"Banjo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up a trail-scarred banjo from the floor and began to strum a few wandering notes. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... Below these hung two pistols, such as courteous Claude Duval used for side-arms. Opposite were two old rifles, and beneath them two stone beer-mugs, and a German student's pipe absurdly long and richly ornamented. A mantel close by was filled with curiosities, and near it hung a banjo unstrung, a tennis-racket, and a blazer of startling colors. Plainly they were relics of German student life, and the odd contrast they made with the rough wall and ceiling suggested a sharp change in the fortunes of the young worker beneath. Scarcely six months since ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... banjo and fiddle, as one by one the dusky musicians from the cabins ranged themselves along the wall of the big room, which had been cleared of its furnishings, and young feet came hurrying in when the old ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... was young, but already turbulent. The hot wind had passed, and the air was sweet and free from dust. As he moved along the street, Done's ear caught the squeak and the twang of fiddle and banjo coming through the confusion of voices. Step-dancing and singing were the most popular delights. The ability to sing a comic song badly was passport enough in digger society. The streets were lit with kerosene. Here and there a slush lamp or a torch blazed before an ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... grown mild, and often in the evening I envied Yorke (who had straightway, of course, made desperate love to Clotilde, who was old enough to be his mother), sitting in the bow of the boat and thrumming his banjo lightly as he sang her some creole love-song he had picked ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... different institutions,) we saw the splendid painting by West, "Christ healing the Sick." We then visited the Musical Fund Hall, and heard the far-famed Ethiopian serenaders, Messrs. German, Hanwood, Harrington, Warren, and Pelham, upon the accordion, banjo, congo-tambo, and bone-castanets, in all of which they stand unrivalled in the world. They were representing Niggers' lives, with songs, &c. Home and to bed, ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... led into the commission of offences by the influence of drink. Of course, the popular idea in Great Britain of the negro is that he is a person who commonly wears a dilapidated tall hat, cotton garments of brilliant hue, carries a banjo or concertina, and indulges in extraordinary cachinnations at the smallest pretext; but this is as far from the truth as the creature of imagination in the opposite extreme, evoked by the vivid fancy of Mrs. ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... He's got 'em on the list—he's got 'em on the list; And they'll none of 'em be missed—they'll none of 'em be missed. There's the banjo serenader, and the others of his race, And the piano-organist—I've got him on the list! And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face, They never would be missed—they never would be missed! Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... up my banjo an' I plays a little chune, An' you see dem hai'ds come peepin' out to listen mighty soon. Den my wife say, "Sich a pappy fer to give you sich a fright! Jes' you go to bed, an' leave him, say yo' prayers, an' ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... beating of their feet on the floor can be heard at a considerable distance, with a dull, monotonous sound, varied only by the hum of voices or noise of laughter or the shrill notes of the musical instruments. These are the banjo and accordion, the former being the favorite, perhaps because it is more intimately associated with the social traditions of the negroes. Their best performers play very skilfully on both, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... not know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... wing of the building near by came the twanging of a string, like a banjo string being tuned in fantastic quarter tones. A few sharp notes were struck, at random it seemed, followed by a few bars of a quavering song and then a burst of clownish laughter. Young bloods of Nagasaki had called in geisha to amuse ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... his banjo, and when the party had settled low about the fire it helped to keep alive the talk. Every few minutes the taffy and the coyotes were demanded in turn, and Glover was kept busy apologizing for the absence of the wolves and the slowness ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... about with a comb and a piece of tissue-paper at my lips like any kid. I once made a banjo out of a cigar-box and bale wire, and while I was in the Kougarok I walked ten miles to hear a nigger play a harmonica. I did all sorts of things to coax music into this country, but it is silent and unresponsive, absolutely dead and discordant." He made a gesture which in a woman would have ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... hollow, where a small stream ran through a sparse grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes, from some neighboring plantation, "breaking down" a juba in approved style, amid the ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... The more distant line of mountains showed in a mist of silver, and the nearer heights in blue -gray silhouette. A wizardry of night and softness settled like a benediction, and from the dark door of the house stole the quaint folklore cadence of a rudely thrummed banjo. Lescott strolled over to the stile with every artist instinct stirred. This nocturne of silver and gray and blue at once soothed and intoxicated his imagination. His fingers were itching for ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... ever seen, this concert is," Alice's escort would declare fervently. "Sh, Tommie, the banjo club's ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... never trust those gilt-edge Britishers," said Jean Graham with authority. "There was old man Peters who took one of them in, and he'd sit in the store nights making little songs to his banjo, and talking just wonderful. Said he was a baronet or something, if he had his rights, and made love to Sally. Old fool Peters believed him, and lent him three hundred dollars to start a lawsuit over his English property with. Dessay Peters thought red-haired ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... it's nonsense. How can a man marry an archangel, let alone a lady. My mother was a lady and she married a dying fiddler who tramped the roads; and the mixture plays the cat and banjo with my body and soul. I can see my mother now cooking food in dirtier and dirtier lodgings, darning socks with weaker and weaker eyes when she might have worn pearls by consenting to be a ...
— Magic - A Fantastic Comedy • G.K. Chesterton
... sell fish on the Fourth, do you?" demanded Jerry with the impressive scorn of a patriot misjudged. "I thought maybe you'd like—like a little music, seeing it's raining cats and dogs." He had thrown apart his soaked coat as he spoke, and the bulging object proved to be a banjo, in a little flannel case, which Jerry hastily removed, twanging the strings of the instrument in his anxiety to ascertain the effect of the dampness ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... enough, and a candle-box at that, with the brand upon the side of it; and it had banjo-strings stretched so as to sound when the wind blew. I believe they call the thing a Tyrolean[4] harp, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his advice. The next four men she visited—who were Jo Plum, Jo Egg, Jo Banjo and Jo Cheese, named after the trees in their orchards—she made Colonels of her Army; but the fifth one, Jo Nails, said Colonels and Generals were getting to be altogether too common in the Army of Oogaboo and he preferred to be ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... he ixpicts to see a black face peerin' through a window an' in a few years I'll be takin' in laundhry in a basement instead iv occypyin' me present impeeryal position, an' ye'll be settin' in front iv ye'er cabin home playin' on a banjo an' watchin' ye'er little pickahinnissies rollickin' on th' ground an' wondhrn' whin th' ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... room the local band of negro musicians drew from their big fiddle, little fiddle, banjo, and bones notes as ear- piercing and limb-lifting, if not as scientific and artistic, as anything ever executed by Dureezie's ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... shadows with columns touched into ivory whiteness by the lights of door and window. A low line of hills loomed beyond, painted of silver gray against the backdrop of starry sky and the pallor of moon mists. From the porch came the desultory tinkle of a banjo and the voices of young people singing and in a pause between songs more than once the boy heard a laugh—a laugh which he recognized. He could even make out a scrap of light color which must be her dress. Such were the rewards of his night watch, a melancholy ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... his neck about the villain, and strangle him. But perhaps, after all, variety business would suit best. Pontius Pilate in a kilt and philibeg would bring down the house with a Highland fling or gillie callum. And Atkinson in a long-stride table chair and banjo act would be comforting to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... bubbled with impotent suggestions and reverential laughter at the witticisms of Mr. Taylour. Fanny Fitz and Captain Carteret finally removed themselves to a grimy corner behind the proscenium, and there practised, sotto voce, the song with banjo accompaniment that was to culminate in the hornpipe. Freddy Alexander had gone forth to purchase a pack of cards, in the futile hope that he could prevail upon Mrs. Carteret to allow him to inflict ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... their appearance some years ago in the pages of the Pall Mall Magazine. Since then (I am assured) they have put a girdle round the world, and threaten, if not to keep pace with the banjo hymned by Mr. Kipling, at least to become the most widely-diffused of their author's works. I take it to be of a piece with his usual perversity that until now they have never been republished except for ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him, Sidney had intermittent instruction from professors of both sexes at home. But he learnt practically nothing except the banjo. Horace had to buy him a banjo: it cost the best part of a ten-pound note; still, Horace could do no less. Sidney's stature grew rapidly; his general health certainly improved, yet not completely; he always had a fragile, interesting ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... I would find myself in little circles of the official English,-supercilious, pretentious, conventional, carefully "turned out" people, living gawkily, thinking gawkily, talking nothing but sport and gossip, relaxing at rare intervals into sentimentality and levity as mean as a banjo tune, and a kind of despairful disgust would engulf me. And then in some man's work, in some huge irrigation scheme, some feat of strategic foresight, some simple, penetrating realization of deep-lying things, I would find an effect, as if out of a thickly ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... for, comfortably reclining on a pile of cotton seed in the rough ginning-room, with thick festoons of cobwebs everywhere, and bits of dusty lint clinging to every splinter in its walls, a young man was playing a banjo, and two others, with naked feet, were dancing as if for their lives. A slim dark girl in a blue and white homespun dress, her head turbaned with a square of the same, sat on a bag ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... got his banjo, Dumont his mandolin, Dave his ocarina, and they sang, and played, and told jokes, until a silver crescent moon rising over the lake warned them that the hour was growing late. The feminine visitors then boarded the Happy Day and under ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... dese here huggin' kind of dances lak dey has now. Dere warn't no Big Apple nor no Little Apple neither. Us had a house wid a raised flatform (platform) at one end whar de music-makers sot. Dey had a string band wid a fiddle, a trumpet, and a banjo, but dere warn't no guitars lak dey has in dis day. One man called de sets and us danced de cardrille (quadrille) de virginia reel, and de 16-hand cortillion. When us made syrup on de farm dere would always be a candy pullin'. Dat homemade syrup made real good candy. Den us would ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... fellows screeching forth what might have been esteemed air or accompaniment, as the case might be. That a sorry musical effect was produced will surprise no one who considers the build of the most musical of their instruments. The mandolin is by way of being a guitar, or banjo—only in a very small way indeed. Nothing has been added to the idea since first Mercury stumbled on the original testudo—indeed, I should guess that the dried sinews of a tortoise would give out a far purer sound than the jingling wires with which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the orchestra as he went. The frightened crowd turned and followed as if in this one man who spoke with the voice of authority protection could be found. But they hung back from dancing, and after a pause the first-officer seized a banjo and proceeded to entertain them with comic songs. He kept it up for a while, and then Mrs. Langdale went nobly to his assistance and sang some Irish songs. One or two other volunteers presented themselves, and the evening's entertainment developed ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... had for nothing at all, or the next thing to it, if you can prevail upon yourself to go and fetch it. Perhaps Punch and Judy will pitch their little citadel in front of your dwelling; or, more likely still, a band of mock Ethiopians, with fiddle, castanets, and banjo, may tempt your liberality with a performance of Uncle Ned or Old Dan Tucker; or a corps of German musicians may trumpet you into a fit of martial ardour; or a wandering professor of the German flute soothe you into a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... midst of the island, with hills on three of its sides, and on the fourth a broad plain dipping to the coast. This green is of the shape of a guitar. Down the middle of the guitar there is a walled enclosure of the shape of a banjo. At the end stands a church. The round drum is the mount, which has four circles, the topmost ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... and a little kitchen. To Jess, accustomed to the mild but beautiful savor of a country town, the dreggy Bohemia was sugar and spice. She hung fish seines on the walls of her rooms, and bought a rakish-looking sideboard, and learned to play the banjo. Twice or thrice a week they dined at French or Italian tables d'hote in a cloud of smoke, and brag and unshorn hair. Jess learned to drink a cocktail in order to get the cherry. At home she smoked ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... Electrocute the composer and banish the music-critic. Then let there be elected a supervisory board of trusty guardians, men absolutely above the reproach of having played the concertina or plunked staccato tunes on a banjo. Entrust to their care all beautiful music and poetry and prohibit the profane, vulgar, the curious, gaping herd from even so much as a glance at these treasures. For the few, the previous elect, the ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... gaiety. The first subject clatters in, the second is even more jubilant. In the development a dance misterioso is used with faithful screaming repetitions, and the work ends regularly and brilliantly. There is much syncopation, though nothing that is strictly in "rag-time;" banjo-figurations are freely and ingeniously employed, and the whole is a splendid fiction in local color. Schoenefeld's ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... Delby out to get something from his baggage," announced Ned, looking from the window. Tom saw his rival taking something from one of the packs slung across the back of a mule. Soon the circus agent hurried back into the king's hut, and a moment later there was heard the strains of a banjo being picked by an unpracticed hand. It was succeeded by a rattling tune played in ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... great European masters in such a grotesque manner. The executants are five in number; one plays the tambourine, Mr. Germon, who is the leader; another the bone castanet; the third, the accordion; and the two others, the banjo, or African guitar. The castanet player does not sing; but his four colleagues have good voices, and, in glees, harmonize charmingly. In a quartet, the parody on the Phantom Chorus, from Bellini's 'Sonnambula'; and ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... trance, and could only find existence, expression, in the ecstasy of tone, that would catch our souls with his into the very seventh heaven of harmony. Or, in merry mood, I have seen him take a banjo, for he could play on any instrument, and as with deft fingers he would strike some strange new note or chord, you would see his eyes brighten, he would begin to smile and laugh as if his very soul were tickled, while his hearers would catch ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... bears' grease pots, quite curious to examine, too; and a choice selection of portraits of females almost always in sadness and generally in disguise or dishabille, glittered round the neat walls of his elegant little bower of repose. Medora with disheveled hair was consoling herself over her banjo for the absence of her Conrad—the Princesse Fleur de Marie (of Rudolstein and the Mysteres de Paris) was sadly ogling out of the bars of her convent cage, in which, poor prisoned bird, she was moulting away—Dorothea of Don Quixote was washing ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... progress of the mixed entertainment that followed, in which dancing and singing, banjo playing, and a liberal display of the anatomy of the female "artists" formed the principal features, they sipped their beer and applauded loudly the efforts of those who ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... been exchanged in a desultory fashion over the bars at Mustang Kate's and Dutch Lena's; and derisive comments made as to Mrs. Huzzard and her late charge, the girl in the Indian dress. Some of the boys, who owned musical instruments—a banjo and a mouth organ—were openly approached by bribery to keep away from the all too perfect gathering, so that there might be a dearth of music. But the boys with the musical instruments evaded the bribes, and even hinted aloud their desire to dance once anyway with the new girl of the ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the tree above him. Some new danger, he thought, but he dared not take his eyes from the yellow green orbs before him. There was a sharp twang as of a broken banjo-string, and at the same instant an arrow appeared in the yellow hide of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... smoke your cigar or cigarette (and I regret to say that you strike your matches during the soft bars of the "Lohengrin" overture), and you enjoy the music. But you say you cannot play the piano or the fiddle, or even the banjo; that you know ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... earlier stages of the work, gasoline lamps and Kitson lights were used. The former, of the familiar banjo type, and a modification of this, with a section of wrought-iron pipe for the reservoir, were very unsatisfactory, and were out of repair and leaking a large proportion of the time. The Kitson lights were given only a short trial, but ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... down to her dressing-room under the floor, and Glory sat at a table with a yellow-haired lady and a dark-eyed man. A negro without the burnt cork was twanging a banjo and cracking the jokes ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... as being peculiarly within the province of the boy scouts and wholly beneath the dignity of an officer of the Houssas. And he felt horribly guilty as he read Hamilton's letter, for the night before it came he had most certainly entertained his company with a banjo rendering of ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... Node. In personal appearance he was not unlike Palmer; spare and wiry, slim-faced, a large hooked nose, a tuft of beard on his chin. He had no particular calling or trade; first a hotel keeper, then a house or boat painter, paper hanger or decorator, saloonkeeper, book-agent, banjo player and cheap gambler. He was good-natured. His wife was the head man of the family; what Node lacked in spirit she made up in talk. Node was kind in his way to his wife and children, who accepted his efforts in their behalf without any untoward semblance ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better than anyone else in ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... for Italian names shown by vocalists and pianists humorously parodied in such self-evident forms as Jacksonini, Signora Marra Boni, and Billsmethi. Banjo Bones is a self-evident nom d'occasion, and the high-sounding name of Rinaldo di Velasco ill befits the giant Pickleson (Dr. M.), who had a little head and less in it. As it was essential that the Miss Crumptons of Minerva House should have an Italian master for their pupils, ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... performances at the theaters were over. The orchestral arrangements were comprised in one bad piano, to which were occasionally added, by way of increasing the attractions, performances on the banjo and guitar. All the singers were called "ladies and gentlemen;" and the one long room in which the performances took place was simply furnished with a double row of benches, bearing troughs at their backs for the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... had was a banjo. Some made their banjos. Take a bucket or pan a long strip of wood. 3 horse hairs twisted made the base string. 2 horsehairs twisted made the second string. 1 horse hair twisted made the fourth and the fifth string was the fine ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... next." Finally, however, the singers had sung themselves hoarse in the damp night air, the last "Spanish Cavalier" had been safely restored to his inevitable true-love, and the sound of voices and banjo floated away over the water. Mr. ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... was immediately restored, but his gaiety was somewhat forced. "You are looking charming this morning, Miss Ogden. I wished last night that there was a guitar or even a banjo in the camp, that I might serenade beneath ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... tongue! Now the fat's in the fire, to be sho! Ever since I tuck you for better for wuss, I have been trying to larn you 'screshun! and I might as well 'a wasted my time picking a banjo for a dead jackass tu dance by; for you have got no more 'screshun than old Eve had, in confabulating with the old adversary! Why couldn't you temperlize? Sassing that white ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... some playing on wind and stringed instruments; and some were running, others quietly walking, and still others riding on various animals—ostriches, sheep, goats, fawns, and small donkeys, all pure white. One boy was riding on a ram, and as he came by, strum-strumming on a little silver-stringed banjo, he sang a very curious song, which made Martin prick up his ears to listen. It was about a speckled snake that lived far away on a piece of waste ground; how day after day he sought for his lost playmate—the ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... Sam Jedfoot sitting down quite cosily in front of a blazing fire he had made up under the coppers containing the men's tea, which would be served out bye and bye at 'four bells', enjoying himself as comfortably as you please, and actually playing the banjo—just as if he had nothing else to do, and there was no such person ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... about adoring the house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet—these were the instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to play some rattling dance-music, and beat time ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... I heard a banjo in the distance and a cowboy sing. There was not a person in sight in the wide courts or on the porch. I did not have a well-defined idea about the inside of ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... to his cosey quarters, and silence had settled down over the beautiful plain. The lights were dimmed in the barracks; the sentries paced their measured rounds; from the verandas of the hotel came the ripple of murmured words and soft laughter, and a tinkle of banjo and guitar. At the gate the colonel exchanged good-night greetings with a happy-faced, motherly looking woman whom Bonner had noticed overwhelmed with pride and emotion during the ceremonies in the morning. He did not at first recognize the ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... about," said Joel, in a loud tone of disgust. "He's twanging his old banjo all the time, and Polly's got him to sing, and he's practising up. ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... interesting time for Ken. There was always something lively going on. He wondered when the boys studied. When some of the outside students dropped in there were banjo and guitar playing, college songs, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... the House, Merevale had yielded. The stipulation that Charteris should play only before prep. was rigidly observed, except when Merevale was over at the Hall, and the Sixth had no work. On such occasions Charteris felt justified in breaking through the rule. He had a gramophone, a banjo, a penny whistle, and a mouth organ. The banjo, which he played really well, was the most in request, but the gramophone was ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... think! here's a human who has no other cares Except to please the white man, serve him when he's starving, And who has as much fun when he sees you carving The sirloin as you do, does this black man. Just think for a minute, how the negroes excel, Can you beat them with a banjo or a broiling pan? There's music in their soul as original As any breed of people in the whole wide earth; They're elemental hope, heartiness, mirth. There are only two things real American: One is Christian Science, the other is the nigger. Think ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... River Press, flapping impotently in the embrace of a willow, caught the eye of Banjo, a little blaze— faced bay who bore the captive. He squatted, ducked backward so suddenly that his reins slipped from Slim's fingers and lowered his head between his white front feet. His rider seemed stupid beyond any that Banjo had ever known—and ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... into a veritable rose grotto, the statuary was Pompeian, and here and there artistic posters were seen which were nothing if not reminiscent of Boulevard Clichy and Montmartre in the palmiest days. Four negro banjo players and as many jubilee singers titillated the jaded senses of the guests in a manner achieved by the infamous saxophone syncopating jazz of the Barbary Coast of our times. The dinner was over. The four and one ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... I had nothing better to do," he assured her. "And my patience is well rewarded. Hope you're keen on music. I've brought my banjo for the Rajah's edification. It's better than a tomtom anyway. I wonder if the fates have put us next to each other. I'll lay you five rupees to a ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... opprissors as I am whin he falls into th' hands iv his liberators. Whin he's in th' south he can make up his mind to be lynched soon or late an' give his attintion to his other pleasures iv composin' rag-time music on a banjo, an' wurrukin' f'r th' man that used to own him an' now on'y owes him his wages. But 'tis th' divvle's own hardship f'r a coon to step out iv th' rooms iv th' S'ciety f'r th' Brotherhood iv Ma-an where he's been r-readin' a pome ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... family possession. He might as well live with us, he's so much about the house and garden. I suppose this place is very good for the angel-children, but I'm afraid that in a few days I'm going to wish I was back among the roses, with Allan and Johnny and a banjo and a moon!" ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... is for the most savage natures. The boor that couldn't appreciate the Taj Mahal, or the sculpture of Michael Angelo, might be swept off his feet by the music of a master, though he couldn't understand its story. Besides, I've carried a banjo and a cornet to the ends of the earth with me. I saved my life with the cornet once. A lion got inside my zareba in Rhodesia. I hadn't my gun within reach, but I'd been playing the cornet, and just as he was crouching I blew a blast from it—one of those jarring discords ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... jig, you know. I'll go to New York, and let myself as the 'Eminent and Graceful Queen of Terpsichore, imported from Paris at a cost of Forty Thousand Dollars in Gold.' And then I'll make a tour of the New England States. Or I'll learn to play the banjo and get off slang phrases, and then I'll appear as 'The Beautiful and Gifted Artist, ANNETTA BRUMMETTA, who has, by her guileless vivacity, charmed our most Fashionable Circles.' Or I'll go as Assistant Teacher in a Select Boarding School ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various
... back to the California market, a few blocks distant, and bought some crackers and a wedge of new cheese. On the way back to Chinatown Travis stopped at a music store on Kearney Street to get her banjo, which she had left to have its head tightened; and thus burdened they regained the "town," Condy grieving audibly at having to carry "brown-paper ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... conversation, notwithstanding its brilliancy, is beginning to flag—when the car is boarded by a stalwart good-looking man, carrying a banjo, and wearing a leather shoulder-belt with "GREEN the Guide" in brass letters upon it; the Elderly Gentleman, and most of the Ladies welcome him with effusion, while the Younger Men appear to resent ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... It sure is a swell rig!" Weary paid generous tribute. "Only I will say old Banjo reminds me of an Irish cook rigged out in silk and diamonds. That outfit on Glory, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... treasure Floated midway on the wave. (See CASTAIGNE'S drawings—they're a pleasure— In the May Century pictured brave.) It was a miracle of rare device, Costing "a pile," but cheap at any price! A damsel with a five-stringed "Jo" In a vision once I saw; It was an Alabama maid, And on her banjo light she played, Singing of sweet Su-san-nah! Could I revive within me Amphion's lyric song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me As the music loud and long That sure did raise this dome in air, That ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... flashing of lamps on the way to accord another season's welcome to Jimmy Finnigan. "I might've learned this town well enough by now," he reflected, "to know that a bally minstrel show's about the size of it." Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. Finnigan's art of the large red lips and the twanging banjo; his thought was scornful rather than envious. He aspired, moreover, to be known as the pilot of stars, at least in the incipience of their courses, to be taken seriously by association, since nature had arranged that he ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... could play were the organ, the guitar, the syrinx or panpipe, and the lyre, which she struck not with her fingers, but a plectrum represented beside it. Observe, between the lyre and the banjo her little satchel of music-books, and below the syrinx a lamb and palm. This is the only sign on the monument that could in the least lead to a supposition that Julia Tyranna was Christian. The inscription bears no trace ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... they used to have breakdowns in slave time—breakdown dances with fiddle and banjo music. Far after slavery, they had them. The only other amusement worth speaking about was the churches. Far as the churches was concerned, they had to steal out and go to them. Old man Balm Whitlow can tell you all about the way they held ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... have been noticed by the lay journals, but investigation proves them to have been nothing more than an exceptional control over the abdominal muscles, with the ability to simulate at will the supposed fetal jerks. One old woman went so far as to show the fetus dancing to the music of a banjo with rhythmical movements. Such imposters flourished best in the regions given to "voodooism." We can readily believe how easy the deception might be when we recall the exact simulation of the fetal movements in instances ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... comes, she goes to the piano knowing that Paul is watching her, she feels he has guessed that something is up, so tries to mislead him by singing a merry song, but he is not taken in. Helmdon produces a banjo and sings ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... the announcer, "shake hands with Slim Morris, whether he'll let you or not. And here's Matt Rice. We usually call him 'Mister' Rice, for he's extremely talented. He knows how to play the banjo." ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... and shouted to the company in the bar-room. What he said no one could hear. Hissing and roaring filled the world, submerging the crackling of the fire, the banjo tunes, and human voices. Men looked at each other, stupefied, holding their pipes from their mouths. Then a wave struck the solid old tavern, hissed across its gallery, and sprawled through the hall upon the bar-room floor. Not a person in the ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... jokes as usual, accompanied by the enthusiastic applause of Rowden. Clifford also played "The Widow Nolan's Goat" upon his banjo, accompanied by the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... my homage owns, Skilled on the banjo and the bones; For whom I would not fear to die, If death would ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... INSTRUMENT FOR YOU? Piano Organ Violin Clarinet Flute Harp Coronet 'Cello Guitar Ukulele Saxophone Banjo, (Plectrum 5-String or Tenor) Piccolo Hawaiian Steel Guitar Drums and Traps Mandolin Sight Singing Trombone Piano Accordion Voice and Speech Culture Harmony and Composition Automatic Finger Control Italian and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... live among his liberators. But after half a century, he is still clinging to the cotton and the cane, or sitting in his log house home, the "shadowed livery of the burning sun" upon his brow, the plantation song still lingering on his lips, the banjo tuned to memory's melodies on his knee, a clump of kinky-headed pickaninnies playing in the sand about his cabin door, and there he sits multiplying the Southland and ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... and watch him at work making things for the little house—a chair from a barrel and a wonderful box of shelves to stand in the corner. And she knew how to say merry things, and later outside his door Ben would pick his banjo and sing low and sweetly in the musical voice of his race. Altogether such another honeymoon there ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... sing as they cross de trestle. One pick a banjo, one play de fiddle. They sing and whoop, they laugh; they holler to de people on de ground, and sing out, "Good-bye." ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... Alan, not noticing the interruption; "and he had taken the keys to the tower in his pocket, so Malcolm didn't really know just what to do. At last, after he had tried all sorts of things, he took his banjo and went under the tower window and sang a little song that Margaret had made up, when they were children together." Here Alan paused to smile meaningly at Polly, before he went on. "It was a very sweet song, and ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... at the Convalescent Home," piped Mr. Farge; while his friend and devout admirer, Albert Edward Worthington, tore at the banjo strings and ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... little Ghoorkas' shoulders, threw himself into one of his favourite nigger minstrel attitudes, with left arm outstretched and right hand seeming to thump with all his poor strength upon the imaginary banjo held against his breast. ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... stage jewellery and played with it until her head was too heavy to hold up any longer. Then she went to sleep upon an odorous couch piled deep with all sorts of odd garments, her feet thrust into a tangle of lifeless satin pillows, her head upon the fur lining of some old cape, a banjo prodding her uncomfortably whenever ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... thoughts and devise something to say upon the morrow, but all his ideas had flown. There wasn't anything to say. Yet he swore Angelo should not be offered up as a victim upon the altar of unscrupulous ambition. The hours passed and the old banjo clock above the mantel wheezed eleven, twelve; then one, two. Still he paced up and down, up and down in a sort of trance. The air of the library, blue with the smoke of countless stogies, stifled and suffocated him. Moreover he discovered that he was hungry. He descended to the ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... a couple of fellows were playing on a drum and a little banjo. They were singing a chorus, which was not only singular, and perfectly marked in the rhythm, but exceeding sweet in the tune. They danced in a circle; and performers came trooping from all quarters, who fell into the round, and began waggling ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their meal and were gathered in groups under the trees or on the verandas, when the sound of a banjo caused a sudden hush of expectancy. Glances were sent here and there in search of the musician, yet no one was greatly surprised that he was not visible. Several tunes were played; then followed a song in the negro dialect, which made ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... we called our business 'The Graphic Company.' We had five or six young fellows, all musicians, as well as handy painters, and we used to capture the towns with our music. One fellow could whistle like a nightingale, another sang like an angel, and another played the banjo. I scuffled with the violin ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... when he had made up his mind to do this he did not immediately get out his book and settle down to it. After lunch he loitered about the house while his meal digested, feeling very comfortable and contented. He strummed his banjo a little and played over upon the piano the three pieces he had picked up: two were polkas, and the third, the air of a topical song; he always played the three together and in the same sequence. Then he strolled up to his room, and brushed his hair for a while, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... They looked doubtful; they sounded dreadful. Individually they were bad; collectively they were worse. During the first number the cornet only struck the right note once and that frightened him so he stopped playing. The clarinet player had been taking lessons from a banjo teacher for three years and had never made the same noise twice. There were six French horns, all Dutch. The trap drummer was blind and played by guess and ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... wholesome nourishment had been consumed, someone said, 'Let's sing!' and a tuneful hour followed. Nat fiddled, Demi piped, Dan strummed the old banjo, and Emil warbled a doleful ballad about the wreck of the Bounding Betsey; then everybody joined in the old songs till there was very decidedly 'music in the air'; and passers-by said, as they listened smiling: ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... the evening, however, was the minstrel show. On a raised wooden platform sat the performers with blackened hands and faces. They wore grotesque garb and each one fingered a guitar, mandolin, or banjo. ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... zither, so we can have music as we sail, and Grif will bring his violin, and Ralph can imitate a banjo so that you'd be sure he had one. I do hope it will be fine, it is so splendid to go round like other folks and enjoy myself," cried Jill, with a little bounce of satisfaction at the prospect ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... light and looked around. There was no one in sight. He could hear Charlie Jones in the forecastle drumming on his banjo, and Burns whistling the same tune as he went aft to strike the bell. (It was the duty of the officer on watch to strike the hour.) It was then half after eleven. As he passed the captain's door again, his foot struck something, and ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... him, languidly; and then, like a banjo-string, the tension snapped, and she gave a long, angry gasp, ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... falsehood. Englishmen would hardly believe such lying possible, but the Freeman, as a liar, has, by constant practice, attained virtuosity. What Rubinstein is on the piano, what Blondin was on the tight-rope, what the Bohee Brothers are on the banjo, what Sims Reeves was in the ballad world, what Irving is in histrionic art, what Spurgeon was as a preacher, what Patti is in opera, what Gladstone is as a word-spinner, what Tim Healy is as a whipping-post, what the Irish peasant is as a lazybones, what Harcourt is as a humbug, what ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... passed through my mind in a flash, almost subconsciously, and before I had time to check my impressions, or even properly verify them, I made an involuntary movement, catching the tight rope in my hand so that it twanged like a banjo string, and in that instant the creature turned the corner of Sangree's tent and ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the nigger googs his whitey eyes, Plucks his black ole greasy banjo while the cod-steak fries; Fish 'n' chips, a pint iv local, and the tidy girl Dancin' glad attendance on yeh 'zif yeh was an earl; Trailin' round the blazin' city, Feelin' all content 'n' pretty, Where the smart procession goes, ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... "You said I could have Silver. What's the use of having a string if a feller can't ride it? And I CAN ride him, and he don't kick at all. I rode him just now, in the little pasture to see if I liked his gait better than the others. I rode Banjo first and I wouldn't own a thing like him, on a bet. Silver'll do me till I can get around to break ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... umbrella-lamp bestowed by a boarder whom Mrs. Oliver had nursed through typhoid fever; a banjo; plenty of books and magazines; and an open fireplace, with a great pitcher of yellow wild-flowers standing between ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... had two sticks, and with these she was playing on an imaginary fiddle. Tickle-My-Toes had the broom, and this, he pretended, was a banjo. ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... up the river this evening," he said presently. "He said they'd come down after supper and bring the banjo," and as he spoke they heard the murmur of voices along the river bank. Two figures loomed up out of the darkness and entered the circle of light from ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... all ranks were temporarily levelled, and social barriers taken down with the mutual consent of those separated by them; the night-clerk so far unbent as to personally request the colored hall-boy Number Eight to play a banjo solo at the concert, which was to fill in the pauses between the dances, and the chambermaids timidly consulted with the lady telegraph operator and the lady in charge of the telephone, as to whether or not they intended ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... lips of crowds. Lights in their eyes. High-pitched, garbled words, brass bands, flags, speeches.... Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord but we don't want the Bacon, All we Want is a Piece of the Rhine(d).... A brass monkey playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee" on a red banjo.... Allons, les enfants ... le jour de gloire est arrive! You tell 'em, kid! Store fronts, cabarets, hotel lobbies, sign-boards, office buildings all become shining citadels of righteousness beleaguered ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht |
