"Brass band" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sit in the front row of the dress-circle! To feel the opulence of one's enviable position, as well as the artistic delight of being properly placed where one could miss nothing, while the brass band outside the opera-house played its third and last quick, jubilant invitation to pleasure—so tantalizing to the outsider, so gratifying to ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... were the real holidays, when there was a marriage, a christening, or a funeral in the tenement, particularly when a baby died whose father belonged to one of the many benefit societies. A brass band was the proper thing then, and the whole block took a vacation to follow the music and the white hearse out of their ward into the next. But the chief of all the holidays came once a year, when the feast of St. Rocco—the patron saint of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... weavers. You get the impression that three-quarters of the people in this neighbourhood are starving. Then you come and see a funeral like what's going on just now. I met it as I came into the village. Brass band, schoolmaster, school children, pastor, and such a procession behind them that you would think it was the Emperor of China that was getting buried. If the people have money to spend on this sort of thing, well...! [He takes a drink of beer; puts down the glass; suddenly ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the end of it. There was another procession in the evening, and this one stopped at Dr. Gray's gate. It was the Brass Band, out in uniform; but Preston hadn't the least idea what for, till the men paused at the end of a tune, swung their caps, and gave "Three cheers ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... painful for the Catholic workmen's feelings, especially as they hoped for a benediction! As soon as word arrived of the approach of "Monseigneur's" carriage, the cure and chief dignitaries of the town, accompanied by a brass band, a detachment of firemen, and a small regiment of women—decked in hoods of blue or red or white—passed down the muddy street, bearing banners, and a gilded canopy with white plumes. In a few moments they returned, ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... repute. He was a genius in a class of his own. As the Salt Lake papers said of him, "Frank Gilder, who can snatch more music out of a piano than Beethoven could write in a week, is with the Lingard Company and will play a number of solos tonight. He is an entire orchestra, a sort of a condensed brass band, and those who don't hear him will never know what pianos were invented for." This was a unique "ad.", but was just about right. I was employed by him when he inaugurated his popular twenty-five-cent concerts. He gave ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... all 'is kind throughout the land, They ain't been 'eralded with no brass band, Or been much thought about; but, take my tip, The war 'as found 'em with a stiffened lip, 'Umpin' a load they thought they'd dropped for good, Crackin' reel 'ardy, ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... discussed the matter, and their discussion could be heard four blocks away, but they finally yielded and invited me to speak. So Miss Anthony and I rode for three miles in a highly-decorated carriage, just behind the mayor and followed by a brass band and the fire brigade, and I wore a big badge that almost covered me, just like the badge worn by the masculine orator. The dispute between the Executive and the Program Committees had excited so much interest that there were more cheers for your president and vice-president ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... true friendship, and listen to, and sympathise with, and moderate the sighings of the inner man. For him there was no sympathy; no tenderness of love; no retreat, save into himself, from the loud brass band ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... knowledge of the approach of freedom came when he heard a loud brass band coming down the road toward the plantation playing a strange, lively tune while a number of soldiers in blue uniforms marched behind. He ran to the front gate and was ordered to take charge of the horse of one of the officers in such an abrupt ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... new world every day, and have nothing to do from morning, till night. The poor child could hardly believe in an existence without Czerny's scales being played on three or four pianos at once, and a barrel organ and brass band in the street. "Oh, Tom!" she would say to me, a dozen times a day, "I've got C scale and 'Wait for the Wagon' on my brain, and can't get rid of them;" so that I verily believe to my beautiful Vittoria Colonna Mary's present well-being is due ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... American institution, but a peculiarly Southern institution, and even in the South it will die out as other more seemly recreations are introduced. It would be quite easy, we believe, for any Southern community to get rid of it by establishing a good brass band and having concerts every evening. It would be even easier to get rid of it by borrowing a few professional scoundrels from the Department of Justice, having them raid the "study" of the local Methodist archdeacon, and forthwith trying him publicly—with a candidate for governor as prosecuting ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... the one god, and the stomach his only prophet. They learned that the most difficult of all duties is to keep the face straight when the horse of a brother officer who mounts for the first time is surprised to vehemence by its first experience with a brass band. ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... hear that this attempt to restrain free political expression in the foot-hills failed signally. For, although she was again covertly introduced on the platform by the Bungstarters, and placed face to face with Colonel Starbottle at Murphy's Camp, she was dumb. Even a brass band failed to excite her emulation. Either she had become disgusted with politics or the higher prices paid by the party to other and less effective speakers aroused her jealousy and shocked her self-esteem, but she remained a passive spectator. When the Hon. Sylvester Rourback, who ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... destination; they just went "out walking" until ten o'clock, when both girls had to be home—and the boys did, too, but never admitted it. On Friday evenings there was a "public open-air concert" by a brass band in a small park, and the four were always there. A political speechmaker occupied the bandstand one night, and they stood for an hour in the midst of the crowd, ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... this afternoon but 'special what happened later. Folks knows what you tried to pull off up there on the bench. Reports was that the pilgrim had bumped you off but you don't notice no crepe hangin' around nowheres, do you? An' when you turn up alive an' kickin' you don't notice 'em gittin' out no brass band about it, do you? An' I'm givin' you a tip—if I was you I'd right now be kickin' up a cloud of white dust a hell of a ways from Wolf River. Jest cast yer eyes around an' you'll see that there's a bunch of live ones missin'. Well, ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... experiment at the Middlesex County truant school at North Chelmsford has shown it to be a truth, that wickedness takes flight at martial strains; for a full-fledged brass band, in which the delinquent youths are the musicians, has fairly revolutionized the discipline of the school, and many a lad who did not have half a chance has been started "right" on the road ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... archaeologist was much more celebrated than was convenient. In private affairs there is nothing so tiresome and inconvenient as the presence of a celebrity. Burglars, when exercising their professional functions, are not accompanied by a brass band. ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. The first are practising in a back settlement near Battle-bridge[13]; the second put themselves in communication, through their chief, with Mr. Tomlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the person ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... announcing that a concert 'was to be held this evening under the patronage of Lady Brassey and the Honourable two Miss Brasseys.' He kept walking up and down shouting this out until the concert commenced, and when he disappeared the Salvation Army appeared upon the scene with a brass band, the sounds of which are still ringing in my ears as I am trying to write this, preparatory to going to bed betimes to secure some rest before an early start ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... I say, look here, I want a quiet word in season with the authorities. They must have known I was coming back this evening. Of course they did. Why, they specially wrote and asked me. Well, where's the red carpet? Where's the awning? Where's the brass band that ought to have met me at the station? Where's anything? I tell you what it is, William, my old companion, there's a bad time coming for the Headmaster if he doesn't mind what he's doing. He must learn that life is stern and life is earnest, William. Has ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... rar'd, he tip'd and he tar'd, and he charged like the grand entry at a circus. 'Peared to me that all the gas in the house was turned on at once, things got so bright, and I hilt up my head ready to look at any man in the face, and not afear'd of nothin'. It was a circus, and a brass band, and a big ball, all going on at the same time. He lit into them keys like a thousand of bricks; he gave 'em no rest, day nor night; he set every livin' joint in me a-goin', and not bein' able to stand it no longer, I jumpt, sprang on to my seat, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... was his legitimate calling, but he would attempt anything to turn an honest penny. In turn he had been sailor, engineer, pilot, painter, manager, lecturer, bartender, soldier, author, clown, pantaloon, and a brass band. To preach a sermon would disconcert him as little as to undertake to navigate a balloon. He could get away with a pint of Jersey lightning, and under its stimulating influence address a blue ribbon temperance meeting on the pernicious effects of rum. Where ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... they are convenient to throw yourself off the end of them. Happily—or unhappily, whichever way you look at it—the town council never seem to know quite what to do with them. Beside the penny fair and the brass band, they only seem to be the haven of rest for fifth-rate theatrical touring companies, who manage to pay for their summer outing in the theatre erected at the end. Otherwise their importance consists chiefly in being a ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... Smith that he would arrive on a certain train, expecting, of course, that he would be received with a brass band, etc. ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... "Bon'venture is a good place to come to-yes. I have been to Quebec, to St. John, to Fort Garry, to Detroit, up in Maine and down to New York. I have ride a horse in a circus, I have drive a horse and sleigh in a shanty, I have play in a brass band, I have drink whiskey every night for a month—enough whiskey. I have drink water every night for a year—it is not enough. I have learn how to speak English; I have lose all my money when I go to play a game of cards. I go back to de ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... victory in his hand until she was tamed. The election simply confirmed the universal prophecy. He was elected, and while the Democrats went wild with joy, Bradley slept quietly in his bed at home—while the brass band played itself quiescent ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... decoration recalls the reason for it and thus the incident is carried to a successful conclusion. In like manner feelings become associated with ideas. Church bells arouse feelings of reverence and devotion. To many of us a brass band awakens pleasant memories of circus day. Scots Wha Hae fills the Scotchman with love for his native heather. The odor of certain flowers is offensive because we associate it with a sad occasion. The beauty ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... to enter proper. Such a meeting! the kissing and the greeting drownding the noise of the music, and the old men and the little children dancing. The prophet himself came out, and shook hands with 'em all, his brass band blowing in front of him, and he standing up in his carriage. Where else would you travel to, I'd like to know, and find such a welcome at the end of your journey? Houses, and friends, and plenty, all got ready aforehand; and gentlemen waiting ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... learned a great deal. They will be the men of the past in a few months. The memory of a battle's heroes fades away almost with the smoke. In a little while, to receive our just recognition we old soldiers will have to parade before the public with a brass band, and the band will get most attention. Would you know that Aaron Kallaberger was a hero of Gettysburg if he ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... week I met with still further enticements to become a sailor boy. The building yard being in close proximity to the 'Impregnable', I could hear the brass band every morning, and what is so enticing as music? Then, again, hundreds of boys came ashore in large pinnaces, landing within a few yards from me, each carrying a rifle. This was more than I could bear by way of temptation, ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... hunting caribou on the only real vacation he had taken in half a dozen years—and the city of Marion took advantage of a good man, so Mac Tavish asserted, to shove him into the job of mayor; and a brass band was at the station to meet the mayor and the howling mob lugged him into City Hall just as he was, mackinaw jacket, jack-boots, woolen Tam, rifle and all—and Mac Tavish hoped the master would wing a few of 'em just to show his disapprobation. In fact, it was allowed by the judicious observers ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Crossing into Maryland," was another travesty, of about the same literary merit, or rather demerit, as "The Bonnie Blue Flag." Its air was that of the well-known and popular negro minstrel song, "Billy Patterson." For all that, it sounded very martial and stirring when played by a brass band. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... in India, sent from England. One of the regiments is in Sitapur, where I live, and they have a brass band which makes first-rate ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... conceited complacency of an Alpine traveler and a plumpness alleged to have been the result of an exclusive diet of buried mail bags and their contents. He was generally believed to read the advance election posters, and disappear a day or two before the candidates and the brass band—which he hated—came to the Ridge. He was suspected of having overlooked Colonel Johnson's hand at poker, and of having conveyed to the Colonel's adversary, by a succession of barks, the danger of betting against ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Jocelyn thinks that's the style of girl that takes with me, I might as well have remained a scarecrow. Amelia Stone seems loud as a brass band beside her," and his ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... quick response. "You said you could positively make out Puss at the wheel, and I'm almost sure it was Sandy with him. They must have slipped into the country without giving their secret away. Trust sly Puss for knowing how to do that sort of thing. He never goes around with a brass band, telling what big things he ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... trustworthy she is, I believe; although the white blood in her veins is no recommendation. If ever you should live in the islands, my lad—which isn't likely—take an old fool's advice and never marry a half-caste, either in native fashion or in a church with a brass band and a bishop as leading ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... uniform, I think, by the steamer on which I came down, and it was become somewhat greasy and louse-seamed by this time; nevertheless, their appearance was much more soldierlike and respectable than when I first saw them. After the exercise was ended, the men gathered around a small brass band, of half a dozen Germans, which began to play in front of General Walker's quarters. The little General himself sat in his door, and looked out with impassible countenance upon the crowd in the street. It was an excellent conglomerate to study, for any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... warned at the Dumont Estate that a brass band had been sent to the Riberao Preto station, where some notabilities were awaiting my arrival in order to greet me with the usual speeches of welcome. As I particularly dislike public speaking and publicity, I managed to mix unseen among the crowd—they expecting to see an explorer fully armed and ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... singing Gounod's "Biondina" in a loud voice and playing its dashing accompaniment with gusto, I managed to keep myself awake. As for the tired hunters who had been in the saddle all day, they were so worn out that nothing short of a brass band could rouse them long enough for them to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... the long tedious days at sea with ship's quoits, "Bull," and other mild amusements of a similar nature, or the still longer evenings with whist; how we went ashore at dirty glary Port Said, and drank bad coffee, while a brass band of German girls discoursed anything but "sweet music"; how "the inevitable" made a desperate effort to get up a dance in the Red Sea on one of the hottest nights, but was instantly suppressed by force of numbers, determined, though well-nigh prostrate from the heat; or how we went ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... just before you did," said Hardy. "Brass band playing you in and all that sort of thing, I suppose," said the other. "Alas, how the wicked prosper—and you were wicked. Do you remember how you used ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... crowd had gathered, headed by Miss Spence and a brass band; and a cheer from a hundred thousand throats shook the very ground as Penrod swam overhead. Marjorie knelt upon the steps and watched adoringly while Penrod took the drum-major's baton and, performing sinuous evolutions above the crowd, led the band. Then he threw the baton so high that ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... slack rope, and wonderful feats of agility and strength; and to those who have taste and nerve enough to admire such sights, it possesses great attractions. The company is a large one, often exceeding forty persons; it is provided with good performers, and an excellent brass band. The arrival of the circus is commonly announced several weeks before it makes its actual entree, in the public papers; and large handbills are posted up in the taverns, containing coarse woodcuts of the most ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Freedom (the organ of Mr P. H. Pearse and his friends), "of Nationalism to the members of one creed is the most fatal thing that has taken place in Irish politics since the days of the Pope's Brass Band," and the Ancient Order was further referred to as "a job-getting and job-cornering organisation," as "a silent, practical riveting of sectarianism on the nation." The Irish Worker was equally ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... sort of circus when we passed by Taylor's grove. A Butchers' Union had come out from town for a big picnic, and they had a brass band with them. It struck up a waltz just as we reached the grove, and Joyce's pony, Calico, began turning around and around as if he had lost his senses. Joyce screamed and threw her arms around his neck, frightened almost to death until Rob called ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and the beat of the accent approaches regularity without falling into it, language takes on the expressiveness of music. It is well known that music expresses a range of feeling that lies beyond the powers of words: who can explain, for example, the thrill roused in him by a good brass band, or the indefinable melancholy and gloom created by the minor harmonies of one of the great funeral marches, or, in another direction, the impulse that sets him to whistling or singing on a bright morning in summer? There are many such kinds of feeling, real and potent parts of our ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... is a spot-light and a brass band," Cal returned, in much the same tone with which a woman remarks upon a last season's hat on the head ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... dont care nothin for baby's enyway, but I had to submit to a lot of slobberin for the sake of inflooensin votes, for my Candydate. At Fishkill we stopped for refreshments, and was waited on by a brass band and the Mayor and more baby's. Mr. Gilley spoke a few wurds and thanked the crowd for their curtesies, and named a few babies. Jest as we was steemin outer the depot, he dropt his red bandanner handkerchef; you'd dide to see them yung gals tumbel over each ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... was said to hold "forty men or eight horses," and had no windows, but was provided with rough benches and odd boxes for the passengers to sit on. In such a terrible railway carriage all the members of the brass band travelled with their ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... to greet them, and there was the brass band of which Hickory Ridge was getting to be quite proud, playing a sonorous tune which some of the scouts believed must be "Lo! the Conquering Hero Comes," though none of them felt quite ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... shield her ears! 'Twas plain enough that her village peers In the ways of vice were no raw beginners; For whenever she raised the tube to her drum Such sounds were transmitted as only come From the very Brass Band of human sinners! Ribald jest and blasphemous curse (Bunyan never vented worse), With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech Which the Seven Dialecticians teach; Filthy Conjunctions, and Dissolute Nouns, And Particles ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... twenty-five acacias and adorned by a fountain representing a desperate-looking character in the act of firing a finely executed revolver at an imaginary oppressor. Pigs were not allowed within the limits of the town, and the uniforms of the municipal brass band were perfectly new. Could civilisation do more? The bank of which Del Ferice was a director bought the octroi duties of the town at the periodical auction, and farmed them skilfully, together with those of many other ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... and the south coast with the Riviera, for the spending money of the American Trusts. What is all this growing love of pageantry, this effusive loyalty, this officious rising and uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast from a brass band? Imperialism: Not a bit of it. Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity roused by the prevailing smell of money. When Mr Carnegie rattled his millions in his pockets all England became one rapacious cringe. Only, when Rhodes (who had probably ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... fashion. They trimmed the Stump Dodger with spruce fronds till the locomotive looked like a moving wood-lot. Every flag in Sunkhaze was borrowed for the decoration of the coach, and then, in a final burst of enthusiasm, the men subscribed a sum sufficient to hire the best brass band in that ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... into the main hall of the hotel was a large apartment decorated with a sort of stage scenery to represent trees and lakes, the room itself being filled with little tables, around which were seated men smoking and drinking beer, while a thin-toned brass band discoursed popular music ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... were in the gangway; then a violoncello, of whose existence on board I was not aware, was passed up to the hurricane-deck. Landy Perkins played on this instrument, which had been purchased at St. George. I knew that Ben Bowman had formerly played in the Montomercy Brass Band, and I saw him mount the ladder with his cornet. In a few minutes our band was playing "There's music in the air," though the first attempts were evidently not entirely satisfactory to the musicians. After an hour's practice together the ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... of you will come over here on Sunday morning, bringing no brass band, fife or drums, I will tell you something ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... shades of Court House Square will teem with a tumultuous throng. In the emblazoned speakers' stand the Westville Brass Band, in their new uniforms, glittering like so many grand marshals of the empire, will trumpet forth triumphant music fit to burst; and aloft from this ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... morning that you have slept well. If you have not, it is the fault of your conscience: you have had a poet's recipe for it, for you have been 'within the hearing of a hundred streams' all night. Will you go up the Fells, or will you row on the Lake? These are your simple alternatives; there is no brass band, no promenade, no pier, no anything that the vulgar like. Yet once a week at least a great spectacle can be promised you without crossing the inn threshold (indeed, when the promise is kept it is better to be on the right side of it)—a thunder-storm among the hills. The arrangements for ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... the best terms with themselves and with each other. Large numbers of people had already assembled, and the place was glowing with banners and glittering devices, and resounding with the vigorous music of a brass band. Signor Telitetti was to be the special attraction, but there were many other objects of interest and excitement forming part of the entertainment. Among these were a small theatre, and a tent in which were various enticing-looking articles to be raffled for. The noble ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... distortions, in spite of the sentimentality, there is something pleasing in the absolute unaffectedness of the little book. That Mrs. Moore has been appreciated is borne out by the fact that when she travelled from town to town she used to be met at the station by a brass band or by a delegation of prominent citizens. Wherever she went she was humored, and her numerous friends vied with each other in showing her attentions. All this she took as a natural recognition of her genius, and happily was never undeceived. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... understood the true function of the magnificent orchestra that dominated the scene. It was the function of a brass band at a quack-dentist's booth in a fair,—to drown the cries of the victims of ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... mass of bloom above her head. "I know, I know! But it's in me to want a brass band to do it by! I want to see the flag waving! I want to hear the sound of our work. Oh, I know I am talking foolishness!" She took Judith by the hands, and lifted her to her feet. "Anyhow, you're brave enough, Judith, Judith darling! Come, let us ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the press of people waiting for tramcar or omnibus—east, west, south, or north; newsboys, eager to get rid of their last batch, were crying as usual, 'Ech-ow! Exteree speciul! Ech-ow! Steendard!' and a brass band was blaring out its saddest strain of merry dance-music. The lights gleamed dismally in rain-puddles and on the wet pavement. With the wind came whiffs of tobacco and odours ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... he had been associating with people who were used to circuses. The afternoon was hot, and the boys with Japanese fans and trays of lemonade did a remarkable business for so late in the season; the brass band on the other side of the tent shrieked its very best, and all the young men of the region had brought their girls, and some of these countless pairs of country lovers we watched a great deal, as they "kept company" with more or less depth ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... than quarter of a mile distant. It gave three long, shrill toots of its whistle, and came straight for us. It was a small boat, covered with flags and streamers. A brass band, in red coats, sat in the bow playing "Sweet Marie." As the boat came nearer I was surprised to see how few people, aside from the band, were on it. I had expected to see a big crowd,—a picnic gathering. ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... me on the excellent appearance they had presented to him as he passed them in walking up the House.' Considerable uneasiness was felt among some of them at finding themselves neighbours on the benches to Cobden and Bright and Hume and their friends on the one hand, and 'the Irish Brass Band' ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... mooned away to the poop-deck, from the rail of which he watched the guests arriving. As Sir Felix's gig was descried putting off from the shore, the boys swarmed up the ratlines and out on the yards, where they dressed ship very prettily. A brass band in the waist hailed his approach with the strains of "Rule, Britannia!" At the head of the accommodation-ladder a guard of honour welcomed him with a hastily rehearsed "Present Arms!" and the boys aloft accompanied it with three shrill British cheers. The dear old gentleman gazed ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stick to the wagon," he explained leisurely, "we will have them in an hour or two, Bucks. A man might as well travel around here with a brass band as to try to get away with a wagon track behind him. If they stick to the wagon, we are bound to have them in two or three hours at most. You are sure they didn't ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... There'll be something going on in it all the time, if I have to make everything free, and you can bet your last dollar the wine list will have something besides buttermilk on it! There'll be billiard tables, bowling alleys, a dance hall, and a brass band playing all night. I'll fix your beautiful peace and ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... steamer was crossing the Mediterranean with a pleasure party on board. What I heard was the music of a brass band. My! My! Isn't it enough to delight the heart of any creature that has ears to hear? It actually would make a ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... had put Henry E. Abbey hors du combat for a while. Abbey came out of the ranks of theatrical managers, like Heinrich Conried, his only practical experience in music being as a cornet player in a brass band in Akron, Ohio, whence ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... geniality and merits; but one wanted a clear concise Narrative beyond all other merits; and if you ask here (except in that half-volume) about any fact, you are answered (so to speak) not in words, but by a symbolic tune on the bagpipe, symbolic burst of wind-music from the brass band;—which is not the plan at all!—What can have become of Mazzini's Letter, which he certainly did write and despatched to you, is not easily conceivable. Still less in the case of Browning: for Browning and his ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... whom were welcomed, for Christmas comes but once a year, after all, and "the more the merrier" should be our motto at this time. So from villages three and four miles away came bands of children to sing the old, old songs. The brass band, including old grey-haired men who fifty years ago with strings and wood-wind led the psalmody at Chedworth Church, come too, and play inside the hall. We do not brew at home nowadays. Even such old-fashioned Conservatives as old Mr. Peregrine, senior, have at length given up the custom, so we cannot, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Goram, Maine, I once hired an entire brass band of twenty-two pieces to play for an entire evening of roller skating in the town hall, for three dollars. They were worth every dollar ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... and there were the usual fines for those who came late, or missed a practice, for inattention to the leader, or for a dirty instrument, the heaviest fine of all being for intoxication. But long after this there was a Tideswell Brass Band which became famous throughout the country, for the leader not only wrote the score copies for his own band, but lithographed and sold them to other bands ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Claude Duvals and Sam Basses, their methods of getting things may not be ideal, but you can't beat their methods of giving. They've all got lovable qualities. They do a lot of things that show it—and they don't use a brass band accompaniment either." ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... man ventured to remark that Bill had gone about the investigation like a colt approaching a brass band, prancing and dancing, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the fresh air, under the striped awning of the Cafe de la Rotunde, he read the journals, one after the other, or watched the sparrows fly about and peck up the grains in the sand. Children ran here and there, playing at ball; and, above the noise of the promenaders, arose the music of the brass band. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... remnant of a ruin, and not a sound, not even a whisper to disturb the Sabbath stillness—you will find it hard to believe that there stood at one time a fiercely-flourishing little city, of two thousand or three thousand souls, with its newspaper, fire company, brass band, volunteer militia, bank, hotels, noisy Fourth of July processions and speeches, gambling hells crammed with tobacco smoke, profanity, and rough-bearded men of all nations and colors, with tables heaped with gold dust sufficient for the revenues of a German principality—streets crowded ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... question of wines and spirits, I can illustrate my preference for dealing with men who "know you know" what they are selling, and are, indeed, experts in their trades. Although I am not a good or bad Templar, nor yet a small brass Band of Hope, I confess to a large weakness for tea—good, nice, well-flavoured tea. I have, however, found it somewhat difficult to obtain. Occasionally I taste it at the houses of friends who buy their tea in chests at a time; but as for getting such tea at the usual grocers' ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... nerve!" Jack said. "Why doesn't he come into the place with a brass band? Shall we sneak out of a window, or remain here and find ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... most certainly be worth riding miles to see. Perry's Bend had been unfortunate m being the first to hold a carnival, inasmuch as it only set a mark to be improved upon, and Buckskin had taken advantage of this and had added a brass band, and now in ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... the salute, thanked Cephalus for his attentions, and entered the carriage. A brass band of a hundred and twenty pieces struck up an inspiring march, and, preceded and followed by the Amazons, I was conveyed in state to the palatial quarters of ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... wall was—and drew ghosts on the stable door; and being sometimes driven off by Mr Towlinson, made portraits of him, in return, with his ears growing out horizontally from under his hat. Noise ceased to be, within the shadow of the roof. The brass band that came into the street once a week, in the morning, never brayed a note in at those windows; but all such company, down to a poor little piping organ of weak intellect, with an imbecile party of automaton dancers, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... shilling we hired the use of his tools for an hour, and then Rectus and I went to work. We unriveted the handle, and then I held the bottom edge of the saucepan to the grindstone, while Rectus turned, and we soon ground the bottom off. This left us a deep brass band, quite big enough for a crown, and as the top edge was rounded off, it could be turned over on a person's head, so as to sit quite comfortably. With a cold-chisel I cut long points in what would be the upper part of the crown, and ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... was much benefited by forming a school regiment, and drilling them to the music of a brass band composed of the boys themselves. They were as proud of their uniforms, shoulder straps and accoutrements, as were the old guard of Napoleon, and their ambition was stimulated by ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... occupied long halls on the ground floor of tall buildings—nearly always on the business street of the city—kept open until the small hours of morning. There was always a brass band in front, and a string band, or orchestra, in the extreme rear, so if one wished to dance, he could select a partner of most any nationality; dance a set, step up to the bar, pay two bits or twenty-five cents for cigars, drinks or both and expend his balance ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... a growth of flags and tules but with the ground frozen enough so that we did not sink. Our last camp—No. 76—was made in this marsh. There we spent the night, hidden like hunted savages in the cane-brake, while an Indian brass band played some very good music for an officers' ball, less ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... to the activity and excitement of array life that he regretted to give it up, but his business required attention, so he resigned his commission and came home. He was met at the station by a brass band and escorted ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... whistle we transform the lips into a reed and the mouth into a pipe. The tension of the lips and the shape of the mouth cavity decide the note. The lips are also used as a reed for blowing the flute, piccolo, and all the brass band instruments of the cornet order. In blowing a coach-horn the various harmonics of the fundamental note are brought out by altering the lip tension and the wind pressure. A cornet is practically a coach-horn ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... players, Sam Simmonds, who could get more real music out of a fife or flute than some musicians could out of a whole band. The music of the fife and drum, while it may not be so accomplished, gives out more inspiring strains for the marching soldier than any brass band. The cornet, with its accompanying pieces, makes fine music on the stillness of the night, when soldiers are preparing for their night's rest, but nothing gives the soldier on the march more spirit than the fife and drum. When a company nears the reviewing officer ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... reassure us daily that our earthly paradise is still a rich preserve, where the wild raiders, Beauty and Passion, come stealing in, filching security from beneath our noses. As surely as a dog will bark at a brass band, so will the essential Soames in human nature ever rise up uneasily against the dissolution which hovers ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with a grand concourse of all the farming people for miles around. Every farmer brought a pair of hands with him. The teams were innumerable; I had no idea it was such a teeming population. There was a procession of yokes of oxen, a brass band, the living skeleton, two fire engines, citizens generally, the Orator of the Day, more oxen, marshals in cowhide boots and badges, and a cavalcade. There may have been other oxen. I did not intend ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... was buried, all the villages within twenty miles turned out to his funeral. He was the last revolutionary hero of the county. An oration was delivered in the meeting-house; and the brass band of Welbury played "My country, 'tis of thee," all the way from the meeting-house to the graveyard gate. After the grave was filled up, guns were fired above it, and the Welbury village choir sang an anthem. The crowd, the music, the firing of guns, produced an ineffaceable impression upon ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... were interrupted by the strains from a brass band which went crashing by, while ten thousand hobnailed boots of the regiment striking the pavements in unison beat ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... from Sunday-school he had paused at a corner to listen to a brass band, which was returning from a funeral, playing a medley of airs from "The Merry Widow," and as the musicians came down the street, walking so gracefully, the sun picked out the gold braid upon their uniforms and splashed fire from their polished instruments. Penrod marked the shapes of the ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... would have to take my chance," he said. "I didn't expect you to be waiting on the bank with a brass band ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... collapse, and whist became plausible within half an hour after dinner. There was something delightful in the place, too, with its windows opening on the tree-tops of the Square, and the air of a warm autumn evening bringing in the sound of a woebegone brass band from afar, mixed with the endless hum of wheels with hoof-beats in the heart of it, like currants in a cake. The air was all the sweeter that a whiff of chimney-smoke broke into it now and again, and emphasized its quality. When the band ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... was barely sensible of anything that happened beyond the narrow circle of my own lap, but at one moment I heard the squirling of a brass band that was going up the street, with the shuffling of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... say? I can only assure the reader that Mullin stands unique among all musicians, creative and interpretative, in being able to play the organ, many stringed instruments, and all the instruments in a brass band (several of them simultaneously; it would be interesting to know which and how) after studying the piano for six months. I sincerely hope that the mistake he made in withholding all his compositions, save one, from the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... paintings, which could be filled with many figures, were in place. For the house smaller pictures were necessary, such as could easily be carried about. The mere dimensions, therefore, excluded pageants, but, in any case, the pageant was too formal a subject to suit all moods—too much like a brass band always playing in the room. The easel picture had to be without too definite a subject, and could no more permit being translated into words than a sonata. Some of Giovanni Bellini's late works are already ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... loathes study, and hates church-going, and adores a brass band and a circus, and runs away to the races, does not in the least surprise me. Nor that your sixteen-year-old daughter grows hysterical at the sound of dance music, and prefers a theatrical show in your village ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to have been met with a brass band like they did Mr. Cummins' horse, Lightheels, after he won all those cups up in the races at Cincinnati," said the tallest of the young farmers, whose ears had begun to ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... where the usual forest growth should adumbrate, a flash of wings at a time of day when feathered creatures ordinarily rest quiet—these, and hundreds of others which you and I should never even guess at, force themselves as glaringly on an Indian's notice as a brass band in a city street. A white man looks for game; an Indian sees it because it ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... consist of two poems, a tragedy, and a funeral oration. A coffin is laid out with the "remains" of the book, and the literary exercises are performed. These concluded, the class form a procession, preceded by a brass band playing a dirge, and march to the pyre, around which, with uncovered heads, they solemnly form. The four bearers with their torches then advance silently, and place the coffin upon the funeral pile. The class, each member bearing ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... the family spectre. I drew the conversation to the topic of apparitions, and even to warnings of death. I knew that every family worthy of the name has its omen: the Oxenhams a white bird, another house a brass band, whose airy music is poured forth by invisible performers, and so on. Of course I expected some one to cry, 'Oh, we've got a hearse with white horses,' for that is the kind of heirloom an ancient ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... tenscore people. Likewise, at fifty cents a head, he foresaw a good thing as long as high water should last. He had risen nobly to the occasion; for he had even hoisted his bunting and brought with him the local brass band. Orde, brusque in his desire to hurry through an affair of minor importance, rubbed the man ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... and rocked to and fro, doubled up and gasping for breath, and Hopalong squinted at him and grinned with happiness. "Hear him sing! Reg'lar ol' brass band. Sounds like a cow pulling its hoofs outen the mud. Called me a thief, he did, just now. An' I won't let nobody kick me an' call me names. He's a liar, just a plain, squaw's dog ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... tickets, and went round, and round, and round the two kingdoms; living, in fact, in the train, and being thus perpetually on the move. Look at the advantages offered by the Company, on their new extra-triple width line. A Brass Band, a Theatrical Company, a Doctor, Dancing-Master, Teacher of Elocution, Solicitor, Dentist, and Police Magistrate, accompanied every train, which was, moreover, provided with Turkish Shower and Swimming Baths, Billiard-rooms, Circulating Library, and offered attractive advantages to families ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... the jackies from the forecastle of the "United States" were entertained. They were landed at the Battery, and marched in procession to the hotel, headed by a brass band which had been captured with the "Macedonian." Four hundred of the fine fellows were in the line, clad in the dress uniform of the navy of that time. Glazed canvas hats with stiff rims, decked with streamers of ribbon; blue ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... brass band to meet him. At the hotel the clerk read his name without emotion. When he required the best two rooms in the hotel, and a bath at that, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... wailing was peculiarly harmonious and rhythmic, and it was accompanied by the music of stringed instruments, violins, guitars, ukuleles, and banjos. Also, the wailing was of various sorts. The leper brass band wailed, and two singing societies wailed, and lastly a quintet of excellent voices wailed. So much for a lie that should never have been printed. The wailing was the serenade which the glee clubs always give Mr. McVeigh when he returns from a trip ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... rate," said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her thin forefinger at him. "There is more music in my father than there is in a brass band." ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens |
