"Lute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon a thin folio entitled "Musick's Monument," (London, 1676,) we advise him to clutch it, retire from the haunts of men, and abandon himself to the delight of reading the Izaak Walton of music. It is a most quaint and curious treatise upon "the Noble Lute, the best of instruments," with a chapter upon "the generous Viol," by Thomas Mace, "one of the clerks of Trinity College in the University of Cambridge." Master Mace deigns not to mention keyed instruments, probably ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Bible (Genesis iv, 21), where we are told that "Jubal is the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ." The Hebrew word here is ugab, which is sometimes translated in the Septuagint by cithara (the ancient lute), sometimes by psalm, sometimes by organ. Sir John Stainer ("Dictionary of Musical Terms," p. 444) says: "It is probable that in its earliest form the ugab was nothing more than a Pan's-pipes or syrinx, but that it ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... cultivate and harvest them. He sees only the glory of it; for we read: "Hail to the spirit of mighty Mars. When he strode through our peaceful village, he awoke many a war song in our breasts. As for our hero, Mars, the war god forged iron reeds for his lute, and he breathed into it the spirit of the age, and all the valour, all the chivalry of a golden day came pouring out of his impassioned reeds." Such is the magic of those large white plumes on Martin Culpepper's memory. Although John Barclay in that latter day bought a thousand copies ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... youth challenge the birds in music; and a nightingale took up the challenge. For a time the contest was uncertain; but then the youth, "in a rapture," played so cunningly that the bird, despairing, "down dropped upon his lute, and brake ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... dim and mute, Fall vaguely on the dusky river; Vexed breezes play a phantom lute, Athwart the waves that ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... Cavalry for some time, we fitted out a new expedition to the Republican River country, and were re-enforced by three companies of the celebrated Pawnee Indian scouts, commanded by Major Frank North: his officers being Captain Lute North, brother of the major, Captain Cushing, his brother-in-law, Captain Morse, and Lieutenants Beecher, Matthews, and Kislandberry. General Carr recommended at this time to General Augur, who was ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Robert was good last night. He told me he had been defending Swedenborg and the spirits, which suggested to me some notion of superhuman virtue on his part. Yes; love him. He is my right 'glory'; and the 'lute and harp' would go for nothing beside him, even if 'Athenaeums' ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... woll gracyous Predestynacyon Original has Bryng the to glory at thy law ende well instead And euen with that came to my mynde of woll My fyrst conclusyon that I was aboute To haue dreuen er slepe made me to lute ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... the humour of the Freeholder too nice and gentle for such noisy times, and is reported to have said that the Ministry made use of a lute, when they should ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... renown was I, In the ranks of gallantry. Now, when Love no more will call, To battle; on this sacred wall, Venus, where her statue stands, To hang my arms, and lute commands; Here the bright torch to hang, and bars, Which wag'd so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... by his playing, St. Francis, left alone, heard such music that his suffering ceased and his fever left him. And as he lay listening he was aware that the sound kept coming and going; and how could it have been otherwise? for it was the lute-playing of an Angel, ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... respect—beard which pretends neither to feel nor to hear, nor to see, a pared away beard, a beaten down, disordered, gutted beard. May the Italian sickness deliver me from this vile joker with a squashed nose, fiery nose, frozen nose, nose without religion, nose dry as a lute table, pale nose, nose without a soul, nose which is nothing but a shadow; nose which sees not, nose wrinkled like the leaf of a vine; nose that I hate, old nose, nose full of mud—dead nose. Where had my eyes been to attach ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... bed, a chest of drawers, and a quantity of flowers on the window-sill, by no means came up to the ideas which he had entertained of monastic asceticism; and when, over and above all this, he found more than a breviary and a crucifix within reach, namely, a sort of pocket-library and a lute, his ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... around—I view a throng, The radiant slaves of pride and art. Oh! can they prize my simple song, The soft low breathings of the, heart? Take back the lute, its tuneful string Is moisten'd by a sorrowing tear, To-night, I may not, cannot sing The friends that love me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... to me, it's overhead that makes or breaks a business, that's what it is, just like he says, yes, sir, overhead! So say we'll allow—now let me see, ten plus ten is twenty, and one six-hundredth of twenty would be—six in two is—no, two in six is—well, anyway, to make it ab-so-lute-ly safe, we'll allow a cent and a half for each sandwich, to cover overhead and rent and fuel, and then they sell a sandwich at fifteen cents, which is, uh, the way they figure percentage of profit—well, ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... he announced, "leaves Devonport for Kiel on Thursday next. And here, in another part of the paper, is the little rift in the lute, Listen!— ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "If coblas you know to make, Song and music to wake For your part, Horse and lute shall you take Of Jongleur, lightly forsake Cloister for woodland brake ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... mottoes—how the wind should be pictorially portrayed, with many other equally weighty considerations, still the chivalrous knights of the tournay, and the fair ladies of their devoirs, attained proficiency in the art. Wolf of Wolfrath, the lute-player, records, that at a grand tournament held at Vienna in 1560, crowns of laurel were awarded to the knights who wore the wittiest devices, as well as to those who excelled in feats ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... first weighed. Kaphis went to Delphi, but he was afraid to touch the sacred things, and in the presence of the Amphiktyons he deeply lamented the task that was imposed on him. Upon some of them saying that they heard the lute in the shrine send forth a sound, Kaphis either believing what they said or wishing to inspire Sulla with some religious fear, sent him this information. But Sulla replied in a scoffing tone, he wondered Kaphis did not understand that such music was a sign of pleasure and not ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... indolent repose: And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute, And filled the illumined groves with ravishment. The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed That timely light, to share his joyous sport: And hence, a ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... to say," returned Don Quixote, "that it is a complete adventure, but that it is the beginning of one, for it is in this way adventures begin. But listen, for it seems he is tuning a lute or guitar, and from the way he is spitting and clearing his chest he must be getting ready ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... charming is divine Philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... friend, asked leave to sing a few verses; and, fixing his keen eyes upon the coquette, he began in tones of lute-like sweetness the following song, entitled 'The Syren with a Heart of Ice.' We have translated it, as nearly as possible, from ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... two ranks as if they were of the black-eyed Brides of Paradise. And after a while in came other ten damsels, bearing in their hands lutes and divers instruments of mirth and music; and these, having saluted the two guests, sat down and fell to tuning their lute-strings. Then they rose and standing before them, played and sang and recited verses: and indeed each one of them was a seduction to the servants of the Lord. Whilst they were thus busied there entered other ten damsels like unto them, high-bosomed maids and of an equal ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... intended to have redressed all abuses, and to have rewarded us according to our merits. He was of a gay disposition, and fond of music; and it is said that his attendants, while his illness was at the height, brought a lute player into his apartment, in hopes of soothing his distress. While a favourite air was playing, he was said to have beat time with perfect accuracy, and expired just when the tune ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... its rusty lock and broken hinges, brings to mind a rosy-cheeked girl in a poke bonnet, who went a-visiting in the stage-coach. Inside is the bonnet itself—white, with a gorgeous trimming of pink "lute-string" ribbon, which has faded into ashes of roses at the ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... recovers, She sends for two betrothed lovers, And marries tham, that, with their crew, Their sports, and ceremonies due, She covertly might celebrate, With secret joy, her own estate. She makes a feast, at which appears The wild nymph Teras, that still bears An ivory lute, tells ominous tales, And ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... called for, and several of the princely company sang to the lute; Jean, pleased to show there was something in which her sister excelled, and gratified at some recollections that floated up of her father's skill in minstrelsy, insisted on sending for ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... run about the country and pretend they cause worms to come forth from the teeth by burning the seed in a chafing dish of coals, the party holding his mouth over the fume thereof, do have some crafty companions who convey small lute strings into the water, persuading the patient that those little creepers came out of his mouth, or other parts which it was intended to ease." Forestus says: "These pretended worms are no more than an appearance of worms which is always seen in ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... dare say there is a good deal that is Oriental on the other side. There, I am sure, we should be sitting on very precious carpets, and eating sweetmeats with golden spoons, while some fair young Circassian slave sang wild melodies and played upon a rare old inlaid lute." ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Campanero, in English the tolling-bell bird, found only on the borders of Guiana. It is of the size of our jay, of a pure white color, with a black tubercle on the upper side of the bill. "Orpheus himself (says Waterton) would drop his lute to listen to him, so sweet, so novel, and romantic is the toll of the pretty, snow-white Campanero." "The Campanero may be heard three miles! (echoes Sidney Smith). This single little bird being more powerful than the belfry of a cathedral ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... which, from nooks least suspected, there starts not a music. Is it quite true that, "non avium citharaeque cantus somnum reducent"? Would not even Damocles himself have forgotten the sword, if the lute-player had chanced ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... members of the class had voted for her. They had shown open and hearty disapproval of Elizabeth Walbert. The other three officers were more to their liking, but the Sans' electioneering had left a rift in the freshman lute which promised plenty of discord later on. Though every member of the class had attended the picnic as a matter of courtesy, the finer element had been privately weary of the affair before the afternoon was over. The Sans' ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... after he had been invested by the King with the golden spurs of knighthood and had been magnificently feasted, he retired to rest his weariness, while the beautiful Sabia from her balcony lulled him to sleep with her golden lute. ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... many a month I strove to suit These stubborn fingers to the lute! To-day I venture all I know. She will not hear my music? So! Break the string; fold music's wing: Suppose Pauline had ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... philosophers, in which Farabi disputed with so much eloquence and energy that he reduced all the doctors to silence. Then the Sultan ordered music, and when the musicians entered, Farabi accompanied them upon the lute with so much delicacy as to win the admiration of all present. He then drew out, at the Sultan's request, a piece of his own composition, and sang it with his own accompaniment, and had the audience first in laughter, and then in tears—and ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... complaints may move just Aeacus, No dreadful threats can fear judge Rhodomanth. Wert thou as strong as mighty Hercules, That tamed the huge monsters of the world, Playedst thou as sweet, on the sweet sounding lute, As did the spouse of fair Eurydice, That did enchant the waters with his noise, And made stones, birds, and beasts, to lead a dance, Constrained the hilly trees to follow him, Thou couldst not ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... "O pure Palace of my Pleasures, O Doors of Ivory, let the King come in. With silver lamps before him, and with measures Of low lute-music let him come. Begin, Ye suppliant lilies and ye frail white roses, Imploring sweetnesses of hands and eyes, To let Love through to the most secret closes Of all his flowery Court of Paradise." . . . Sunder the jealous gates. Thine ivory Castle ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... my heart is cold, Because of a silent tongue! The lute of faultless mould In silence oft hath hung. The fountain soonest spent Doth babble down the steep; But the stream that ever went ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... what I had seen. And there was nothing remarkable in this, except that nowadays kings do not wear crowns at night. It occurred to me that there was a masquerade going on in the Tuileries, though I heard no music, except the tinkle of, it might be, a harp, or "the lascivious pleasing of a lute," and I walked along down towards the central pavilion. I was just in time to see two ladies emerge from it and disappear, whispering together, in the shrubbery; the one old, tall, and dark, with the Italian complexion, in a black ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that perch over each window, and hold daintily in their beaks the amber-colored drapery; the chastely-designed tapestry of sumptuously-carved lounges, and reclines, and ottomans, and patrician chairs, and lute tabs, arranged with exact taste here and there about the great parlor; the massive centre and side-tables, richly inlaid with pearl and Mosaic; the antique vases interspersed along the sides, between the windows, and contrasting curiously with ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... excellent vows (chief amongst which is the granting of favour unto one that solicits it with a pure heart); He that has a face always full of delight; He that is exceedingly subtle; He that utters the most agreeable sounds (in the form of the Veda or as Krishna playing on the lute); He that gives happiness (to all His worshippers); He that does good to others without expecting any return; He that fills all creatures with delight; He that has subdued wrath; He that has mighty ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and the sciences, these did not interest them very much. They regarded with suspicion a man who could play the lute or who could write a poem about Spring and only thought him little better than the clever fellow who could walk the tightrope or who had trained his poodle dog to stand on its hind legs. They left such things to the Greeks and to the Orientals, both of whom they despised, while they themselves spent ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... poor sister of mine," said Wayland; "she can sing and play o' the lute would win the fish out ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the loom, and leave the lute, And leave the volume on the shelf, To follow him, unquestioning, mute, If 'twere ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... or Pompey, those two noted dancers of my time, could have taught us to cut capers, by only seeing them do it, without stirring from our places, as these men pretend to inform the understanding without ever setting it to work, or that we could learn to ride, handle a pike, touch a lute, or sing without the trouble of practice, as these attempt to make us judge and speak well, without exercising us in judging or speaking. Now in this initiation of our studies in their progress, whatsoever presents itself before us is book sufficient; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... are told that Themistocles said on one occasion, "'Tis true that I have never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." So might it be said of Harland and Wolff. They have given Belfast not only a potency for good, but a world-wide reputation. Their energies ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... looking young man in the clothes of a calendar, with a patch on his right eye, laid aside his long-necked lute ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... a delight to hear the voices of the children ring through the class-rooms in songs like 'Orpheus with his Lute' and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... let me prevail upon you to imitate the laudable taciturnity of that honest yeoman, who sits as mute as a mill-post, and of that comely damsel, who seems as with her ears she drank in what she did not altogether comprehend, even as a palfrey listening to a lute, whereof, howsoever, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... wits, for the wine and the intoxication of love for her. Presently she said to the serving-maid, "O Merjaneh, bring us some instruments of music." "I hear and obey," replied Merjaneh, and going out, returned immediately with a lute, a Persian harp, a Tartar flute and an Egyptian dulcimer. The young lady took the lute and tuning it, sang to it in a dulcet voice, softer than the zephyr and sweeter than the waters of Tesnim,[FN12] the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... tail composes, And what a goodly bay his nose is; How many German leagues by th' scale 275 Cape Snout's from Promontory Tail. He made a planetary gin, Which rats would run their own heads in, And cause on purpose to be taken, Without th' expence of cheese or bacon. 280 With lute-strings he would counterfeit Maggots that crawl on dish of meat: Quote moles and spots on any place O' th' body, by the index face: Detect lost maiden-heads by sneezing, 285 Or breaking wind of dames, or pissing; Cure warts ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... husband, thou wast watch'd Like a tame elephant:—still you are to thank me:— Thou hadst only kisses from him and high feeding; But what delight was that? 'Twas just like one That hath a little fing'ring on the lute, Yet cannot tune it:—still you are to ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... own youth was perhaps the acutest emotion he ever knew. He was himself, in his early years, one of those glorious youths who have the genius of charm and comeliness, of grace and strength and the arts. He excelled at football as in lute-playing. He danced, fenced, and rode better than the best; and, with his noble countenance, his strong limbs, his fair beard, and his "eyes full of gentle gravity," he must have been the picture of the perfect courtier and soldier. Above all, we are told, his ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... day at Damalipta, I saw a great crowd collected in a large park outside the city. While looking about me to find some one of whom I might inquire what this festival was, I espied a young man, sitting alone in an arbour, amusing himself with playing on a lute. Going up to him, I asked "What is this concourse of people? Why do you sit here alone, away ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... slowly up the terrace, turning absently toward the direction whence came the voice. Zanetto with a lute on his shoulder, and dragging his cloak up the steep, enters with a happy ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni
... filled with scenic and musical effects. For instance one showed the ecstasy of David, dancing before the ark "to the sound of a large lute, a violin, a trombone, but more especially to his own harp." These references to the employment of many instruments in accompanying the voice or the dance make us wonder whether our historical stories of the birth and development of the orchestra are well ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... My lute, be as thou wert when thou did'st grow With thy green mother in some shady grove, When immelodious winds but made thee move, And birds their ramage did on ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... passed through the door that led to the room beyond, Gian Maria caught for a moment the accents of an exquisite male voice singing a love-song to the accompaniment of a lute. ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... from solid substances by means of heat, I sometimes put them into a gun-barrel, fig. 7, and filling it up with dry sand, that has been well burned, so that no air can come from it, I lute to the open end the stem of a tobacco pipe, or a small glass tube. Then having put the closed end of the barrel, which contains the materials, into the fire, the generated air, issuing through the tube, ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... end, the people returned to their places and the King and his son to the palace, where they sat down and fell to eating and drinking and making merry. Now the King had a handsome handmaiden who was skilled in playing the lute; so she took it and began to sweep the strings and sing thereto before the King and his son of separation of lovers, and she chanted the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... colors sad in part, sometimes angry with tragic crimson and black; the Furies are three, who visit, with retributions called from the other side of the grave, offenses that walk upon this; and once even the Muses were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet, or the lute, to the great burdens of man's impassioned creations. These are the Sorrows, all three of whom I know." The last words I say now; but in Oxford I said, "One of whom I know, and the others too surely I shall ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... up a lute straitway, Upon the same I strove to play; And sweetly to the same did sing, As made both ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... withered and forlorn, I had renounced what man desires, I'd thought some poet might be born To string my lute with silver wires; At least in brighter days to come Such men as I would ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... spronge of the flodes of hell Vexith these vagabundes in theyr myndes so That by no mean can they abyde ne dwell Within theyr howsys, but out they nede must go More wyldly wandrynge than outher bucke or doo Some with theyr harpis another with his lute Another with his bagpype or a ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... knew not he resumes, set free From my constraining love, alas for me! His part in our tune goes with him; my part Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute As one with full strong music in his heart Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute. ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... art, the great fresco of the Triumph of Death. With wonderful realization of character and situation he painted the prosperous of the world, the dapper youths and damsels seated with dogs and falcons beneath the orchard trees, amusing themselves with Decameronian tales and sound of lute and psaltery, unconscious of the gigantic scythe wielded by the gigantic dishevelled Death, and which, in a second, will descend and mow them to the ground; but the crowd of beggars, ragged, maimed, paralyzed, leprous, grovelling on their withered limbs, see and implore ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... Borghetto, is a greeting to the pair on their return from the church: "Long live in health the bride and groom! What a beautiful and fortunate marriage! Let the mind be firm and the heart constant. And so we come to the happy day. I would that my words were as sweet as those of a song, and my lute well tuned! A hundred years I would sing new songs. Long live love and marriage!" This other song, from Palermo, a variant of one already published, is also an expression of good wishes for the pair: "Health to this excellent pair! What a fine and gallant wedding! The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... the brook, all combined to develop the boy's body to a splendid degree. He went to bed at sundown, and at the first flush of dawn was up that he might see the sunrise. There were devotional rites performed by the mother and son, morning and evening, which consisted in the playing upon a lute and singing or chanting the beauty and ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... ones upon whom I had kept my eye had disappeared, I turned it to look at the other miscreants. I saw one made in fashion of a lute, had he but only had his groin cut off at the part where man is forked. The heavy hydropsy which, with the humor that it ill digests, so unmates the members that the face corresponds not with the belly, was making him hold his lips open as the hectic ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... and was early distinguished for his personal beauty. Giorgione means George the Great, and this title was given him on account of his noble figure. He was fond of music, played the lute well, and composed many of the songs he sang; he had also an intense love of beauty—in short, his whole nature was full of sentiment and harmony, and with all these gifts he was a man of pure life. Mrs. Jameson says of him: "If Raphael be the Shakspeare, then Giorgione may ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... fiddler tunes the strings with pick of thumb and scrape of bow, Finds one string keyed a note too high, another one too low; Then rosins up the tight-drawn hairs, the young folks in a fret Until their ears are greeted with the warning words, "All set! S'lute yer pardners! Let 'er go! Balance all an' do-ce-do! Swing yer girls an' run away! Right an' left an' gents sashay! Gents to right an' swing or cheat! On to next gal an' repeat! Balance next an' don't be shy! Swing yer pard an' swing 'er high! ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... at the Post-office, where I was once before. And thither anon come all the Gresham College, and a great deal of noble company: and the new instrument was brought called the Arched Viall, where being tuned with lute-strings, and played on with kees like an organ, a piece of parchment is always kept moving; and the strings, which by the kees are pressed down upon it, are grated in imitation of a bow, by the parchment; ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... which observe, both in that place and again in the third book, is the separate art of joiners' work, or inlaying; but the idea of exquisitely divided variegation or division, both in sight and sound—the "ravishing division to the lute," as in Pindar's "[Greek: poikiloi hymnoi]"—runs through the compass of all Greek art-description; and if, instead of studying that art among marbles, you were to look at it only on vases of a fine time, (look back, for instance, to Plate ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... sweeter, The voice so nearly mute, As beauty, dying, loses Her hold upon the lute; And like the harmonies that touch And blend with those above, Forever must an echo wake The ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... or like Luther Burbank, or like Theodore N. Vail, or like Colonel Goethals, picking up a little isthmus like Panama, a string between two continents, playing on it as if it were a harp; or like Edward Ripley playing with the Santa Fe Railroad for all the world like Homer with a lute, all his seven thousand men, all his workmen, all their wives and their children, all the cities along the line striking up and joining in the chorus or like Carborundum Acheson, backed up by his little Niagara Falls oiling the wheels of a world, weaving ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... shattered The light in the dust lies dead— When the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... effect that it was very beautiful, and that, locking herself in her chamber, early in the morning, while everything in the city was still sleeping, she loved to warble ancient ballads to the strains of a lute, upon which she herself played. Despite the pallor of her face, Valeria was in blooming health; and even the old people, as they looked on her, could not refrain from thinking:—"Oh, how happy will ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... to him, to all; Her lute hangs silent on the wall, And on the stairs, and at the door, Her fairy ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... of their choicest morsels. Bertalda and Huldbrand shared this delightful feeling, and expected with fearful hope the tidings which were to fall from the lips of Undine. Several of the company pressed Undine to sing. The request seemed opportune, and ordering her lute to be brought, she sang the ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... in the adjacent tower, the sounds of a lute, hardly heard at first, reached his ear. Jurand, while on the way to Szczytno, was sure that Danusia was not in the castle, and yet this sound of the lute at night aroused his heart in an instant. It seemed to him that he knew those sounds, and that nobody else was ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Fortunately for the ears of the audience, that attempt is now abandoned. My mother is hard at work on her tapestry,—the last pattern in fashion, to wit, a rosy-cheeked young troubadour playing the lute under a salmon-colored balcony; the two little girls look gravely on, prematurely in love, I suspect, with the troubadour; and Blanche and I have stolen away into a corner, which, by some strange delusion, we consider out of sight, and in that corner is the cradle of the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... than pearl That plucks a lute's monotonous strings; O starlight phantom of a girl What lyric soul around thee sings, And what divine companionship Taught that entwining music to thy fingers, And that unearthly music to thy lips? She pauses, and the echo ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... be tuned by the guru as the strings of a lute (vina) each different from the others, yet each emitting sounds in harmony with all. Collectively they must form a key-board answering in all its parts to thy lightest touch (the touch of the Master). Thus their minds shall open for the harmonies ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... great German mass-peoples find this out, when they discover the little rift in the lute which now separates their real quality from the false standards of their own dominant military and commercial folk, then their true role in the world will begin, and a glorious role it ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... tradition, in the fifth year of the Emperor Korei (286 B.C.), the earth opened in the province of Omi, near Kioto, and Lake Biwa, sixty miles long by about eighteen broad, was formed in the shape of a Biwa, or four-stringed lute, from which it takes its name. At the same time, to compensate for the depression of the earth, but at a distance of over three hundred miles from the lake, rose Fuji-Yama, the last eruption of which was in the year 1707. The last great earthquake at Yedo ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... in Palma de Mallorca, a young nobleman, a poet, a skilled player on the lute had stood tiptoe for attainment before the high-born and very stately lady he had courted through many moonlight nights, when her eye had chilled his quivering love suddenly and she had pulled open her bodice with ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... the tree its shadow, as if its pure fresh beauty was a thing apart from the soil and tumult of the highway. "You see," said Mrs. Sullivan, "one who, in a brief interview, gave me more the idea of a poet than most of our modern votaries of the lute.... She is as creative in her imaginary poems as she is touching and true in her ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... landscapes painted upon its cover. In a recess was a shelf of old books, mainly English and Italian poets of the Elizabethan time; and close by it, placed upon a carved wedding-chest, a large and beautiful melon-shaped lute. The panes of the mullioned window were open, and yet the air seemed heavy, with an indescribable heady perfume, not that of any growing flower, but like that of old stuff that should have lain for years ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... fingers strike the lute's tense string, The dancing ear-ring smites your wounded cheek. Why should you flee, with dreadful terror weak, As flees the crane when ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... keepe themselves in satin, velvets, gold, At their owne charges, and are diligent Daies, moneths, and yeeres, to gaine an amorous smile. Looke on my face with an indifferent eye, And thou shalt finde more musicke in my lookes Then in Amphions Lute or Orpheus Harpe; Mine eye consists of numbers like the soule, And if there be a soule tis in mine ey; For, of the harmony these bright starres make, I comprehend the formes of all the world; The story of the Syrens in my voyce I onely verified, for Millions stand Inchanted when I speake, ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... shady; Where the sun shone on a rill Jewell'd like a lady. Proud the stream with lily-bud, Gay with glancing swallow; Swift its trillion-footed flood, Winding ways to follow. Coy and still when flying wheel Rested from its labour; Singing when it ground the meal Gay as lute or tabor. "Bouche-Mignonne" it called, when, red In the dawn were glowing, Eaves and mill-wheel, "leave thy ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... following the flock of the poor goatherd who had brought him up, and whose son he had always fancied himself to be. The child of the old King's only daughter by a secret marriage with one much beneath her in station—a stranger, some said, who, by the wonderful magic of his lute-playing, had made the young Princess love him; while others spoke of an artist from Rimini, to whom the Princess had shown much, perhaps too much honour, and who had suddenly disappeared from the city, leaving his work in the Cathedral unfinished—he had been, when but a week old, ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... and polished manners. Her thoughts, whether spoken or written, were always clearly and gracefully expressed. In her retirement, at the close of her life, she often amused herself by writing verses which she set to music and afterwards sang, accompanying herself upon the lute, which she performed ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... MIGNON, "there will come a rift in the hitherto perfect lute of our friendship (the rift's name will be DARKEY), but we shall manage to bridge it over—at least TOM RUM SUMMER says so." Here EMILY broke in. He could stand it no longer. "Dash it, you know, this is wewry extwraowrdinawry, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... lie scenes of pleasure, Where the free and blessed dwell, And each moment bears a treasure, Freighted with the lotus-spell, And there floats a liquid measure From the lute of Israfel. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... his birdlike call, and eluding the hands raised to catch them the pigeons swooped down to him. Ranulph began to dance, playing his lute at the same time, and the boy followed, with the doves flying above him just out of reach. In saucy improvised couplets the troubadour called upon one and another to join the dancing, until before any one quite knew what ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... for in my being dwelt Eternal youth, where flowers are the fruit, Full feeling was the thought of what was felt, Its music was the meaning of the lute; But heaven and earth such life will still deny, For earth, divorced from heaven, still asks ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... discordant music. These fits are not the consequence of violent or contending passions: they grow not out of sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or hatred, or despair. For in the hour of affliction the tones of our fellow-creatures are ravishing as the most delicate lute; and in the flush moment of joy where is the smiler who loves not a witness to his revelry or a listener to his good fortune? Fear makes us feel our humanity, and then we fly to men, and Hope is the parent of kindness. The ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... room. He crossed this, managed to open its unlocked door with his free hand, descended a winding stair and came into the upper hall. It was in darkness, but up the wide staircase streamed the perfumed light of many myrtle candles, and with it laughter, and the sound of a man's voice singing to a lute. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the shape of the lake to a lute, or a harp, is not clear to us from the point at which we stand: for the northwestward sweep of the bay of Gennesaret, which reaches a breadth of nearly eight miles from the eastern shore, is hidden ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... unconscious tears, Melts into mercy as he hears— The serpents in Megara's hair, Kiss, as they wreathe enamour'd there; All harmless rests the madding thong;— From the torn breast the Vulture mute Flies, scared before the charmed lute— Lull'd into sighing from their roar The dark waves woo the listening shore— Listening the Thracian's silver song!— Love was the Thracian's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... that he at length accepted the casket, but begged her to send her daughters to wish him good-bye. When they came and would have fallen on their knees before him, he would not suffer such humility, but thanked them for all their kindness in cheering him with their lute and spinet and singing during his illness, and begged them to accept the ducats contained in their mother's casket, which he poured out into their aprons whether they would or not. Overcome by his courteous persuasion, the mother thanked him with tears in her eyes: ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... the Dorian lute, if in any wise the glory of Pherenikos[2] at Pisa hath swayed thy soul unto glad thoughts, when by the banks of Alpheos he ran, and gave his body ungoaded in the course, and brought victory to his master, the Syracusans' king, ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... poet we contemplate him, Coppee belongs to the group commonly called "Parnassiens"—not the Romantic School, the sentimental lyric effusion of Lamartine, Hugo, or De Musset! When the poetical lute was laid aside by the triad of 1830, it was taken up by men of quite different stamp, of even opposed tendencies. Observation of exterior matters was now greatly adhered to in poetry; it became especially descriptive and scientific; the aim of every poet was now to render most exactly, even ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... was perceived that with difficulty he kept his eyes open; and then seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and enabling him with more vigour and chearfulness to sing his morning hymn, as he then used to do to his lute before he put on ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... with singing musically, in four or five parts, or upon a set theme or ground at random, as it best pleased them. In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play upon the lute, the virginals, the harp, the Almain flute with nine holes, the viol, and the sackbut. This hour thus spent, and digestion finished, he did purge his body of natural excrements, then betook himself to his principal study for ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... her money was gone, she pawned the poor relics of her innocent happy girlhood, which she had been permitted to take from her father's home, and had borne with her wherever she went, like household gods, the prize-books, the lute, the costly work-box, the very bird-cage, all which the reader will remember to have seen in her later life, the books never opened—the lute broken, the bird long, long, long vanished from the cage! Never did she think she should redeem ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... steed shall be red-roan, And the lover shall be noble, With an eye that takes the breath,— And the lute he plays upon Shall strike ladies into trouble, As his sword ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... Nun kneels at the altar, but turns to her lover who plays upon a lute. Death meantime, as a hideous old hag, extinguishes ...
— The Dance of Death • Hans Holbein
... which hangs like a sick dream over us to-day. The earliest, the most awful instance of such a hatred was gathering round Prior John, while at his manor-house of Mildenhall he studied his parchments and touched a defter lute than Nero or the Breton Belgabred. In a single hour hosts of armed men arose, as it were, out of the earth. Kent gathered round Wat Tyler; in Norfolk, in Essex, fifty thousand peasants hoisted the standard of Jack Straw. It was no longer a local rising or a local grievance, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... is shattered The light in the dust lies dead— When the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... of plaster-casts, gigantic hands and feet, broken-nosed masks of the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Hercules Farnese, and other foreigners of distinction. Upon the chimney-piece were displayed a pair of foils, a lute, a skull, an antique German drinking-mug, and several very modern empty bottles. In the middle of the room stood two large easels, a divan, a round table, and three or four chairs; while the floor was thickly strewn with empty color-tubes, bits of painting-rag, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... disdain'd reply; The bow perusing with exactest eye. Then, as some heavenly minstrel, taught to sing High notes responsive to the trembling string, To some new strain when he adapts the lyre, Or the dumb lute refits with vocal wire, Relaxes, strains, and draws them to and fro; So the great master drew the mighty bow, And drew with ease. One hand aloft display'd The bending horns, and one the string essay'd. From his essaying hand the string, let fly, Twang'd short and sharp like the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... there be no path untrod By that immortal race— Who walked with Nature, as with God, And saw her, face to face— No living truth by them unsung— No thought that hath not found a tongue In some strong lyre of olden time; Must every tuneful lute be still That may not give a world the thrill Of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... the old man, his gray hairs and his lost hours. And can it be, that all this which should have been immortal, is quite—quite lost, is as though it had never been?" he sighed. "Can it be that its fame is now sustained by me; who twang with my poor lute, cracked and old, these feeble praises ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... stream, quick with Promethean flame, Peopled the world with imaged grace and light. The lyre was his, and his the breathing might Of the immortal marble, his the play Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue. Go seek the sun-shine race, ye find to-day A broken column and a lute unstrung. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus |
