"Flute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... summer has gone, may be heard the prolonged notes of the Warbling species, which was an especial favorite of Dr. Thomas M. Brewer, author of "History of North American Birds." Its voice is not powerful, but its melody, it is said, is flute-like and tender, and its song is perhaps characterized more by its air of happy contentment, than by any other special quality. No writer on birds has grown enthusiastic on the subject, and Bradford Torrey alone among them does it scant justice, when ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... turn half round so as to have open end in front of one, and roll out as before. Repeat this until it has got 4 turns, taking care to keep the edges as even as possible, and for the last time roll out a good deal larger than the dish. Put a band of paste on the dish, wet this and lay on the cover. Flute the edges neatly. Brush over with egg. Cut the trimmings of paste into leaves, &c., and decorate the pie, putting a rose in the centre. Brush these also with egg. Make one or two slits to let out the steam, and ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... before his death that "they" would not let him sleep at night with crying things at him in Irish, and with playing their pipes. He had asked a friend of his what he should do, and the friend had told him to buy a flute, and play on it when they began to shout or to play on their pipes, and maybe they would give up annoying him; and he did, and they always went out into the field when he began to play. He showed ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... hardly," musing on the tidings, when suddenly there come torch-light and knocking at the door, and cries and laughter: "Open, open, Bacchos[94:1] bids!"—and, heralded by his chorus and the dancers, flute-boys, all the "banquet-band," there enters, "stands in person, Aristophanes." Balaustion had never seen him till that ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... do you say? He'll be giving us into custody again. 'Tillery's our only chance. He daren't touch us there. But I say, he isn't going back to the office. Let's run and get what's in our desks. There's my old flute." ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... ports chapeau a plume, Soulier a rouge talon, Qui joue de la flute, Aussi du violon. Lon, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... add to my name the information that I am thirty-two years old; a graduate of Columbia University; that I have some property in Colorado which gives me a great deal of trouble; and a farm with a wood lot in Vermont which is the joy of my heart. I cannot endure politics; I play the flute, like my eggs boiled three ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... whose branches droop so sorrowfully towards the ground that people plant them on their graves and some whose branches are so tough and flexible that people use them to weave baskets of. There are some out of which you can carve yourself a grand flute, if you know how. And then there are a heap about which there is nothing very remarkable ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... Sycamore. There the bees were all at work for next May-day, happy as ever bees were on Hybla itself; and gone now though be the age of gold, happy as Arcadians were we, nor wanted our festal-day or pipe or song; for to the breath of Harry Wilton, the young English boy, the flute gave forth tones almost as liquid sweet as those that flowed from the lips of Mary Morrison herself, who alone, of all singers in hut or hall that ever drew tears, left nothing for the heart or the imagination to desire in any ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... (A.D. 713-42) the Emperor Hsuean Tsung, of the T'ang dynasty, appointed them his music masters. At the sound of their wonderful flute the clouds in the sky stopped in their courses; the harmony of their songs caused the odoriferous la mei flower to open in winter. They excelled also in songs ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... from the right-hand corner; and, moving in a semi-circle, would pass slowly on and disappear in the left. Moreover I beheld the shapes of castles and houses, of horses and riders, of plants, trees, musical instruments, theatres, dresses of men of all sorts, and flute-players who seemed to be playing upon their instruments, but neither voice nor sound was heard therefrom. And besides these things I beheld soldiers, and crowds of men, and fields, and certain bodily ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... will God grant me grace to place me among those who are doing their duty, and afar from those who do nothing, and who ought to know that the cause is a common one. If I am ever caught dancing the German cotillon, or playing the German flute, or eating pike with German sauce, I hope it may be flung ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... which I grinned at Mother and she grinned back—if you can call her gorgeous smile a grin. After dinner the lights were put on and we had some music, as we always do when I'm home—little family orchestra with two fiddles, a flute, my mandolin, and the piano, and I noticed we didn't play any but the jolliest sort of things. Then Dad and I sat down again on the big couch in front of the fireplace to smoke and talk, with the kids hanging round till long past their bed-time. I went up with Jimmy, my twelve-year-old ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... wooings, gentle June? Thou hast a Naiad's charm; Thy breezes scent the rose's breath; Old Time gives thee her palm. [5] The lark's shrill song doth wake the dawn; The eve-bird's forest flute Gives back some maiden melody, Too pure for aught ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... covered with standing grain, and their acres shone like gold in the level rays of the morning sun. Far and near the farmers worked in their fields of corn and other grain, giving vent to their joy by short snatches of song or loud, clear whistling, as full and flute-like as the notes of the red birds that sang in the trees which bordered them. The drought and extreme heat had forced grain into premature ripeness and the yield thereby was somewhat diminished. We passed men and boys on the road going to some distant grainfield. They bade us good ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... down On his golden throne, in his golden crown, And shouted, "Wine and flute-girls three, And the Captain, ho! of ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... and women, was rather dark and very hot. In a corner there was a grinding organ, whose handle was turned by a perspiring man in a long, woollen cap. Beside him, hunched up on a window-sill, was a shepherd boy who accompanied the organ upon a flute of reed. Round the walls stood a throng of gazers, and in the middle of the floor the dancers performed vigorously, dancing now a polka, now a waltz, now a mazurka, now an elaborate country dance in which sixteen or twenty people took part, now a tarantella, called by many of the contadini "La ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... on a low limb a few rods off, salutes me with "Whew! Whew!" or "Whoit! Whoit!" almost as you would whistle for your dog. I see by his impulsive, graceful movements, and his dimly speckled breast, that it is a thrush. Presently he utters a few soft, mellow, flute-like notes, one of the most simple expressions of melody to be heard, and scuds away, and I see it is the veery, or Wilson's thrush. He is the least of the thrushes in size, being about that of the common bluebird, and he may be distinguished from his relatives by the dimness ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... I want to see if I can pick out 'The Star Spangled Banner' on it. I can on the flute, father's old ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... angel, So gentle and so calm; As softly as the falling flakes He comes with flute and psalm. All in a cloud of glory, As once upon the plain To shepherd-boys in Jewry, He brings good news again. He is the young folks' Christmas; He makes their eyes grow bright With words of hope and tender thought, And visions of delight. Hail to the Christmas angel! ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... said the little girl, in a small flute voice, "that you know much more than I; do not refuse, then, to instruct me. I cannot explain how it is you speak and breathe. Since you have kept your trunk in its case, I perceive above it your lips closed, ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... second compartment were a jade flute and a golden flageolet. In a third were antique jewels, gold furnishings and a hundred ornaments worth thousands of ounces each. She threw them all into the river. The stricken onlookers gave voice ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's I ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... of Nares (1859), this very passage is quoted to illustrate the meaning of the word, which is defined rather vaguely to be A CASK. Obviously the word signifies something of the kind, but the explanation does not at all satisfy me. I suspect that a flute OF CANARY was so called from the cask having several vent-holes, in the same way that the French call a lamprey FLEUTE D'ALEMAN from the fish having little holes in the ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... and the attendance and lodging of the boys and girls—the other having to do with contests of music and gymnastic. In musical contests there shall be one kind of judges of solo singing or playing, who will judge of rhapsodists, flute-players, harp-players and the like, and another of choruses. There shall be choruses of men and boys and maidens—one director will be enough to introduce them all, and he should not be less than forty years of age; secondly, of solos also there shall be one director, ...
— Laws • Plato
... peasant, when the moon shall light her bright lamp in the star-spangled heavens, and shed her silvery rays across the plain, the hunter may lead forth the village belle, and foot it merrily on the mossy greensward, to the sound of the bagpipe and the rustic flute, by fountains which never cease their monotonous but soothing plaint, and under the long shadows of the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... lingering along the road we heard, just after sundown, the song of the wood-thrush. We stopp'd without a word, and listen'd long. The delicious notes—a sweet, artless, voluntary, simple anthem, as from the flute-stops of some organ, wafted through the twilight—echoing well to us from the perpendicular high rock, where, in some thick young trees' recesses at the base, sat the bird ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... which Lord Bacon, in his "Wisdom of the Ancients," has not interpreted. This is the flaying of Marsyas by Apollo. Everybody remembers the accepted version of it, namely,—that the young shepherd found Minerva's flute, and was rash enough to enter into a musical contest with the God of Music. He was vanquished, of course,—and the story is, that the victor fastened him to a tree and flayed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... two could muse and doze the hours away together; and when the nights were long, and dark, and deep, and beautiful, they could drift out in the noon-light of the stars, and with "the soft complaining flute" and "warbling lute," "lay the pipes," as John would say, for their enduring popularity with the girls! And it was immediately subsequent to one of these romantic excursions, when the belated pair, at two o'clock in the morning, had skulked up a side stairway of the old hotel, and gained ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... who played the flute, had established himself. Like all poor players, he affected the low, mournful notes, as plaintive as the distant cooing of the dove in lowering, weather. He played or rather tooted away in his "blues"-inducing ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... saw an instrument like a flute, made of bone, very ingeniously carved, hanging at the breast of one of the natives; and when he asked what bone it was formed from, the possessor immediately told him that it was the bone of a man. It was a larger bone than any of the native ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... far-away things. My soul goes out in longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.... O Far-to-Seek! O the keen call of thy flute...!" ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... table, Wardor proposed their calling on a Roman family, who were spending the summer in the town. They found the house they occupied crowded with guests, who, having finished dinner, were busily employed dancing to the music of two guitars and a flute; that is, the younger part of them, while the elders applauded vociferously, entering into the amusement with a reckless spirit of fun and good nature, which people who have to keep shady nine tenths of the year for fear of their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... had a great store of songs we were deficient to the last degree in musical instruments, the one solitary example being an humble mouth-organ which in a moment of weakness I had thrown in with my outfit. We just escaped having a flute. Frank, who left us on the 10th of June, possessed one, and when he was preparing to go Steward negotiated for this instrument. He gave Cap. his revolver to trade for it, considering the flute more desirable ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the flowers which grew on those hills, and which budded and bloomed through all the lovely months of spring, of summer, and of autumn? Sometimes the shepherds, as they sat in the shade watching their sheep, would play sweet tunes on their pipes and flutes, for a shepherd who could not use a flute was thought little of in those hills. It was sweet to hear those pipes and flutes from a little distance, when all was quiet among the hills, excepting the ever restless and ever dancing waters. There were ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... genius should often misunderstand its own strength, and seek it where it is weakest, is indeed no new phenomenon in its history. Frederick the Great prides himself more on his flute-playing than on his kingship; and it is not so very long ago that in our very midst a university professor called the happiest day of his life not that on which he discovered a new Greek particle, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... Bougainville, "and the man at once bent towards us, and in a gentle way, sung, to the sound of a flute which another Indian blew with his nose, a song which was no doubt anacreontic. It was a charming scene, worthy of the pencil of Boucher. Four natives came with great confidence to sup and sleep on board. We had the flute, bassoon, and violin played for them, and treated them to fireworks composed ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... left the best possible remembrance of his rare talents and qualities at Budapest, where during many years he fulfilled the duties of conductor to the theater, and shone by his virtuosity (very celebrated in Europe) as a flute player—an instrument which Frederick the Great condescended to use. Doppler's Operas "Beniowszky" and "Ilka" were favorably received; and up to the present time "Ilka" is the only Hungarian opera admitted to the repertoire of several theaters in Germany. Besides this Doppler has also written ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... speak German, but I play the German flute," said the apologetic gentleman; and so might we say. We don't engage ladies in diplomacy, but we employ all the old women of our own sex! Wherever we find a well-mannered, soft-spoken, fussy old soul, with a taste for fine clothes and fine dinners, fond of court festivities, and heart ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... few notes, heavy and dolorous, filling the church like a thunder-cloud, then suddenly left off, and opening the flute-stop, burst ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the gift of music and poetry bestowed upon him, that man was Lanier. His wife agreed with him in his ideals and faith, so in 1873 he left his family in Georgia and went to Baltimore, the land of libraries and orchestras. He secured the position of first flute in the Peabody orchestra, and, by sheer force of genius, took up the most difficult scores and faultlessly led all the flutes. He read and studied, wrote and lectured like one who had suffered from mental starvation. In 1879 he received the appointment of lecturer on English literature at the Johns ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... "Flute! some fashionable assembly that will bore me beyond endurance," he sighed. "With you alone, Lisette, have I known true happiness—the train rides on summer nights that were joyous because we loved; the simple meals that were sweetened by ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... honor in the lodge. The king himself went out hunting to obtain the most dainty bits of meat. And not content with these proofs of his attachment he fasted himself, and would often take his flute and sit near the lodge indulging his mind in repeating a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... upon those about him: as when, for instance, he secretly read a French story with his sister, and recast the whole Berlin Court into the comic characters of the novel; when they made forbidden music with flute and lute; when he went in disguise to her and they recited the parts of a French comedy to each other. But in order to enjoy even these harmless pleasures the prince was constantly forced into falsehood, deception, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... by all that's sacred! did not Socrates cause his associates to despise the established laws when he dwelt on the folly of appointing state officers by ballot? (3) a principle which, he said, no one would care to apply in selecting a pilot or a flute-player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. But for myself I think ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... in music (he was musical, and played on more than one instrument, flute and violoncello), in which I was audience; and I think that our chief beverage was soda-water. In the day we rode, bathed, and lounged, reading occasionally. I remember our buying, with vast ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... and melodious, that Tithonus exclaimed, "You err, O Plato, in saying the tuneful soul of Marsyas has passed into the nightingale; for surely it remains with this young Athenian. Son of Clinias, you must be well skilled in playing upon the flute the divine ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... the flute went down one day to the sea-shore with his nets and his flute; and, taking his stand on a projecting rock, began to play a tune, thinking that the music would bring the fish jumping out of the sea. He went on ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... voice is musical, if that's what you mean—musical and low, and reminds one of the sounds made by a great master playing his heart out in the lowest notes of the flute; but it is so far from being familiar to me that I'm quite sure I never heard a ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... created a new technic for their instrument; but although Saint-Saens, Bruch, Lalo and others have in their works endowed the violin with much beautiful music, music itself was their first concern, and not music for the violin. There are no more concertos written for the solo flute, trombone, etc.—as a result there is no new technical material added to the ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... Flute-players, accustomed to having their parts written in the upper octave, and not admitting that their part can be written below that of clarinets or hautboys, frequently transpose entire passages an octave higher. The conductor, if he does not carefully peruse his score, if he is not ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... Quintet organized in Boston—August Fries, first violin, Francis Riha, second violin, Edward Lehman, viola and flute, Thomas Ryan, viola and clarinet, Wulf Fries, violoncello. This was a pioneer organization in Chamber Music, and ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... condemn us to the savage sadness of equality? Why, Daphnis's flute would not be melodious if it were made of seven equal reeds. You wish to destroy the beautiful harmonies between masters and servants, aristocrats and artisans. Oh, I fear you are a sad barbarian, Monsieur Choulette. You are full of pity for those who are in need, and you have no pity ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... mean nothing," said Arthur; "they are stupid, but the things that one sees! Remi made me see the shepherd with his flute, and the fields, and the dogs, and the sheep, then the wolves, and I could even hear the music that the shepherd was playing. Shall I sing ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... recognized as the greatest pianoforte player and composer of his time by all of musical Germany, could suffer such dire extremes of want as to be obliged more than once to beg for a dinner. In 1791 he composed the score of the "Magic Flute" at the request of Schikaneder, a Viennese manager, who had written the text from a fairy tale, the fantastic elements of which are peculiarly German in their humor. Mozart put great earnestness into the work, and made ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Sound the flute! Now 'tis mute; Birds delight Day and night, Nightingale, In the dale, Lark in sky— Merrily, Merrily, merrily to welcome in ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... otherwise irksome leisure of those temporary recluses. Most of my hermits were smoking—I mean on the male side—many were reading; one had a fiddle, and I scraped acquaintance immediately with him; whilst another was seated at the door of his snug little bedroom, getting up cadenzas on the flute. He was an old trombone-player in one of the household regiments, an inmate of Hanwell for thirty years, and a fellow-bandsman with myself for the evening. He looked, I thought, quite as sane as myself, and played magnificently; but I was ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... but rather a sort of moaning melody, half music and half bewailment. This wailing song is far from disagreeable, though it has a cadence which is expressive of dreariness and melancholy. It might be performed on a small flute, by commencing with D octave and running down by semitones to a fifth below, and frequently repeating the notes, for the space of a minute, with occasional pauses and slight variations, sometimes ascending as well as descending the scale. The bird does not slur the passages, but utters them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... slight, was graceful in his movements, and held his head high. His dark brown hair hung in wavy masses upon his neck. His voice had in early manhood a quality, afterwards lost, which Mr Sharp describes as "flute-like, clear, sweet and resonant." Slim, dark, and very handsome are the words chosen by Mrs Bridell-Fox to characterise the youthful Browning as he reappeared to her memory; "And—may I hint it?"—she adds, "just a trifle ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... the finest ruined castle in the kingdom; it surpassed everything I could have conceived. I wandered there two hours in a still evening, feeding upon melancholy. Two well dressed young men were roaming there. "I will play my flute here," said the first; "it will have a romantic effect." "Bless thee, man of genius and sensibility," I silently exclaimed. He sate down amid the most awful part of the ruins; the moon just began to make her ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Perhaps those who first gave it the name of the mocking-bird were not well acquainted with the notes of the birds which they fancied it to mock. To mistake it for the nightingale, some of whose tones it is said to imitate, would be like confounding the clash of cymbals with the soft sound of a flute. ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... to the throne about three months ago, amidst such an enthusiasm as had never before been witnessed on Hawaii-nei, as the unanimous choice of the people. He called on Mr. Coan the day of his arrival; and when the flute band of Mr. Lyman's school serenaded him, he made the youths a kind address, in which he said he had been taught as they were, and hoped hereafter to profit by the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... of constitution, he soon became a proficient in martial exercises. The different branches of science bearing on the art of war he was forced to study; but his leisure hours were devoted to reading French verses, and playing on the flute—pursuits that greatly displeased his royal father, who frequently threw the books into the fire, and the flutes ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... he claimed that its continued sound made the fibres of the nerves to palpitate, and the pain vanished. In line with this treatment, Democritus affirmed that diseases are capable of being cured by the sound of a flute, when properly played. ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... any other. A French cook for Mr. Rossitur, and even Rosaline for his wife, who declared she was worth all the rest of Paris. Hugh cared little for any of these things; he brought home a treasure of books and a flute, to which he was devoted. Fleda cared for them all, even Monsieur Emile and Rosaline, for her uncle's and aunt's sake; but her special joy was a beautiful little King Charles, which had been sent ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... representative of the Pall Mall Gazette. I came over from Paris to spend Christmas at home, and never went back to complete that continental tour in search of knowledge, which I fancy had been suggested by Goldsmith's trip with his flute. It happened that in the early days of 1870, the proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette began the first of the series of chequered changes in the history of the journal, by starting it as a morning paper. I had been an occasional contributor in a humble way to the evening ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... watching him with interest. She wondered what he would find it necessary to do. She heard him begin a low, flute-like whistling, and then saw the antlered head turn towards him. The woodland creature moved, but it was in his direction. It had without doubt answered his call before and knew its meaning to be friendly. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... down to a dead silence. Her audience watched her with bated breath. Her dance was a thing indescribable. Courteney could think of nothing but the flashing of morning sunlight upon running water to the silver strains of a flute that was surely piped by Pan. He could not follow the sparkling wonder of her. He felt dazed and strangely exhilarated, almost on fire with this new, fierce attraction. It was as if the very soul were being drawn out of his body. She called to him, ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... foreign nurses. Girls no longer sing old ballads in the twilight to weary fathers and allure restless brothers to pass the evening at home in innocent participation in an impromptu concert, the boys bearing their part with voice and banjo or flute. We did not make perfect music when these domestic entertainments were in vogue, but we helped make happy ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... their merriment partakes more of the nature of a goose's cackle than any other sort of natural melody. But this large, soft and silvery, was like a delicately subdued cadence played on a magic flute in the distance, and suggested nothing but sweetness; and at the sound of it Gervase started violently and turned sharply round upon his friend Murray with a ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Grouse came there, And the Pobble who has no toes, And the small Olympian bear, And the Dong with a luminous nose. And the Blue Baboon who played the flute, And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute, And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat,— All came and built on the lovely Hat Of the ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... London except the telephone," he explained. "It's easy enough to blow in the hot air, but it takes a whole lot of experience on the flute to make the proper connections with your fingers. And to get a number—well, it's a joke, that's ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... court, too, of romance. It might be a garden of Allah, with a plaintive Arab flute singing, among the orange trees, of the wars and the hot passions of the desert. It might be a court in Seville or Granada, with guitars tinkling and lace gleaming among the cool arcades. It ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... and improvident. When his master is hungry or thirsty, he sometimes has neither bread nor water to offer him; he does not even know how to protect him from the wind which blows in through door and window, as Tulou blows upon his flute, but less agreeably. ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... of stratagems, sometimes recruiting his finances by the acquisition of small sums proposed in the foreign universities to public disputants; at others, securing himself a hospitable reception by the exercise of a moderate share of skill in playing the flute—his "tuneless pipe," as he calls it, in that passage of The Traveller, where he alludes to this method ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... the sire, in his most flute-like tones, "I have brought a friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him your pretty hand. It is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... young master's last year's suit, immaculate blue broadcloth and brass buttons, ruffled shirt and black-braided watch guard hanging from his neck. His eyes sparkled with pride and his rich, sonorous voice rang over the crowd like the deep notes of a flute: ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... waves as a first offering, according to the practise of their forefathers, as Horapollo had described and ordered it. These went on to the pontoon, to its farthest end, and took their place on one side of the platform whence the Bride was to be cast into the river. Behind them came a large troop of flute-players and drummers, followed by fifty maidens holding tambourines, and fifty men all dressed and carrying emblems as followers of Dionysus, or Osiris-Bacchus, who had been worshipped here in the time of the Romans; with these came the drunken Silenus, goathoofed Satyrs and Pan, with his reed-pipes, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... am twenty-five, have an iron constitution, and a determination to do all in my power to make an honest living; but I can do nothing. I have not cultivated any one talent in a manner to make use of it now. I can play on the flute, but only as an amateur. I only know my own language, and I have no taste for literature. So what can you make of me? I must add that I have not a single expectation, least of all from my father, for to save the honour of the family he will be obliged to sell my portion of the estate, to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... nests, whether out of excessive happiness or excessive stupidity, have a dangerous habit of singing very near them. Not so the wood thrush. "Come to me," as the opening notes of its flute-like song have been freely translated, invites the intruder far away from where the blue eggs lie cradled in ambush. is as good a rendering into syllables of the luscious song as could very well be made. Pure, liquid, rich, and luscious, ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Shrunk from the mere spectator's careless gaze, And, in retirement sought the social smile, The heart-endearing aspect, and the voice Of soothing tenderness, which Friendship breathes, And which sounds far more grateful to the ear, Than the soft notes of distant flute at eve, Stealing across the waters: Zimmermann! Thou draw'st not Solitude as others do, With folded arms, with pensive, nun-like air, And tearful eye, averted from mankind. No! warm, benign, and cheerful, she appears The friend of Health, of Piety, and Peace; The kind ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... regard my horse with curiosity. On my imitating their chirp one fluttered down, and attempted to alight on my horse's ears. On my whistling to them, one whistled some beautifully varied notes, as soft as those of an octave flute, although their common chirp was harsh and dissonant. The male and female seemed to have very different plumage, especially about the head; that on the one having the varying tint of the Rifle bird, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... long ago, Ere heaving billows learned to blow, While organs yet were mute; Timotheus to his breathing flute And sounding lyre Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... out, did not come back for long enough. There is no doubt that the music was to blame for firing the men's blood, and the result most disgraceful fighting with no object in view. There was three fiddlers and two at the flute, most of them blind, but not the less dangerous on that account; and they kept the town in a ferment, even playing the countryfolk home to the farms, followed by bands of townsfolk. They were a quarrelsome set, the ploughmen and others; and it was generally admitted in the town that their ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... his eyes, and shook his head up and down two or three times, gravely, with a little flute-like whistle. But they had reached the inn, and a stout maid-servant in a night-cap was at the door with a lantern, to take Newman's traveling-bag from the porter who trudged behind him. Valentin was lodged on ...
— The American • Henry James
... many different tones," said the Doctor. "The Thrasher's song is like some one talking cheerfully; the Meadowlark's is flute-like; the Oriole's is more like clarion notes; the Bobolink bubbles over like a babbling brook; while the dear little brown striped Song Sparrow, who is with us in hedge and garden all the year, sings ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... Lucie's apartment, and, as it was nearly opposite his own, he drew back, to avoid being observed, though he watched, with intense interest, the motions of De Valette. The young Frenchman applied a flute to his lips, and played a few notes of a lively air,—then, suddenly breaking off, he changed the measure into one so soft and plaintive, that the sounds seemed to float, like aerial harmony, upon the ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... blows the flute, And the cobbler blows the horn, And the miner blows the bugle, Over mountain gorge and bourn." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And then the landlord's daughter Up to heaven raised her hand, And said, "Ye may no more contend,— There lies the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... piece we heard was something like this: the sound of a bell, tolling at regular intervals, like the throbbing of a life begun; about it an accompaniment of hopes, inducements, fears, the flute, the violin, the violoncello, promising, urging, entreating, inspiring; the life beset with trials, lured with pleasures, hesitating, doubting, questioning; its purpose at length grows more certain and fixed, the bell ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a New Hampshire preacher of the "Christian" (Christ-ian) denomination, is said to have composed the tune (and possibly the words) about 1815—though apparently the music was arranged from a flute interlude in one of Haydn's themes. The warbling notes of the air are full of heart-feeling, and usually the best available treble voice sang it as ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... his life, though it could not thwart his genius. Rejected as a candidate for the ministry, he devoted three years to the nominal study of medicine at the Universities of Edinburgh and Leyden (in Holland). Next he spent a year on a tramping trip through Europe, making his way by playing the flute and begging. Then, gravitating naturally to London, he earned his living by working successively for a druggist, for the novelist-printer Samuel Richardson, as a teacher in a boys' school, and as a hack writer. At last at the age of thirty-two he achieved success with a series ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... drough the window-peaene Vrom the candle's dull fleaeme do shoot, An' young Jemmy the smith is a-gone down leaene, A-playen his shrill-vaiced flute. An' the miller's man Do zit down at his ease On the seat that is under the cluster o' trees. Wi' his ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... dense and plumy branches. It merely turned up the silvery sides of the five-fingered clusters of needles which responded with a low melancholy voice like an aeolian harp, or those minor chords composed under its shade by my friend the Flute Player of Bellingham. In the woods when the pines sing it is not these I hear but the lone tree by the Barber mansion. It was the only tree in my reach I had never climbed. I was afraid of its dark mysterious recesses—also ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... pines one catches a distant gleam of the snow plant, an exquisite sharp note of color, of true Roman shade, such as Rossetti loved to introduce into his pictures, shrill like the vibrant wood of the flute. When a ray of the sun happens to strike this it gleams like a flaming fiery sword, symbol of that which marked the entrance to Paradise. One can circumvent this guard here, and when he is in these hills he is not far ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... than mine have described that scene—the oak pulpit standing out by itself above the School seats; the tall, gallant form, the kindling eye, the voice, now soft as the low notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the light-infantry bugle, of him who stood there Sunday after Sunday, witnessing and pleading for his Lord, the King of righteousness and love and glory, with whose Spirit he was filled, and in whose power he spoke; the long lines of ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... blind and narrow savage who was the boy's father had just sufficient difficulty in stamping out every trace of decency in him, to show that some such traces must have been there. If the younger and greater Frederick ever had a heart, it was a broken heart; broken by the same blow that broke his flute. When his only friend was executed before his eyes, there were two corpses to be borne away; and one to be borne on a high war-horse through victory after victory: but with a small bottle of poison in the ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... with such wonderful success, they were not strangers to the influences of poetry and music. Says the poet CAMPBELL, "The Spartans used not the trumpet in their march into battle, because they wished not to excite the rage of their warriors. Their charging step was made to the 'Dorian mood of flute and soft recorder.' The valor of a Spartan was too highly tempered to require a stunning or rousing impulse. His spirit was like a steed too proud for ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... as if we were quite accustomed to as much attention and more in the hotels of America; but in a very few minutes we knew all the disadvantages of being of too much importance. Presently the one-eyed man gave way to a pair of players on the flute and mandolin. ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... war. Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight, And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite; Along the street the new-made brides are led, With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed: The youthful dancers in a circle bound To the soft flute, and cithern's silver sound: Through the fair streets the matrons in a row Stand in their ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... song. It was of that day when the pipings of love's flute startled for the first time the hushed air of the Vrinda forest. The shepherd women did not know who was the player or whence came the music. Sometimes it seemed to come from the heart of the south wind, and sometimes from ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... sunny afternoon in June, and old Enoch, sitting in the shade of the garden bushes, called forth sweet tones from his flute. No score was before him; that from which he played was scored on his heart. Being in ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... inclination either for the serious employments or for the amusements of his father. He shirked the duties of the parade; he detested the fume of tobacco; he had no taste either for backgammon or for field sports. He had an exquisite ear, and performed skilfully on the flute. His earliest instructors had been French refugees, and they had awakened in him a strong passion for French literature and French society. Frederic William regarded these tastes as effeminate and contemptible, and, by abuse and persecution, made them still stronger. Things became worse when ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... next day, and all the next night he meditated. For the first six hours he meditated on knowledge, mystery, and the whole duty of man, just as he had been told to do. And he only stopped once to listen to a flute-player who had stolen into the forest back of the lodge and was trying to tell some young squaw how much he loved her and how lonely he was without her. The flute had only four notes and one of them was out of order; but Andramark had been ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... old man was joking. He did not yet know that one can teach a bird to imitate. The old man then brought out a flute and presented ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... lowest, if, as is too common, it rains, our Federate Volunteers will file through the inner gateways, Royalty standing dry. Nay there, should some stop occur, the beautifullest fingers in France may take you softly by the lapelle, and, in mild flute-voice, ask: "Monsieur, of what Province are you?" Happy he who can reply, chivalrously lowering his sword's point, "Madame, from the Province your ancestors reigned over." He that happy 'Provincial Advocate,' now Provincial ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... highest &c. (high &c. 206); top; top most, upper most; tiptop; culminating &c. v.; meridian, meridional[obs3]; capital, head, polar, supreme, supernal, topgallant. Adv. atop, at the top of the tree. Phr. en flute; fleur deau[Fr]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... photograph of an Italian baby. Three photographs of pretty Italian girls. Four very villainous old pipes. Many straws of macaroni. An old felt hat. A dirty stick of candy. Five small silver coins. An harmonica. An odd sort of flute. The bonnet of an Italian baby. Four soiled red bandannas. A black wallet containing about a dollar in silver. Two tin cups. Two pictures of peasants. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... joy of your heart in every possible form? The everlasting hum and seething of myriad life satisfies and soothes me. I feel as if something were going on in the world, else why all this shouting, and bedecking of every weed in its best, this endless strain from every tiny weed or great oaken flute? All that cannot sing, dances; the gnats in the air and the long-legged spiders on the water. Even the ants and beetles, the workers that are quoted for examples by hoarding men, run about doing nothing, putting ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... meteor, commenced a general quacking, which so alarmed him that he turned off and went around the pond, and was about to pass over an Indian village. Here he was again frightened by a young warrior, who was playing on the flute. Being afraid of music, he passed around the village, and soon after falling to the earth, released his burden. The Indian then asked the meteor to give him his head strap, which he refused. The Indian ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego? do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... had finished her practice, came borne upon the distance the still more melancholy pipe of a student's flute. This was the last human sound. After that the night was left to the orchestra of the insects—the grasshoppers, the crickets and the semi (cicadas). Asako soon was able to distinguish at least ten or twelve different songs, all metallic in character, like clock ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... in comparison with all the fables and idylls of his age. It is entirely natural, living, and of his time. Patie plays upon a flute of "plum-tree made with ivory virls round," which he bought from the proceeds of "sax good fat lambs" sold at the West Port, instead of the rustic pipe or oaten reed, which in his heart of hearts no doubt ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... produce a body of tones, which—if they are so chosen that they blend harmoniously—is called a Chord; and a series of such chords is an illustration of what is known as Harmony. If, however, we play with one finger only, we produce a melody. The human voice, the flute, horn,—all instruments capable of emitting but one tone ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... music?" asked his mistress, knitting as she spoke. "He came from Germany; there's where you get the best singers. Some canaries won't sing before company and some won't sing alone; they are fussy,—I call it pernickitty. Why, I had one with a voice like a flute; but I happened to buy some new wall-paper, and she didn't like the looks of it, and after that she never would ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... them that are in love with life, Wandering like children with untroubled eyes, Far from the noise of cities and the strife, Strange flute-like ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... still; Sleep each wild thought encages; Now stirs a wicked will, Would see how madness rages. And cries, Wild Spirit, awake! Loud cymbals catch the cry And back its echoes shake; And shouting peals of laughter, The trumpet rushes after, And cries, Wild Spirit, awake! Amidst them flute tones fly, Like arrows keen and numberless; And with bloodhound yell Pipes the onset swell; And violins and violoncellos, Creeking, clattering, Shrieking and shattering; And horns whence thunder bellows; To leave the victim slumberless, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... solved their problems by the side of others writing to their sweethearts on pink perforated note-paper covered with drawings. Here one was composing a melodrama at the side of another practising on the flute, from which he drew wheezy notes. Over there, the older boys, students in professional courses, who affected silk socks and embroidered slippers, amused themselves in teasing the smaller boys by pulling their ears, already red from repeated fillips, while two or three held down a little fellow ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... who never interrupt a generous impulse, plunged into the florist's house and despatched a costly bundle of bulbs to Ireland. The next day he left Leyden with a guinea in his pocket, no clothes but those he stood in, and a flute in his hand. For the rest you must see the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... followed. Caesar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when suddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a flute. This phantom was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human, so far as its lineaments could be traced in the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the story, on any hypothesis which would explain it out of Caesar's individual condition, is, that others saw ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... meditate the future lay, And watch impatient for the dawn of day. The morn rose clear, and shrill were heard the flute, The cornet, sackbut, dulcimer, and lute; To Babylon's gay streets the throng resort, Swarm thro' the gates, and fill the festive court. High on his throne Darius tower'd in pride, The fair Apame grac'd the Sovereign's side; And now she smil'd, and now with mimic frown Placed ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... amazed; and, observing his surprise, I said to him: Do you not know, Cleinias, that flute-players are most fortunate and successful in performing on ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... here; he shunned all observance, only holding communion with a poor family who procured him what necessaries he needed. After a residence of two years he died, without leaving the slightest clue to his name or country. That his condition was gentle may be inferred from his accomplishments: a flute and a guitar, on both of which he is said to have played much and well, with a drawing or two, are all that remain of the recluse, although the man who attended upon him says ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... swift, lightning glance of hatred passed between the two. Then Diane's lids drooped again, and her soft, flute-like voice continued: ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... great musician, not because he played the flute but because he did not have to go to Boston to hear "the Symphony." The rhythm of his prose, were there nothing else, would determine his value as a composer. He was divinely conscious of the enthusiasm ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... at his thoughts, Mrs. Austen played the flute. "Won't you sit down?" In speaking, she sank on a ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... But my mind's taken a new turn on his subjeck from what he said at dinner, an' I will admit, Mrs. Lathrop, as I see now as I misjudged him in one way, for he come an' asked me while I was washin' up if I knowed any way to open a locked box without a key, for he could n't find the key to his flute box nowhere, an' when he was a little nervous nights he always wore it off practisin' on his flute. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, you can maybe imagine as learnin' as there was a flute in that box an' the key lost, an' him in the habit of playin' that flute nights, altered my views more 'n a little, ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... a tumultuous rush of every produceable sound; tom-tom, conch-shell, cymbal, flute, stringed instruments and bells burst into chorus together. The idol was going to be carried out from his innermost shrine behind the lights; and as the great doors moved slowly, the excitement became intense, the thrill of it quivered ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... pleasure-boats waiting; Music of orchestras playing in blossoming parks by the river, Playing on white-pillared piers where the lightfooted thousands are dancing, Dancing at night in the breeze flowing fresh from the sea and the river; Music of flute and guitar from the lovers afloat on the water, Music of happy young voices far-flying across the bright ripples, Bright with high-glittering ships and the low rosy lanterns of lovers, Bright with the stars overhead and the stars of the city beside them, Their city, the heaven they know, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman |
