"Melody" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... honor of being styled 'the learned member that opened the debate,' or 'the very eloquent gentleman who has just sat down.' All day the coming scene had been flitting before my fancy, and cajoling it. My ear already caught the glorious melody of 'Hear him! hear him!' Already I was practising how to steal a sidelong glance at the tears of generous approbation bubbling in the eyes of my little auditory,—never suspecting, alas! that a modern eye may ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... exceedingly tame and friendly. It was a very sweet and strong singer. It loved to make its nest in or near his shelter. There it would build and rear its young, within reach of his hands, while its throat was always bursting with melody. ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... only one in the fur countries, the shortness of the summer not admitting of their doing more. We have mentioned the number and beauty of the hawks and owls. The white-headed eagle inhabits the fur countries as well as the United States. The melody of the song-birds is described to be exquisite. The verdant lawns and cultivated glades of Europe fail in producing that exhilaration and joyous buoyancy of mind which travellers have experienced in treading the Arctic wilds of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... and smiled at him. She held up to show him some wonderful mauve and blue hyacinths that she carried, and then passed on. Woodville sighed. It was too symbolic. The scent lingered. Like a half-remembered melody, it seemed to have the insidious power of recalling something in the past that was too wonderful ever to have happened, and of suggesting vague hopes of the most improbable joys. Sylvia seemed to the young ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... the immortal words of "Home, Sweet Home," adapting them to the beautiful Sicilian melody, now so familiar to us all, he gave to the world a precious legacy, which has brought sunshine into millions of hearts. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." And there is no other place in all the world where the little ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the time, 12/8 moderato or allegro, like the time, simple four in a bar. But if the movement be adagio, largo assai, or andante maestoso, either all the quavers, or a crotchet followed by a quaver, should be beaten, according to the form of the melody, or the ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... waited outside the tent, and this time she was no longer in doubt. It was the cry of an instrument of music, a stringed instrument of some kind, plucked by demure fingers. The cry was repeated. A whimsical Eastern melody, very delicate and pathetic, crept ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... civilized is barbarian; barbaric indicates rude magnificence, uncultured richness; as, barbaric splendor, a barbaric melody. Barbarous refers to the worst side of barbarian life, and to revolting acts, especially of cruelty, such as a civilized man would not be expected to do; as, a barbarous deed. We may, however, say barbarous ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... road, a village in the southern boundary of St. Leonard's Forest, the key to some very rich country. Before the days of bicycles Bolney was practically unknown, so retired is it. The church, which has a curious pinnacled tower nearly 300 years old, is famous for its bells, concerning whose melody Horsfield gives the following piece of counsel: "Those who are fond of the silvery tones of bells, may enjoy them to perfection, by placing themselves on the margin of a large pond, the property of Mr. W. Marshall; the reverberation of the sound, coming ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... from the roses, only to show me how poor a thing it was compared with Bettina's breath upon my cheek and its sweetness in my nostrils. Now and then a belated bird sang its sleepy song, only to remind me of the melody of her lullabies, and the cooing dove moaned out its plaintive call lest I forget the pain in her breast while selfishly remembering the ache in my own. Then I thought of what the Good Book says about "bright clouds," and I prayed that my pain might make me a better man and might lead me ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... England whose voice I do not account musical save and except always the braying of an ass. The notes of all our birds and fowls please me without one exception. I should not indeed think of keeping a goose in a cage, that I might hang him up in the parlour for the sake of his melody, but a goose upon a common, or in a ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... song for a long time; finally he wanted to cut it short. So he took in both hands his snuffbox, broke up the melody with a sneeze; and, before they got together again, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... his garden, and simply and reverently tells them of their misfortune, which is to be accepted submissively, as Heaven's will. The deep religious feeling of that scene, the grouping, the use of sunset lights and shadows, the melody of the chimes, the stricken look in the faces of the women and children, the sweet gravity of the Vicar—instinct with the nobleness of a sorrow not yet become corrosive and lachrymose, as is the tendency of settled grief—and, over all, the sense ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... whole face, was more like the well-known engraving from Guido's picture of "Beatrice Cenci" than anything else he could give me an idea of. He added, that her countenance haunted him, like the remembrance of some wild sad melody, heard in childhood; that it would perpetually recur with its ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... soul-stirring songs of Beranger, and reciting them in every tone, in every key and to every tune. One of these songsters was a young soldier, a lancer, with a bright intelligent look: he was standing outside a cabaret with several companions, and trolling in a rich, clear voice a melody which seemed thoroughly to spring from his heart. His eye alternately sparkled or dimmed as his words were animated or affecting, and the expression he breathed into his notes was full of feeling and admirably suited to all he sang. The last stanza of his ballad was especially well ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... mother's arms around her, the child was able to give a more coherent account of the circumstances which had led to this abrupt cessation of the dance; for Archie's melody had trailed off into an unmusical drone and speedily ceased, and the dancers had spontaneously crowded round the child and ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... before her, she suddenly opened her lips and sang. Her voice of exquisite purity, power, and sweetness, filled the old hall and overflowed it, throbbing in scarcely weakened vibrations through court-yard and castle. The melody was a prayer—the cry of a tortured heart for pardon and repose; and she sang it with almost supernatural expression. Every sound in the castle was hushed: the serfs outside ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... little of the actor in him. When telling a story he never mimicked his personages; his drama seldom lay in clash of character, but in thought; it was the sheer beauty of the words, the melody of the cadenced voice, the glowing eyes which fascinated you and always and above all the scintillating, coruscating humour that lifted his monologues into works ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... characteristic to be omitted, and there is so little of what is exquisite in the flavour of Diderot's style, that he perhaps suffers less from the clumsiness of translation than writers of finer colour or more stirring melody. One of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... of roses, violets, dahlias, and marguerites. At times the clumps darkened and looked like splotches of blood, at others they brightened into silvery greys of the softest tones. A lighted candle, standing near one basket, set amidst the general blackness quite a melody of colour—the bright variegations of marguerites, the blood-red crimson of dahlias, the bluey purple of violets, and the warm flesh tints of roses. And nothing could have been sweeter or more suggestive ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... multitude of revues or in our many musical shows, the dance, the pose, the rhythm and the melody that enhance our delight are all parts of the modern art of stage dancing. And it is of this art that the writer seeks to tell the ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... full power of fancy—with a bold lyrical freedom which ascends, as with godlike step, to the topmost height of worldly things; and it effects it in conjunction with the whole sensible influence of melody and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... of pitch, melody, harmony, and rhythm is necessary to the singer, but the orator may, by cultivation, develop a speaking voice of musical quality without being able to distinguish Old Hundred from The Last Rose ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... Tartar. Mirza Shaffy, the name of the Tartar sage and poet, proved himself no contemptible critic of these foreign productions. Not once could he be induced to tolerate a poem whose only merit was the beauty and melody of its language in the original, nor to swallow the mere sentimentalism which plays so great a part in German poetry especially. This sentimentalism, says Bodenstedt, is as unknown as it is unintelligible to the Oriental poet. He aims always at a real and tangible ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... with melody, Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm, nor spell, nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh; ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... down. It was growing chilly, perhaps, in the garden; anyway, the party went indoors. But the big windows were thrown wide, and waves of melody from Fru Falkenberg's piano poured out. After a while it changed to dance tunes; jovial Captain Bror, no doubt, ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... admiration and delight, and the martial harmony moved our souls so powerfully that we easily believed what is said of Ismenias's having excited Alexander to rise from table and run to his arms, with such a warlike melody. At last the golden king remained master of the field; and while we were minding those dances, Queen Whims vanished, so that we saw her no more ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... them on the wind, and the river rippled up that it might hear the better, and the trees bowed down their branches that they might not lose a note, and the birds no longer sang lest their music should make discord in the melody, as the wondrous child wandered over the country, and the music of heaven ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... quiet night, as faint and far As melody down-drifted from a star, Trembles strange music where ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... she danced, Native to melody and light, And now and then toward me glanced, Pleased, as I hoped, to ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... followed a path bordered with wild mignonette and apple trees that wound up the side of a hill covered with vineyards. A couple of chattering magpies ran before us, an invisible cuckoo was heard between snatches of Italian melody warbled by the tenor sotto voce and the little company overflowed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... voices rose and swelled, and filled the little room with a perfect melody of sound, Bet ceased to sigh; her hands fell idly into her lap, and her face, which was now turned towards the singers, became filled with a sort of ecstasy. Her parted lips seemed scarcely to breathe, and her eyes reflected the emotions caused by the pathos of the story ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... "Mrs. Barry had a presence of elevated dignity; her mien and motion superb, and gracefully majestic; her voice full, clear, and strong; so that no violence of passion could be too much for her; and when distress or tenderness possessed her, she subsided into the most affecting melody and softness. In the art of exciting pity, she had a power beyond all the actresses I have yet seen, or what your imagination can conceive. In scenes of anger, defiance, or resentment, while she was impetuous and terrible, she poured out the sentiment with an enchanting harmony; and it ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... kitchen knives—a procedure, the necessity of which I have never understood—they sang all sorts of folk-songs, the text of which formed a strange contrast, as well to the murderous act as to the mournful melody. At least one had to suppose this to be the case, for the maids, who sat on the edge of the bed with their guest from the straw-loft between them, followed the folksongs with never-ending merriment, and at the passages that sounded specially mournful they even burst into ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the sound is heightened or increased, the subjects seem to receive a shock and a feeling of disappointment. The artistic sense developed by hypnotism is disturbed; the faces express astonishment, stupefaction and pain. If the same soft melody be again resumed, the same expression of rapturous bliss reappears in the countenance. The faces become seraphic and celestial when the subjects are by nature handsome, and when the subjects are ordinary looking, even ugly, they are idealized ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... should find it difficult to understand were we to read in a book these conversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smoke wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of two lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies them like a lyre, and what remains is nothing more than a shade; you say: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, laughter at nothing, nonsense, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... number of other slaves to collect cinnamon in a direction I had not before visited, when, as I was passing a cottage on my return homeward, I heard the sounds of a female voice singing a low and soft melody. The notes thrilled through my heart. They were not the sounds of a native woman's voice. I let my load drop at the risk of feeling my master's lash on my back, that I might stop and listen. How eagerly did I drink in these notes! ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... excellent voice for all that, of high range, and with a resonant and finely sympathetic timbre that seemed easily to find its way (according to all accounts) to the feminine heart. And the music of this serenade was really admirable, of subtle and delicate quality, and yet full of the simplest melody, and perhaps none the less to be appreciated that it seemed to suggest a careful study of the best English composers. The words were conventional enough, of course; but then the whole story of "The Squire's Daughter" was as artificial as the wigs and powder and patches of the performers; and even ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... confess to find In all things else Delight indeed, but such As us'd or not, works in the Mind no Change Nor vehement Desire; these Delicacies I mean of Taste, Sight, Smell, Herbs, Fruits, and Flowers, Walks, and the Melody of Birds: but here Far otherwise, transported I behold, Transported touch; here Passion first I felt, Commotion strange! in all Enjoyments else Superiour and unmov'd, here only weak Against the Charms of Beauty's powerful Glance. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... what I have been saying applies, mutatis mutandis, to the other arts. As we have already noticed, something analogous to a third dimension exists also in music; and even, as I have elsewhere shown,[*] in literature. The harmonies accompanying a melody satisfy our tendency to think of other notes and particularly of other allied tonalities; while as to literature, the whole handling of words, indeed the whole of logical thinking, is but a cubic working backwards and forwards between what and how, a co-ordinating of items and themes, ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... wrote before this school can be said to have been formed in Germany, we may mention Rousseau, who acknowledged the contrast in music, and showed that rhythm and melody were the prevailing principles of ancient, as harmony is that of modern music. In his prejudices against harmony, however, we cannot at all concur. On the subject of the arts of design an ingenious observation was made by Hemsterhuys, that the ancient painters were perhaps ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... on the tide of her high spirits; her laughter ran silver cascades down to the ocean of melody; her sun-flecked eyes held the heart-warming glow, the stimulation of wine. She was a breeze blowing from ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... bells jingled along the avenue. Again the great church organ rolled out a mighty flood of melody, that ebbed and flowed ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... pleasantly upon the ear and brighten the dark and bloody page of war: Scarlet, Glendarule, Sandusky, Mar, Tahema, and Savannah; how sweetly they run! I must except my own (and solitary) contribution to the map, Samuel City, which sounds out of key with these mouthfuls of melody, though none the less an important point. Yallobally I shall always recall with bitterness, for it was there I first felt the thorn of a vindictive press. The reader will see what little cause I had to love the Yallobally Record, a scurrilous sheet that often ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... speak, when there was a perfect tempest and whirlwind of rowdyism in the old Tabernacle on Broadway, then this family would sing, and almost upon the instant that they would raise their voices, so perfect was the music, so sweet the concord, so enchanting the melody, that it came down upon the audience like a summer shower on a ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... heard from her grandmother of the magic splendor which Wanda had missed and Iza enjoyed, flashed up before her, and her heart warmed delightedly in the voluptuous intoxication of unspeakable bliss. On the wings of this melody, which, in truth, merely sought to picture the celestial dwelling of the elect, she was carried into one of those bijou palaces of the best part of the Queen City of the Universe, where the bedizened Imperia at the plate-glass window reviews an army of ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... end, appeared in the meadow and began looking among the long grasses which sheltered the nests of some meadow larks. A number of the larks were on the wing, others sat on the rail fence rolling out cadenzas in concert in a gush of melody from their downy throats. The men moved cautiously nearer under cover of the weeds. Raising their long clubs to their shoulders they gazed along their narrow points a moment. Without exactly knowing why, we took alarm, and larks, bobolinks, and cowbirds sped upward like the ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... a reed pipe more than a hautboy; but, to make amends when he reached the presto, his voice, a rather good bass, struck the horse's ears with such force that the latter redoubled his vigor as if this melody had produced upon him the effect of a trumpet sounding the charge on the ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... the stream beyond. The twilight lay heavy over the church, heaviest of all over the distant organ gallery, where Weldon could barely make out a single figure moving towards the bench. There was a rattle of stops, a tentative chord or two and then a few notes of this or that melody, as if the player, albeit a musician, found himself continually thwarted by the darkness and the absence ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... recall, had come home crying heartily both at the dreary disappointment of knocking in vain, and at the grand mournful sounds of funeral marches that had fallen on her ear. Every one who had been at the chapel that day was speaking of the wonderful music, the force and the melody of the voluntary at the dismissal of the congregation; no one had believed that such power resided in the harmonium. Mr. Scudamour had spoken to Miss Ward most kindly both before and after evening service, but his attempt ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nature of his sympathies may be felt in Spontini's music. With all its spirit, this is generally dry—awkward without the excuse of learned pedantry—sometimes grand, very seldom tender—the rhythm more decided than the melody, which is often frivolous, often flat, rarely vocal. He has been accused of shallowness in the orchestral treatment of his operas,—in which noise is often accumulated to conceal want of resource. But allowing all these objections to be generally true to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... Concord — N. melody, rhythm, measure; rhyme &c (poetry) 597. pitch, timbre, intonation, tone. scale, gamut; diapason; diatonic chromatic scale^, enharmonic scale^; key, clef, chords. modulation, temperament, syncope, syncopation, preparation, suspension, resolution. staff, stave, line, space, brace; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the benefit of those not learned in Sixteenth-Century Music, it may be interesting to hint that the melody is written here for the Second Soprano, and to add, for their encouragement, that the experiment of performing this Madrigal, unaccompanied, with two ladies, and two male voices in the Alto parts, proved perfectly successful, thanks to the science of Mr Fuller-Maitland ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... and popular ballad, known in the Campine as The Orphan, is sung by all classes to an air which is full of touching melody.] ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... p. 316.).—Twenty-five years ago this inscription was set to music, and was popular in private circles. The melody was moderately good, and the "monitory pulse-like beating" of course was acted, perhaps over-acted, in the accompaniment. I am not sure it was printed, but the fingers of young ladies produced a great many copies. Your correspondent's version is quite accurate, and I ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... clouds, which seemed to intermingle with the tall green branches, as both cast their reflection in the water beneath. Only the soft rustling of the leaves, and the hum of thousands of insects as they sang together a sweet, dreamy forest song was to be heard. The very sunbeams seemed to echo this melody as they followed closely the two wanderers, as if this man and woman had come beneath their ban and would have some penalty to pay for crossing their shining path so carelessly. Suddenly an unexpected barrier stood ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... can not resist the rollicking music back of the paying booth. Three sable musicians form the orchestra, and from a bass viol, fiddle and fife they extract melody that, with all its short-coming, would make a deacon wish to dance. Any one, white or black, can purchase the privilege of keeping step to the music for two cents, or one strawberry ticket. Business was superb, and every shade of color ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... for a while and then began to play so plaintive and wistful a melody that Harry felt the old sorrow wake and stir within his heart and demand a reckoning of the forgetful years. Not realizing that he did so, he arose and began to pace up and down the room, nor remembered where he was until he looked up to see Pearl watching him, surprise ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... from the straying clouds of the hilltops. It came with a message of tryst from the land of the sunrise, and it floated from the verge of sunset with its sigh of sorrow. The stars seemed to be the stops of the instrument that flooded the dreams of the night with melody. The music seemed to burst all at once from all sides, from fields and groves, from the shady lanes and lonely roads, from the melting blue of the sky, from the shimmering green of the grass. They neither knew its meaning nor could ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... gone. The music trailed off into a weird, rippling rhythm, with young hearts beating time to its melody and young feet keeping step to its measure. Then the tired, happy company broke into groups. Good-bys and good wishes were given again and again, ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... standing at the open window looking at the loveliness around her, and listening to the happy chorus of birds—and to the nightingales answering each other, and singing day and night, apparently never weary of trying to gladden the world with their glorious melody. ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... cause the light-heartedness she showed as they sat together at dinner, and smiled to think that he himself shared in the feeling of relief. There were reasons why he could not look forward to the evening with unalloyed happiness, but the unwonted gaiety which shone on Emily's face, and gave a new melody to her voice, moved him to tenderness and gratitude. He felt that it would be well to listen again to the music of that strong heart whose pain had been his bliss. He overcame his ignoble anxieties and went to the concert as ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... of whatsoever is manful and ennobling, of whatsoever is worthy of praise and honour. Music, to that man, speaks of a divine order and a divine proportion; of a divine harmony, through all the discords and confusions of men; of a divine melody, through all the cries and groans of sin and sorrow. What says a wiser and a better man than I shall ever be, and that not of noble music, but of such as we may hear any day in any street? "Even that vulgar music," he says, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... a barrel of small-beer and a keg of "braennvin," or white Swedish whiskey, both of them decorated with wreathes woven out of leaves. First they drink. Then they form in ring and sing and dance to the melody heard before: ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... gossamer. From Robin's good looks and musical turn, we might reasonably predict a domicile of him as clean and handsome a nest as the king-bird's, whose harsh jingle, compared with Robin's evening melody, is as the clatter of pots and kettles beside the tone of a flute. I love his note and ways better even than those of the orchard starling or the Baltimore oriole; yet his nest, compared with theirs, is a half-subterranean hut contrasted ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... listened astonished. The words and the simple melody which carried them were evidently an improvisation. But the voice—did that issue from a human throat? Yes, for in distant Spain and far-off Rome, in great cathedrals and concert halls, he had sometimes listened entranced to voices like ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... cottage in the centre of a flower garden, and at one extremity of another garden a building, imitative of an Indian pagoda, stood, appropriated to a fine band breathing, throughout the evening, all the pathos and melody of Italian music. The cottage itself was set apart for refreshment, and one might descend to a cup of coffee, or mount to the limitless command of a dinner. I had dined very early, and, feeling the effects of good digestion, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... exception of Mrs Pansey, everyone approved of her engagement. Behind a floral screen a band of musicians, who called themselves the Yellow Hungarians, and individually possessed the most unpronounceable names, played the last waltz, a smooth, swinging melody which made the younger guests long for a dance. In fact, the callow lieutenant boldly suggested that a waltz should be attempted, with himself and Lucy to set the example; but his companion snubbed him unmercifully for his boldness, and afterwards restored his spirits by ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... music had to do with it. As a child he had only a poor concertina, but by it he drew the traveller and the mountaineer and the worker in the valley to him like a magnet. Some touch of the mysterious, some sweet fantastical melody in all he played, charmed them, even when he gave them old familiar airs. From the concertina he passed to the violin, and his skill and mastery over his followers grew; and then there came a notable day when up over a thousand ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... form, I must thank the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, The World's Work, the Dial, The New World, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Before each chapter, as now printed, stands a bar of the Sorrow Songs,—some echo of haunting melody from the only American music which welled up from black souls in the dark past. And, finally, need I add that I who speak here am bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of them that live ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... stars or the trees lit up now and then by the flickering flames of the wood fire; till all at once, unasked, as if moved by the rippling stream hard by, Ida began to sing in a low voice the beautiful old melody of "Flow on, thou Shining River," and Hester took up the second part of the duet till about half through, the music sounding wonderfully sweet and solemn out in those primeval groves, when suddenly Hester ceased singing, and sat with lips apart ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... it appeared was brutally slated in the organs controlled by the literary adviser to the Crown, and himself belittled and ridiculed. When, as luck would have it, his wife eloped with a wrestler, a flood of melody poured from his soul which, connoisseurs have assured us, ranks high amongst the lyrical masterpieces of the world. These verses will be found amongst the collection known as "Swan Songs," published posthumously, for, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... tissue paper she held it for a moment pressed close to her, and began a song she had heard from the negroes as they sat around their light-wood fire after their day's work was done. It was a weird melody which Homer Smith had caught up and revised and modernized, with a change of words in some places, and made her sing, knowing it would bring thunders of applause. She heard the roar now, and saw the audience and the flowers falling around her, and with an expression of disgust she put Judy ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... a mischievous irony or good-natured sarcasm. The querulous wailings which are the stock in trade of a certain class of writers are unnatural and discordant sounds. We should expect rather a serene and cheerful melody from a young and brave-hearted race, which is in intimate relations with the external world. Instead of this, we have sucked in with the milk of our Puritan mothers a forlorn and sorrowful spirit. We celebrate our festivals with a sad countenance. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... early period of my life I have derived the highest enjoyment from listening to music, especially to melody, which is to me the most pleasing form of composition. When I have the opportunity of listening to such kind of music, it yields me enjoyment that transcends all others. It suggests ideas, and brings vividly before the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... or in mere metrical diction, which passed current as poetry without being so. Yet Burns belonged wholly to the eighteenth century (1759-96), and no verse-writer is so little literary as Burns, so little prosaic; no writer more truly poetic in melody, diction, thought, feeling, and spontaneous song. It was Burns who showed Wordsworth's own youth "How verse may build a princely throne on humble truth." Nor can we understand how Cowper is to be set down ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... she went back to that same place with that same cry. The last time she went some one was in the church. It was the organist, practising some new Easter music for the next day's services. A burst of triumphant melody greeted her as she noiselessly opened the side door. She met the florist coming out, for he had just completed the decorating, and the place was a mass of bloom. All around the chancel stood the tall, white Easter lilies, waiting, like the angels in the open tomb, ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... never before heard the national anthem. It is not played or sung often by the natives of Connemara, and although the ocean certainly forms part of the British Empire, the Atlantic waves have not yet learned to beat out this particular melody. So it happened that Hyacinth, without meaning to be offensive, omitted the ceremony of removing his hat. A neighbour, joyful at the opportunity, snatched the offending garment, and skimmed it far over the heads of the crowd. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... doings has been to compose a serenade, with a vulgar melody that would disgust you, and which he has dedicated 'A la bella Italia.' He wrote the Italian words himself, but as he knows no music, he had a pianist come here and write out his serenade. What ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... flew on apace, for Coniston. Fragrant hay was cut on hillsides won from rock and forest, and Coniston Water sang a gentler melody—save when the clouds floated among the spruces on the mountain and the rain beat on the shingles. During the still days before the turn of the year,—days of bending fruit boughs, crab-apples glistening red in the soft sunlight,—rumor came from Brampton to wrinkle the forehead of Moses Hatch ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... eyes. I saw great Doric columns of honey-golden travertine; between them, as I looked one way, a deep strip of sea; when I turned, the purple gorges of the Apennine; and all about the temple, where I sat in solitude, a wilderness dead and still but for that long note of wailing melody. I had not thought it possible that here, in my beloved home, where regret and desire are all but unknown to me, I could have been so deeply troubled by a thought of things far off. I returned with head bent, that voice singing in my memory. All the delight I have ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... of my youth stands in silence and sadness: None that tasted its simple enjoyments are there, No longer its walls ring with glee and with gladness No strain of blithe melody ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... nations, to the Lord, Sing with a joyful noise; With melody of sound record His honours, and ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... soothing calm, its welcoming tenderness, its look of friendship and of wise counsel, wind themselves around you; and the beauty of its grassy shades, of its leafy brakes and color-changing hills, delights and wins you. Its babbling, laughing streams fill the whole air with life and melody; every chink of the old dry walls is choked with maiden-hair; from the damp rocks amid the dripping streams hang strange, fantastic mosses,—orange, grey and russet,—and with them grow wild flowers, white and ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... files. A tunneled, revetted, embrasured and battlemented citadel filled with rusty armor and broken lances. A hock shop, a junkyard, a hall of distorting mirrors. A cemetery by the sea, a peak of glory, a slough of despond. A radiant light, an encroaching dark, the sweetest of melody, the sourest of discord. A library of trivia, museum of curiosa, sideshow of freaks, and shrine of greatness. It was the lowering pendulum, the waiting pit, the closing walls. It was the vaulting spirit, the gallant heart, the just and ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... also before the altar, that by their voices they might make sweet melody, and daily sing praises ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... purposes of mutual salutation and recognition. This wailing note is singularly wild, and not unmusical. It is not properly a screech or a scream, like that of the Hawk or the Peacock, but rather a sort of moaning melody, half music and half bewailment. This wailing song is far from disagreeable, though it has a cadence which is expressive of dreariness and melancholy. It might be performed on a small flute, by commencing with D octave and running down by semitones to a fifth below, and frequently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of a song or a strain of music coming to us through the night not only give us pleasure by the melody they bring, but also give us knowledge of the character of the singer or of the instrument from which they proceed. There is something in the music which unerringly tells us of its source. I believe musicians call it the "timbre" of the sound. ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... as thinkers, as scientists, as men of business, as parents, as lovers, or anything else—will be greatened by being subordinated to the conscious aim of pleasing Him. That aim should persist, like a strain of melody, one long, holden-down, diapason note, through all our lives. Perfume can be diffused into the air, and dislodge no atom of that which it makes fragrant. This supreme aim can be pursued through, and by means of, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... comforting touch, each of the other, gradually the first terror of their predicament faded; ere long, Donald reminded her of her promise, and she stole to the old square piano and sang for him while, without, Dirty Dan O'Leary crouched in the darkness and thrilled at the rippling melody. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... man finished the melody he stood still more upright. Then straightening his old shoulders and pulling his hat firmly on his head, he stooped and kissed the old lady and walked with a firm tread to ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... had subsided, and a delightful calm prevailed. A thousand wild flowers, comprising every hue, filled the air with delicious fragrance, while no sound was heard but the melody ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... the yell of joy that came up from the shivering wretches down below, who knew that their comrade was alive. And there we sat entranced about him, the colonel and his wife, Lilla and I, weeping at the tender music, as the tones of new warmth and color and hope came like liquid melody from ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... hyenas abounded, and the footsteps of the ostrich were perceived. As they went on, the face of the country improved, the valleys became greener, and the colocynth and the kosom, with its red flowers, were in full bloom, "The freshness of the air, with the melody of the songsters that were perched among the creeping plants, whose flowers diffused an aromatic odour, formed a delightful contrast to the desolate region through which they had passed." In the neighbourhood ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... could not hear Katie sing that day, for we had anticipated quite a little musical matinee; but her sister Mary, who is an enthusiastic pianoforte student, made amends by playing with much taste and expression, a dreamy "Melody," by Rubenstein. ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... the sounds died away, when Peter and Caesar struck up a merry negro melody, contrasting curiously with the melancholy notes of the Indian's song; they made Uncle Denis and me, at all events, burst in ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... the nursery, songs for childhood, for girlhood, boyhood, and sacred songs—the whole melody of childhood and youth bound in one cover. Full of lovely pictures; sweet mother and baby faces; charming bits of scenery, and the dear old ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... reached to the ground, and quite covered their bare feet. One of the musicians played upon two small drums, the other two on four-stringed instruments, similar to our violins. They stood close behind the dancers, and played without melody or harmony; the dancers making at the same time very animated motions with their arms, hands, and fingers, more than with their feet, on which they wore silver bells, which they rung at intervals. They made handsome and graceful ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of Malines, In this dark hour how much you mean! The dreadful night of blood and tears Sweeps down on Belgium, but she hears Deep in her heart the melody Of songs she learned when she was free. She will not falter, faint, nor fail, But fight until her rights prevail And all her ancient belfries ring "The Flemish Lion," "God ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... is almost invariably on love, religion, and duty as defined by chivalry. In the French originals of these romances the lines were a definite length, the meter exact, and rimes and assonances were both used to give melody. In England this metrical system came in contact with the uneven lines, the strong accent and alliteration of the native songs; and it is due to the gradual union of the two systems, French and Saxon, that our English became capable of the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... collected again by the highest reason. I was entertained like an Angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory, I saw all in the peace of Eden; Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator's praises, and could not make more melody to Adam, than to me. All Time was Eternity, and a perpetual Sabbath. Is it not strange, that an infant should be the heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?' ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... apartments. Walking down the great corridor which led to these, the most beautiful rooms in the palace, he became aware of the silvery sound of stringed instruments mingling with harmonious voices,—though he scarcely heeded the soft rush of melody which came thus wafted to his ears. He was full of thoughts and schemes,—his son's refusal to confide in him had not seriously troubled him, because he knew he should, with patience, find out in good time all that the young Prince had declined to explain,— and ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... which is a spell Unto all on earth who dwell! O rich voice, of rapturous love, Making melody above! Krishna's, Hari's—one in two, Sound these mortal verses through! Sound like that soft flute which made Such a magic in the shade— Calling deer-eyed maidens nigh, Waking wish and stirring sigh, Thrilling blood and ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... Leicester's nephew, Sir Philip Sidney. From Sidney's house at Penshurst came in 1579 his earliest work, the "Shepherd's Calendar"; in form, like Sidney's own "Arcadia," a pastoral where love and loyalty and Puritanism jostled oddly with the fancied shepherd life. The peculiar melody and profuse imagination which the pastoral disclosed at once placed its author in the forefront of living poets, but a far greater work was already in hand; and from some words of Gabriel Harvey's we see Spenser bent on rivalling Ariosto, and even hoping "to overgo" the "Orlando ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... on deck again in five minutes with a face which drove all thoughts of melody from Peter's head. In fact, at sight of it, he came instantly to a sitting position and his guitar slid unheeded ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... knit her hands together and turned away her head. The happiness in her heart rose to her throat like a great melody and choked her. Before her, exposed in the thin spring sunshine, was the square of ugly brown cottages, the bare parade-ground, in its centre Trumpeter Tyler fingering his bugle, and beyond on every side an ocean of blackened prairie. But she saw nothing of this. She saw instead a beautiful ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... something in them that feels,—a glorious intelligence, as much nobler and more swift than mine, as these rays, which are its body, are nobler and swifter than my flesh;—the spirit of all light, and truth, and melody, and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... idea of RHYTHM (rythmos)—measured movement in time and space, resulting in melody and grace.—"Republic," bk. iii. ch. xi. and xii.; ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... descending with terrible force upon devoted heads, which were once pillowed on the bosoms of fond and devoted mothers. Jove's dread counterfeit is heard on every hand; the balls and shells go whistling and screaming by, the most terrible music to ears not properly attuned to the melody of war. Thousands sink upon the ground overpowered, to be trodden under foot of the flying steed, or their bones to be left whitening the incarnadined field. Blows fall thick and heavy on every hand. The cries of the wounded and the orders of the commanders mingle together; ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... rain began to fly. We concluded therefore to wait for better weather. The hunters went out for deer and I to see the forests. The rain brought out the fragrance of the drenched trees, and the wind made wild melody in their tops, while every brown bole was embroidered by a network of rain rills. Perhaps the most delightful part of my ramble was along a stream that flowed through a leafy arch beneath overleaping trees which met at the top. The water was almost ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... and tooth paste and memory methods, rise the incandescent facades of "dancing academies" with their "sixty instructresses," their beat of brass and strings, their whisper of feet, their clink of dimes.—Let a man not work away his strength and his youth. Let him breathe a new melody, let him draw out of imagination a novel step, a more fantastic tilt of the pelvis, a wilder gesticulation of the deltoid. Let him put out his hand to the Touch ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... crescendoes the youthful believers had it all their own way, and shrieked till the windows rattled, the rector beating time the while by lightly tapping the heads of the Faithful with his ruler whenever they departed from the impracticable melody. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... and endless varieties of sounds which, having broken away from their original source, are ever wandering and echoing around the rock-bound gorge. Beautiful indeed and altogether indescribable are the elements of melody which are created by the falling ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... on the Tennessee; Sabbath—and morning Breaks with a bird note that pulses along; A melody sobs in the heart of its dawning— The pain that foreshadows the birth of a song. Art thou a flecking, brave Bluebird, of sky light, Or the sough of a minor wove into a beam? Oh, Hermit Thrush, Hermit Thrush, thou ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... to your sweet voices." Thereupon a strange unearthly concert of voices burst on their ears from the cave, the nasal squeak of old men and women forming the dominant note. But the hearers outside listened with delight to the melody, praised the sweet voices of the singers, and then got up and danced to the music. The singing swelled louder and louder as the dance grew faster and more furious, till the concert closed in a nocturnal orgy ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... poet nerved and strung Up to the singing pitch you know, And this since melody first was young Has evermore been the pitch of woe: She was a wistful, winsome thing, Guileless as Eve before her fall, And as I drew her 'neath my wing— Wilmur and Mary, that ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... up as they sat down to table with variations on the air Vive le roy, vive la France, a melody which has never found popular favor. It was then five o'clock in the evening; it was eight o'clock before dessert was served. Conspicuous among the sixty-five dishes appeared an Olympus in confectionery, surmounted by a figure of France modeled in chocolate, to give the signal ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the hilltop in the winter moon, was never a melody of laughter. Rather it was the song of life itself, life in the raw, and the sadness and pain and the hopeless war of existence find their echo in the wailing notes. None of the wilderness voices were joyous. When ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... sisters read aloud Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year, and then a few pages of some other interesting and instructive book. While this was going on I established myself on Papa's knee, and when the reading was done he used to sing soothing snatches of melody in his beautiful voice, as if to lull me to sleep, and I would lay my head on his breast while he rocked me ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one): all the sunshine I can feel is in ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... grass where the nest was hidden the male would suddenly rise, as straight as if shot up, to a height of perhaps thirty or forty feet, and, sustaining himself with rapid wing-beats, pour down the most delicious melody, sweet and clear and strong, overflowing all bounds, then suddenly he would soar higher again and again, ever higher and higher, soaring and singing until lost to sight even on perfectly clear days, and oftentimes in cloudy weather "far ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... delight of the spectator were carried almost to frenzy. In this act, played almost solely by Crescentini, this admirable singer communicated to the hearts of his audience all that is touching and, pathetic in a love expressed by means of delicious melody, and by all that grief and despair can find ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... know what bird thou art. Perhaps That fairy bird, fabled in island tale, Who never sings but once, and then his song Is of such fearful beauty that he dies From sheer exuberance of melody. ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... in Burmah, though of gay plumage, have little melody in their song; splendid as they are, we would scarce exchange for them our cheerful robin and ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... himself the prey of some passing dream. "Oh! you are a spirit!—a goddess such as of old presided over the sports of the Colosseum!—perhaps Juno herself! Do not vanish from my sight, do not become a filmy cloud and dissolve in ether! Oh! speak to me, glorious apparition! Let me hear the celestial melody of your voice and die listening to ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... round him, as he began to play "My Old Kentucky Home." They sang one negro melody after another, while the mulatto sat rocking himself, his head thrown back, his yellow face lifted, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... alone. Without accompaniment he played the little song, "Beware," that Patty had sung, and, improvising, he made a fantasia of the air. He was clever as well as skilled, and he turned the simple little melody into thrilling, rollicking music with trills and roulades until the original theme was almost lost sight of, only to crop up ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... skilful hand over your heart, and make its strings sound. Your heart is a lyre, Robert; but the lot of your life has not been a minstrel to sweep it, and it is often silent. Let glorious William come near and touch it. You will see how he will draw the English power and melody out ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... deep fit of devotion and a profound contemplation of the First Composer; there is something in it of divinity more than the ear discovers: it is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world and creatures of God; such a melody to the ear as the whole world, well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of God. It unties the ligaments of my frame, takes me to pieces, dilates me out of myself, and by degrees, methinks, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... "Elements of Criticism." says, "Many attempts have been made to introduce Hexameter verse into the living languages, but without success. The English language, I am inclined to think, is not susceptible of this melody, and my reasons are these: First, the polysyllables in Latin and Greek are finely diversified by long and short syllables, a circumstance that qualifies them for the melody of Hexameter verse: ours are extremely ill qualified ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... their lives. In every musical career described in this book, from the old masters represented by Bach and Beethoven to the musical prophets of our own day, there is a wealth of inspiration and practical guidance for the artist in any field. Through their struggles, sorrows and triumphs, divine melody and harmony came into being, which will bless the world for all time ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Adondo is a legendary hero, indefinitely dating back. May not his monody, then, be a spontaneous melody, that has been with us since Mardi began? What bard composed the soft verses that our palm boughs sing at even? Nay, Yoomy, that monody ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... magnet is withdrawn for a moment, does the needle tremble back and settle itself northwards? If we are walking with God, we shall, more times a day than we can count when the evening comes on, have had the thought of Him coming into our hearts 'like some sweet beguiling melody, so sweet we know not we are listening to it.' Thus ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... depend for their melody and rhythm upon the musical quality of time, and not upon long or short, accented or unaccented syllables. I am persuaded that this fact led Mr. Sidney Lanier, who is thoroughly familiar with the ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... at length, that love which was so strange and distant when, in ignorance, she believed it her companion? Verses in her mind, verses that would never be forgotten, however lightly she held them, sang and rang to a new melody. They were not poetry—said he who wrote them. Yet they were truth, sweetly and nobly uttered. The false, the trivial, does not so cling to memory ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... doors, being bankrupt. Through Habeneck he learnt to understand the Ninth Symphony even better than he had understood it before; for the Conservatoire orchestra had rehearsed it until, almost unconsciously, they discovered the real melody, or what Wagner calls the melos. This is a question I shall go into later when dealing with Wagner's own conducting; for the present it suffices to mention the bare fact, as we can trace directly to these performances—or, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... coming on fast. All the east lay grey behind Steering, all the west grey before him as he moved away from the cross-roads. But out of the west rolled the melody of the carolling boy, the voice of one singing in ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... reach the silver river, Soon our pilgrimage will cease; Soon our happy hearts will quiver With the melody of peace. ...
— Indian Methodist Hymn-book • Various
... fragrant stillness of the moon-flooded place, with the odor of the lilacs and the snowy wild-plum blossoms entrancingly sweet, and the melody dropping softly from the harp-strings like a fall of far-off crystal bells, they gave themselves ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mellow, vibrant tones, whose very music would have intoxicated duller fools than I—'tis ever a comfort to know there are greater fools—broke in melody: "To my own dear love from her ever loyal and devoted knight," and she held her opened hand high. 'Twas my birch-bark message which Father Holland had carried north. I suddenly went insane with a great overcharge of ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Norwegan. It is of a King of the Sea who had married an earthly maiden; and was at last deserted by her from some scruples of conscience. The original features of it are strictly preserved, and it is told indirectly by the old Sea King to his children in a wild, irregular melody, of which the following extract will convey but an imperfect idea. It is Easter time, and the mother has left her sea palace for the church on the hill side, with a ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... the illuminated hall of Edward, where the table was spread for the royal repast, and where his old friends, Manning, Bedle, and Allerton, stood weeping for joy; while from the gallery raised aloft, the musicians gave forth the rough and stirring melody which had gradually fallen out of usage, but which was once the Norman's national air, and which the warlike Margaret of Anjou had retaught her ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... means of this divine passion that the world is kept ever fresh and young. It is the perpetual melody of humanity. It sheds an effulgence upon youth, and throws a halo round age. It glorifies the present by the light it casts backward, and it lightens the future by the beams it casts forward. The love which is the outcome of esteem and admiration, has an elevating and purifying effect on the character. ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of this charming poetess must be like an AEolian harp, that every sighing wind awakes to music, but to grave and chastened melody, the full charm of which can only be truly appreciated by those who have sorrowed, and who look beyond this earth for ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... 'member de old songs? Hallelujah, I sho does!" The old darkey began to pat his foot and clap his hands while he sang, "Pickin' out de cotton an' de bolls all rotten", repeating the same line over and over to a sing-song melody as impossible of transcription as a bird-call. Suddenly his smiling face fell serious and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... get above my daily work, and be perpetually thinking of God and His will, and consciously realising communion with Him?' But there is such a thing as having an undercurrent of consciousness running all through a man's life and mind; such a thing as having a melody sounding in our ears perpetually, 'so sweet we know not we are listening to it' until it stops, and then, by the poverty of the naked and silent atmosphere, we know how musical were the sounds that we scarcely ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... orange cat arched its back and rubbed its head against her. She kicked it fiercely, and its snarl of pain seemed to bring her to her senses. She picked the creature up and stroked it. The bird in the cage broke into a mad little melody. How morbid she was growing! She had been depressed by her ridiculous dinner and Lucretius had been most unpleasant. He was such a fool, too, in his idea of love. The brevity of the heated hours was the flame's best fuel. Venus the Plunderer seemed to smile, ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... sermones joculares moveat, conciones ridiculas, dicteria falsa, suaves historias, fabulas venustas recenseat, coram ludat, &c., still have a pleasant companion to sing and tell merry tales, songs and facete histories, sweet discourse, &c. And as the melody of music, merriment, singing, dancing, doth augment the passion of some lovers, as [5628] Avicenna notes, so it expelleth it in others, and doth very much good. These things must be warily applied, as the parties' symptoms vary, and as ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... explain," she told him, "since any explanation of it presupposes some knowledge of melody and of music, while your very question indicates that you have ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it takes years to establish this understanding between an inert matter and himself. He did not discover, at the first touch, the resources, the caprices, the deficiencies, the excellencies of his instrument. It did not become a living soul for him, a source of incomparable melody until he had studied for a long time; man and instrument did not come to understand each other like two friends, until both of them had been skillfully questioned and tested by ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... had his face so perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms, of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It pondered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length, when the lark came headlong down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped among the green wheat near him, rippling in the breath of the morning like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... group of trees further on, to listen to the song of a thrush, which was so full of melody that they approached him quite close without his noticing them, Nell and her aunt were amused by seeing two rooks quarrelling over a worm which they had both got hold of at the same time, one at either end ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... would evermore weigh down my spirits—a dark remembrance would ever stand between me and the sunny skies—a tone, as of the dying and the dead, would ever mingle with the sounds of melody, with the voice of love, with the words of ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... (for so it is called) is not artistic to the eye and loses all its poetry when one sees its owner blowing his nose into it but the notes emanating from it breathe a vague sense of melody ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... at least, is a portion of the service which I can enjoy better than if I sat within the walls, where the full choir and the massive melody of the organ would fall with a weight upon me. At this distance it thrills through my frame and plays upon my heart-strings with a pleasure both of the sense and spirit. Heaven be praised! I know nothing of music as a science, and the most elaborate harmonies, if they please ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... see everything yet perfectly well aware of the Sirens' magnetic power, had himself tightly bound by cords to the mast. So whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars, oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them, the clever King of Ithaca gained the honour of becoming the only mortal who had listened to that subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous and ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... suffer pride to stand in the way of the talents with which Providence has blest me; to scorn the little delicacies of art, which I execute so well, would, in my opinion, be as absurd as for an epic poet to disdain the composition of a perfect epigram, or a consummate musician, the melody ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which thou canst not see, Or an eye 'neath its sleeping lid, The tune of a far off melody, The voice of a stream that's hid; Such must I still remain to thee, ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... there can be little doubt that Borrow intended The Gold Horns for that volume, and rejected it at last. He was conscious, perhaps, that his hand had lacked the skill needful to reproduce a lyric the melody of which would have taxed the powers of Coleridge or of Shelley. Nevertheless, his attempt seems worthy ...
— The Gold Horns • Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager
... O teeming City, was it meet Thy lover, thy most faithful, should repose, But where the multitudinous life-tide flows Whose ocean-murmur was to him more sweet Than melody of birds at morn, or bleat Of flocks in Spring-time, there should Earth enclose His earth, amid thy thronging joys and woes, There, 'neath the music of thy million feet. In love of thee this lover ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson |
