"Harmonium" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without a master; but he preferred the naive songs of the country, or the melody of a flute; to the most scholarly concert-music. (15/16.) In the intimacy of the modest chamber which serves as the family salon, with its few shabby and old-fashioned pieces of furniture, he plays on an indifferent harmonium little airs of his own composition, the subjects of which were at first suggested by his own poetry. Like Rollinat, Fabre rightly considers that music should complete, accentuate, and release that which poetry has perforce left incomplete or indefinite. This is why he makes the bise laugh ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... exaggerating it on the purely sensuous side. That he can do what no other composer has done is proved by the score of his latest opera Ariadne at Naxos, given for the first time in Stuttgart. Here, with only thirty-six in the orchestra, a grand pianoforte and a harmonium included, he produces the most ear-ravishing tones, thus giving a negative to those who assert that without a gigantic orchestral apparatus he is ineffectual. Strauss received a sound musical education; he could handle the old symphonic form, absolute ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... last half of these holidays with a clergyman uncle, and helped in the parish. I played the harmonium for the choir practice, and kept the books for the Guilds and Societies. His daughter was ill, and there was no one else to take her place, so, of course, I went at once. It is quite a tiny ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nerves, as you know, Mr. Holmes, but I give you my word, that I got a shake when I put my head into that little house. It was droning like a harmonium with the flies and bluebottles, and the floor and walls were like a slaughter-house. He had called it a cabin, and a cabin it was, sure enough, for you would have thought that you were in a ship. There was a bunk ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... am spoken to, and answer prettily—like a schoolgirl. The vicar's wife would have a fit if I lounged like this," flinging herself back with an air of abandon on the hay. "Once she asked me to sing (I play the harmonium in church). My cousin Joe had brought me a comic song from town, and I couldn't help, for the life of me, getting up and ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... choirs and orchestras) we have at last reached a point at which, for example, a person living in an English village where the church music is the only music, and that music is made by a few well-intentioned ladies with the help of a harmonium, can hear masses by Palestrina very passably executed, and can thereby be led to the discovery that Jackson in F and Hymns Ancient and Modern are not perhaps the last word of beauty and propriety in the ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... into the schoolroom for prayers as usual, and Audrey played the harmonium; but as he was following Mrs. Ross back into the drawing-room, Audrey tapped him ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and that the schoolmaster would read the prayers and lessons instead. A psalm was sung, portions of Scripture and short prayers were read, another straggler or two joining the little congregation as the service went on. The schoolmaster, who officiated, played the harmonium and sang exceedingly well, finally read a brief exposition on the portion of Scripture read, whereupon after further ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... (group chanting), accompanied by the harmonium and hand-played Indian drums, was in progress on the second floor. Sri Yukteswar listened appreciatively; his ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... hour's continuous exertion in the day. I knew a young agitator in that state who thought that he could not make a propagandist speech unless the deeply admiring pitman, in whose cottage he was staying, played the Marseillaise on a harmonium before he started. Often such a man takes to drink. In any case he is liable, as the East End clergymen who try to live the same life are liable, to the most pitiable forms ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... ship and men, the mess-deck was prepared for church; harmonium, reading-desk and chairs were all placed according to routine, and the bell was tolled. Scott read the service, Koettlitz the lessons, and Royds played ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... really beautiful service. Better the light-hearted unconcern of Mr. John Richard Green, the historian, who, albeit a clergyman of the Church of England, preferred going to the Church of Rome when Catholicism had an organ, and Protestantism, a harmonium. "The difference in truth between them doesn't seem to me to make up for the ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... of the wall a group of figures could be seen standing together beneath the lamp; the strains of a harmonium floated sweetly on the night air, a chorus of glad young voices singing ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... sew for hours together, never stirring, never speaking, smiling vaguely, while inside the house the bored old soldier played flourishes on his shrill flute, or, by way of a change, made a broken-winded old harmonium squeal and groan, much to Christophe's amusement—or exasperation—(which, depended on ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... himself into an easy-chair in a gloom lit only by the fireglow, in the room above mourning a little harmonium which Margaret was playing, mixed with the sound ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... joined a young Australian of my class in hospital in holding services on Sunday nights in half a dozen of the underground lodging-houses along the Radcliffe Highway. He was a good musician, so he purchased a fine little portable harmonium, and whatever else the lodgers thought of us, they always liked the music. We used to meet for evening tea at a place in the famous Highway known as "The Stranger's Rest," outside of which an open-air service was always held for the sailors ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... glad and half sorry to hear of your harmonium. Public worship is a terribly difficult thing, and it is well at times that we should realise its difficulties, and have it stripped bare of many helpful accessories. Yet worship in a village church impresses me. As in a college chapel, I realise ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... was a mattress, a wooden horse, parallel bars and rings, and the ordinary appurtenances of a Boys' Club; at the other a raised platform, and on it a blackboard and harmonium. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... floor made of mosaic. The crypt held a statue, which Caesar assumed must be of Sant' Anselmo. The church was severe, without ornaments, without pictures; it had a primitive air, with its columns of fine granite that looked like marble. A monk was playing the harmonium, and in the opaque veiled light, the thin music gave a strange impression of something ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... Here and there by the railings the tape had been wound up in a black ball, and the peg was some democratic orator, promising poor human nature unconditional deliverance from evil. Further on were heard sounds from a harmonium, and hymns were being sung, and in each doubting face there was something of the perplexing, haunting look which the ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... spell out coming help. No doubt she still wore that marvellous tea-gown garment that did duty for so many different toilettes, even wearing it when she went with goloshes and umbrella to practise Sunday's hymns every Saturday night on the wheezy church harmonium. And most likely she still made underskirts from the silk of discarded umbrellas because she loved the sound of frou-frou thus obtained, while the shape of the silk exactly adapted itself to the garment mentioned. And doubtless, too, she still gave away a whole week's profits ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... happened. When the people assembled for the weekly meeting, there was not found in that church one whole hymn-book. Some one, apparently, had been pelting the pulpit with them. The cushions were torn; the blinds were a wreck; two stops in the harmonium were pulled out bodily. After the service the missionary was solemnly waited on by a deputation. They were closeted for an hour and a half, but no one, except themselves, ever knew what was said or done. The only circumstances that one could in any way connect with this mysterious ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... minutes,' said he, throwing open another door. It was a quiet, little, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the centre, on which several German books were scattered. Colonel Stark laid down the lamp on the top of a harmonium beside the door. 'I shall not keep you waiting an instant,' said he, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical bandsmen by an isolated organist (often at first a barrel-organist) or harmonium player; and despite certain advantages in point of control and accomplishment which were, no doubt, secured by installing the single artist, the change has tended to stultify the professed aims of the clergy, its direct result being to curtail and extinguish ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... Sybil, "how are we to manage about an accompaniment? A single violin is no use out in the open. Would it be too dreadful if we had a harmonium concealed somewhere? We could get one from Inverness; and you know a harmonium would do very well for the music that ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... bouquets of lily-of-the-valley and white lilac in gilded china vases. Formerly, every Sunday at high mass, and every evening during the month of Mary, Mademoiselle Hebert, the reader to Madame de Longueval, played the little harmonium given by the Marquise. Now the poor harmonium, reduced to silence, no longer accompanied the voices of the choir or the children's hymns. Mademoiselle Marbeau, the postmistress, would, with all her heart, have taken the place of Mademoiselle Hebert, but she dared not, though she was a little musical! ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... matinee musicale were Chopin, Liszt, the violinist Ernst, and the singers Mdlle. Heinefetter, Madame Degli-Antoni, and M. Richelmi. The programme comprised also an improvisation on the orgue expressif (harmonium) by Madame de la Hye, a grand-niece of J.J. Rousseau's. Liszt and Chopin opened the matinee with a performance of Moscheles' "Grand duo a quatre mains," of which the reporter of the "Gazette ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... forward.) Ah, 'ere's a young lady who's bustin' with melody, I can see. Your name, my dear? Ladies and Gentleman, I have the pleasure to announce that Miss CONNIE COCKLE will now appear. Don't curtsey till the Orchestra gives the chord. (Chord from the harmonium—the Child advances, and curtsies with much aplomb.) Oh, lor! call that a curtsey—that's a cramp, that is! Do it all over again! (The Child obeys, disconcerted.) That's worse! I can see the s'rimps blushin' for yer inside their paper bags! Now ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... curiosity as to the Bosch horse rations, and stroll across the line, and we should lose the Padre, a thing we could ill afford to do, for by this time he had taken us under his wing spiritually and bodily. On Sundays he would appear in our midst dragging a folding harmonium and hold Church Parade, leading the hymns in his twittering ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... away from the orifice in the reed. When wind is blown through the reed the tongue is sucked against the reed, blocks the current, and springs away again. A free reed has a tongue which vibrates in a slot without actually touching the sides. Harmonium and concertina reeds are of this type. In the organ the reed admits air to a pipe of the correct length to sympathize with the rate of the puffs of air which the reed passes. Reed ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... on the shore of the sea, whose mobile surface was visible through the open, windows, extending outward until it mingled with the horizon, Padre Florentino was relieving the monotony by playing on his harmonium sad and melancholy tunes, to which the sonorous roar of the surf and the sighing of the treetops of the neighboring wood served as accompaniments. Notes long, full, mournful as a prayer, yet still vigorous, escaped from the old instrument. Padre Florentino, who was an accomplished musician, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... to the jaw and killed him, and the entire company then sung "Way down upon de Swannee Ribber," with harmonium accompaniment, thus bringing the afternoon performance to a close. The front seats were half empty, but then it was late in the season, and looked ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... The captains of the various regimental companies did the same for their Church of England men; while in the main saloon the ship's captain conducted worship with as many of the naval and military officers as found it convenient to attend. At the harmonium presided Bandsman Harrison, of the Northamptons, who for the last two years has helped ever so well at the Sunday afternoon services of sacred ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... on to Frank: "The instrument which she plays is a violin. For my part, I do not care for it. It does not make enough noise. Give me a harmonium or a cornet. But my daughter persists in saying that she will not learn anything but the violin. Perhaps it's better after all," he added, suddenly thinking of the outlay ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... everything, and exasperated people by telling them how to do things; and Denison, the supercargo of the Palestine, hated him most fervently for the continual trouble he was giving to every one, and also because he had brought a harmonium on board, and played dismal tunes on it every night and all day on Sundays. But, as Saunderson was one of the partners in the firm who owned the Palestine, Denison, and Packenham the skipper, had ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... *psaltery; bow, fiddlestick[obs3]. piano, pianoforte; harpsichord, clavichord, clarichord[obs3], manichord[obs3]; clavier, spinet, virginals, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, vielle[obs3], pianino[obs3], Eolian harp. . organ[Wind instruments]; harmonium, harmoniphon[obs3]; American organ[obs3], barrel organ, hand organ; accordion, seraphina[obs3], concertina; humming top. flute, fife, piccolo, flageolet; clarinet, claronet[obs3]; basset horn, corno di bassetto[obs3], oboe, hautboy, cor Anglais[Fr], corno Inglese[obs3], bassoon, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... master's nephew, Karoline and Marie married brothers, namely: Franz and Paul Weidinger. Gabrielle married a bank cashier named Robert Heimler. The youngest, Hermine, remained single. She graduated in 1889 from the conservatory at Vienna in piano and harmonium. Of the married daughters, only one, Marie, had children; a son and daughter. The only descendants of the Beethovens known to be living in 1891, are Karoline Weidinger, a widow, Gabrielle Heimler, and the son and daughter of Marie ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... what he done outside? S'pose I float Tinribs's puddlin' tub down the creek by accident, with Doon's baby in it when I ain't thinkin', is it square fer him to nab me in Sunday School, an' whack me fer it, pretendin' all the time it's 'cause I stuck a mouse in the harmonium?' ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... followed Kate went to the harmonium and began to play softly. Ranald stood up as to go, but suddenly changed his mind, and went over and stood ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... I commenced the hymn of the angels at my first Mass, there was a crash of music and singing from the gallery over the door, that made my old heart leap with joy and pride. I never expected it; and the soft tones of the harmonium, and the blending of the children's voices, floating out there in the dark of the little chapel, made tears of delight stream down the wrinkles of my cheeks. And what was the Gloria, do you think? From ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... denunciation of the Abbe Bruneau. Immunity had made the culprit callous, and in a few hours suspicion became certainty. A bleeding nose was the lame explanation given for the stains which were on his clothes, on the table, on the keys of his harmonium. A quaint and characteristic folly was it that drove the murderer straight to the solace of his religion. You picture him, hot and red-handed from murder, soothing his battered conscience with some ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... double chants, my old favourite "Jacob's" for the Venite, also a fine chant of G. Elvey's. They don't sing at all well, but nevertheless, though apt to get flat, and without good voices, there is a certain body of sound, and I like it. Brooke plays the harmonium nicely. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and I placed the Native Teachers at Black Beach, Tanna, we ran across to Erromanga in the John Knox, taking a harmonium to Mrs. Gordon, just come by their order from Sydney. When it was opened out at the Mission House, and Mrs. Gordon began playing on it and singing sweet hymns, the native women were in ecstasies. They at once proposed to go off to the bush ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... to distribute the money which I had left. The tavern was full; gayly- dressed, intoxicated girls were flitting in and out; all the tables were occupied; there were already a great many drunken people, and in the small room the harmonium was being played, and two persons were dancing. Out of respect to me, Ivan Fedotitch ordered that the dance should be stopped, and seated himself with me at a vacant table. I said to him, that, as he knew his tenants, would not he point out to me the most needy among them; ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... startle strangers to hear "The Hardy Norseman," "The Cuckoo," and such-like songs from the lips of little Chinese boys. Every Saturday evening they came to the house to practise the hymns and chants for Sunday; I had an harmonium in the dining-room. On these occasions they all had a cup of tea and slice of cake, and used to look at the picture newspapers which had come from England the last mail. They were very intelligent ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... the request. Mead, a musical companion, ground out an unearthly accompaniment on "Duster's" little, broken-winded harmonium; and the company shrieked the chorus, regardless of time, tune, or anything but the earnest desire of each individual to make more noise than ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... from the four corners of the Prayer-Book. At intervals he allowed himself to be interrupted with a hymn, but resumed afterwards the steady flow of supplication. The eldest Miss Beecher—the Canon had altogether two daughters and three sons—played a harmonium. The other girl and the three boys, with the assistance of an uncertain bass from Mr. Quinn, gave utterance to the congregation's praise. Hyacinth tried to join in the first hymn, which happened to be familiar to him, but quavered into silence towards the end of the second verse, discovering ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... is to be found the shrine of the inner God. The subtle music of that sphere is drowned by the clatter of the lower bodies as the most exquisite notes of the V[i][n.][a] are lost in the crude harsh sound of the harmonium. The Voice of the Silence can only be heard in the silence, and all the desires of the heart must be paralysed ere can arise in the tranquillity of senses and mind, the glorious majesty of the Self. Only in the desert of loneliness rises that ...
— The Basis of Morality • Annie Besant
... This incongruity was still further accented by the appearance of the room she had entered. It was coldly and severely furnished, making the chill of the yet damp white plaster unpleasantly obvious. A black harmonium organ stood in one corner, set out with black and white hymn-books; a trestle-like table contained a large Bible; half a dozen black, horsehair-cushioned chairs stood, geometrically distant, against the walls, from which hung four engravings of "Paradise Lost" in black mourning frames; some dried ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... have no house-keeping to do, and can therefore give more hours to field labour. One woman prepares a meal for a whole gang of her country people, and they live almost entirely on bread, potatoes, and brandy. They do not mix with the Germans, but spend their evenings and Sundays in playing the harmonium, dancing, and drinking. They return every year, are always foreigners in Germany, and are very industrious, religious, contented, and cheerful, but inclined ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... arguing hotly. Finally Father had put a stop to the lessons altogether, on the ground that it was sheer waste of time, and Gwen was better employed at something else. Lesbia, however, played rather nicely; she could manage the harmonium at the Sunday School, and was just beginning to practise the organ under Winnie's instructions. It was the one thing Lesbia did pretty well, for she did not distinguish herself at school. She was not ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... had he—no fad, except A tendency to strum, In mode at which you would have wept, A dull harmonium. ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the notches in this cane were very numerous, the slits had been made all round, so that whichever way the wind blew it went through some of them. I can only compare the sound of this instrument to that of an harmonium." ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... for tea. Ernest enters with the tea-urn. He leaves the door open; through it comes the sound of an harmonium, accompanying the singing of a hymn. Fanny comes from her dressing- room. She is dressed more cheerfully than when we last saw her, but still "seemly." She has a book in her hand. She pauses, hearing the music, goes nearer to the open door, and listens; then crosses ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... not less than 58 and not more than 62, and ventilators which the Inspector is careful to examine. When I stumbled in last week the teacher was drilling the children in Tonic Sol-fa with a little harmonium, and ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... unable to get away from each other, so much had they to say. He mentioned his brother James, who was doing well in America and would perhaps one day send them the price of a harmonium. She told him she couldn't play on the wheezy old thing at Garranard, and at the moment he clean forgot that the new harmonium would avail her little, since Father Peter was going to get rid of her; he only remembered it as he got on his bicycle, and he returned ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... description can give a proper idea of the effect. When I was last in Battersby church there was a harmonium played by a sweet-looking girl with a choir of school children around her, and they chanted the canticles to the most correct of chants, and they sang Hymns Ancient and Modern; the high pews were gone, nay, the very gallery in which the old choir had sung was ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler |
