"Fiddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the slack was taken up and the wire grew taut—so taut it would have twanged like a fiddle-string if it had been struck. Jennings did not give Smaltz the sign to stop even when the cross-arm cracked. Without a word of protest Bruce watched the stout ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... and the hoe Take down the fiddle and the bow— Old master has gone to the slaveholder's rest; He has gone where ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... singing-birds were sporting in the grove; Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,— A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,— Crying, "Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap Bobbing in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... 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
... day or two at Derby, and then went on in Mrs. —— carriage to see the beauties of Matlock. Here I stayed from Tuesday to Saturday, which time was completely filled up with seeing the country, eating, concerts, &c. I was the first fiddle, not in the concerts, but everywhere else, and the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I dedicated to the drawing up my sketch of education, which I meant to publish, to try to get ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... with others and at the same time out of debt, she has the right to hope that by and by she will be so good an actress, and so valuable to the theatre, that a fat salary will make the clothes matter play second fiddle, as is right and proper it should, to the question of ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... Man of the Isles, Whose face was pervaded with smiles; He sang "High dum diddle," and played on the fiddle, That amiable Man of ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... him on the bench a stark fiddle-bow, mickle and long, made like a sword, sharp and broad. There sat the good knights unafraid. They deemed them too high to rise from their ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... arranged his coat. The quiet little man, who had just muscle enough to lift a dictionary from the shelf, and just training enough to play the fiddle, so far from being daunted by the rough reception accorded to him, appeared to feel no other sentiment in relation to it than ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... mais oui, Monsieur, l' petite maison en face." Smiling benignly at the children, he began to fiddle once more. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reached the crossing, we were astonished to see a man seated in a sulky in the middle of the river and playing for his life on a fiddle. The horse was up to his middle in water, and it seemed as if the flimsy vehicle was ready to be swept away by the current. Still the fiddler fiddled on composedly as if his life had been insured. We thought he was mad, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... 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 little pats were wonderfully friendly. Every now and then ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... into candles, and lighted in his presence; saying, that the Europeans knew every thing. Their only musical instruments are two, one of which they have from the Moors, which is like a large drum[5]; the other is somewhat like a fiddle, having only two strings, which they play on with their fingers, but gives no sounds that can ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the Magna Charta demanded rights which government can grant, Masonry from the first asserted those inalienable rights which man derives from God the Father of men. Never did this truth find sweeter voice than in the tones of the old Scotch fiddle on which Robert Burns, a Master Mason, sang, in lyric glee, of the sacredness of the soul, and the native dignity of humanity as the only basis of society and the state. That music went marching on, striding over continents ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... trip in the surgeon's cabin. He doctored my broken arm, and advised me not to "fiddle about with ghosts and things" any more. The captain was very silent, and never sailed again in that ship, though it is still running. And I will not sail in her either. It was a very disagreeable experience, and I was very badly frightened, which ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... "Fiddle-de-dee," said Miss Voscoe to her companions' shocked comments, "they were raised in the same village, or something. He used to give her peanuts when he was in short jackets, and she used to halve her candies with him. Friend of childhood's ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... mean? You look down in the dumps. I say, are you moping for the country? You don't seem to be half the girl you were when you first came; you don't make any jokes, and when I meet you in the morning you have a face as long as a fiddle,' remarked Doreen in ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... nothing." He forced a smile to his lips. "I'm as fit as a fiddle now; only, I'll never forgive myself for letting him go. Will you tell me one thing? Did he ever offend ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... her book to with a snap, and sat bolt upright and immovable, with eyes and mouth wide open. Young Mr. Guillet blushed purple, and old Mr. Guillet scraped a few interjections on his fiddle, and then, putting it down, took a resonant pinch of snuff, by way of restoring ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... they were Neroes men, like Nero arm'd With Lutes and Harps and Pipes and Fiddle-cases, Souldyers to th'shadow traynd ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... can't help disliking him, for the Maxwells seem to have been the most fascinating people. One Lord Maxwell of the seventeenth century, who was Roman Catholic when it wasn't safe to be Roman Catholic, used to disguise himself as a beggar, and play the fiddle in the market-place of Dumfries as a signal to tell the faithful of his own religion where and when they might come to Mass. They understood according to certain tunes agreed upon, which was easy, as they had only three meeting-places. A nice old man in the castle told us these stories and ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... She and Seaton had been caught near his home by a sudden shower while on horseback, and had dashed in for shelter. While the rain beat outside and while Shiro was preparing one of his famous suppers, Crane had suggested that she pass the time by playing his "fiddle." Dorothy realized, with the first sweep of the bow, that she was playing a Stradivarius, the like of which she had played before only in her dreams. She forgot her listeners, forgot the time and the place, and poured out in her music all the beauty and tenderness of her nature. ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... stared over the rim of his mug with round eyes, full of interest. "Mr. Bhaer's got an old fiddle, and he'll let you play on ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... capable of playing excellent jigs, reels, and hornpipes? And, besides this, there was a grand band hired from Rosseter, who, with their wonderful wind-instruments and puffed-out cheeks, were themselves a delightful show to the small boys and girls. To say nothing of Joshua Rann's fiddle, which, by an act of generous forethought, he had provided himself with, in case any one should be of sufficiently pure taste to prefer dancing to a ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... gentleman said, "Hum," and "Hoity, Toit! A book is not a building block, a cushion or a quoit. Soil your books and spoil your books? Is that the thing to do? Gammon, sir! and Spinach, sir! And Fiddle-faddle, too!" He blinked so quick, and thumped his stick, then gave me such a stare. And he ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... ought to! Why, she was in the kitchen talkin' and fiddle-faddlin' with them eggs; she thinks I ain't up to 'em. There warn't nothin' on earth the matter with her then. She had sot the table in here and fixed up the fire, and then she come in to the kitchen and went to work at the supper. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... I move there's a pain jumps in it. Otherwise I'm fit as a fiddle. Anything new in the ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... recognised them as a kind of bed-hanging, popular with the commoner class of the Chinese. Nor were further evidences wanting, such as night-clothes of an extraordinary design, a three-stringed Chinese fiddle, a silk handkerchief full of roots and herbs, and a neat apparatus for smoking opium, with a liberal provision of the drug. Plainly, then, the cook had been a Chinaman; and, if so, who was Jos. Amalu? Or had Jos. stolen the chest before he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stranger resumed their journey; and, by and by, they came to a house by the roadside, where some people were making merry. Young men and rosy-cheeked girls, with smiles on their faces, were dancing to the sound of a fiddle. ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... a poor critter. He may have hearn the skylark or (what's nearly the same thing) MISS KELLOGG and CARLOTTY PATTI sing; he may have hearn OLE BULL fiddle, and all the DODWORTHS toot, an' yet he don't know nothin' about music—the real, ginuine thing—the music of the laughter of happy, well-fed children! And you may ax the father of sich children home to dinner, feelin werry sure there'll be no spoons missin' ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... measure. Now and then his piping grew faint, and was interrupted by gasps for breath, whereupon Roseen, still vigorously footing it, would take up the tune after a fashion of her own, her voice imitating as nearly as might be the sound of a fiddle. Overhead a lark was soaring, and his trill, wafted down to them, mingled with their quaint human music; far away over that brown and purple stretch of bog the plovers were circling, their faint melancholy call sounding every ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... satisfy me without buying the former. As I knew Mr. Joseph Spence,(387) I do not think I should have been so much delighted as Dr. Kippis with reading his letters. He was a good-natured, harmless little soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius. It was a neat, fiddle-faddle, bit of sterling, that had read good books and kept good company, but was too trifling for use, and only fit to please ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... upon the presence of these three elements,—the perfection of their construction, their proper relation as to size and position, and the perfect adaptation of each part. A split sounding-board spoils the pianoforte, the indented bell destroys the sweet tone of the French horn, and a cracked fiddle is the ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... piped, "and I've just had the very gloriousest tramp and I feel as fine as a—what is it they say? Oh, as fine as a violin—I—I mean fiddle. I walked miles and miles—perhaps not quite so far—and the wind was blowing a blue streak right in my face. Ugh! first it made me shiver and creep up into my collar. But bimeby I got nice and warmy, and my cheeks tingled. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... be going," said the doctor. "You two can chat for a while. Don't tire yourself out, young man, and in a day or two you will be fit as a fiddle. Wish I had your physique! That system of yours is a natural shock absorber. We run across them once in a long while—half-killed one day and back the next hunting for more ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... rejoicing at the mischief he has done, and triumphing in your overthrow, like the king in the romance, who played upon the fiddle whilst a city was burning. Come thou with me, and thou shalt see how we will handle him. Nay, fear not that I will desert thee ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Stanley Fyles were standing out in the warm shade of the house. The woman's hand was gently caressing the velvety muzzle of Peter's long, fiddle face. It was a different woman talking to the police officer from the bitter, discontented creature of a few minutes ago. For the time, at least, all regrets, all thoughts of an unpleasant nature seemed to have been lost in the delight of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... is, I tell you: A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow, The paw he holds up there has been frozen), Plenty of catgut for my fiddle, (This outdoor business is bad for strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... shop, one summer afternoon, had come for an hour the perpetual scrape, scrape of Peter's fiddle. He jumped up at last, suddenly, bow in hand, and went to the doorstep, where his stepdaughter sat sewing. From the words he had overheard in the next room he was sure that the decisive hour of life had just struck for the girl, and there she was stitching her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... trail in An' th' gents trail out, An' all stampede down th' middle. If yu ain't got th' tin Yu can dance an' shout, But yu must keep up with th' fiddle." ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... windows Hide the concerts of the quality; The poor can but share A crack'd fiddle in the air, Which offends all ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... work was not yet completed. The feet remained to be "preserved," and the mode of curing these was entirely different. That was a secret known only by Swartboy, and in the execution of it the Bushman played first fiddle, with the important air of ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... told How Satan[1] the old Came here with a beard to his middle; Though he changed face and name, Old Will was the same, At the noise of a can and a fiddle. ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... me," says he, deliberately still. He had sworn to himself that he would not play second fiddle on this occasion at all events, and he holds himself to his word. "But I feel as if I could not play to-day. I should disgrace you. Let me get you another partner. Captain Grant is ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... he was using Dryfoos, when Dryfoos was using him, and he may have supposed he was not afraid of him when he was very much so. His courage hadn't been put to the test, and courage is a matter of proof, like proficiency on the fiddle, you know: you can't tell whether you've got it till ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had been 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 fiddler, but hid themselves ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... thus; in this instance female hands had loaded and fired, the men being almost all away fighting. A band of brightly-clad women, not less than forty in number, now came to meet me, their children frolicking round them, and some boys playing, not very discordantly, the one-stringed fiddle of the country. At their head walked a grey-haired matron, whom Spira pointed out as her grandmother, and who carried on her shoulder Nilo, looking lovely in a "strucca" striped olive-green and mulberry-red. The dear little fellow knew me at once, and almost ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... scout realized that if he knew what was good for him he had better give Giraffe a wide berth while he was strumming away with his "old fiddle," as some of the boys sneeringly described the fire outfit that continually refused to "fire" even a ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... He's not even told one of his fine friends what his brother does; he says it's for the sake of his school. He's living a lie for his own pride. He's got himself made master of a college, fine as a fiddle, and he cares more about that than about his brother. With all his prayers and his sermons in church every Sunday, he'd let me go to the dogs rather than live out the truth. He thinks I've gone to the devil now, because I left him in a rage, and I told him I'd go and learn to spend ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... arrived in the vicinity of Green Lake. A family of them were hurtling about in the pine woods, allowing themselves to be inspected at short range, and filling the hollows with their uncanny calls. What a voice the mountain jay has! Nature did a queer thing when she put a "horse-fiddle" into the larynx of this bird—but it is not ours to ask the reason why, simply to study her as she is. In marked contrast with the harsh calls of these mountain hobos were the roulades of the sweet ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... long time, in spite of all these inconveniences, St Dennis's was a very pleasant place. The people could not refrain from capering if they heard the sound of a fiddle. And, if they were inclined to be riotous, Sir Lewis had only to send for Punch, or the dancing dogs, and all was quiet again. But this could not last forever; they began to think more and more of their condition; and, at last, a club of foul-mouthed, good-for-nothing ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... did, a little, and that in a very amateurish way I also played the fiddle. I may as well frankly confess that in my inmost heart I rather prided myself upon my musical accomplishments, music being a perfect passion with me. I had often been complimented upon the quality of my baritone ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... a searching glance at her; he never was sure when that girl was laughing. "Fiddle-sticks! For four months now I've been shopping every day with you women, and you can't tell me prize-fights ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... dreadfully inclined to music since he had a drum, and I want the fiddle to see if I can't make another Pickaninny or an Old Bull of him. Jews-harps is simple, though I can't see how King David played on one of 'em, and sung his psalms at the same time; but the fiddle is best, because genius can show ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... please 'im is my riddle, So I'll fall back on my fiddle; For I'd stan' myself on en' To accommodate a frien' Nex' do', nex' do'— To accommodate a frien' ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... was musically inclined, irrespective of talent. To "play a piece" or sing a solo at a public gathering was the great ambition of every young lady in the place. Masculine performance on any instrument, except a mouth-organ or a fiddle, which last was distinctly worldly, was regarded as rather inclining to effeminacy. But the men all sang, for, of course, it went without saying that every one could sing bass. Tenors were scarce, there being only one at present—a young Englishman who had come ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... boys and girls shouldn't come together and kiss each other during a whole evening occasionally. Kissing was a sign of peace, and was not at all like taking hold of hands and skipping about to the scraping of a wicked fiddle. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... see not, is; and one, who is not, we see; Fiddle, we know, is diddle; and diddle, we ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... drivers who manned this fleet on wheels were men of a type that finds no parallel except in the boatmen on the western rivers who were almost their contemporaries. Fit for the severest toil, weathered to the color of the red man, at home under any roof that harbored a demijohn and a fiddle, these hardy nomads of early commerce were the custodians of the largest amount ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... is," laughed his friend. "But she's a right smart filly; she looks much the best of the lot. Dixon's got her as fit as a fiddle string. When you're done with that man you might turn ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... us till late; forgot his stick: we dismissed him with Macpherson's Farewell. Macpherson (see Burns) was a Highland robber; he played that Tune, of his own composition, on his way to the gallows; asked, "If in all that crowd the Macpherson had any clansman?" holding up the fiddle that he might bequeath it to some one. "Any kinsman, any soul that wished him well?" Nothing answered, nothing durst answer. He crushed the fiddle under his foot, and sprang off. The Tune is rough as hemp, but strong as a lion. I never hear it without something of ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... through the camp Sucatash followed the girl. They came at last to a long, dim bulk, glowing with light from a height of about six feet and black below that level. From this place surged a raucous din of voices, cursing, singing and quarreling. A squeaky fiddle and a mandolin uttered dimly heard notes which were tossed about in the greater turmoil. Stamping feet made a continuous sound, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... boy, who lives in Chicago. When I first knew him, he was roaming about from house to house, playing on the fiddle, ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... a word well known from Milton's exquisite "L'Allegro." Sir John Hawkins (vol. ii. page 86) traces it to the Moorish Rebeb; and believes he finds this old three-stringed fiddle in the hands of Chaucer's Absolon, the parish-clerk, who could "plaie songs on ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... flipped the fiddle up under his chin. He drew the bow over the strings and began a gentle melody that reminded one of rain drops ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... Meath (A curious corruption of Mentz. Old printers distorted foreign names in an extraordinary manner.) Mechall Mention ( dimension) Mew Middleton, quotation from his Family of Love Minikin ( fiddle) Mistris Moe Monthes mind Mooncalf More hayre than wit Morglay Mosch Mother Motion ( suggestion, proposal) Mouse Much (ironical) Mumchance Muscadine Muschatoes ( moustaches) Mushrumps ( mushrooms) Music played between the acts Muskadine with an egg ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... quietly up and catch him with his hands. The people all worked together in cultivating their respective lands; coming back to the fort before dusk for supper. They would then call on any man who owned a fiddle and spend the evening, with interludes of singing and story-telling, in dancing—an amusement they considered as only below hunting. On Sundays the stricter parents taught their children the catechism; but in spite of the presence of not a few devout ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... gentlemen be good enough to play or sing it? An embarrassing request, for musical talent was not conspicuous in the delegation; but Peter, Gallatin's black servant, rose to the occasion. He whistled the air; and then one of the attaches scraped out the melody on a fiddle, so that the quick-witted orchestra speedily composed l'air national des Americains a grand orchestre, and thereafter always played it as a counterbalance to God ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... he had held his fiddle, and tuned it upon an arm not quite so stout, I should have known without being told that he was the man who had played in the Saint-Michel cabin while Annabel de Chaumont ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 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 ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... depends-(Scott). "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" (1 Cor. 13:1). Just thus it is with him who has gifts, but wants grace. Shall I be proud, because I am 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?-(Grace Abounding, No. 297-300). Some professors are pretty busy and ripe, able to hold you in a very large discourse of the glorious ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that of mere children to men in their prime. They are very rarely old, as many of the organ- grinders are; they are not so handsome as the Italians of the north, though they have invariably fine eyes. They arrive in twos and threes; the violinist briefly tunes his fiddle, and the harper unslings his instrument, and, with faces of profound gloom, they go through their repertory,—pieces from the great composers, airs from the opera, not unmingled with such efforts of Anglo-Saxon genius as Champagne Charley and Captain Jenks of the Horse ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... make your acquaintance and hope to meet your husband, M. Calcraft." She turned her head impatiently. "I only hope that his notice will not discourage you for Tristan to-morrow night. But Mr. Calcraft is really a kind man, even if he seems severe in print. I tell him that he always hangs his fiddle outside the door, as the Irish say, which means, my dear Herr Viznina, that he is kinder abroad than at home." Seeing the slightly bewildered look of her companion she added, "And so you didn't mind his being cross this morning, did ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... end of the first week I found myself with eighty dollars left over from the old home, one dollar saved in the new, all my bills paid, and Ruth, Dick and myself all fit as a fiddle. ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... of the open space was a large tree. Backed up against this tree, and looking straight at the little boy, with fiddle in position for playing, and uplifted bow, was ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... heard of famous Neil, The man who play'd the fiddle weel; He was a heartsome merry chiel', And weel he lo'ed the whisky, O! For e'er since he wore the tartan hose He dearly liket Athole brose![63] And grieved he was, you may suppose, To bid "farewell ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... yet amid all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on board. One, whose offence for which he had been sold was an overfondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost continually, and the others danced, sang, cracked jokes, and played various games with cards from day to day. How true it is that 'God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' or in other words, that he renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while he permits the best to be nothing ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... fiddle;—not in the concerts—but every where else, and the company would not spare me twenty minutes together. Sunday I dedicated to the drawing up my sketch of education, which I meant to publish, to try to get a school!" He speaks of "the thrice lovely valley ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... approaching to abandon. Gartley's heart swelled with delight, translating her confidence into his power. He was no longer the second person in the compact, but had taken the place belonging to the male contracting party! For he had been painfully conscious now and then that he played but second fiddle. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... tormented him a lot," admitted her husband. "He's a great hand at the fiddle and likes company. He goes to the harbour a good deal. But they say he takes sulky spells when he hasn't a word to throw to a dog. 'Twouldn't be any wonder, living with the Gordons. They're all as queer as ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... consists of a solitary terminal or axillary raceme 1 to 2 inches long; joints are shorter than the spikelets, excavate on one side and with a pore which is hidden by the sessile spikelet. The sessile spikelet consists of four glumes. The first glume is somewhat fiddle-shaped, dilated above the middle into an orbicular wing, and towards the base into two auricles joined by a transverse ridge, scaberulous, 5-nerved. The second glume is somewhat membranous, ovate, ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... Paris," he thought. "It's British. Come, I am going to sleep, I must wake up, I must aim higher—aim higher," cried the little artist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as he was giving his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his mind dwelt no longer on his troubles, but he was rapt into the better land; and no sooner was he at liberty than he hastened with positive ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his right hand open towards 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: ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... number of pressed men to the comparative freedom of the deck than was consistent with prudence. The number eventually swelled to fourteen—sturdy, determined fellows, the pick of the hold. One of them, having a fiddle, struck up a merry tune, the rest fell to dancing, the tender's crew who were off duty caught the infection and joined in, while the officers stood looking on, tolerantly amused and wholly unsuspicious of danger. Suddenly, just when the fun was ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... fashion. A party of Loyalists who came before us late in the spring, had gone up the river further, but they were no better off than those at St. Ann's. The men caught fish and hunted moose when they could. In the spring we made maple sugar. We ate fiddle heads, grapes and even the leaves of trees to allay the pangs of hunger. On one occasion some poisonous weeds were eaten along with the fiddle heads; one or two died, and Dr. Earle had all he could ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... furnaces, and between them they turn out a machine that does the ploughing for them. What is the sense of it? Of course some things are useful. I would like a motor-car, and railways and steamboats are all right; but it seems to me that half the fiddle- faddles we fancy we want we'd be just as well, if not better, without, and there would be all that time and energy to spare for the sort of things that everybody ought to have. It's everywhere just like it was at school. They kept us so hard at it, studying Greek roots, ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... an orchestra, for Ed declared that the national airs must be played, or the whole thing would be a failure. So he had exerted himself to collect all the musical talent he could find, a horn, a fiddle, and a flute, with drum and fife for the martial scenes. Ed looked more beaming than ever, as he waved his baton and led off with Yankee Doodle as a safe beginning, for every one knew that. It was fun to ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... noise and hubbub was Carlisle city that day; yet, as the two entered the courtyard of the castle, James was aware of another sound, rising clear above the tumult of the town—strains of music, surely, that came from a fiddle. As they stepped under the inner gateway and approached the Norman Keep, the fiddler himself came in sight playing with might and main, under a barred window about six feet from the ground. By the fiddler's side, urging ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... sweet the music of maiden voices rising upon the wintry air, and the tumbling of glossy curls underneath the hoods and sealskin caps as they sped through the delightful hours. Tullie Wasson was out there with his string band—Tullie with his old black fiddle, and Jim Grey with his cornet, and his son with his wondrous bass violin, and Tullie knew all the good old tunes, and a few fancy waltzes and polkas, but he was at his best in the Virginia Reel, and it was a pretty sight to see the joyous couples ranging off to their ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... 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 burst ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... and the Camelopard!" said Gerald. "That is the Black Shore yonder, and the noise is that of the Tree-browser's fiddle, in sooth a goodly noise. Approach we along the moonglade! that is what we call ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... de Whoopin' Cough, De Bluebird died wid de Measles; 'Long come a Nigger wid a fiddle on his back, 'Vitin' Crows fer to dance wid ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... its thin old walls, vibrates at night like a great dry fiddle; the slightest noises grow great in it, become disfigured and ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... to stand! The music-master could not stand it, But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand, As savage as a bandit, Made up directly to the tattered man, And thus in broken sentences began: "Com—com—I say! You go away! Into two parts my head you split— My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit, When I do play— You have no business in a place so still! Can you not ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... man foh de pooh man dance One night in de yeah; Pooh man foh de rich man prance All times, do yuh heah? Pooh man play de violin While de rich man swing; Pooh man squeeze de fiddle in When he wants toh sing! Mistah rich man, hab yoh fun Makin' grub foh us; Min' dat stohy ez yuh run 'Bout ole Lazaruss! Guess yuh'll dance some ober dah, Jes' ez like ez not; Swing dem pahtnehs fas' en fah 'Foh de fiah ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... was each to his slumber laid, When the country folks came to serenade; With twang of fiddle, and toot of horn, And shriek of fife, they stayed till morn! Poor Campers! never a wink got they! So they started for home at ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... mother,—awr Hannah an Mary, Uncle Tom an ont Nancy, an smart cussin Jim; An Jim's sister Kitty, as sweet as a fairy,— An Sam wi' his fiddle,—we couldn't spare him. We'd rooast beef an mutton, a gooise full o' stuffin, Boil'd turnips an taties, an moor o' sich kind; An fooamin hooam brewed,—why,—aw think we'd enuff in, To sail a big ship if we'd been soa inclined. An then we'd that puddin—That thumpin big ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... disposition of the aristocratic realms of Europe to await eagerly for a breach by which to enter into interference without quarreling. He was also a great trouble-maker, having the innate repugnance of men of letters and voice to play second fiddle—since he was nominated on the trial ballot above Lincoln in the Presidential Convention. The black speck in the political horizon was San Domingo; the Abolitionists wanted to help her to attain liberty, in which case Mother Spain would assuredly come out openly against ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... us cut a fiddle, One fiddle for me and you; And from the same fine maple, For each ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... the flute, an' the twiddle of the fiddle, Dancin' in the middle, like a herring on a griddle! Up an' down, hands come round, cross into the wall— Faith, hadn't we the gaietee . ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... them—nearly! She was all simple charm, yet also of pulsing womanliness, the healthy product of a country life, a fair survival of many ordeals. Deep in her nature was that intense power of feeling which belongs to complete womanhood, as music belongs to an ancient fiddle. There were strings so sweet and subtle, so strange and strong, that she herself feared to play on them, and when the man appeared she greeted him as ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... prizes! A bagpipes! A fiddle was played by a poet in the years gone by! A flat and three-thorned blackthorn would lick the ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... to go there often. We used to waltz and dance contra dances. None of these new jigs and not wear any clothes to speak of. We covered our hides in those days; no tight skirts like now. You could take three or four steps inside our skirts and then not reach the edge. One of the boys would fiddle awhile and then someone would spell him and he could get a dance. Sometimes they would ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... fiddle and tambourine band were sitting among the company, Quickear suggested why not strike up? 'Ah, la'ads!' said a negro sitting by the door, 'gib the jebblem a darnse. Tak' yah pardlers, jebblem, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... kind educates us; and whatever its kind, it will at least teach us the sovereign virtue of patience, and give us something of the spirit of the old masters who in dingy shops ceased not from labor, and kept their cheerful serenity to the end, though the outcome was only the most perfect fiddle, or a deathless head. But they themselves had the souls of artists, and were honest men, who in their work found joy and freedom, and therefore what they did remains as a source of delight and inspiration. If we find it impossible ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... political influence." He then facetiously observes, "How should we marvel to see the Duke of Wellington, like another Epaminondas, take his flute out of his pocket to still the clamour of the opposition, or Mr. Peel reply to the arguments of Mr. Huskisson with an allegro on the fiddle." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... a small chamber set apart for music practice, the only furniture it contained being a piano, a chair, some fiddle-cases, and music-stands, while on the mantelpiece, in the place of a clock, was a metronome that had something wrong with the works. Jack, however, had no eye for these details; his attention was centred in a group of boys who were struggling under the single gas-jet, which was flaring away in ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... of where he was by the sound of some one tuning a fiddle in the sitting-room. He put the letter into his pocket, rose, and brushed his hair before the mirror. There was a clatter of heavy boots in the entry opposite his door; four or five young men had come out to wash their hands in the pans on the long shelf; they were passing jokes, laughing ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... mess-room leads out into a sort of terrace with a wild garden all round. It must have been very pretty before the war, even in its deserted state it is very nice; forget-me-nots and bits of lake and stream everywhere. I feel as fit as a fiddle and am as ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... The cat and the fiddle: The cow jump'd over the moon, The little dog laugh'd to see such sport, And the dish ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... artificial head-gear paraphernalia, in bandboxes to boarding schools, and so on—a desire naturally sprung up within me, being now in my twenty-first year, and worth a guinea a week of wages, to look about for what old kind Seignor Fiddle-stringo, the minuet-master, used to recommend under the title of a cara sposa—open shop—and act head frizzle in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... at dead of night and commanded their presence; and when they, trembling with fear, and expecting nothing less than that their heads were all to fall, had been kept waiting for an hour, the door opened, and he, nearly naked, appeared with a fiddle in his hand, and, after fiddling and dancing to his quaking audience for an hour, dismissed them to their homes uninjured. The air seems to keep a sort of spiritual scent or trail of these old deeds, and to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... within lonely walls; no one will trouble himself about her tears,—empty and dead is my future,—but I shall still now and then take a smell at the withered nosegay of the past'—No wonder that before she reaches this awful climax, Ferdinand smashes the fiddle and bursts into laughter. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... at the supper table, Mr. Pollock politely informed him that Alix Crown had returned from Michigan, looking as fit as a fiddle. ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... must not be forgotten—one was not sufficient—the Count de Belloy and the Count de Grammont. Sandeau was not grand enough for the post. The reason given by Balzac to Madame Hanska was Jules' idleness, nonchalance, and sentimentality. As a matter of fact, Sandeau did not care to play always second fiddle, and to write tragedies or comedies for which Balzac wished to get all the credit. Moreover, he was not a Legitimist. The novelist had tried to convert him to his own doctrine of autocratic government and had signally failed. These sprigs ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Monday "Pops," upset the tyranny of the pianoforte and harp as the only instruments suitable for the young person, and virtually created the professional woman-violinist. Indeed, she may be said to have at once made the fiddle fashionable and profitable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... Liverpool one summer morning at the beginning of harvest. He had asked the children each to choose a present, "only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back, sixty miles each way:" and the son Hindley, a proud, high-spirited lad of fourteen, had chosen a fiddle; six-year-old Cathy, a whip, for she could ride any horse in the stable; and Nelly Dean, their humble playfellow and runner of errands, had been promised a pocketful of apples and pears. It was the third night since Mr. Earnshaw's departure, and the children, sleepy and tired, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... approve of suicide). Yes, dear, very peculiar—but I don't quite like it, I must say. Do you remember whether I told SARAH to put out the fiddle-pattern forks and the best cruetstand before I came away? Dear Mr. HOMERTON is coming in to supper to-night, and I want everything ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring-house, and we will do it in action." A delay of about ten minutes began to excite some suppressed murmurs of impatience among the audience, when the touch of Gow's fiddle suddenly burst from a neighbouring hedge, behind which he had established his little orchestra. All ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... nurse," he answered, stroking her hand, "not to be fine as a fiddle by now. You must be tired yourself, Laura. Why, for whole days there—and nights, too, they tell ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... opera singers. And the instruments of renowned virtuosi—he goes in for them too; he will try to bribe Paganini to part with his little Guarnerio, but he has small hope of success. Paganini won't sell his fiddle; but perhaps he might sacrifice one of his guitars. Others are bound on crusades—one to die miserably among the savage Greeks, another, in his white top hat, to lead Italians against their oppressors. Others have no business at all; they are just giving their oddity ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... the gipsy music was playing; the first fiddle was really not bad: and the nonchalant rogue-humour of his countenance did not belie his alliance to that large family, which has produced "so many blackguards, but never a ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... constant risks of mountaineering; so he put away all further thought of adding store to store, and settled himself peaceably in his cottage under Castenand, content with the occasional pleasures afforded by his fiddle, an instrument upon which he had from his youth upward shown some skill. In this quiet life his daughter was ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... discredits de imbimin' of awjus liquors. De imbimin' of awjus liquors, de wiolution of de Sabbaf, de playin' of de fiddle, and de usin' of by-words, dey is de fo' sins of de conscience; an' if any man sin de fo' sins of de conscience, de debble done sharp his fork fo' dat man.—Ain't that ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... played upon his fiddle All through that leafy June, He always played hey-diddle-diddle, And played it out ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... to hear you speak, and sorry I come at an inconvenient time, when you were busy with your music; and—let me see— didn't Mr Mark say something about your wanting the cash to buy a new pianner? Or was it an old fiddle? I quite ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... gentlemen and ladies playing the viol da gamba and the viol d'amore; there were guitarists plunking madly away, banjo players strumming and ukelele addicts picking at their strings, somehow all chorusing together. In a special pair of floats there were bass players, bass fiddle players and cellists, jammed tightly together and somehow managing to draw enormous sounds and scratches out of the big instruments. And behind them came ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... wintry sunset; but my boys saw only the bright side of the tapestry, and would have liked nothing better than to change places with little James Speaight. To stand in the midst of Fairyland, and play beautiful tunes on a toy fiddle, while all the people clapped their hands—what could quite equal that? Charley began to think it was no such grand thing to be a circus-rider, and the dazzling career of policeman had lost something of its glamour in ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... perhaps seen, all that had taken place! He mopped his brow as he reflected upon her feelings in the matter. He was modest and foolish enough to think that jealousy was out of the question, but she would undoubtedly object to playing second fiddle to Natalie. So much ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... corn-shucking; In Virginia, the planter's son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcomed and kissed by the aged mulatto nurse. On rivers, boatmen safely moored at nightfall, in their boats, under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp-there are the greenish waters, the resinous odour, the plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree. —Northward, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... George 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, ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... some one to talk to and at, else they fret and grow peevish. Besides, I was anxious to put my young masters to the test. I have a grand piano of good age, with a sounding-board like a fine-tempered fiddle. The instrument, an American one, I handle like a delicate thoroughbred horse, and, as my playing is accomplished by the use of my fingers and not my heels, the piano does not really ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... husband on his claim till she died, and many other women lived in the camps with their husbands. When 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 ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... had seen him on the quay looking through the railings with the hungry eyes of a sort of musical Enoch Arden. Blanquette had some little difficulty in preventing him from rushing out there and then and delivering his fiddle into the other's hands. It was necessary ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the sun, in comes the Times and eleven strikes (it does) already, and I have to go to Town, and I have no alternative but that this story of the Critic and Poet, 'the Bear and the Fiddle,' should 'begin but break off in the middle'; yet I doubt—nor will you henceforth, I know, say, 'I vex you, I am sure, by this lengthy writing.' Mind that spring is coming, for all this snow; and know me for ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... of which, in various sizes, decorated the mantelpiece of her bedroom. She was accustomed to give way, under plaintive protest, to Marjorie's masterful disposition, and, as a rule, played second fiddle with a good grace. She was not at all clever or imaginative, but very affectionate, and had been the pet of the family at home. She was a neat, pretty little thing, with big blue eyes and arched eyebrows and silky curls, exactly like a Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait, and ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Tears) into the Indian Ocean, Frank's ideas of a tropical voyage were fully realized. Bright skies, smooth seas, a steady breeze abeam keeping all cool, porpoises frolicking around the ship by hundreds, gay-plumaged birds alighting in the rigging, and a dance on deck every night to the music of fiddle and concertina, with a roaring accompaniment of sea-chorus that might have pleased Captain Marryat himself. Frank's throat was sore for a whole day after his patriotic efforts to "give full mouth" to one ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... wolfing his right out of the can and tipping it cornerwise to drink the ile. Bar Coe, he was the coolest customer of the lot, which was the more remarkable, as he was a mild-mannered man ordinarily, given to playing the China fiddle to himself, and very obliging if you wanted fresh yeast or the way he curried pigeon. Rau, the Belgian, with his hairy arms and stubby figure, struck one somehow as being more in his element in so wild a business, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... strathspey, or jig, a particular note from the fiddle summons the Rustic to the agreeable ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... out wan morning, an' de pilot geev us warning, "W'en you come on Rapide Cuisse, ma frien', keep raf' she's head on shore, If you struck beeg rock on middle, w'ere le diable is play hees fiddle, Dat's de tam you pass on some place, you don't ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... alternating with the twang of banjo and "dulcimore." Old Spike Crooch, who dwelt far up at the headwaters of Little Tribulation, where the "trails jest wiggle an' wingle about," and who bore the repute of a master violinist, had vowed that he "meant ter fiddle at one more shin-dig afore he laid him down an' died"—and he had journeyed the long way to carry out ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Goodfellow. "No, I dare say not; but you just wait till you fall in love. It's a most curious feelin'. First of all it makes you want to pull off your coat and turn a hand to anything, from breakin' stones to playing the fiddle—it don't matter what, so long as you sweat an' feel you're earnin' money. Why, just take a look at my business card!" He stepped to his coat, pulled one from his pocket, and glanced over it proudly: 'George Goodfellow, Carpenter and Decorater—Cabinet ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... station-master, who asked us to come down first at six p.m., then at four, then at one, and lastly in two hours, at nine a.m. we strolled up towards the town. There was an old beggar on the road, and he was cuddling a "goosla," or Serbian one-stringed fiddle, which sounds not unlike a hive of bees in summer-time, and is played not with the tips of the fingers, as a violin, but with the fat part of the first phalanx. As soon as he heard our footsteps he began to howl, and to saw at his miserable instrument; and ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... went into the dreary, unused parlor, and pulling up the green Venetian blinds, which rattled like castanets, he pushed back the ivy-fastened shutters, and sat down by the open window; then, with his chin resting upon his fiddle, and one foot in its drab gaiter swinging across his knee, he played mournfully and shrilly in the twilight, until it was time ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... Missy's persuasiveness when at white heat that the faculty permitted the show to go beyond its first rehearsal. The rehearsals Missy personally conducted, with Raymond aiding as her first lieutenant-and he would not have played second fiddle like that to another girl in the class-he said so. She herself chose the cast, contrived the "scenery"; and she and Raymond together wrote the dialogue and lyrics. It was wonderful how they could do things together! ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... 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 ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... able to dope out something just as good. Relieved? That doesn't half tell it, guy—I feel as if I had just pitched off the Old Man of the Sea who's been sitting on my neck! What say you girls get your fiddle and guitar and we'll sing us a little song? I feel kind of relieved—they had me worried some—it's the first time I've felt like singing since we cut ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... 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, thanked God! I have enough of my own to buy me a good 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." I understand by him that we are likely to have our ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... held now from them they pend them not appopolar? One of the other brothers says to him, Hear, Abraham, ile lend you 5s. Will you, my blessed brother. Yes, I will; hear it is. Now we will boath of us go to the gav togeather. One gets his fiddle ready and the other the Tamareen. The harp is too heavy to carry. They go to call at the post office for a chinginargery—they boath come ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith |
