker's deals, the devidends slid into Dick's ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... young woman, of supreme brilliancy; a party given at a "gallery" hired by a hostess who fished with big nets. A Spanish dancer, understood to be at that moment the delight of the town, an American reciter, the joy of a kindred people, an Hungarian fiddler, the wonder of the world at large—in the name of these and other attractions the company in which, by a rare privilege, Kate found herself had been freely convoked. She lived under her mother's roof, as she considered, obscurely, and was acquainted ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... could not have ballrooms of gray and rose and crystal, she wanted to be swinging across a puncheon-floor with a dancing fiddler. This smug in-between town, which had exchanged "Money Musk" for phonographs grinding out ragtime, it was neither the heroic old nor the sophisticated new. Couldn't she somehow, some yet unimagined how, turn it ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Odds, thunderings and pealings, of course they do! and the third fiddler, little Tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits. Ho, ho, ho, I can't bear it (mimicking); take me out! Ha, ha, ha! O what a one she is! She'll be the death of me. Ha, ha, ha, ha! That's ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... at old Collins', Quite a bunch was there before, You could hear the fiddler calling, And the scraping on the floor. Through the dingy sodhouse window Gleamed a sickly yellow light, Where I helped you from the wagon, Holding you so loving tight. Then they called out, "Choose your pardners, Numbers five, six, seven, and eight," ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... was so original that he kept a tutor for his daughters—sons he had none—and allowed them to be instructed in the rudiments of three or four languages and the elements of arithmetic. Even more unconventional was her sister Hode. She had married a fiddler, who travelled constantly, playing at hotels and inns, all through "far Russia." Having no children, she ought to have spent her days in fasting and praying and lamenting. Instead of this, she accompanied her husband ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... and satisfaction; so that its catalogue is likely to contain what it may wish should be read. {117} Here we selected a very interesting volume with many illustrations, suitable for the girl's reading; and soon at the cafe again, I bowed to the senior fiddler, who nodded assent, and then the poor pale lonely girl had the pleasant book as a remembrance of home placed in her hands, and a promise given her that a good Christian ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... that. I'm used to it, and the money more than compensates me. But I hated the man when I first saw him in the Paradise. There was a fiddler-woman he talked to, and he could scarcely make himself understood. He had money, and he gave her champagne and flowers. And I was starving, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... A cornet-player, a fiddler, and a female pianist entered, and the squeak of their instruments in process of reconstruction soon jarred upon her nerves. She started to leave the room, but encountered the Princess Henrietta and her maids of honor at the door, who ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couple come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... have an end; even the stanchest mountain fiddler will reach at last his limit of endurance and must needs be refreshed and fed. There was a sudden significant flourish of frisky bowing, now up and again down, enlisting every resonant capacity of horsehair ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... dancers. Those old-time country fiddlers—all of them, black or white—how wonderful they were! They have always been the wonder and the despair of all musicians who have played by rule and note. The very way that the country fiddler held his fiddle against his chest and never against his shoulder like the trained musician! The very way that the country fiddler grasped his bow, firmly and squarely in the middle, and never lightly at the end like a trained musician! The ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... every movement of the day and every change of public passion whispered itself into rhyme or quaint saying. By the time he had grown to manhood he was the admitted rector of all the ballad-mongers of the Liberties. Madden, the weaver, Kearney, the blind fiddler from Wicklow, Martin from Meath, M'Bride from heaven knows where, and that M'Grane, who in after days, when the true Moran was no more, strutted in borrowed plumes, or rather in borrowed rags, and gave out that there had never been any Moran ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... acquaintance of the queer young Scotchman, and was soon admitted to his friendship and intimacy. Wilkie's 'Village Politicians' was the sensation of the Exhibition of 1806, and brought him two important commissions—one from Lord Mulgrave for the 'Blind Fiddler,' and the other from Sir George Beaumont for the 'Rent-Day.' It was now considered that Wilkie's fortune was made, his fame secure, and if his two chief friends—Haydon and Jackson—could not help regarding him ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... neighborhood. He was resolved not to miss the opportunity of seeing so curious a ceremony; and that he might enjoy the whole completely, proposed to Dr. Sheridan that he should go thither disguised as a blind fiddler, with a bandage over his eyes, and he would attend him as his man to lead him. Thus accoutred, they reached the scene of action, where the blind fiddler was received with joyful shouts. They had plenty of meat and drink, and plied the fiddler and his man with more than was agreeable to them. Never ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... took a turn he never meant. Whoe'er excels in what we prize, Appears a hero in our eyes; Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, Will have the teacher in her thought. When miss delights in her spinet, A fiddler may a fortune get; A blockhead, with melodious voice, In boarding-schools may have his choice: And oft the dancing-master's art Climbs from the toe to touch the heart. In learning let a nymph delight, The pedant gets a mistress by't. Cadenus, to his grief and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... that Sterzer had held the trump card in the shape of the original agreement between him and Gordon. And he hung on to it like the Old Scratch to a fiddler. Gordon and his crowd had done everything, short of murder, to get it; hired folks to steal it, and so on, because, once they DID get it, Gabe hadn't a leg to stand on—he'd have to divide equal, which wa'n't his desires, by a good sight. The Sterzer lawyers had wanted him to leave it in ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... more interesting when it is from hand to mouth," said Gerald, with a yawn. "If I went in for sentiment, which I don't, it would be for Fiddler's Ranch; though it is now a great city called Violinia, with everything like ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the inn, love, and the lights and the fire, And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet; For there in a while shall be rest and desire, And there shall ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... its strength and sweetness, and her teaching was so highly prized that soon the school became a source of steady support to us all. Old "Uncle" Conrad—or Coonrod as we used to call him—the high-shouldered old pedagogue who was at once teacher, tithing-man, herb-doctor, and fiddler for our section, grumbled a little at the start; but either he had not the heart to take the bread from our mouths, or his own lips were soon silenced by the persuasion of ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... 'Improvisatore,' which will reach us, it should seem, in translation, via America—she had looked over two or three proofs of the work in the press, and Chorley was anxious to know something about its character. The title, she said, was capital—'Only a Fiddler!'—and she enlarged on that word, 'Only,' and its significance, so put: and I quite agreed with her for several minutes, till first one reminiscence flitted to me, then another and at last I was obliged to stop my praises and say 'but, now I think of it, I seem to have written ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... that his blood is a frightful mixture!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "The Casaubon cuttle-fish fluid to begin with, and then a rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master, was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... here, To eat the cheer, And dinner's served, my Lord." The butler bowed; And then the crowd Rushed in with one accord. The fiddler-crab Came in a cab, And played a piece in C; While on his horn, The Unicorn Blew, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... of the country through which Telford's Carlisle and Glasgow road passes, the bridges are unusually numerous and of large dimensions. Thus, the Fiddler's Burn Bridge is of three arches, one of 150 and two of 105 feet span each. There are fourteen other bridges, presenting from one to three arches, of from 20 to 90 feet span. But the most picturesque and remarkable bridge ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... fiddler in amazement when he heard him name so large a sum. He thought that Clement believed the midget had some mysterious power and might be of service for him. He was by no means certain that the doctor would think him such a great ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... delicate and ardent poetry over to the general sense of humour, which one distrusts. Nor is Lovelace easy reading at any time (the two or three famous poems excepted). The age he adorned lived in constant readiness for the fiddler. Eleven o'clock in the morning was as good an hour as another for a dance, and poetry, too, was gay betimes, but intricate with figures. It is the very order, the perspective, as it were, of the movement that seems to baffle the eye, but the game was a free ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... The fiddler looked earnestly at the instrument in the corner, his features plainly denoting his anxiety to resume the occupation which his friends coming had so inopportunely interrupted. William Hinkley saw the looks of his cousin, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... generally taken every day. They call it a scatch. On a side-board was placed for us, who had come off the sea, a substantial dinner, and a variety of wines. Then we had coffee and tea. I observed in the room several elegantly bound books and other marks of improved life. Soon afterwards a fiddler appeared, and a little ball began. Rasay himself danced with as much spirit as any man, and Malcolm bounded like a roe. Sandie Macleod, who has at times an excessive flow of spirits, and had it now, was, in his days of absconding, known by the name of M'Cruslick, which it ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... fun," said Alice to Ruth, the evening on which it was to take place. "There's going to be a country fiddler. Come on out and let's look at the decorations. Sandy has hung up long strings of unshelled ears of corn. It looks just like a real country barn now, for he's moved some of his machinery into it, and there's going to ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... known as the "fiddler crab" is unusually numerous in the marshes of Long Island, this summer. It differs from impecunious persons inasmuch as it is a burrowing, not a borrowing, creature. It differs from ordinary fiddlers by two letters, in that it bores the earth, but ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... a half-forgotten picture or a dream; a carriage was drawn up by the wayside and four beautiful people, two men and two women graciously dressed, were dancing a formal ceremonious dance full of bows and curtseys, to the music of a wandering fiddler they had encountered. They had been driving one way and he walking another—a happy encounter with this obvious result. They might have come straight out of happy Theleme, whose motto is: "Do what thou ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... The best fiddler of the parish could not come until later, so meanwhile they had to content themselves with the old one, a houseman, who went by the name of Gray-Knut. He knew four dances; as follows: two spring dances, ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... plunge, and very little toil of body, two ancient sailors, one considerably older than the other, inasmuch as he was his father, yet chips alike from a sturdy block, and fitted up with jury-stumps. Old Joe pulled rather the better oar, and called his son "a one-legged fiddler" when he missed the dip of wave; while Mordacks stood with his leg's apart, and playing the easy part of critic, had his sneers at both of them. But they let him gibe to his liking; because they knew their work, and he did not. And, upon the whole, they ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Bessie Bowie, begging bawbees, than to be a king's daughter, fiddling and flinging the gate she did. I hae often wondered that ony ane that ever bent a knee for the right purpose, should ever daur to crook a hough to fyke and fling at piper's wind and fiddler's squealing. And I bless God (with that singular worthy, Peter Walker the packman at Bristo-Port),* that ordered my lot in my dancing days, so that fear of my head and throat, dread of bloody rope and swift bullet, and trenchant swords and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... towns novel-reading has been considered about as contemptuously as playing the fiddle, though admitted to be less dangerous than family card-playing. It was estimated that a novel-reader was confirming his indolence, and in danger of coming to the poor-house; a fiddler was prophesied to get into jail for vagrancy or larceny; while a card-player had entered a path that might lead as far as the gallows and comprehend all the crimes. This opinion still largely exists in towns and country-sides. We ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... tents on the fair green; there will be music in it; there was a fiddler having no legs would set men of threescore years and of fourscore years dancing. I can ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... lounged swaggeringly towards the taverns. Eager hands helped them to carry in their plunder. In a few minutes the gang was entering the tavern, the long, cool room with barrels round the walls, where there were benches and a table and an old blind fiddler jerking his elbow at a jig. Noisily the party ranged about the table, and sat themselves upon the benches, while the drawers, or potboys, in their shirts, drew near to take the orders. I wonder if the reader ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... major out at once, or have gone straight to his excellency, his papa, and disclosed all. The young baron will get off merely with a snubbing, I know that well enough, and all the blame will fall upon the fiddler. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a day of heavy toil at log-rolling, the young men and boys bantered one another into foot races, wrestling matches, shooting contests, and other feats of strength or skill. And if a fiddler could be found, the day was sure to end with a "hoe-down"—a dance that "made even the log-walled house tremble." No corn-husking or wedding was complete without dancing, although members of certain of the more straitlaced religious sects already ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of the ceremonies. On the seat sits the bride in the full dress of the country, and wearing her bridal crown; by her side the bridegroom, also well adorned for the occasion; and, on the step of the cart, that most important person, the fiddler, working his bow with astounding energy. If the pony can bear the weight, perhaps a couple of the bride's relations will sit up behind, otherwise they will walk in the procession which follows; and there may be seen all the available peasants of the district—young men ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... enigma remained. Very heroically a young man had done nothing. Hurrah and good-bye! The calciums of curiosity turned on an obscure fiddler who, after murdering another young man, had ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... whom he had been associated in many a merry bout and pleasant felony; he had not seen the man for two years; a friendly glass was offered and accepted. Two girls were of the party, to oblige whom Robinson's old acquaintance sent for Blind Bill, the fiddler, and soon Robinson was dancing and shouting with the girls like mad—"High cut," "side cut," "heel and toe," "sailor's fling," and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... looking affected. And at one of the Colonel's Clubs in town, only five years back, an English musical composer, who had not then made his money—now by the mystery of events knighted!—had been (he makes now fifteen thousand a year) black-balled. 'Fiddler? no; can't admit a Fiddler to associate on equal terms with gentlemen.' Only five years back: and at present we are having ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Whereto the fiddler answered, "Never was king of any land better or happier, nor his kinsmen nor vassals; know that for certain. Right glad were they when we set forth ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... impatient devilish spirit, 'Frets, call you these?' quoth she 'I'll fume with them'; And with that word she struck me on the head, And through the instrument my pate made way; And there I stood amazed for a while, As on a pillory, looking through the lute; While she did call me rascal fiddler, And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms, As she had studied ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... a burst of wild maenad gaiety. As such I do not recall a more dismal failure. It is cold at the heart of it. It has no mirth, but is like a dance without music: like a dance of deaf mutes that I witnessed once, pretending to keep time to the inaudible scrapings of a deaf and dumb fiddler. ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... Frederic the Ruler. But there was another Frederic,—the Frederic of Rheinsberg, the fiddler and flute-player, the poetaster and metaphysician. Amidst the cares of state the King had retained his passion for music, for reading, for writing, for literary society. To these amusements he devoted all the time that he could snatch from the business of war and government; and perhaps ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... made aware of the fact that this fiddler only availed himself, in his vain exhibitions, of a part of the felis which was not necessary to its felicity after death, I determined to give a portion of my worldly goods toward the building of a light-house ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... crickets creak, and through the noonday glow, That crazy fiddler of the hot mid-year, The dry cicada plies his wiry bow In long-spun cadence, thin and dusty sere: From the green grass the small grasshoppers' din Spreads soft and silvery thin: And ever and anon a murmur steals Into mine ears of toil that moves alway, The crackling rustle of the pitch-forked ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... — Street, close by; Mr THOROUGH BASE: he ought to be with the people, for his father was only a fiddler; but I understand he is quite an aristocrat and has ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... fiddler, in Islay, who told the story of Conall, as it had been handed down by tradition from generation to generation; just as thousands of years before the story of Odysseus and Polyphemos was told by Greek ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... choir were managed tolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter, to be in at the death. But the great trial was an anthem that had been ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... in the perfect physical beauty of the eccentric fiddler only a reproduction, in a larger form, of that sadly depraved young cherub who had danced before me in ghostly habiliments on the way to school. It was the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... sharpened like a knife in one hand, he held another piece in the other, split in two, with the convex part uppermost, in which he had cut a small notch. He began passing the sharp piece slowly over the other, as a fiddler does his bow over his fiddle—strings, increasing in rapidity, till, in a very short time, the powder produced by the friction ignited, and fell down upon the ashes. This he quickly blew up, and even more rapidly than I could have done with my burning-glass, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... always Virtue's friend. Nor shall that Muse, whose honest rage, In a corrupt degenerate age, (When, dead to every nicer sense, Deep sunk in vice and indolence, 950 The spirit of old Rome was broke Beneath the tyrant fiddler's yoke) Banish'd the rose from Nero's cheek, Under a Brunswick fear to speak. Drawn by Conceit from Reason's plan, How vain is that poor creature, Man! How pleased is every paltry elf To prate about that thing, himself! After ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... The fiddler and the dancers went to the room where the children had their frolic. That was Jane Morse's cousin Winslow. How odd she should see him and hear black Joe, who fiddled like the blind piper. The children kept time with ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... maize and bunches of dried vegetables that hung from the roof and on the copper kettles and saucepans ranged along the wall. The wind raged against the shutters of the unglazed windows, and the maid-servants, distaff in hand, crowded closer to the blaze, listening to the songs of some wandering fiddler or to the stories of a ruddy-nosed Capuchin monk who was being regaled, by the steward's orders, on a supper of tripe and mulled wine. The Capuchin's tales, told in the Piedmontese jargon, and seasoned with strange allusions and boisterous laughter, were of little interest to Odo, who ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... gift of setting his soul a-dancing as he played, of putting the devil into the feet of those who danced. The wedding party were enraptured. If he had consumed all the bumpers he was offered, he would have been as drunk as a fiddler at an Irish wake. During a much needed interval in the dancing he advanced to the edge of the verandah and as a solo played Stephen Heller's "Tarantella," which crowned his triumph. With his unkempt beard and swarthy ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... to Indianapolis, and thence by "stages," waggons, or on horseback through a very dismal country in gloomy winter into the interior of the State. I can remember vast marshy fields with millions of fiddler crabs scuttling over them, and more mud than I had ever seen in my life. The village streets were six inches deep in soft mud up to the doors and floors of the houses. At last we reached our journey's end at a large log-house on a ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... cannot be rightly named—a transparent, subtle, vaporous tint of golden pink or purple, which is the gift of this warm and wonderful light. A cricket that has climbed up one of the tender shoots strikes a low note, which is like the drowsy chirrup of a roosting bird. It is the first touch of a fiddler in the night's orchestra, and will soon be taken up by thousands of other crickets, bell-tinkling toads, croaking frogs in the valley, and the solitary owl that hoots from the hills. Below, how the river seems to sleep under the dusky wings of ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... another minute Dorothy was dancing opposite the delighted and capering half-breed, and almost enjoying it. With hands on hips, with head thrown back, and with feet tremulous with motion, she kept time to the music. She was a good dancer, and realised what is meant by the poetry of motion. The fiddler played fairly well, and Pierre La Chene, if somewhat pronounced in his movements, was at least a picturesque figure, whose soul was in the dance. So amusing, were his antics that the girl laughed heartily, despite the ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... been denied admittance, and forced to undergo several subsequent pilgrimages on earth, and to act in the different characters of a slave, a Jew, a general, an heir, a carpenter, a beau, a monk, a fiddler, a wise man, a king, a fool, a beggar, a prince, a statesman, a soldier, a tailor, an alderman, a poet, a knight, a dancing-master, and three times a bishop, before his martyrdom, which, together with his other behavior in this last character, satisfied the judge, and procured him ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... in deer-skins. These people were highly pleased with the treatment they received; and, having partaken of some refreshment in the cabin, they danced on the deck with the sailors, to the animating strains of a Shetland fiddler. Two of the women were daughters of a Danish resident, by an Esquimaux woman: one of the men was the son of a Dane; and they were all of the colour of Mulattoes. After the dance, coffee was served; and, at eight o'clock, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... a fiddler and a man of genius. Educated people do not deny the possibility of such a combination; but it was Christopher's misfortune to live amongst a dull and bovine-seeming race, who had little sympathy with art and no knowledge of an artist's ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... Tokay,[1] it is better adapted for summer than for autumn, and also for some fiddler who could respond to its noble fire, and yet stand ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... even to write down modern Irish by ear I was poorly qualified. Things were made harder, too, by the manner of recitation, as traditional as the words. He chanted, with a continuous vocalisation, and while he chanted, elbow and knee worked like a fiddler's or piper's marking the time. However, with persistence, I got the thing down, letting him first say a verse fully through, then writing line by line or as near as I could; then going back and asking questions in detail: the son coming to my rescue, when the old man lost patience ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... Smith was a good white man. He was a grand fiddler and he used to call us to de big house at night to dance for him. I couldn't do nothin' 'cept jump up and down and I sho' did git tired. Marse Jabe warn't married. He raised his brother's chillun, but dey was all grown when ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the tips of his wings an' led him to the house. His wing spread was 'bout six or eight feet. When I got him to the house I told 'em I had the biggest hawk they ever seen. A ole man by the same of William said, "Hell that ain't no hawk, that's a grey eagle." A ole colored fiddler, named Fred Roberts, sent word he'd buy it from me. He even got so fraid he wouldn't get it that he ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... this, Andy," said he, "and these two gallant animals will never recover it after the severe day's hunting they've had. Poor Fiddler and Piper," he exclaimed, "this has proved a melancholy day to you both. What is to be done, Andy? I am scarcely able to stand, and feel as if my strength had ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... won't bring a cent more on that account. With the cattle it's different; they are all under contract, but the horses must be charged as general expense, and if nothing is realized out of them, the herd must pay the fiddler. My largest delivery is a sub-contract for Fort Buford, calling for five million pounds of beef on foot. It will take three herds or ten thousand cattle to fill it. I was anxious to give those Buford beeves an early start, and that was the main reason in my consenting ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... that yon street-fiddler plies: She told me 'twas the same She'd heard from the trumpets, when the ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... than a poor lonely old maid looking after geniuses. Geniuses are perfectly horrible persons! I've had experience with them. Why, I tried to bring out a violinist once—such a dirty young man, and he smelt terribly of garlic—he came from the Pyrenees—but he was quite a marvellous fiddler—and he turned out most ungratefully, and married my manicurist. Simply shocking! And as for singers!—my dear Maryllia, you never seem to realise what an utter little fright that Cicely Bourne of yours is! She will ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... over her child, Piney. Piney's parents had not been Italians at all, so Old Bernique told Steering, just plain, everyday Americans, from up "at that St. Louis," quite poor and always on the move. The father had been known throughout the country-side as a "blame' good fiddler" and the mother had been, oh a vair' wonderful woman, if one could believe Old Bernique. But there was no Italian blood in Piney. His feeling for Italy had to be explained in another way. It was the great sweet note of poetry, music and beauty, of that far country, vibrating across the years ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... previous experiences not to wear perishable finery at the barn dance, and the girls all come in pretty wash-dresses that will stand a good romp. Music is furnished by an old darkey fiddler, not violinist, who plays "Money Musk," "Fisher's Hornpipe," "Ole Dan Tucker" and any number of ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... asked the fiddler 'Won't you play the rest for me?' 'Don't know it,' says the fiddler, 'Play it for ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... lovers! The very phrase evokes and parades a pageant of amours! The thousand heartaches; the fingers clutching hungrily at keys that might be other fingers; the fiddler with his eyelids clenched while he dreams that the violin, against his cheek is the satin cheek of "the inexpressive She;" the singer with a cry in every note; the moonlit youth with the mandolin tinkling his serenade to an ivied window; the dead-marches; ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... days afterwards a fiddler came and sang beneath the windows, trying to earn a small alms. When the King heard him he said, "Let him come up." So the fiddler came in, in his dirty, ragged clothes, and sang before the King and his daughter, and when he had ended he asked for a trifling gift. The King ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... the Hecla, the fiddler having struck up a tune, these merry people danced with the seamen for an hour, and then returned in high glee to their huts. They were highly delighted with the tones of the organ, as with the songs of the seamen ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... come, Johnny. There's no get out of it. Here's Jim Mason with me, and we've got orders to stun you and pack you if you show fight. The blessed fiddler from Mudgee didn't turn up. Dave Regan burst his concertina, and they're ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... good fiddler. The white folks have taught me to do lots of different things. I have had very few advantages and I cannot read ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... perfect if only we had a little better dwelling for summer. You might build us a two-story house, and fetch soil to make a garden. Then you might make a little arbour up there to let us have a sea-view; and we might have a fiddler to fiddle to us of an evening, and a little steamer to take us to church ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... four houses, a pole as tall as the mainmast of a ship had been erected, and from its summit hung wreaths and fluttering ribbons: this was called a maypole. Men and maids danced round the tree, and sang as loudly as they could, to the violin of the fiddler. There were merry doings at sundown and in the moonlight, but I took no part in them—what has a little mouse to do with a May dance? I sat in the soft moss and held my sausage-peg fast. The moon threw its beams especially upon one spot, where a tree stood, covered ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Smoothpate, begging to be released from the pillory he had placed himself in by removing a board in the wooden partition, and sliding it up, and then thrusting his caput from without into the interior of the house, to the no small amazement of the brown fiddler and his daughter who inhabited the same, and who had immediately secured their prize by slipping the displaced board down again, wedging it firmly on the back of his neck, as if he had been fitted for the guillotine, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... home from the "Boston Tea Party," the men passed a house at which Admiral Montague was spending the evening. The officer raised the window and cried out, "Well, boys, you've had a fine night for your Indian caper. But, mind, you've got to pay the fiddler yet." "Oh, never mind," replied one of the leaders, "never mind, squire! Just come out here, if you please, and we'll settle the bill in two minutes." The admiral thought it best to let the bill stand, and quickly ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... all assembled, the dance commenced; the old fiddler struck up some favorite tune, and over the floor they went; the flying feet of the dancers were heard, pat, pat, over the apartment till the clock warned them it was twelve at midnight, or what some call "low twelve," to distinguish it from twelve o'clock ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... &c. The men of harmony were all acquiescence—every instrument was tuned and toned, and, striking up one of their most ambrosial airs, the whole band followed the count to the lady's apartment. At their head was the first fiddler, who, bowing and fiddling at the same moment, headed his troop, and advanced up the room. Death and discord!—it was the marquess himself, who was on a serenading party in the country, while his spouse had run away from town.—The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... promoting of digestion? And as to all those shoeing-horns of drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, the throwing high jinks, the filling of bumpers, the drinking two in a hand, the beginning of mistresses' healths; and then the roaring out of drunken catches, the calling in a fiddler, the leading out every one his lady to dance, and such like riotous pastimes—these were not taught or dictated by any of the wise men of Greece, but of Gotham rather, being my invention, and by me prescribed as the best preservative of health: each of which, the more ridiculous it is, the more welcome ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... father is so tickled with the notion that he is coming, too; and he says he will give us a real good lark. And we are going to Friar's Oak, eight miles away; and we are to take hampers full of dainties. And Fiddler Joe will come with us to play for us; and there's a beautiful green-sward just under the beech-trees by Friar's Oak, and there we'll dance by the full light of the moon. Oh, you must come! I told father you were coming, ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... that Mary Simmons says she gave ten thousand dollars and Josie Fiddler says it was three hundred,—so you can choose ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... term when applied to the feminine division of mankind has precisely an opposite meaning. The woman manager (he says) economizes, saves, oppresses her household with bargains and contrivances, and looks sourly upon any pence that are cast to the fiddler for even a single jig-step on life's arid march. Wherefore her men-folk call her blessed, and praise her; and then sneak out the backdoor to see the Gilhooly Sisters do ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... far as to pay a talent ($600.00 in our money) for a quantity of roses, with which she caused the floor of the hall to be covered to a depth of eighteen inches. These flowers were retained in a very fine net, to allow the guests to walk over them. According to Suetonius, Nero (the fiddler of burning Rome and the tyrant par excellence of the ancient day) gave a fete at one time on the Gulf of Baiae when inns were established on the banks, and ladies of noble blood played hostesses to the occasion, ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a farmer, who was standing by, "he's gone to get drunk; he is the biggest old drunkard in the countryside, and yet they do say he was gentleman once, and the best fiddler in London; but he can't be depended on, so no one will hire ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... of Balmachie's Wife. Michael Scott. The Minister and the Fairy. The Fisherman and the Merman. The Laird O' Co'. Ewen of the Little Head. Jock and his Mother. Saint Columba. The Mermaid Wife. The Fiddler and the Bogle of Bogandoran. Thomas the Rhymer. Fairy Friends. The Seal-Catcher's Adventure. The Fairies of Merlin's Craig. Rory Macgillivray. The Haunted Ships. The Brownie. Mauns' Stane. "Horse and Hattock." Secret Commonwealth. The Fairy Boy of Leith. The Dracae. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... commanders, there may have been a post-captain among them, coming down to the Common Hard, after a dinner-party on shore, to go on board their ships, found the sentry fast asleep in his sentry-box. They, of course, were as sober as judges; he, evidently, drunk as a fiddler. They thereon held a consultation, and came to the unanimous conclusion that it was meet and fit that a man guilty of so flagrant an infraction of military discipline should receive condign punishment, and constituting themselves the executioners as well as the judges ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... forth the horses one after the other—Kingmaker, the Fiddler, Pittapat, and the others. We spent a delightful two hours. The sun dropped; the shadows lengthened. From the fields the men began to come in. They drove the wagons and hay ricks into the spacious enclosure, and set leisurely about the task of caring for their animals. Chinese ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... end of the family scene previously described, a noise was heard without, the latch was lifted, and a troop of Lecour's neighbours and dependants pushed in, an old fiddler at their head, who, clattering forward in sabots, removed his blue tuque from his head, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... savoring of aristocracy the ornamented gas-burner would offend the tyrannical people and provoke violence against it! This, the latest joke in the solemn Quarterly, has led many of its readers here to recall the days of Madame Trollope and the Reverend Mr. Fiddler, those veracious and "well-known travellers." There are, we are sorry to say, many gilded street-lamps, burnished and blazing every night, in Boston. But instead of standing before the houses of our merchants, they designate quite ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws; but even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of peats which came to me over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of the cotter were wading by the pier. The same day we visited the shores of the isle in the ship's boats; rowed deep into Fiddler's Hole, sounding as we went; and, having taken stock of all possible accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet as the scene of operations. For it was no accident that had brought the lighthouse steamer to anchor in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen miles away ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smiled back at her. "I shall not open 'the fiddler's bill' until—until I have to." At the door he turned. She had risen and was kneeling on the sofa, her elbow on its low arm, her chin upon her hand, her eyes staring into the fire. He ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... of my people danced; at this they were so much delighted, and so impatient to show their gratitude, that one of them went over the ship's side into the canoe, and fetched up a seal-skin bag of red paint, and immediately smeared the fiddler's face all over with it: He was very desirous to pay me the same compliment, which, however, I thought fit to decline; but he made many very vigorous efforts to get the better of my modesty, and it was not without some difficulty ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Scotch fiddler, born at Inver, near Dunkeld, of lowly origin; during his long life he enjoyed a wide popularity amongst the Scotch nobility, his especial patron being the Duke of Atholl; Raeburn painted his portrait on several occasions; he ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... refreshed themselves, he went to see the city, and was beheld of everybody there with great admiration; for the people of Paris are so sottish, so badot, so foolish and fond by nature, that a juggler, a carrier of indulgences, a sumpter-horse, or mule with cymbals or tinkling bells, a blind fiddler in the middle of a cross lane, shall draw a greater confluence of people together than an evangelical preacher. And they pressed so hard upon him that he was constrained to rest himself upon the towers of Our Lady's Church. At which place, seeing so many about ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the beach-hammock and spreads a sea of silvery green before the mansion is not barren of attractions. Inquisitive and faint-hearted fiddler-crabs are darting in and out of their holes in the mud: an alligator now and then shows a hint of a head above the water of the creek, along whose banks walk daintily and proudly egrets and herons robed in white, and from the reeds of which myriads ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... riots by magic; and how much Ninus surpassed in abilities any of his successors on the throne of Assyria. The moderns, Sir William owns, have found out the circulation of blood; but, on the other hand, they have quite lost the art of conjuring; nor can any modern fiddler enchant fishes, fowls, and serpents by his performance. He tells us that "Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus made greater progresses in the several empires of science ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... revenged the following winter by a dark-haired Roumanian fiddler, who beat her and forced her to carry her jewels to a pawnshop, where they were redeemed at half price by their original donour and used to adorn the plump, firm body of a ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... daughter and her children; and in Myles Gorman, in this same play, is sounded that other call that is recurrent in his work, the call of the road. We see more of wanderer than of artist, too, in Conn Hourican, though Mr. Colum calls the play he made for him "The Fiddler's House"; and here, too, the love of land is a motive—love of land and the wander-love battle in "The Land" (1905), with love of woman the deciding factor in the ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt |
