"Fiddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a long time since the merry sound of the fiddle had been heard in the village of Brunen. The throne was surrounded by little boys and girls listening with wondering delight at the gay music. But the grown girls stood afar off and did not look even once at the enticing ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my cheek, though their dampness never penetrated; but in between these hammer blows their ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... with music from that instrument. The virginal (a small rectangular spinet without legs) was the most common of instruments known to have been in possession of the colonists, while they also owned and played the fiddle, both small and large, the cornet, the recorder (a flageolet or old type of flute), the flute and the hautboy. These instruments in the hands of music lovers, frequently self-taught for the most part, entertained the planters' families ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... glance aloft, where the sails could be seen distended to their utmost extent and tugging at the bolt-ropes, while the topgallant-masts were bent almost into a curve with the strain upon them and the stays aft were stretched as tight as fiddle-strings. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... them" said he, "but would go to court and swear a bushel of oaths that Arthur Dillon is the boy who ran away. They have their reasons too; how he dances, and sings, and plays the fiddle, and teases the girls, just as he did when a mere strip of a lad; how the devil was always in him for doing the thing that no one looked for; how he had no fear of even the priest, or of the wildest ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... menders, Blackened firedogs and dinted fenders; Prints and pictures and quaint knick-knackery, Rare old silver and mere gimcrackery— Such was the shop, and in its middle Stood an old man holding a dusty fiddle. ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... had put the yellow juice of the celandine on his 'wurrut' to cure it. Then they pulled the plantain leaves, those that grew by the path, to see which could draw out the longest 'cat-gut;' the sinews, as it were, of the plant stretching out like the strings of a fiddle. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... the party at Houg; and she thought she noticed a deeper color on his face, and that he clinched both his fists and—thrust them into his pockets. That set her thinking, and the more she thought, the more curious she grew. He played the violin well; suppose she should ask him to come and fiddle at the party her father was to give at the end of the harvest. She resolved to do it, and he, not knowing what moved her, gave his promise eagerly. It struck her, afterward, that she had done a wicked thing, but, like most girls, she ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... stand on its own bottom! Either I do the job or I don't do it; but I don't take the part of an apprentice. I'll agree to play second fiddle to you, with you playing first. But I'll be—condemned—if I'll play first, with a coach at my elbow. Take that and be ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... I made (not to be too explicit) From two honest fellows who made me a visit, And broke, like the tale of the Bear and the Fiddle, My reflections on Halleck short off by the middle; I sha'n't now go into the subject more deeply, For I notice that some of my readers look sleep'ly; 1260 I will barely remark that, 'mongst civilized nations, There's none that displays more exemplary patience Under ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... question had never borne too good a character; and its reputation was in nowise improved when, on the death of its owner, it passed into the custody of Mr. Milsom, who came down to Raynham one November morning, almost immediately after Lady Eversleigh's departure, saw the "Cat and Fiddle" public-house vacant, and went straight to the attorney who had the letting of it, to offer himself as a tenant, announcing himself to the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 'tis but Corruption's gilding. 'Tis the trick of vice Full oft to pander in a graceful form; But when the finer chords of hearts are set In eyes glued to a dancer's feet, or ears Strain'd to the rapture of a squeaking fiddle, Think you 'tis well? Oh, say, should Englishmen Arrive at this, such price to set on art, Ne'er rivalling the untaught nightingale, That with their ears shut to wild misery, Deaf to starvation's groans, the prayer of want, The giant moan of hunger o'er the land, Till the sky darken ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... mercer of New York had clad him. De Catinat had also put on the dark coat of civil life, and he and Adele were busy preparing all things for the old man, who had fallen so weak that there was little which he could do for himself. A fiddle was screaming in the forecastle, and half the night through hoarse bursts of homely song mingled with the dash of the waves and the whistle of the wind, as the New England men in their own grave and stolid fashion made ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... addressing the unseen musician, "you are spoiling your fiddle and breaking your promise. You said you wouldn't be silly. Go to bed now like a ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... Great was their astonishment, and infinite my disgust, when we were walked forward to the galley to enjoy our weed, to find the crew smoking on the opposite side. It is astonishing to think that, with so much to be improved and attended to in the Navy, the authorities in Whitehall-place should fiddle-faddle away precious time in framing regulations about smoking, for the officers; and, instead of leaving the place to be fixed by the captain of each vessel, and holding him responsible, should name a place which, it is not too much to say, scarce one captain in ten thinks of confining his ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Historical Register concludes with a dialogue between Quidam, in whom the audience recognised Sir Robert Walpole, and four patriots, to whom he gives a purse which has an instantaneous effect upon their opinions. All five then go off dancing to Quidam's fiddle; and it is explained that they have holes in their pockets through which the money will fall as they dance, enabling the donor to pick it all up again, "and so not lose one Half-penny by ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... hung on them; and the pictures of his ancestors, in their antiquated dresses, and slender, tarnished, antiquated frames. In his drawing-room you will find none of your new grand pianos and fashionable couches and ottomans; but an old spinet and a fiddle, another set of those long-legged, tall-backed chairs, two or three little settees, a good massy table, and a fine large carved mantle-piece, with bright steel dogs instead of a modern stove, and logs of oak burning, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... estates, marriages are generally managed through agents, who find out accurately the relative circumstances of the prospective couples, and arrange everything beforehand. When a marriage of this kind had been brought about, Crappy Zachy used to play the fiddle at the wedding, for he had quite a reputation in the region as a fiddler; moreover, when his hands were tired from fiddling, he could play the clarionet and the horn. In fact, he was an ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... with great enthusiasm. Their songs were on subjects connected with Temperance and Anti-Slavery. On one occasion Judson, one of the number, was singing the 'Humbugged Husband,' which he used to accompany with the fiddle, and he had just sung the line 'I'm sadly taken in,' when the stage where he was standing gave way and he nearly disappeared from view. The audience at first took this as part ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... his hearty manner. "Exercise, old boy! You ought to try it. Greatest thing in the world. Just took a row to the end of the piers and back, and I'm as fit as a fiddle!" ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... kept awake long after he had planned how he would make up to his mother for having received her "legend" so freezingly. What kept him awake, after that, was a dim, rhythmic sound coming from the house next door, where a holiday dance was in progress—music far away and slender: fiddle, 'cello, horn, bassoon, drums, all rollicking away almost the night-long, seeping through the walls to his restless pillow. Finally, when belated drowsiness came, the throbbing tunes mingled with his half-dreams, and he heard the light shuffling ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... least another three weeks. He kicked, but Hugo says the plot demanded it. I bet, at that, he was just trying to cut down his salary list. I bet that continuity this minute shows Pa drinking his corn out of a jug and playing a fiddle for the dance right down to the last scene. Don't artists get the razz, though. And that Hugo, he'd spend a week in the hot place to save a thin dime. Let me tell you, Countess, don't you ever get ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... speaking to his son, 'Now, my bonny man, I'm going to Liverpool to-day, what shall I bring you? You may choose what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back: sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!' Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy; she was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip. He did not forget me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... left us. His dog seems to have been in fault: but he got into a pool in the middle of the wood, and there he lay drowned, with one foot up on the bank, when I went to see what the harking of the dog could be about. He clutched his fiddle in drowning; and I remember I tried to get the music out of it as it lay wet and broken on the bank, while father was saying the poor soul must have been under the water now two days. So I have reason to remember the first ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... there a boy from up to our place just the same, an' used to know marm. Miss Leicester she lets me go up and spend Sunday consid'able often. Marm's all alone except what use she gets of the neighbors comin' in. But seems if I'd lived for nothin', if I can't learn to play a fiddle better than I can now," and Seth struck hard with his whip at ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Lancaster was hazily aware of lying stretched on the floor. His head was in Karen's lap and she was stroking his hair. The hardy survivors were following the Dufreres in French drinking songs, which are the best in the known universe. Rakkan's fiddle wove in and out, a lovely accompaniment to voices that were untrained but made rich ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... goin' to do in the near future; his clothes wuz so showy, and his looks so showy (shaller I called it), with beady shiny black eyes, red cheeks, mustache and whiskers naturally red like his hair, but dyed black, and he played the fiddle so sweet, the girls said, and he sung comic songs so bea-eu-ti-ful, and he danced so light that he become a general favorite in Jonesville society and the girls all seemed to seek after him. But from the first he singled out Rosy as the object of his special ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... start for the church, where he had to arrange with the builder for the erection of scaffolding. He wished to order dinner before he left, and pulled a broad worsted-work bell-pull to summon his landlady. For some little time he had been aware of the sound of a fiddle, and as he listened, waiting for the bell to be answered, the intermittance and reiteration of the music convinced him that the organist was giving a violin lesson. His first summons remained unanswered, and when a second attempt ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... well-grown, and strong enough to work the land; but the father was old and frail and knew nothing about farming. He was a weaver by trade; had been a skilled workman on tapestries and upholstery materials. He had brought his fiddle with him, which wouldn't be of much use here, though he used to pick up money by ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... "Fiddle!" cried the iron pillars of the deep, dark hold. "Who ever heard of curves? Stand up straight; be a perfectly round column, and carry tons of good solid weight—like that! There!" A big sea smashed on the deck above, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... better than in Berlin. One of the Bavarian Princes plays a fiddle in the orchestra ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... cried one or two eager voices, while several heads leaned forward in the direction of the fiercely- moustached man who sat next to Lotys. "Where have you been with your fiddle? Do you arrive among us to-night infected by the pay, or the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... and gave chase again. He ran and ran, but this time he couldn't catch the fox up; so he returned home and wept bitterly, because he was now all alone. At last, however, he dried his tears and got him a little fiddle, a little fiddle-bow, and a big sack, and went to the fox's hole and ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... to play second fiddle, and no mistake," laughed George Ramsey, "for I did think I would make Miss Edgham a little call. But, after all, the second fiddle is an indispensable thing, and you and I are old ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... He blurted finally, "Like hell you will. There's not enough money in the system to fiddle with the awarding of the Medal of Honor. There comes a point, Demming, where even your dough ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the chapel is strong, lively, and congregational. Sometimes there is more cry than wool in it; but taken altogether, and considering the place, it is creditable. There is neither an organ, nor a fiddle, nor a musical instrument of any sort that we have been able to notice, in the place. All is done directly and without equivocation from the mouth. The members of the choir sit downstairs, in a square place fronting the pulpit; the young men—in ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... for Congress. Well, my friend, I believe I could be elected; but that is a small part of the business. I should be of no service to the State, and only show my own ignorance. Come, Sue, can't you give the gentleman some music? Give me my fiddle, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... "Fiddle-de-dee, with the Flying Dutchman. What arrant fools the men must be to think of such nonsense," exclaimed the colonel, in a contemptuous tone. "Come, Ada, let us go on deck before you return to your cabin, and we will have a look ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... to return to Warrington by an early train in the morning. It was about half-past nine when she reached the Irishwoman's house. There was considerable noise and merriment going on within, and Bet heard the scraping of a fiddle, the air of an Irish jig, and the tap-tap of feet as they danced on the floor. She paused, with a sense of dismay stealing over her. Her nerves were highly-strung—she was in an excited, exalted state, and the loud mirth was particularly uncongenial. She wondered ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... great work, but would have its defects passed over. It is an unhappy, luckless organization which will be perpetually fault-finding, and in the midst of a grand concert of music will persist only in hearing that unfortunate fiddle ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wandering up and down at wakes and fairs, he cheered the rural nymphs and swains, when upon the green they interweaved the sprightly dance; while he himself stood fiddling and jumping to his own music. How little now avails his fiddle! He thumps the verdant floor with his carcass. Next old Echepole, the sow-gelder, received a blow in his forehead from our Amazonian heroine, and immediately fell to the ground. He was a swinging fat fellow, and fell with almost as much noise as a house. His tobacco-box dropt at the same ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... slowly move your fiddle-stick; Now, tantan, tantantivi, quick; Now trembling, shivering, quivering, quaking, Set hoping ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... attended with movements, however imperceptible, in the throat, which, being true, would prove that, in a fashion, we perform the melodies which we think we only hear; living echoes, nerves vibrating beneath the composer's touch as literally as does the string of the fiddle, or its wooden fibres. A very delicate instrument this, called the Hearer, and, as we all know, more liable to being out of tune, to refusing to act altogether, than any instrument (fortunately for performers) ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... the singing as sweet as a dream And the fiddle that climbs to the sky, With head 'neath the curtain she stares out—O hark! The music so strange in ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... is dead. Killed flying. My god, Tony, impossible to think of him as dead, just a few days ago we were flying together and calling on senoritas and he playing the fiddle and laughing, always so polite, like he used to fiddle us into good nature when we got discouraged at Bagby's school. Seems like it was just couple minutes ago we drove in his big car through Avenida de Mayo and everybody cheered him, he was hero of Buenos Aires, yet he treated ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... cover'; a hint that the wily ones immediately took, rushing up to the house, and availing themselves of the absence of the butler, who had followed the hounds, to take a couple of dozen of his best fiddle-handled forks while the footman was drawing them ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... gained. Nevertheless, I know that when the true knight comes through the wood, my sleeping beauty will have another awakening, compared with which this one will seem slight indeed. Then, as a matter of course, I will quietly take my place as 'second fiddle' in the harmony of your life. But no discordant first fiddle, if you please; and love alone can attune its strings. My time is up, and, if I don't return early, go to bed, so that mamma may not say you are the worse ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... few clickings came and then silence. Bill turned to Gus. In matters of jumping at conclusions, he had long learned to depend most on his chum's undoubted talents, just as Gus, in most things mental, played second fiddle ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... gossip with lumberjacks and mill-men, or even with Indians who might come in for tobacco or tea and were reputed to have vast knowledge of the land to the North. Once he half promised to come to a barn-dance in which Scotty Humphrey would play the fiddle, and she watched for him, eagerly, but he never turned up, explaining a few days later that his dog Maigan, an acquisition of a couple of months before, had gone lame and that it would have been a shame to leave the poor old ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... for it, then, but for your majesty to call for a fiddle, and amuse yourself, like Nero, while your city is burning," remarked ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Publisher and author were for the nonce on the best of terms. The latter, no doubt, saw his opening; was more than ready to undertake the work, and had no quarrel with the remuneration offered. But even then he was not the man to play second fiddle to anybody. Before they parted, he had quite succeeded in turning the tables on Seymour. The original proposal had been that the artist should produce four caricatures on sporting subjects every month, and that the letter-press should ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... fiddle along, and those were wonderful tunes he drew from the strings. Sometimes he explained what they meant, his words running along in monotone that yet kept time to the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... learnt from their buyers. A little later, when the talk was beginning to flag, I turned to a young man near me—the best fiddler, I was told, on the island—and asked him to play us a dance. He made excuses, and would not get his fiddle; but two of the girls slipped off and brought it. The young man tuned it and offered it to me, but I insisted that he should take it first. Then he played one or two tunes, without tone, but with good ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... change seemed to have come over the old man. The boy had been a willing dutiful soldier, everybody said so, and yet they were going to shut him up in prison for five long months, all because of a piece of fiddle-faddle! Devil take them all! What was the use of being a good soldier? And at a stroke every trace disappeared of the obedient and respectful old sergeant who had worn the uniform so proudly; he was peasant pure ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... he got upon trout fishing, which was a strong bond of union between him and me, and discoursed on the proper methods of fishing chalk streams. "Your flies can't be too big, but they must be on small gut, not on base viol fiddle strings, like those you brought down to Farnham last year. I tell you gut is the thing that does it. Trout know that flies don't go about with a ring and a hand pole through their noses, like so many prize ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... a drop powder, spittin' a ball out your mouth down the muzzle, and hittin' the stock on the pommel of the saddle to send it home. And he had them miserable things—the somethin' 'cussion-caps, and used to fiddle away with them while we were knockin' over the cattle in all directions. Moreover, he had a notion that it was altogether wrong to let go his reins even for a moment, and so, what between the ramrod ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... outside with the limousine. Hop into it, will you, and meet me at the Fiddle and Horseshoe, between Shepherd's Bush and Acton? It's only half-past three and the limousine can cover the distance in less than no time. Can't go with you. Got to round up my men here, first. Join you ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Cabot, suddenly remembering, "I slept splendidly, and am as fit as a fiddle. Have we ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... see the niggers a-clippin' it away from the shore, for dear life, and the soldiers a-movin' about as if they thought that we were a-goin' to take the whole country. Presently a little half-starved orange-coloured lookin' Spanish officer, all dressed off in his livery, as fine as a fiddle, came off with two men in a boat to board us. Well, we yawed once or twice, and motioned to him to keep off for fear he should get hurt; but he came right on afore the wheel, and I hope I may be shot if the paddle didn't strike the ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... examination in the House, inquired who Mrs. Clarke was? He had heard nothing of it. He had evaded this omnipresence by utter insignificancy! The Duke should make that man his confidential valet. I proposed locking him up, barring him the use of his fiddle and red pumps, until he had minutely perused and committed to memory the whole body of the examinations, which employed the House of Commons a fortnight, to teach him to be more attentive to what concerns the public. I think I told you of Godwin's little book, and of Coleridge's prospectus, in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... contrabands, some with bundles on their backs, some with chairs, buckets and wash-tubs on their heads, others with the family table on their heads. There was an interesting group of three—two male and one female member of the African family. One of the former had brought his banjo, the other his fiddle. The female had a tub well down on her head. These poor frightened people came trotting into the city over the Tenallytown and Brightwood roads, seeking a place of safety inside ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... tinsel and silk attire, of cheap sentiment and high and mighty dialogue! Will there not always be rosin enough for the squeaking fiddle-bow? ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... seen many Midsummer-eves under different skies, but never such a one as this. So far, far from all that one associates with this evening. I think of the merriment round the bonfires at home, hear the scraping of the fiddle, the peals of laughter, and the salvoes of the guns, with the echoes answering from the purple-tinted heights. And then I look out over this boundless, white expanse into the fog and sleet and the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... sing as they cross de trestle. One pick a banjo, one play de fiddle. They sing and whoop, they laugh; they holler to de people on de ground, and sing out, "Good-bye." All going ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... wanted to have a high old time, and our tent would be very convenient for that purpose because of its size. Early next morning the festivities began. Commissary whisky was provided in abundance. "Sport" (William Harris) furnished music for the occasion, which he extracted from an old fiddle procured from some unexplainable source. The ball opened with a good pull all around from the canteen. Ordinary forms of entertainment and social enjoyment soon became stale and they concluded to try the mazy dance. ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... money (as it has) the Mayor must once in every five years form a procession and march up to this monument. There ten girls, natives of the town, and two widows must dance around the monument to the playing of a fiddle and a drum, the girls dressed in white. This ceremony has gone on, once in five years, all this time and the town ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... Doctor Break had given them up. Jerry could talk smugglers' French, of course, and I had taught Rene plenty of English, if only he wasn't so shy. They called each other Monsieur Gamm and Mosheur Lanark, just like gentlemen. I suppose it amused poor Rene. He hasn't much to do, except to fiddle about in the carpenter's shop. He's like all the French prisoners—always making knickknacks; and Jerry had a little lathe at his cottage, and so—and so—Rene took to being with Jerry much more than I approved of. The Hall is ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... you, too, sir," he continued. "We've a little stranger here—he! he! A noo boarder and lodger, sir, and looking fit and taut as a fiddle; slep' like a supercargo, he did, right alongside of John—stem to stem we was, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in almost complete darkness. Again she strained her ears upon the retreating steps, afraid yet to move her cramped muscles. The punctured arm throbbed and smarted painfully; every nerve in her body was stretched like a fiddle-string. Finally, far below, sounded the door's slam; a moment later, in front of the house, the whir of a starting engine vibrated upon the still air. The doctor was gone. Now or never, quick, not an instant to waste, every second lost lessened her slender chance of reaching the villa in time, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... in the high 'corn.' We cannot think that the Italian lad does not smoke the mock tobacco that must tempt him upon each ear. If he does, he apes a habit no less American in its origin than the maize itself. So the American lad playing with a 'shoe-string bow' or a 'corn-stalk fiddle' would turn to Italy for ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... him feed, and he is sharp set at an argument when he should cut his meat. He is discarded for a gamester at all games but one and thirty,[41] and at tables he reaches not beyond doublets. His fingers are not long and drawn out to handle a fiddle, but his fist clunched with the habit of disputing. He ascends a horse somewhat sinisterly, though not on the left side, and they both go jogging in grief together. He is exceedingly censured by the inns-of-court men, for that heinous vice being ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... putting on new gloves! She is perfectly free to seem occupied or not, as suits her convenience; and she can, by wrestling with the gloves, interrupt him without speech, distract his attention, fiddle his thoughts, give him a sense of imbecile futility, and all the time offer him no cause for resentment against her. He himself seems in the wrong; she is ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... were our views, and such our hopes in projecting a trip to Taloo. But in our most lofty aspirations we by no means lost sight of any minor matters which might help us to promotion. The doctor had informed me that he excelled in playing the fiddle. I now suggested that, as soon as we arrived at Partoowye, we should endeavour to borrow a violin for him; or if this could not be done, that he should manufacture some kind of a substitute, and, thus equipped, apply for an audience of the queen. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... didn't do the fair thing. He got you to give the flag through him instead of through me, by a mean trick. He gets the credit of getting the flag; now let him have the honor of accepting it. I won't play second fiddle to such a fellow as he is, and that's all there is ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the "cornet, flute, sackbut, psaltery"—I mean the violins, 'cellos, clarionets, and bassoons which it supplanted. The music of the village musicians in the west gallery was certainly not of the highest order. The instruments were often out of tune, and the fiddle-player and the flutist were often at logger-heads; but it was a sad pity when their labours were brought to an end, and the mechanical organ took their place. The very fact that all these players took a keen interest ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Now about every other store appeared to be a saloon or gambling room, all crowded. There were other places of amusement, also, even to a sort of a theatre, where miners were dancing with one another, on the floor, to the sound of a fiddle and cracked accordion, while on a stage a thin woman with painted red cheeks was singing and prancing. An auctioneer was selling real estate, from a dry-goods box in the plaza. Stores were open, the streets were ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... and tallowed hair, The fiddler sits in the bulrush chair Like Moses' basket stranded there On the brink of Father Nile. He feels the fiddle's slender neck, Picks out the note, with thrum and check; And times the tune with nod and beck, And thinks it a weary while. All ready! Now he gives the call, Cries, "Honor to the ladies!" All The jolly tides of laughter fall And ebb in ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... a man upon a roughly hewn stool. He was attired in wolfskins and wore a foxskin cap upon his head. The larger portion of his face was clothed with natural fur. A rudely made cedar fiddle was tucked under his furred chin. Supporting it with his left hand, he sawed it vigorously with a bow that was not unlike an Indian boy's miniature weapon, while his moccasined left foot came down upon the sod floor in time with the music. When ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... to give him a greater burden than he was designed to bear," said Pen. "I shall miss the care of him. I am going to miss the demands he made on my best spiritual effort. I'm going to sag like a fiddle string released. If only he has gone on now to a better chance! ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the shopping for the two Custis children and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Dandridge. Not only were clothes and materials ordered, fine ivory combs, stockings, etc., but toys. Here is a selection made by the Cary firm—a child's fiddle, a coach and six in a box, a stable with six horses, a toy whip, a filigree watch, a neat enameled watch box, a corner cupboard ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... the Monkey, "wait a little! How can we get our music right? It's plain, you mustn't sit as you are. You, Mishka, with your counter-bass, face the alto. I will sit opposite the second fiddle. Then a different sort of music will begin: we shall set the very ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... therefore, together with some others, were, for the most part, as a maul on the head of pride, and desire of vain glory; what, thought I, shall I be proud because I am a sounding brass? Is it so much to be a fiddle? Hath not the least creature that hath life, more of God in it than these? Besides, I knew it was love should never die, but these must cease and vanish; so I concluded, a little grace, a little love, a little of the true fear of God, is better than all these gifts; yea, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... beautiful house at Richmond he played second fiddle to his clever wife with imperturbable BONHOMIE; he lavished jewels and luxuries of all kinds upon her, which she took with inimitable grace, dispensing the hospitality of his superb mansion with the same graciousness with which she had welcomed ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... extremely poor, landlocked country, highly dependent on farming (wheat especially) and livestock raising (sheep and goats). Economic considerations, however, have played second fiddle to political and military upheavals during more than 13 years of war, including the nearly 10-year Soviet military occupation (which ended 15 February 1989). Over the past decade, one-third of the population fled the country, with Pakistan sheltering more than 3 million ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... that he thought this very doubtful, but added proudly: "Powerful as their force may be, they shall not with impunity make any great attacks. Mine is compact, theirs must be unwieldy, and although a very pretty fiddle, I don't believe that either Gravina or Villeneuve know how to play upon it." On the 9th he for the first time got accurate information. An official letter from Dominica[102] announced that eighteen ships-of-the-line, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... of voice as different from the former as fiddle from violin, and with a particular eye to our hero, where he still kept his seat on his charger's back, or rather was kept there by the unlocked arms of ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... against the walls. And then the captain remarked that it was a cold night, and wouldn't it be a good thing if they were to warm their feet a little? And the next minute there was the sound of Kiah's wooden leg in the passage, and there he was with his fiddle, and the Rogers, all in their Sunday clothes, just behind him. And Patty ran to put down a line of mats, because wooden legs were not good for polished floors. And the captain made Angel such a bow, as if she had been Queen Charlotte herself, and hoped she would put ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... send are not my best, only very ordinary and humdrum affairs—but ex pede Herculem! Hon'ble Sir, and you will see how transcendentally superior are even such poor effusions compared to the fiddle-faddle and gim-crack style of article with which you are being fobbed off by puzzle-headed ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... had said, reflecting, "that I should be doing it. That's why, I suppose. It makes me laugh. You might take to the fiddle if you wanted a good laugh. I take to my motor-bicycle. It's the only way to cheer oneself up when life is disappointing, to go and do something entirely ridiculous. I used to stand on my head when I'd been rowed or sat upon, or when there was a beastly wind; it cheered me a ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... took his place at the head of the table, where he had sat ever since the father left it. Uncle Neil was very much beloved, but he was in no sense the head of the family. He was a gay, easy-going body, given to singing songs and playing the fiddle, and not at all calculated to keep a virile group of boys and girls in order. So, John, the eldest son at home, was the real head of the family, and his mother's support. For John was wise and strong and many, many years older than ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... Fiddle said Mrs. Petty. "In my belief it's come on through reading those newspapers. If I had my way I'd bum the lot. Can I trust you to watch him while I go and get ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hope you do, but you've a deal to learn yet. Gardening's like learning to play the fiddle; there's always something more to get hold of than you know. I wish I had ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... launched the gallant young officers resolved to celebrate the event by giving a ball. "This was an enterprise of a desperate character;—building a brig hundreds of miles from a ship-yard was a trifle to giving a ball in the wilderness. True, one fiddle and half a dozen officers were something; refreshments and a military ball-room might be hoped for; but where, pray, were the ladies to come from?" They would not think of dancing with each other, and ladies must be found. Vigorous efforts were made by sending boats in some directions and carts ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... of hymns being very beautiful. The bearing of these Christianized Hottentots was in complete contrast to that of a Dutch family whom he visited as a medical man one Sunday. There was no Sunday; the man's wife and daughters were dancing before the house, while a black played the fiddle. ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... negroes had quiltings, dances, picnics and everybody had a good time, Aunt Arrie said, "an' I kin dance yit when I hears a fiddle." They had their work to do in the week days, but when Sundays came there was no work, everybody rested and on "preachin' days" went to Church. Her father took them all to old Rehoboth, the neighborhood white church, and they worshiped together, white and black, the negroes in the gallery. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... curious Do as you would be done by Do what you will but do something all day long Either do not think, or do not love to think Equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy Even where you are sure, seem rather doubtful Every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness Fiddle-faddle stories, that carry no information along with them Flattery of women Forge accusations against themselves Forgive, but not approve, the bad. Frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with a prudent interior Gain the affections as well as the esteem Generosity often runs into profusion ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... the dull, soft, dark colors and carved Circassian walnut furniture in the dining-room, and the sharp contrast of the reception hall, where the sunlight flooded a rosy-latticed paper, an old white Colonial mantel and fiddle-backed chairs, and struck dazzling gleams from the brass fire-dogs and irons. The drawing-room had its own charm; the largest room in the house, it had French windows on three sides, each one giving ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... remember Abraham? He was the man who had the future. When we were students he beat me all along the line. He got the prizes and the scholarships that I went in for. I always played second fiddle to him. If he'd kept on he'd be in the position I'm in now. That man had a genius for surgery. No one had a look in with him. When he was appointed Registrar at Thomas's I hadn't a chance of getting on the staff. I should have had to become a G.P., and you ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... in the invisible depths of Rose's heart she was very fond of the faithful and long-suffering Michael, but even so she couldn't bring herself to marry a milksop who was likely to make her play second fiddle to his mother. And when Rose once made up her mind, she was as grimly determined as ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... "He scrapes a fiddle," replied the verger, examining the lady's basket of fish in a non-committing and final way. For a locksmith is almost as confidential an adviser as a notary. The Dantzigers, moreover, are a thrifty race and keep their money in a safe place; ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... upon my nerves, especially as I saw that some of them were beginning to fiddle with their bows, and that their General, a tall, one-eyed old fellow, was making up his mind to do something. I called to one of the two Mazitus, whom I forgot to say we had named Tom and Jerry, and gave him a pannikin ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... old count and countess, and the young counts and all the little countesses her sisters. Counts! every one of these wretches says he is a count. Guiscard, that stabbed Mr. Harvy, said he was a count; and I believe he was a barber. All Frenchmen are barbers—Fiddle-dee! don't contradict me—or else dancing-masters, or else priests;" and so she ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a map of Dunkirk, which was pinned against the hangings,—I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour's better judgment,—that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in the country by ourselves, and had but a rood, or a rood and a half of ground to do what we pleased with: As summer is coming on, continued Trim, your Honour might sit out of doors, and ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... white handkerchief), black kerseymere knee-breeches, black stockings, and stumpy-looking pumps, with huge bunches of black satin ribbon for bows. Under one arm he carried a huge chapeau-de-bras, and under the other a fiddle nearly five times as big as himself. In his left hand was a gold snuff-box, from which, as he capered down the hill, cutting all manner of fantastic steps, he took snuff incessantly with an air of the greatest possible self-satisfaction. God bless me!—here was a sight for the honest burghers ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... for jangled nerves. "I don't care a damn for death; but it's the waiting for it, the devilishness of its uncertainty, the sight of one's pals blown to bits about one, and the animal fear under shell-fire, that break one's pluck... My nerves are like fiddle-strings." ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... have a dance," cried our host, jumping up; "old Pepe plays the fiddle, and we have another fellow who is an ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... formed in couples, and—the best man with the bride, the bridegroom with the best maid, leading the way—marched in slow procession in the moonlight night to Tibbie's new home, between lines of hoarse and eager onlookers. An attempt was made by an itinerant musician to head the company with his fiddle; but instrumental music, even in the streets, was abhorrent to sound Auld Lichts, and the minister had spoken privately to Willie Todd on the subject. As a consequence, Peter was driven from the ranks. The last thing I saw that night, as we filed, bareheaded and solemn, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... times a day; but he never did, for he was not of many words, even to his wife. His language was his music,—as hers, her cares! He was more communicative to his barbiton, as the learned Mersennus teaches us to call all the varieties of the great viol family. Certainly barbiton sounds better than fiddle; and barbiton let it be. He would talk to THAT by the hour together,—praise it, scold it, coax it, nay (for such is man, even the most guileless), he had been known to swear at it; but for that excess he was always penitentially remorseful. And the barbiton had a tongue of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... educated until he has reached his middle or even late twenties. Yet instead of speeding up the curriculum in the early school years, we have introduced such important studies as social graces, baton twirling, interpretive painting and dancing, and a lot of other fiddle-faddle which graduates students who cannot spell, nor read a book, nor count above ten without taking off their shoes. Perhaps such studies are necessary to make sound citizens and graceful companions. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... weaves its magic with a dream, And I hear the tones from voices like the murmur of a stream; And oh, the heart seems young again and from its anguish free When I gaze upon these pictures that are ever dear to me; Then I see the darkies dancing, I can hear the fiddle ring As they gathered in the cabin and they cut the pigeon-wing; I can smell the 'possum roasting, I can see the cider flow, When memory takes me back again to scenes I used ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... Gladheart had been given his name because he always smiled over a crust of bread, even when he was a baby. Now that he was a little lad of ten with a great flock of ewes and lambs to tend and drive through sun and storm, he had smiles and kind words for all, and he played his fiddle all day long until its sweet tunes filled ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... fiddle, Its strings loudly giggled, The bailiff's man wriggled Ahead for a spree. "Hold!" shouted Ola And tripped him to tumbling, The bailiff's man humbling, To maidens' ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... everything has this shot-silk quality, and is all the finer for that. When people talk of a horse as an ugly animal I think of its beautiful moments, but when I hear a flow of indiscriminate praise of its beauty I think of such an aspect as one gets for example from a dog-cart, the fiddle-shaped back, and that distressing blade of the neck, the narrow clumsy place between the ears, and the ugly glimpse of cheek. There is, indeed, no beauty whatever save that transitory thing that comes and comes again; all beauty is really the beauty of expression, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... Glenn, alias Ellis Glenn, a notorious swindler, who came prominently before the public in Chicago during 1905, was another "man-woman," of large and masculine type. She preferred to dress as a man and had many love escapades with women. "She can fiddle as well as anyone in the State," said a man who knew her, "can box like a pugilist, and can dance and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... have. I have noticed nothing else. Why, she is dressed as fine as a fiddle. She is 'taking notice.' She 'll be giving Old Caesar a successor. Then what will you do? I thought that fat darky I have seen going in at the back gate with a silk hat and a long-tailed coat looked like a preacher. You 'd better look out ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... long counter, which was made of four heavy planks supported on barrels at either end, he had poured strange mixtures into beer mugs and exchanged them for good government coin. When he was not performing his part as bartender, he was scraping illy timed tunes upon a fiddle. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... yourself with the thought," answered Babe, "for you couldn't play third fiddle in her string now. You remember old Dennis O'Shea was land-poor all his life. Well, in the land and cattle boom a few years ago he was picked up and set on a pedestal. It's wonderful what money can do! The old man was just common bog Irish all his life, until a cattle syndicate bought his lands ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... to be interrupted while the returned traveller was welcomed. "You look as fit as a fiddle, old boy," said Dick. "You'll be able to stay at home and enjoy yourself now, I hope. Will you play when we've finished this? I can lend you ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... short, fat, little man with a highly developed sense of his importance. It was his hour, and he made the most of it. His methods were his own. The young assistant district attorney lounging by the table played second fiddle. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... when I was dining with the Mitfords, when he knew that his time had come, to turn to Mrs. Bourke, who was famous only as shining in his reflected light, and say: "Mrs. Bourke, won't you play us something, and I will just come in with my fiddle?" Rubinstein's playing I never liked. To me he seemed only the most violent of all the piano-bangers of the world; but he was literally worshipped by his admirers, and was grand to look at—as fine ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... take HIM," he says, "whatever you do! He's only a poor young chap from the country, and butter wouldn't melt in his mouth!" However, they - ha, ha, ha! - they took me, and pretended to search my bedroom, where nothing was found but an old fiddle belonging to the landlord, that had got there somehow or another. But, it entirely changed the landlord's opinion, for when it was produced, he says, "My fiddle! The Butcher's a purloiner! I give him into custody for the robbery of ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... related to the elves and the trolls," thought Gertrude. The old man was standing upon the hearth, playing his fiddle, so as not to be in ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... seemed to advance, while the rage and impetuosity of the squire continued fermenting to the highest degree of exasperation, which he signified, from time to time, by converting some newly-unpacked article, such as a book, a bottle, a ham, or a fiddle, into a missile against the head of some ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... presence of Quirk's three boys. Supper over, a fresh horse was furnished me, and we set out for the dance, covering the distance in less than two hours. I knew nearly every one in the settlement, and got a cordial welcome. I played the fiddle, danced with my former sweethearts, and, ere the sun rose in the morning, rode home in time for breakfast. During that night's revelry, I contrasted my former girl friends on the San Antonio with another maiden, a slip of the old Scotch stock, transplanted ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... city,—those two atoms shaken into contact while the gods affected to be engaged with weightier matters,—the cultured widow of that derelict recalled the name of a gentleman in the East who was accustomed to buy tall clocks and fiddle-backed chairs, in her native New England, paying prices therefor to make one, in that conservative locality, rich beyond the dreams of ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the remnant. All the rest Are cold and quiet. You nor I, Nor fiddle now, nor flagon-lid, May ring them back from where they lie. No fame delays oblivion For them, but something yet survives: A record written fair, could we But read the ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... of a fiddle, a clarionet, and a flageolet from the Blind Asylum. The three were paid seven francs in a lump sum for the night. For the money, they gave us, not Beethoven certainly, nor yet Rossini; they played ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... profound silence in the small room. The runners of a sleigh scraped the icy street below, its horses' hoofs cracked noisily. The music of a fiddle sounded in the distance. Babe's voice humming a waltz tune ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Charlie. The quaint child had gravely informed her that she looked like Connie and immediately taken her into his confidence regarding his aspirations toward some day playing in "a big band." He had also obligingly favored her with a solo of marvelous shrieks and squawks on his much tortured "fiddle." Mary loved children, and this, perhaps, went far toward stilling the jealousy, which, so far, only faintly stirring, bade fair to one day ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... if I ever heard tell of such foolishness. Who's to mind the place with all the folk gone fiddle-faddling out? ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... working men trying to express themselves and nobody ever teaching them, nor anybody in all England, knowing that painting is an art, and sculpture also, and that an untaught man can no more carve or paint, than play the fiddle. All efforts of the kind, mean simply that we have neither master nor scholars in any rank or any place. And I, also, what have I done for Coniston schools yet! I don't deserve an oyster shell, far less ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... wildest of his Flights are thought rather diverting than troublesome. He is an hourly Foundation for Laughter, from the Top of the House to the Parlours: and, to borrow an Attribute from the Reverend Mr. Peters, (tho' without any Note of his Musick) plays a very good FIDDLE in the Family. I have told you the History of this Tom-tit of a Prater, because, ever since my first reading of PAMELA, he puts in for a Right to be one of her Hearers; and, having got half her Sayings by heart, talks in no other Language but hers: and, what really ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... is, for a country dance. It was after nine o'clock when, riding Comet, he saw the schoolhouse lamps winking at him through the oaks and heard the merry music of fiddle and guitar in the frolic of a heel-and-toe polka. Already he made out here and there the saddle horses which had brought so many "stags" so many miles to the dance, and which stood tied to tree and shrub. Also there were the usual spring wagons ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... and spring," Felix said, "and I will be building new cupboards and shelves for old Chloe in the kitchen, I will mend the press in Barbara's room and I will finish off the garret chamber under the eaves for myself, and there I can play the fiddle to my heart's content and never disturb you at all. I think that life will be ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... these the dominating influence was E flat. Spinrobin was not musical enough to describe it more accurately than this. Only, with greater skill than he knows, he mentions how Skale drew out of that fiddle the peculiarly intimate and searching tones by which strings can reach the spiritual center of a man and make him respond to delicate vibrations of thoughts ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... had scarcely passed as they were playing, when a poor old man, who had a fiddle, came ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the road opened, there was a rush of hurdy-gurdy girls for dance-halls; but that did not modify the rough chivalry of an unwritten law. These hurdy-gurdy girls, who tiptoed to the concertina, the fiddle, and the hand-organ, were German; and if we may believe the poet of Cariboo, they were something like the Glasgow girls described by Wolfe as 'cold to everything but a bagpipe—I wrong them—there is not one that does not melt away {90} at the ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... was the then accountant, John Tipp. He neither pretended to high blood, nor in good truth cared one fig about the matter. He "thought an accountant the greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang, certainly, with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He did, indeed, scream and scrape most abominably. His fine suite of official rooms in Threadneedle-street, which, without any thing very substantial appended to them, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... on his father's face Quincy knew that he was disappointed. The Hon. Nathaniel never liked "to play second fiddle." Quincy hastened to rectify his mistake. "We can put it the other way round, just as well. We'll come and see you ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... catch of the other was broken—an old fracture. Below these windows was a sheer drop of fifty feet or more, without a foot or hand-hold near. The windows in the other rooms were shut and fastened. Certainly it seemed suicide—unless it were one of those accidents that will occur to people who fiddle ignorantly with firearms. Soon the rooms were in possession of the police, and we were ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... keep up their Astonishment, to let nothing be familiar to them, but ever to have something in your Sleeve, in which they must think you are deeper than they are. There is an ingenious Fellow, a Barber, of my Acquaintance, who, besides his broken Fiddle and a dryed Sea-Monster, has a Twine-Cord, strained with two Nails at each End, over his Window, and the Words Rainy, Dry, Wet, and so forth, written, to denote the Weather according to the Rising or Falling of the Cord. We very great Scholars are not apt to wonder at this: ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... answered, brightly. "I carry that just as a fiddler carries his fiddle—ready for ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... thing with music in it, not a fife, not a negro-fiddle, that is not to be reverenced as much as the grandest architectural organ that ever rolled its flood-tide of harmony down a cathedral nave. For even a Jew's-harp may be so played, as to awaken all the fairies that are in us, and make them dance in our souls, as on a moon-lit sward ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... clerical friend was in his study, deeply engaged in writing, when there came along one of those good-for-nothing little Italian players, who planted himself under his study window, and, much to his annoyance, commenced scraping away on a squeaky fiddle. After trying in vain for about fifteen minutes to collect his scattered thoughts, the Doctor descended to the piazza in front of the house, ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... now?" Harrison wasn't fooling. I looked at Sol, on the seat next to me; I thought I had heard him snicker. He began to fiddle with his camera without looking at me. I pushed the "talk" button and told Harrison where I was. It pleased him very much; I wasn't more than six blocks from where this big rumble was going on, he told me, and he made it very ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... and ever and anon he would produce from one of them a low, melancholy, almost unearthly sound. And then he would pause, never daring to produce two such notes in succession,—one close upon the other. And these last sad moans of the old fiddle were now known through the household. They were the ghosts of the melody of days long past. He imagined that his visits to the box were unsuspected,—that none knew of the folly of his old fingers which could not keep themselves from touching the wires; but the voice of ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... saying baffled him, the more so that he had been playing a concertina and not a fiddle at all. His feelings were vague, and in some respects contradictory; but he was convinced that Mrs. Prockter's scheme for separating Helen and the Apollo ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... me this morning, when upon this discourse he said if ever there was another Dutch war they should not find a Secretary; "Nor," said I, "a Clerk of the Acts, for I see the reward of it; and, thank God, I have enough of my own to buy me a book and a good fiddle, and I have a good wife;"—"Why," says he, "I have enough to buy me a good book, and shall not need a fiddle because I have never a one of your good wives." This morning the House is upon a Bill, brought in to-day by Sir Richard Temple, for obliging the King to call Parliaments ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... all right this morning, yet you had to go fiddle-faddling with that architect instead of staying at home where you belonged. And now she's dead. My little girl, my little girl!" And the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Hotspur could be bright, and he was proud of being bright. With this woman he was always subdued, always made to play second fiddle, always talked like a boy; and he knew it. He had loved her once, if he was capable of loving anything; but her mastery over him wearied him, even though he was, after a fashion, proud of her cleverness, and he wished that she were,—well, dead, if the reader choose that ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope |
