"Minstrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now begins again Her courtship with the flowers; She chants in groves her minstrel strain, She smiles, and frowns, and weeps in rain Of ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... suggestions for teaching "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," in The Teaching of English, ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... meter of Mr. Scott's admirable romances."—Quarterly Review. "'A Tale of Drury.' by Walter Scott, is, upon the whole, admirably execuated; though the introduction is rather tame. The burning is described with the mighty minstrel's characteristic love of localitics. The catastrophe is described with a spirit not unworthy of the name so ventureously assumed by ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... rending, not the ordinary domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces forever in collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle,—nay, of living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not cathedrals built in those ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the thirties the melody of these slave songs stirred the nation, but the songs were soon half forgotten. Some, like "Near the lake where drooped the willow," passed into current airs and their source was forgotten; others were caricatured on the "minstrel" stage and their memory died away. Then in war-time came the singular Port Royal experiment after the capture of Hilton Head, and perhaps for the first time the North met the Southern slave face to face and heart to heart with no third witness. The Sea Islands of the Carolinas, ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... probables, the possibles, the highly unlikelies, and the impossibles. Never an echo to the minstrel's wooing song. No, my dear, we have got to take to the boats this time. Unless, of course, some one possessed at one and the same time of twenty thousand pounds and a very confiding nature happens ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... prison houses of earth all memories must die, yet as there sometimes clings to a prisoner's feet some dust of the fields wherein he was captured, so sometimes fragments of remembrance cling to a man's soul after it hath been taken to earth. Then a great minstrel arises, and, weaving together the shreds of his memories, maketh some melody such as the hand of Shimono Kani smites out of his harp; and they that pass by say: 'Hath there not been some such melody before?' and pass on sad at heart for memories ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... in disguise as a minstrel?" said Denham banteringly—"like King Alfred did when he went to see about the Danes? Have you got a ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... freshness seemed perennial, the silence was suddenly broken by a strain so rapid and gushing, and touched with such a wild, sylvan plaintiveness, that I listened in amazement. And so shy and coy was the little minstrel, that I came twice to the woods before I was sure to whom I was listening. In summer, he is one of those birds of the deep Northern forests, that, like the Speckled Canada Warbler and the Hermit-Thrush, only the privileged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... been tempted to quote against them Alphonse Karr's well-known epigram: "A woman who writes, commits two sins: she increases the number of books, and she decreases the number of women;" for they were content, for the most part, to be the source of inspiration for their minstrel knights. Violante's gay court was looked upon with questioning eye, however, by the majority of her rude subjects, and, finally, when the sum demanded from the Cortes each year for the maintenance of this ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... fail to recognise the magnetic influence." Chopin's place among the great pianists of the second quarter of this century has been felicitously characterised by an anonymous contemporary: Thalberg, he said, is a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a sibyl, and Doehler ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... days it remained at that. Discharging cargo in the furnace of Coco Inlet, if my thoughts went back to Taai, it was almost with the deprecating amusement a man will feel who has been had by a hoax. If those minstrel husbands were murdered and buried; if that Broadway imp sweated under the red-hot roof of the godown; if that incomparable, golden-skinned heiress of cannibal emperors sat staring seaward from the gilded cage of the Dutchman, awaiting ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Mehevi's making the discovery, I had never been aware that there was anything of the nightingale about me; but I was now promoted to the place of court-minstrel, in which capacity I was afterwards ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... this," Homer said. "The forming of El Hassan's basic government is beginning to take on aspects of a minstrel show. Then we've all declared ourselves in ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... build and launch boats; to sail them, finally, across the strip of water to that England he was to meet at last, to grapple with, and overthrow, even as the English huscarles in their turn bore down on that gay Minstrel Taillefer, who rode so insolently forth to meet them, with a song in his throat, tossing his sword in English eyes, still chanting the song of Roland as he fell. None of the inn features were in the least informed with this great, impressive ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... was a land which was so much a woodland, that a minstrel thereof said it that a squirrel might go from end to end, and all about, from tree to tree, and never touch the earth: therefore was ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... and villages like Baturanjah, dear to the votaries of pleasure; and with the roar of a gigantic capital mingled the hum of prayer, the trilling of birds, the thrilling of harp and lute, the shrilling of pipes, the witching strains of the professional Almah, and the minstrel's lay. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... ended;— Even as his song the willowy scent of spring Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing, And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun, In strains that ever delicately run; So musical and wise, page after page, The sage a minstrel grows, the bard a sage. The dew of youth fills yet his late-sprung flowers, And day-break glory haunts his evening hours. Ah, such a life prefigures its own moral: That first "Last Leaf" is now a leaf of laurel, Which—smiling not, but trembling at the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... that did one good to look at. And there was a friend to share his pleasure: a Turk dressed in scarlet, and covered all over with daggers and pistols, sat leaning forward on his little stool, rocking about, and grinning quite as eagerly as the black minstrel. As he sang and we listened, figures of women bearing pitchers went passing over the Roman bridge, which we saw between the large trunks of the planes; or grey forms of camels were seen stalking across it, the string preceded by the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... toward the castle of the prince. He is a minstrel, as well as a knight, and at the castle he will meet other minstrels who are his friends, and they are all to sing for a prize which the prince has offered. There is as much happiness in the heart of the knight as in everything around him, for he loves ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... the minstrel strike the lute, And wake once more a soothing tone— Alas! its strings, untuned, are mute, Or ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... the progress of amateur acting in this country, from the impersonation of a Danish minstrel by ALFRED THE GREAT, to the Victory Varieties Matinee arranged ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... distinguished in rank, fashion, and letters of the Scottish metropolis. He writes to his daughter 12th February, 1809: "Among the literary men of Edinburgh I have met M'Kenzie, author of the Man of Feeling, and Scott, author of the Minstrel. I met both frequently, and from both received civilities and hospitality. M'Kenzie has twelve children—six daughters, all very interesting and handsome. He is remarkably sprightly in company, amiable, witty—might pass for forty-two, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... were I but a minstrel, deft At weaving, with the trembling strings Of my glad harp, the warp and weft Of rondels such as rapture sings,— I'd loop my lyre across my breast, Nor stay me till my knee found rest In midnight banks of bud and ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... in Beattie's "Minstrel," first book, in which his "visionary boy," after "the storm of summer rain," views "the rainbow brighten to the setting sun," and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... be mentioned, namely, the minstrel Orpheus. He was the son of the muse Calliope, and was looked on as the first of the many glorious singers of Greece, who taught the noblest and best lessons. His music, when he played on the lyre, was so sweet, that ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... darkened. Thee, now, methinks, I see, O bard divine! Where ripen no fair joys that are not thine, And God's full love is pleased on thee to shine, Still by the heavenly Muses fired, And starred among the angelic minstrel band, The sacred lyre thou sway'st with sovereign hand, While seraphs, in awed rapture, round thee stand, As one by God ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... hand-in-hand along the home-meadow where the snowdrops and crocuses grew. They had pulled some of the white and yellow blossoms, and had then stood still to listen to the flute-like voice of an unseen minstrel. Hand-in-hand they listened; the little boy with his large brown eyes fixed on the tree from whence came the song, the little girl with her baby-face uplifted, and one pink finger held up as much as to ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... academic French sculptors, except Chapu indeed, absolutely and integrally a romanticist, completely enamoured of the Renaissance. The two are so distinct as to be contradictory. The moment M. Dubois gives us the type in a "Florentine Minstrel," to the exclusion of the personal and the particular, he fails in imaginativeness and falls back on the conventional. The type of a "Florentine Minstrel" is infallibly a convention. M. Dubois, not being occupied directly with the ideal, is bound to carry his ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... the minstrel's art, The pleasant gift of verse, Though his hopes decay, though his friends depart, Can ever be a curse;— Though sorrow reign within his heart, And ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... bold, the minstrel tender, Not with the ringing sound of shield and lance, Not with the Field of Gold in all its splendor, Died out the generous flame ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... and gleamed like fairy lamps of fire; and the bowers, in which the "Sultana of the Nightingale" inspired a song from her minstrel lover, assumed the dream-like repose which pervaded the surrounding scenes, and extended its influence to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... the days of jarl and hersir, while yet the world was young, And sagas of gods and heroes the grim-lipped minstrel sung, With the beak of his open galley in the sunset's scarlet flame, Over the wild Atlantic the Norseland ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... jointly are the wine-filled cup, the rose, the minstrel; yet While we lack love, no bliss is here: where ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... track the outlaws, who had dared to commit this insolent deed, when Etienne appeared to announce that several of their people had not returned home from the fire, and amongst them his own fellow page, the minstrel of the previous ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... night. He was abroad at the, same hours as the burglars and garroters, and other owls and weasels of society. Fink & Co. (Bog was the Co.) had secured the bill posting for three theatres and one negro-minstrel hall. This they called their heavy business. Carrying the huge damp placards, had already given to Bog's shoulders a manifest tendency to roundness, which he was constantly trying to overcome by straightening up. Fink, who was the veteran ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... election in Arkansas in 1872 was that Brooks got the votes and Baxter the office, whereupon a contest was inaugurated, terminating in civil war. The Baxter, or Minstrel, wing of the party, with the view of spiking the guns of the Brindles, had, in their overtures to the Democrats during the campaign and in their platform at the nominating convention declared in favor of enfranchising the Confederates that took part ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... arose within the hall the din of voices and the sound of song; the instruments also were brought out and Hrothgar's minstrel sang a ballad for the delight of the warriors. Waltheow too came forth, bearing in her train presents for Beowulf—a cup, two armlets, raiment and rings, and the largest and richest collar that could be found in ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... man of the negro minstrel troupe is a modern creation like the Greek phlyax, for he is a buffoon of the plantation-negro type, with every feature exaggerated to the utmost, so that he is unreal and a caricature; but the exaggerations direct attention to familiar facts and display characteristic features which ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone. Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from the other the two state drawing-rooms,—a broad half-story colonnade, with central opening and corners ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... of Homer as literary critic we should not pass by, as he does not often take that part. Alcinous, praising the tale of Ulysses, says: "Form of words is thine, and a noble meaning, and a mythus, as when a minstrel sings." Three important qualities of poetry are therein set forth: beauty of language, nobleness of content, and the fable in its totality—all of which belong to the preceding narrative. Moreover, Alcinous draws a sharp contrast with that other sort of ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... music that pleases them is not always the best, for the simple reason they do not know what is best. As fast as they learn better, they drop whatever is before them and at once take up something else. The sudden disappearance of negro minstrel music is an evidence of this. The people outgrew it, and it passed away, as it were, ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... last evening charmingly; I read the Lay of the Last Minstrel aloud to him, and he seemed to enjoy it very much," ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... memorials, dear to the vanquished Welsh; for did not Arthur, the great King Arthur, the hero of a thousand fights, the subject of gleeman's melody and of the minstrel's praise, lie buried here? if indeed he were dead, and not ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... smiled. 'The minstrel's song has charmed you: but I must remember what is right, for songs cannot alter justice; and I must be faithful to my name. Alcinous I am called, the man of sturdy sense; and Alcinous I will be.' But for all that Arete besought him, until she won ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... and song, Music and books led the glad hours along; Worlds of the visioned minstrel, fancy-wove, Tales of old time, of chivalry and love; Or converse calm, or wit-shafts sprinkled round, Like beams from gems, too light and fine to wound; With spirits sparkling as the morning's sun, Light as the dancing ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... was a minstrel show. It was worse than a minstrel show; it was profoundly corrupt. Lobbyists openly paid legislators, black and white, for their votes. And what is more, the money was parceled out to each one on the very floor of the Senate and House. This corruption ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... not what I think of,' said Eleanor. 'It is to see our own Margaret, and to see and hear the minstrel knights, instead of the rude savages here, scarce one of ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... keen and close observation of the actors of the period, collected into one focus, and pointed and irradiated by the power of genius. As Scott, while carelessly galloping in his youth through Liddesdale, and listening to ballads and old-world stories, was "making himself" into the mighty minstrel of the border—so this big, clumsy, overgrown student, seated in the pit of Drury Lane, or exalted to the one-shilling gallery of Covent Garden, was silently growing into the greatest poet of the stage that, perhaps, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... gaining presently, she steered light Into a shady, fresh, and ripply cove, 430 Where nested was an arbour, overwove By many a summer's silent fingering; To whose cool bosom she was used to bring Her playmates, with their needle broidery, And minstrel memories of times ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... to give the author's name—Touroude (Latinised "Turoldus")—but this may have been the name of the jongleur who sang, or the transcriber who copied. The date of the poem lies between that of the battle of Hastings, 1066, where the minstrel Taillefer sang in other words the deeds of Roland, and the year 1099. The poet was probably a Norman, and he may have been one of the Norman William's followers ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... saw-mills and village of Ellaville were located on the river-bank opposite Columbus, and this lumber establishment is the only place of importance between it and Cedar Keys. This far-famed river, to which the heart of the minstrel's darky "is turning eber," is, in fact, almost without the "one little hut among de bushes," for it is a wild and lonely stream. Even in the most prosperous times there were but few plantations upon its shores. Wild animals roam its great forests, and vile reptiles infest the dense swamps. ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... headaches in the morning. Punch was too sweet, you see. Sweet punch is sure to make your headache. He! he! But I'm done with clubs and Delmonico's, you know. I'm going to settle down and be a steady family man." Walking to the door, he sang in capital minstrel style: ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... hear the truth in the mouth of the vagrant minstrel, one who possibly has no trou wherein to lay his head." Et moi aussi, je reste dans mon trou, et mon trou est assez beau pour que j'y reste, car mon trou est—Richard Wagner. My trou is the Ring—the Sacrosanct Ring. Again I fall to musing. The intention of Liszt and Wagner and Strauss ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... originality is dubious. In the English, and in all Scots versions, men "win their hay" at Lammastide. In Scotland the hay harvest is often much later. But if the English ballad be NORTHUMBRIAN, little can be made out of that proof of Scottish origin. If the English version be a southern version (for the minstrel is a professional), then Lammastide for hay-making ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... was long, the sun was hot, the minstrel (as surely he may be called who carries a musical box) was more than once in two minds about turning back. He perspired under his absurdly ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... King Charles, if God decrees he must be lord of Spain, Shall witness that the Leonese were not aroused in vain; He shall bear witness that we died, as lived our sires of old, Nor only of Numantium's pride shall minstrel tales ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... in a plaid and a kilt!—after Culloden. Or, in gayer moods, the same dolls attended his receptions at Holyrood in garish garments, or masqueraded as Mary Queen of Scots and her four Maries in that 'turret chamber high of ancient Holyrood' where 'she summoned Rizzio with his lute and bade the minstrel play.' ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... years that are gone," he said, "love was more fortunate. Grief was our minstrel of things that endure. Now, ashes and dust and this world grow importunate. Time has no sorrow that time cannot cure. Once, we could lose, and the loss was worth cherishing. Now, we may win, but, O, where is the ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... the frosts, and now the fields appear Re-cloth'd in fresh and verdant diaper. Thaw'd are the snows, and now the lusty spring Gives to each mead a neat enamelling. The palms put forth their gems, and every tree Now swaggers in her leafy gallantry. The while the Daulian minstrel sweetly sings, With warbling notes, her Terean sufferings. What gentle winds perspire! As if here Never had been the northern plunderer To strip the trees and fields, to their distress, Leaving them to a pitied nakedness. And look how ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... is o'er," said all; "Silent now the bugle's call. Love should be the warrior's dream,— Love alone the minstrel's theme. Sing us Rose-leaves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... to her that his silence was eloquent of the inherent generosity of the man, even as his poetic outburst of a few minutes before had been eloquent of the minstrel in him. She rode in silence, regarding him critically from time to time, and when they came to the tree where the panther hung he gave her the calf to hold while he deftly skinned the dead marauder, tied the pelt behind his saddle, relieved her of the calf and jogged ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Notes on the Months, p.418, the Song "Bryng us in good ale," copied from the MS. song-book of an Ipswich Minstrel of the 15th century, read by Mr Thomas Wright before the British Archological Association, August, 1864, and afterwards published in The Gentleman's Magazine. P.S.—The song was first printed complete in Mr Wright's edition of Songs & ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... of the coming time, Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, Good-bye! Good-bye!—Our hearts and hands, Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, Cry, God be with him, till he stands His feet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... the ready little volume and the iron-rimmed spectacles, he prepared to discharge a duty, which nothing but the unexpected assault he had received in his orthodoxy could have so long suspended. He was, in truth, a minstrel of the western continent—of a much later day, certainly, than those gifted bards, who formerly sang the profane renown of baron and prince, but after the spirit of his own age and country; and he was now prepared to exercise the cunning of his craft, in celebration of, or rather in thanksgiving ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Martin, and placed under the protection of St. Julian the Martyr. The chapel was consecrated on the last Sunday in September, 1335, and on the front of it there were three figures, one representing a troubadour, one a minstrel, and one a juggler, each with his ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... minstrel out in the crowd, and pretty soon he struck up his fiddle and his lay, and he did not exactly sing the virtues of Billy Bayhone. Evidently some partisan thought he ought, for he smote him on the thigh with the toe of his boot and raised such a stir as a rude stranger might had ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... when feasters roared And minstrels waited turns, Of the might of the men that Troy adored, Of the valor in vain of the Trojan sword, With the love that slakeless burns, That caught and blazed in the minstrel mind Or ever the age of pen. So maids and a minstrel rebuilt Troy, Out of the ashes they rebuilt Troy To live in the hearts ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... despotism which poets have celebrated in the "Pied Piper of Hamelin," whose music drew like the power of gravitation,—drew soldiers and priests, traders and feasters, women and boys, rats and mice; or that of the minstrel of Meudon, who made the pallbearers dance around the bier. This is a power of many degrees, and requiring in the orator a great range of faculty and experience, requiring a large composite man, such as Nature rarely organizes, so that, in our experience, we are forced to gather up the figure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... framework of a dramatic work from his elaborate story. The point in this popular pamphlet which had so much weight with me was that it brought 'Tannhauser,' if only by a passing hint, into touch with 'The Minstrel's War on the Wartburg.' I had some knowledge of this also from Hoffmann's account in his Serapionsbrudern. But I felt that the writer had only grasped the old legend in a distorted form, and therefore endeavoured to gain a closer acquaintance with the ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys. Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, As, floating from lip and finger, arose ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... be to become a hermit on some far mountain side, wearing a grey robe, clear-browed and calmly speculative under the stars—or, maybe,—more wonderful: a singer for men, a travelling minstrel—in each case, whether minstrel or hermit, whether teaching great doctrines or singing great songs for all the world—to have come to me, as a pilgrim seeking enlightenment, the most beautiful maiden in the world, one who was innocent of what man meant. And together ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... stand Upon new flowers, the while her dizzied eyes Gazed wildly round on half-seen mysteries, And wandered from unnoting face to face. For round a fountain midst the flowery place Did she behold full many a minstrel girl; While nigh them, on the grass in giddy whirl, Bright raiment and white limbs and sandalled feet Flew round in time unto the music sweet, Whose strains no more were pensive now nor sad, But rather a fresh sound of triumph had; And round the ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... thou, fair world, no more? Return, thou virgin-bloom on Nature's face; Ah, only on the Minstrel's magic shore, Can we the footstep of sweet Fable trace! The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life; Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft; Where once the warm and living shapes were rife, Shadows ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... been favourably impressed by the lad's personality. Now it was impossible not to admire and laugh as Ron played imaginary bagpipes on the end of his walking-stick, or droned out lugubrious ballads in imitation of a strolling minstrel who had visited the inn the night before. The ballad dramatised the circumstances of the moment: the perilous ascent, the wandering of three strangers across the moor, the flowing bowl which was to refresh and strengthen them for the return journey. Ron's knowledge of the native dialect was so ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... performance. However long our weary strollers might delay it, in the empty hope of our going home content, there we waited until the curtain went up. It was a dreary piece of business, varied by horse-play considered "kind o' rough" by even the more boisterous among us. Sometimes it was given, minstrel-wise, in the time-honored panoply of burnt cork; again, poor weary souls! they lacked even the spirit to blacken themselves, and clinging to the same dialogue, played boldly in Caucasian fairness, with the pathetically futile disguise ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... rule. The host might wish first to call out more of his own intellectual treasures. This he would do by having other occupants of the castle speak further words of welcome, or would call upon a minstrel to sing a song or relate some deed ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... as if he had been a bolster, and bore him away. At first the men of the place wanted to hang him on the spot, but Gurnet claimed him as his prisoner, and would not allow this. He gave him his liberty, and the poor wretch maintained himself for many a day as a wandering minstrel. At last he managed to get on board of a Spanish vessel, and was never more heard of, but he left his guitar behind him. It was picked up on the shore, where he left it, probably, in his ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the reader's mind with curious effect, occurring, as they often do, in the midst of a grave discourse. Thus he says of a poor minstrel: "You would say that the sound of his bow would burst the arteries, and that his voice was more discordant than the lamentations of a man for the death of his father;" and of another bad singer: "No ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Vildergersen, a renowned viking, sailed from Norway to discover Iceland in the year 868, and took with him two ravens as guides, for in those days the "seamen had no lodestone (that is, no lidar stein, or leading stone) in the northern countries." The Bible, a poem of Guiot de Provins, minstrel at the court of Barbarossa, which was written in or about the year 890, contains the first mention of the magnet in the West. Guiot relates how mariners have an "art which cannot deceive" of finding the position of the polestar, that does not move. After touching a needle ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... wide heath now moon-tide horrors hung, And night's dark pencil dim'd the tints of spring; The boding minstrel now harsh omens sung, And the bat spread ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... much has reached our days of Fairy song and dance, it is not surprising that we are told that the beautiful Welsh melody, Toriad y Dydd, or the Dawn of Day, is the work of a Fairy minstrel, and that this song was chanted by the Fairy company just as the pale light in the east announced the approach ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... that such an accomplished poet as Raymond of Toulouse must be admitted to the contest. "But, at all events," she told her sisters, "that renowned minstrel shall bring no polished work of long study to match against the untutored outpourings of my favourite's heart. Already have I ordained, with my assistant judges, that since some one of the contestants may be tempted to present a poem not his own, plagiarism shall be counted the one unpardonable ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... outburst of Christmas joy in a popular tongue is found in Italy, in the poems of that strange "minstrel of the Lord," the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi (b. 1228, d. 1306). Franciscan, in that name we have an indication of the change in religious feeling that came over the western world, and |37| especially Italy, in the thirteenth century.{9} For the twenty all-too-short years of St. Francis's ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... thy weak warbling dare approach the thrush Or blackbird's accents in the hawthorn bush? Or with the lark dost thou poor mimic, vie, Or nightingale's unequal'd melody? These other birds possessing twice thy fire Have been content in silence to admire." "With candor judge," the minstrel bird replied, "Nor deem my efforts arrogance or pride; Think not ambition makes me act this part, I only sing because I love the art: I envy not, indeed, but much revere Those birds whose fame the test of skill will bear; I feel no hope ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim: Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Garments rich, and white, and lovely, And a golden crown to crown him. While the empyrean minstrels rising, All in flowing garments vested, Some with harps and some with timbrels, Some with lutes and some with trumpets, All in goodly order mingled, In the skill of gay perfection; Far the minstrel band extendeth Like a wilderness of grandeur. As a sea of flowing white waves Mingled up with diamond ripples; As the moon on sparkling waters, Comes the light from glowing beacons, Dancing on their crowns of glory, Far and ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... misfortune's wheel would land him. Interesting people visited the booth continually. Now it was a party of royal guardsmen to buy weapons,—splendid mail-clad giants who ate at King Olaf's board, slept a his hall, and fought to the death at his side. Again it was a minstrel, with a harp at his back, who stopped to rest and exchange a song for a horn of mead. Once the Queen herself, riding in a shining gilded wagon, came in and bought some of the graceful spiral bracelets. She said that Alwin's eyes were as bright as ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... audience Judge Luttrell had Tony's mother, dressed in lovely black silk and also full of pride, while Mr. Chadwell kept nodding to Pink's mother at everything that Pink did, like there never had been a negro minstrel before. I thought of Father being the only lonely one up on the platform and with only me to be a credit to him—and me not doing it. I prayed for an immediate plan and as I prayed, as is my custom, I acted. I asked Mr. ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Smith, Tucker. Metaphysics: Reid. Theological and Religious Writers: Campbell, Paley, Watson, Newton, Hannah More, and Wilberforce. Poetry: Comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan; Minor Poets; Later Poems; Beattie's Minstrel; Cowper and Burns. 5. The Nineteenth Century. The Poets: Campbell, Southey, Scott, Byron; Coleridge and Wordsworth; Wilson, Shelley, Keats; Crabbe, Moore, and others; Tennyson, Browning, Procter, and others. Fiction: the Waverley and other Novels; Dickens, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... certainly no flattery in this," replied Lucie; "but I will confess nothing,—except that I danced away my spirits last evening, and was most melodiously disturbed afterwards, by some strolling minstrel. Were you not annoyed by unseasonable music, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... palace built, whereon to gaze, And sighing, shivering there around to stray; To give a penny would the niggard craze, And worse than bane he hates the minstrel's lay. ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... was able to see clearly once more, I perceived that Gussie was now seated. He had his hands on his knees, with his elbows out at right angles, like a nigger minstrel of the old school about to ask Mr. Bones why a chicken crosses the road, and he was staring before him with a smile so fixed and pebble-beached that I should have thought that anybody could have guessed that there sat one in whom the old familiar juice was plashing up against the ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... cabinet had left little except a burglar's tool or two here and there to mark its operations, and, with the aged and infirm General Scott at the head of a little army, and no encouragement except from the Abolitionists, many of whom had never seen a colored man outside of a minstrel performance, the President stole incog. into Washington, like a man who had agreed ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... her lover's side and looked out over the courtyard of the castle. Beneath her she saw the cobble-stones all scratched and marred with gray bruises from the horses' hoofs, a faded purple ribbon dropped from the mandolin of a minstrel, three slightly imperfect wassails and a trencher with a nick on the rim, all that had not been used of the wild boar at last night's feast, a peach-stone like a wrinkled almond nestling in a sardine tin. Slowly ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... as a wandering minstrel and went into the camp of the Danes. He strolled here and there, playing on a harp and singing Saxon ballads. At last, Guth'rum, the commander of the Danes, ordered the minstrel to be ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... said Tucket, starting for the rendezvous, and striking into another quotation from his favorite minstrel, parodied for the occasion. "'Speed, Manly, speed! the cow's tough hide on fleeter foot was ne'er tied. Speed, Manly, speed! such cause of haste a drummer's sinews never braced. For turkey's doom and rebel deed are in thy course—speed, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... dramatic plot of Canticles. Budde has failed altogether to convince readers of the Song that no consistent story runs through it. It is, as has been said above, incredible that we should have before us nothing more than the disconnected ditties of a Syrian wedding-minstrel. Graetz knew nothing of the repertoire theory that has been based on Wetzstein's discoveries of modern Syrian marriage songs and dances. Graetz believed, as most still do, that Canticles is a whole, not an aggregation of parts; yet he held that, not only the dramatis ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... what fairy melody comes wafted on the gale— Oh! 'tis "Fenella's" sighing lute, in notes of woe and wail: "Claud Halero" catches at the strain, and mourns the minstrel gone, "His spirit rest in peace where sleeps the shade of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... that I was, for never Had I asked the maiden's name. Was it Lieschen—was it Gretchen? Had she tin, or whence she came? So I took my trusty meerschaum, And I took my lute likewise; Wandered forth in minstrel fashion, Underneath the louring skies: Sang before each comely Wirthshaus, Sang beside each purling stream, That same ditty which I chanted When Undine was my theme, Singing, as I sang at Jena, When the shifts were hung ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... pleasure and farther delighted to recognize a well-known face on the minstrel's shoulders, she hastened at the conclusion to give him her compliments. It was the young nobleman who had aided her flight with Clemenceau at Munich, and of whom she had not cherished a second thought! Better than all, while ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... evenings have set in, and our ancestors in hall or cottage assemble round the blazing hearth, and listen to the minstrel's lays, and recite their oft-told tales of adventure and romance. Sometimes they indulge in asking each other riddles, and there exists at the present time an old collection of these early efforts of wit and humour which are not of a very high order. ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... super in the sensational drama She, by H. Rider Haggard. Two Englishmen were penetrating the mysterious jungles of Africa, and I was their native guide and porter. They had me all blacked up like a negro minstrel, but this wasn't a funny show, it was a drama of mystery and terror. While I was guiding the English travelers through the jungle of the local stage, we penetrated into the land ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... streaming on the wind, swings back her scythe in order to cut down a company of the rich ones of the earth, Castruccio Castracani and his gay companions, seated under an orange-grove, and listening to the music of a troubadour and a female minstrel; little genii or Cupids, with reversed torches, float in the air above them; one young gallant caresses his hawk, a lady her lapdog,—Castruccio alone looks abstractedly away, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. But all are alike heedless and unconscious, though the sand ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... attention to this wandering minstrel: he is happy if at the close of his song a penny finds its way into the battered hat he extends for largess. He is clearly a stranger to this part of the world, and has probably tramped down here from London by easy stages, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... sound, Sylvans and Fauns the Cot surround, And curious crowd the Minstrel to behold: The Wood-nymphs haste the spell to prove; Eager They run; They list, they love, And while They hear the strain, forget the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... a difficult matter. That of a minstrel would be the best passport, but I know nought of harp or other instrument. I might go as a vendor of philters and charms, a sort of half-witted chap, ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... already the Gift of Truth," she replied, "and I will add to that the Gift of Prophecy, and of writing wondrous verses; and here is a harp that was fashioned in Fairyland. With its music, set to thine own words, no minstrel on earth shall be to thee a rival. So shall all the world know for certain that thou learnedst the art from no earthly teacher; and some day, perchance, I ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... occasionally to de towns around Pope and Yell and Johnson counties, and folks treat us mighty fine. Big crowds—played to $47.00 clear money at Clarksville. Usually take about eight and ten in our comp'ny, boys and gals—and we give em a real hot minstrel show. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... touching and simple charm of the scene. A group had stopped round a player on the guitar, with which we made a tolerable accompaniment to some foreign songs. My ear was caught by a chorus which I had often heard among the French peasantry, and I joined in the applause. The minstrel was ragged and pale, and had evidently met with no small share of the buffets of fortune; but, cheered by our approval, he volunteered to sing the masterpiece of his collection—"The Rising of the Vendee"—the rallying-song of the insurrection, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... powerful charm, Sate with Pigwiggin arm in arm; Her merry maids, that thought no harm, About the room were skipping; A humble-bee, their minstrel, played Upon his hautboy, every maid Fit for this revel was arrayed, The ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... at dinner, pending which I waited for him at the door of his canvas gallery. He evidently seeks to magnify his calling, does this raw youth of the camera, by affecting what he conceives to be the traditional garb of the artistic Bohemian, but which resembles more closely the costume of the minstrel stage—a battered silk hat, surmounting flowing locks glistening with hair-oil; a loose velveteen jacket, over a gay figured vest; and a great brass watch-chain, from which dangle silver coins. As ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... good practical joke; as the garland adorning The hair of a maiden it shines, as the balm that is shed On the brain of a wandering minstrel; it comes without warning, Transmuting to gold an existence that once was as lead. It glads, it rejoices the soul; recollecting it after One well-nigh explodes; but I say there are seasons for laughter, And, like other ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... only was he a perfect knight on horseback, but in wrestling and running, throwing the hammer, and "putting the stane," he had scarcely a rival, and he was skilled in all the learned lore of the time, wrote poetry, composed music both sacred and profane, and was a complete minstrel, able to sing beautifully and to play on the harp and organ. His queen, the beautiful Joan Beaufort, had been the lady of his minstrelsy in the days of his captivity, ever since he had watched her walking on the slopes of Windsor Park, and wooed her in verses that are still preserved. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains. O I have listen'd, till my working soul, Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies, Absorb'd, hath ceas'd to listen! Therefore oft I hymn thy name; and with a proud delight Oft will I tell thee, minstrel of the moon, Most musical, most melancholy bird! That all thy soft diversities of tone, Though sweeter far than the delicious airs That vibrate from a white-arm'd lady's harp, What time the languishment of lonely love Melts in her eye, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... that could satisfy the emotions of a patriotic person. But it certainly is not the sort of poem that is expected from a Poet Laureate, either on the highest or the lowest theory of his office. He is either a great minstrel singing the victories of a great king, or he is a common Court official like the Groom of the Powder Closet. In the first case his praises should be true; in the second case they will nearly always be false; ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... Wordsworth, and English downs and meadows, near to me at once, and I was eager to hear it. So early one morning we left the Pleasanton, our tarrying-place, and climbed the long, pastoral slope above the city, where cattle and horses were grazing, and listened for this minstrel from the motherland. We had not long to wait. Sure enough, not far from us there sprang from the turf Shelley's bird, and went climbing his invisible spiral toward the sky, pouring out those hurried, ecstatic notes, just as I had heard him above the South Downs of England. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... poems on very different subjects. To give some idea of their variety, it may be mentioned that, amongst other poems of an entirely distinct character, there are religious pieces, many riddles, the legends of two saints, the Scald's or Ancient Minstrel's tale of his travels, and a poem on the 'Various ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... the first new dust of dream God took For making man and hope and love and graves Had kindled to its fate. Before the floods Had folded round the hills. Before the rainbow Born of cloud had taught the sky its tints, The Lightning Minstrel was. The cry of Vague To Vague. The Chaos-voice that rolled and crept From out the pale bewildered wonder-stuff That wove the worlds, Before the Hand had stirred that touched them, While still, hinged on nothing, ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the same disguise. It was also said of Aldhelm, one of the leading scholars of the eighth century: "He was an excellent harper, a most eloquent Saxon and Latin poet, a most expert chanter, or a singer, a doctor egregius, and admirably versed in scriptures and liberal sciences." The minstrel was a regular and stated officer of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Poetry is always the earliest form of literature; song the earliest form of poetry. The Muse adapts her lessons to the nation's infancy and adds the charm of melody to verse. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... next generation, the railway will run down the romances of Nutrib; a cotton manufactory will send up its smokes to blot out the celestial blue by day, and shoot forth its sullen illumination by night, over the anointed soil; the minstrel will turn policeman, and the sheik be a justice of peace; political economy will have its itinerant lecturers, enlightening the Bedouins on the principles of rent and taxes; the city will have a lord mayor and corporation of the deepest black; the volcano will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... scarcely any slang songs of merit. With a race of depredators so melodious and convivial as our highwaymen, this is the more to be wondered at. Had they no bards amongst their bands? Was there no minstrel at hand to record their exploits? I can only call to mind one robber who was a poet,—Delany, and he was an Irishman. This barrenness, I have shown, is not attributable to the poverty of the soil, but to the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... avowal the Professor had had a spangled past; had been an adventurer and a wanton, a wandering minstrel bard; had even been in jail. This background of admitted transgressions, now that he was so completely reformed and reclaimed, merely made him an all-the-more attractive figure in the eyes of those to whom he offered confession. Again, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... hungry; she gave lodgings to the houseless; welcomed the wanderer; and rich and poor, and learned and illiterate, alike received shelter and hospitality. Under her roof the scholar completed his education; the historian sought and found the materials for his history; the minstrel chanted lays of mingled piety and love for his loaf and raiment; the sculptor carved in wood, or cast in silver, some popular saint; and the painter gave the immortality of his colours to some new legend or miracle."—All who have visited ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... we while the time away? Well, we organized a minstrel band, singing clubs, and debating societies; we had occasional lectures and exchanged books in a so-called reading room; we had two rival base-ball teams, and we played the indoor games of chess, checkers, cards, and dominoes. ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering in a foreign strand! If such there be, go mark him well: For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim: Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown And, doubly dying, shall go down ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... A minstrel's fire within me burn'd, I'd sing, as one whose heart must break, Lay upon lay: I nearly learn'd To shake. All day I sang; of love, of fame, Of fights our fathers fought of yore, Until the thing almost ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... school of music, but his concert pieces were his own compositions, of no great merit, and he still more delighted his audiences by playing national airs as no one had ever played them before. He was a minstrel rather than a musician in the broad sense of the word, but he held the hearts of the people as few, if any, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... same piece and material with their religion. Here, it is true, were none of the applicances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the England of Elizabeth's time, or that of James;—no rude shows of a theatrical kind; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor gleeman, with an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no Merry Andrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps hundreds of years old, but still ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his loins. Thus apparelled he climbed on foot to the holy mountain of La Verna, above the Val d'Arno, which mountain the Count Rolando of Montefeltro had given, many years before, to St. Francis the minstrel of God and his poor little disciples of the cross, for a refuge and a sanctuary near the sky. At the door of the Friary built upon the land of his forefathers the Count Angelo knocked humbly as ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... depicted as a baldheaded, elderly gentleman, with upturned eyes, apparently regarding with reverence a hole in an Indian-ink cloud through which slanted a gamboge sunbeam, and having a white beard, which streamed like a (horse-hair) "meteor on the troubled air." This venerable minstrel was seated on a cairn of rude stones, his white robe clasped at his throat and round his waist by golden brooches, and with a harp, shaped like that of David in old Bible illustrations, resting on the sward before him. In the background were some Druidical remains, by way of audience; and the whole ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... own fault if she is not to-day, like me, a good, plump, fresh mother of six and thirty, with a husband and a son. However, after the age of fourteen, it was too late! Well, she was the daughter of Guybertant, minstrel of the barges at Reims, the same who had played before King Charles VII., at his coronation, when he descended our river Vesle from Sillery to Muison, when Madame the Maid of Orleans was also in the boat. The old father died when Paquette ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... in moving numbers to relate the lives and virtues of all the other Slovene kings, be they Bosnian, Croat, Serbian, Bulgarian; it may well be that the secret of his vogue is, in the words of the critic Lucianovi['c], that "he was less a minstrel of the past than of the future." On the fruitful island of Hvar (Lesina) there arose an exquisite lyric poet, Luci['c], whose romantic drama Robinja (The Female Slave) is said to have great importance in the history of the modern theatre; but the most famous of Hvar's poets was Hektorovi['c] (1487-1572). ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... had told them many such tales which Stevenson wove into stories. The "Beach of Falesa" and the "Isle of Voices" are probably the two most famous, while "the strange story of the loss of the brigantine Wandering Minstrel and what men and ships do in that wild and beautiful world beyond the American continent" formed a plot for the story called "The Wrecker," which he and Lloyd Osbourne wrote ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... this long-lost sister that they propose to keep her with them, but Nicolette assures them she will never be happy until she rejoins Aucassin. Meantime she learns to play on the viol, and, when she has attained proficiency on this instrument, sets out in the guise of a wandering minstrel to seek her beloved. Conveyed by her brothers to the land of Biaucaire, Nicolette, soon after landing, hears that Aucassin, who has recently returned, is sorely bewailing the loss of his beloved. Presenting herself before Aucassin,—who does not recognize her owing to ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... and his wife were always among the most welcome visitors at Lord Ulswater's. In his extreme old age, the ex-king took a journey to Scotland, to see the Author of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." Nor should we do justice to the chief's critical discernment if we neglected to record that, from the earliest dawn of that great luminary of our age, he predicted its meridian splendour. The eldest son of the gypsy-monarch inherited ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not a command," Rameses replied affably, for he was still holding Masanath's hand and therefore in high good humor with himself. "In truth he said the choice should be thine whether thou wilt or not. He would not insist that a nobleman become his minstrel. But more of this later; ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... persecutions of the clergy, who have been trying for reasons of their own to give the beautiful maiden to the King. Casilda confesses to her brother that she is in love with an unknown cavalier, who entertains a like passion for her, but Carlo, a poor minstrel, considers that his sister, a milliner, does not stand high enough in the social scale to permit a lawful union with ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... stood once a house in which Lady Arabella Stuart was confined. Belmont House (C. A. Hanbury, Esq., D.L., J.P.) marks the site where stood Mount Pleasant, once the property of the Belted Will Howard, Warden of the Western Marches, referred to in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel". Little Grove, a house on Cat Hill (Mrs. Stern), stands where stood formerly the house of the widow of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Bart., Ambassador to Spain in the reign of Charles I. The whole neighbourhood is varied and undulating; the eastern extremity of the parish ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... of the Conductor, the entertainment offered by Torsington-on-Sea must be further sought for from a donkey-chair, the donkey attached to which has many a long year ago lost what it ever possessed in the shape of "spirit," a cast-off Nigger Minstrel, with a concertina that is somewhat out of order, and a lovely "public-house" tenor, who is heard only after dark, but with a voice so sweet and true in tone, that one wonders how it is that instead of thrilling the High Street of Torsington-on-Sea for possibly the few halfpence he picks ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... to the wailing of Lear? Not so. The power of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation. It is commensurate with the degree in which they themselves appear not in their work. The harp of the minstrel is untruly touched, if his own glory is all that it records. Every great writer may be at once known by his guiding the mind far from himself, to the beauty which is not of his creation, and the knowledge which ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... you to do With this man that, after you, Sharing not your happy fate, Sat as England's Laureate? Vainly, in these iron days, Strives the poet in your praise, Minstrel, by whose singing side Beauty ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... successes of the stage today are built upon music and dancing. We find these two essential elements in opera, revue, musical comedy, pantomime and vaudeville, while the place of the dance in moving pictures may well be recognized. Should the old-time minstrel show come back, as it is certain to do, there will be added another name to the list of active entertainments that call for a union of music and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... up alongside the stands where they were selling lottery tickets—tragedy. Fountains, with groups of peasantry drinking, or watering horses and donkeys—pantomime. Priests, in crow-black raiment, and canal-boat or shovel hats—mystery. Strangers from Rome, in the negro-minstrel style of costume, if young men; or in the rotund-paunch and black-raiment dress, if elderly men; or in the chiffonee style, if Roman women attempting the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... agony of grief. Three children are present, the two elder crying for sympathy, the youngest sitting in a crib or cradle and amusing himself with some toy, in apparent unconsciousness of his father's approaching departure. Soft blue light from left. Music, "The Minstrel Boy." ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... door oppen, flew aght, catchin poor Mally fair ith' face wi' its wings as it passed, an sendin her onto her back ith' gutter, wi' her bonnet off, an her face blackened like a female christy minstrel! ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... might establish a government,—but never troubadours: and though a good knight held his education to be imperfect unless he could write a sonnet and sing it, he did not esteem his castle to be at the mercy of the "editor" of a manuscript. He might indeed owe his life to the fidelity of a minstrel, or be guided in his policy by the wit of a clown; but he was not the slave of sensual music, or vulgar literature, and never allowed his Saturday reviewer to appear at table without ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... find that destined minstrel Wandering on the range to-day, Driving sheep and crooning softly ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... [3] to Sir Walter Scott, then busy with his 'Border Minstrelsy'. The beauty of 'Christabel' touched Sir Walter's romantic imagination, and echoes of the poem are discernible in the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel' and ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Mount Sharon. I chucked him from me, not sorry that his mirth had reminded me in time of what I had for the moment forgotten; and invited the itinerant to go with me to Shepherd's Bush, from which I proposed to send word to Mr. Geddes that I should not return home that evening. But the minstrel declined this invitation also. He was engaged for the night, he said, to a dance in the neighbourhood, and vented a round execration on the laziness or drunkenness of his comrade, who had not appeared at the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... or with Kurvenal, in a small vessel, taking only his harp, and drifted toward Ireland, where he arrived at the end of fifteen days. When he appeared at court, Tristan declared that he was a wandering minstrel called Tantris, and bespoke the kind offices of the queen, Iseult. Charmed by his music, she hastened to cure him of the grievous wound from which he had ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... London dinner-party, looking sadly broken down by infirmities; and my final recollection of the beautiful old man presents him arm in arm with, nay, partly embraced and supported by, if I mistake not, another beloved and honored poet, whose minstrel-name, since he has a week-day one for his personal occasions, I will venture to speak. It was Barry Cornwall, whose kind introduction had first made ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... respect For pilgrim weeds, the Roman herdsman stirred His lazy length, and shared with him his meal. Refreshed and calm, Sir Tannhauser passed forth, Yearning with morbid fancy once again To see the kind face of the minstrel boy He met beside the well. At set of sun He reached the place; the reaping-folk were gone, The day's toil over, yet he took his seat. A milking-girl with laden buckets full, Came slowly from the pasture, paused and drank. From a near cottage ran ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... and editor and that minstrel boy of the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... sentimental and above this sort of thing, when the chicken is in our mouths where we sit by the fire; but if we were gnawing wretched bones, out in the cold of the streets, I doubt if we should feel in such a sublime mood. All the praises of poverty are sung by the minstrel who has got a golden harp to chant them on; and all the encomiums on renunciation come from your bon viveur who never denied himself aught ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... the nature of this American Poem was known to the proprietor of the Quarterly Review. So far as it was a burlesque on the Lay of the Last Minstrel, I know it was; yet was he as a publisher so anxious to get it, that he engaged Lord Byron to use his utmost influence with me to obtain it for him, and his Lordship wrote a most pressing letter upon the occasion. He ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... doth come, And that in Poland Zeno hath his home. But you amuse me; I am rich, you poor— What boon shall I confer and make secure? What gift? ask of me, poets, what you will And I will grant it—promise to fulfil." "A kiss," said Joss. "A kiss!" and anger fraught Amazed at minstrel having such a thought— While flush of indignation warmed her cheek. "You do forget to whom it is you speak," She cried. "Had I not known your high degree, Should I have asked this royal boon," said he, "Obtained ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... peering at her under his thoughtfully knitted brows, "you do belong to another era. You don't remember the old negro minstrel song." ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... humorous story. His tower-like head and thin, white hair marked him out among a thousand, while any one might swear to his voice again who heard it once, for it had a touch of the lisp and the burr; yet, as the minstrel said, of Douglas, 'it became him wonder well,' and gave great softness to a sorrowful story: indeed, I imagined that he kept the burr part of the tone for matters of a facetious or humorous kind, and brought ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various |
