"Harp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pick tip a thought or a stanza, I'd take a flight on another bard's wings, Turning his rhymes into extravaganza, Laugh at his harp—and then pilfer its strings! When a poll-parrot can croak the cadenza A nightingale loves, he supposes he sings! Oh, never mind, I will pick up a stanza, Laugh at his harp—and then pilfer ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... whose hearts were rent with pain A few short weeks ago, Is it unkind to harp again ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... lady in the red cap, "you are one of those who slay giants. You must get into the castle, and if possible possess yourself of a hen that lays golden eggs, and a harp that talks. Remember, all the Giant possesses is ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... her of the flowers, the lovely scenery, the poetry of the people and their splendid spirit—making a dreamland where even man was perfect. How she loved it! How proud she was to feel that in part it was her country. Faithfully would she serve it. Oh, Susanna West! I 'd like to shake you till your harp snapped a string. It 's like sending a baby to pick flowers on the edge of ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... youth-since its strength could no longer be serviceable to his country-books, his harp, and the sweet converse of his tender Marion, became the occupations of his days. Ellerslie was his hermitage; and there, closed from the world, with an angel his companion, he might have forgotten Edward was lord in Scotland, had not that which was without his little paradise made a way to its ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... book. For hours she would play, all by herself. The people passing the road and the servant girls of the house couldn't make head or tail of her music. But our folk ken nothing of the piano. The pipes, the melodeon, the fiddle, they know that—and a few ould ones have heard the harp. They couldn't tell whether it was good music or bad ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... must not be alarmed, it is of a piece with the rest of thy treatment, friend Iwan." Anxious I followed the sound, and by ascending the staircase, found that it was the effect of the wind through the strings of an Eolian harp; an instrument which I had never before seen. After dinner we quaffed an honest bottle of Madeira wine, without the irksome labour of toasts, healths, or sentiments; and then ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... head full of wine, and his hair crown'd, Touching his harp as the whim came on him, And praised and spoil'd by master and by guests, Almost as much as the new ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might, Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... fireside as the door opened: a great puff of smoke issuing from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could through a confusion of tables, chairs and work-baskets, china, writing-desks and ink-stands, and bird-cages, and a harp. She did not speak, and as her back was now turned to both fire and candle, I could not see her face, or anything but the outline of her form, and her attitude; her form was the remains of a fine form, and her attitude that of a woman used to a better drawing-room. I, being ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... white suit and golden hair and small harp, looked, literally, angelic. There was a ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... suffer them to steal, Unthanked, away, to weep beside the harp, Dejected, prayerful, while ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the stream Of which my fancy cherished, So faithfully, a waking dream? An image that hath perished! O that some minstrel's harp were near, To utter notes of gladness, And chase this silence from the air, That fills my ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... the marshes. They were now informed that horses would be sent them on the following day from Jenna. During the greater part of the afternoon, Richard Lander amused himself in teaching the simple hearted chief to play on a child's penny Jews-harp, many of which they had brought with them as presents; but his proficiency, owing to a wonderfully capacious mouth, and teeth of extraordinary size, was not near so flattering as could have been wished. His people, however, who had assembled in extraordinary numbers, were of a different opinion, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... as well as with his hands. It had been reported by Tommy Dare, the leading Newport authority on monkeys, that he had heard him play Brahm's "Variations on Paganini" with his paws on a piano, "Hiawatha" on a xylophone with his feet, and "Home, Sweet Home" with his tail on a harp simultaneously, in Paris a year ago, and that alongside of Jockobinski all other musical prodigies of the ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... Gallery, one of the few to be found in England. It is delicately and elaborately sculptured, and each of the twelve angels in the niches holds a musical instrument—a flageolet, a trumpet and two wind instruments, a tambour, a violin, an organ, a harp, ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... a harp that played in the wind,—now soft, now loud; now sweet, now solemn. He said that the harp played itself. The people heard the sounds, full of seeming expression, as though touched by airy fingers, and, as they could not discredit the evidence of their own ears, they too reported that ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... were I but a minstrel, deft At weaving, with the trembling strings Of my glad harp, the warp and weft Of rondels such as rapture sings,— I'd loop my lyre across my breast, Nor stay me till my knee found rest In midnight banks of bud and ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... clouds that part before the chase Of silent winds—a belt of milky white, The Galaxy, a crested surge of light, A reef of worlds along the sea of Space: I hear my sweet musicians far withdrawn, Below my wreathed lattice, on the lawn, With harp, and lute, and lyre, And passionate voices full of tears and fire; And envious nightingales with rich disdain Filling the pauses of the languid strain; My soul is tranced and bound, Drifting along the magic sea of sound, Driving in a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... young men are tempted to drink and the feet of some set in the ways of ruin; that health is injured and latent diseases quickened into force; that evil rather than good flows from them,—knowing all this, I say, can any man who so turns his house, for a single evening, into a drinking-saloon—I harp on the words, you see, for I am feeling bitter—escape responsibility? No man goes blindly in ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... low suggestive melodies, a sudden rush and flapping in the grasses beside you breaks noisily into the gamut of half-heard primary tones and rising, vanishing harmonics. Then, as you listen, and before the silence has again stretched the chords of her Eolian harp tight enough for the wind's fingers, another sound, a cry, comes floating down from the air—Quoskh? quoskh-quoskh? a wild, questioning call, as if the startled night were asking who you are. It is only a blue heron, wakened out ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... forgot that he would carry himself, his unchanged being—Conscience, Habit and Memory—into the other world. What he dreaded was the spasm of dying— the convulsion that was to snap the thousand silver strings in the harp of life. This he shuddered at, but he consoled himself that it would be over in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... horse-racing and gymnastic exercises, with more prizes than are at present allowed. There was also a public performance in elocution, both Greek and Latin and besides the musicians who sung to the harp, there were others who played concerted pieces or solos, without vocal accompaniment. Young girls also ran races in the Stadium, at which he presided in his sandals, dressed in a purple robe, made after the Grecian fashion, and wearing upon his ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... himself. "Why, Esther, heard you ever the like? Surely, I have on me the passion of a singer, the heat of blood and the thrill of Miriam and David. In my thoughts, which should be those of a plain worker in figures and facts, there is a confusion of cymbals clashing and harp-strings loud beaten, and the voices of a multitude standing around a new-risen throne. I will put the thinking by for the present; only, dear, when the king comes he will need money and men, for as he was a child born of woman he will be ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... your wilds such minstrelsy retain, As sure your changeful gales seem oft to say, When sweeping wild and sinking soft again, Like trumpet-jubilee, or harp's wild sway; If ye can echo such triumphant lay, Then lend the note to him has loved you long! Who pious gathered each tradition grey That floats your solitary wastes along, And with affection vain gave them ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... band of his nose-guard snapped harshly as he plucked at it, playing a song of hatred on that hard little harp. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of our reverend Shaikhs, saying: "A certain person has borne testimony against my character on the score of lasciviousness." He answered, "Shame him by your continence.—Be thou virtuously disposed, that the detractor may not have it in his power to indulge his malignity. So long as the harp is in tune, how can it have its ear pulled (or suffer correction by being put in tune) ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... greenest moss, couch for a king: I threw myself upon it, and weariness at once began to ebb, for, the moment my head was down, the third time I heard below me many waters, playing broken airs and ethereal harmonies with the stones of their buried channels. Loveliest chaos of music-stuff the harp aquarian kept sending up to my ears! What might not a Haendel have done with that ever-recurring gurgle and bell-like drip, to the mingling and mutually destructive ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... quietly, the foreman talking but little, though he entertained Ralph for a time by playing on a French harp, or ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... Imagination, require any particular notice. But a remark of general application may be made. All Poets, except the dramatic, have been in the practice of feigning that their works were composed to the music of the harp or lyre: with what degree of affectation this has done in modern times, I leave to the judicious to determine. For my own part, I have not been disposed to violate probability so far, or to make such a large demand upon the Reader's charity. Some of these pieces are essentially ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... his music. He wants nothing while he has this. He thinks the musician's life the highest life. He says those to whom the revelations of God were committed were musicians. As David and Isaiah received inspiration to the strains of the harp, so, he says, have Bach and Mozart, Handel and Haydn, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. And where, indeed," she continued, in a musing tone, half soliloquizing, "where, indeed, can man rise so near heaven as when he listens to the inspired ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... buoyed her no longer, and she required the support of all that accuracy of insight and that senseless stubbornness which there might be in her nature. The feeling that it was she to whom it was given to lift the torch and plant the standard of Italy, had swept her as through the strings of a harp. Laura, and the horrible little bronze butterfly, and the 'Sei sospetta,' now made her duty seem dry and miserably fleshless, imaging itself to her as if a skeleton had been told to arise and walk:—say, the thing obeys, and fills a ghastly distension ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... jewels and furniture are the things that feed the mind. David himself was a skillful harpist, and no doubt this helped to make harp-playing popular. On one occasion the ark of Jehovah, the sacred chest which had been carried in the desert, was brought up to Jerusalem. It was accompanied by a chorus of singers and a band of instrumental players, "with harps and lyres and cymbals." In the worship of the ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... all thy minstrelsy, immortal harp! Breathe numbers warm with love while I rehearse, Delightful theme! remembering the songs Which day and night are sung before the Lamb! Thy praise, O Charity! thy labors most Divine! thy sympathy with ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... chamber do? 160 —With all its rarities that ache In silence while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew, Suspended just to pleasure you Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look: your harp, believe, With all the sensitive tight strings Which dare not speak, now to itself 170 Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... entries, there are some points that illustrate the policy on which Mr. Parris acted, and exhibit the skill and vigilance of his management. The motive that led him to harp so constantly upon "firewood" is obvious. It was to create a sympathy in his behalf, and bring opprobrium upon his opponents. But it cannot stand the test of scrutiny: for it had been expressly agreed, as I have said, that he should find his own fuel; and it ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... thought of leaving Saxony on another visit to Bohemia, and especially Prague, had had quite a romantic attraction for me. The foreign nationality, the broken German of the people, the peculiar headgear of the women, the native wines, the harp-girls and musicians, and finally, the ever present signs of Catholicism, its numerous chapels and shrines, all produced on me a strangely exhilarating impression. This was probably due to my craze for everything theatrical ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... harp a little more upon this string—Do not you observe, how much your brother's influence has overtopped yours, since he has got into fortunes so considerable, and since you have given some of them an appetite to continue in themselves the possession of your ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... his perturbation, amazement held him silent. If a shining angel with harp and halo had confronted him with a proposition to rob a church, the situation could not have astonished him more. She gave him ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... tendrils sway in the wind. The occupants of the dining-room were all ladies, and again I noted the fact that they were all blondes: beautiful, graceful, courteous, and with voices softer and sweeter than the strains of an eolian harp. ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... gate—"I shall stop here all winter. The surroundings suit me. Inspiration visits me in the flowering of the honeysuckle, and encircles me in the whispering of the wind among the roses. When the leaves drop and the roses fade, I shall hear a different chord on the harp of song. When the sleet and snow begin to fall, I shall listen to the dripping of the tears of Nature with as much sympathy as I now bask in her smiles. I have been writing verses to the name of ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... melancholy string! Blow the spirit-stirring harp like any thing! Let the piano's martial blast Rouse the Echoes of the Past, For of Agib, Prince of ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... some prepared betel-nut. If she accepts it, he is happy, for it means that his suit is prospering, but if she refuses it and says "Be good enough to blow up the fire," it means that he is dismissed. Sometimes their discourse is carried on through the medium of a sort of Jew's-harp, one handing it to the other, asking questions and returning answers. The lover remains until daybreak. After the consent of the girl and her parents has been obtained, one more ordeal remains; the bridal couple have to run the gauntlet of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the dreadful strain?— Limply my hand the unstrung harp relaxes; The dear old days will not come back again Whatever Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... wiped the tears from his eyes, happened to strike his arm against the chord of Madame de Fleury's harp, and the sound echoed through ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the Montserratian coat of arms centered in the outer half of the flag; the coat of arms features a woman standing beside a yellow harp with her arm around a ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... chafing-dish, and with them made large furrows on his breast, calling out, 'Jesus! Jesus!' The people said, 'That is not lawful! let us stone him!' But he did not desist. The things that were occurring were unheard of, astounding. Flowers, large as the sun, turned around before my eyes, and I heard a harp of gold vibrating in mid-air. The day sank to its close. My arms let go the iron bars; my strength was exhausted; and when he bore me away to ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... sat down, and when he had eaten a whole sheep he said, "I should like some music; bring me my harp." ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... golden harp to prelude sweet, Entered the youth, so pensive, pale, and fair; Advanced respectful to the virgin's feet, And, lowly bending down, made tuneful parlance there. Like perfume, soft his gentle accents rose, And sweetly thrilled ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... laughing; "why, sir, he's the most popular man of the university. We elected him of the Barmecides the first week he came up—had a special meeting on purpose—he's of an excellent family—Suffolk Bloundells, descended from Richard's Blondel, bear a harp in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Lady Mary Manvers's dear friend. Yet, in her secret heart of hearts, Bab drew comparisons by no means disadvantageous to Edward Leslie. 'Yes,' thought Bab, 'I like Mr Newton best by the sea-side in summer-time, when harp-music floats on the balmy air; then I should always like him, if summer was all the year round. But for everyday life, for winter hours, for home, in short, I'm sure I like Edward Leslie best—I'm sure ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... 'Lorelei,' a spirit fabled to haunt some high rocks that overlook the Rhine. This spirit is represented in the picture as a beautiful female, with a sweet but melancholy expression of countenance. She kneels on the top of the rock, and is singing to a harp, which she strikes with her graceful fingers. Below is a boat with two men in it, the one old, and the other young. The boat is rapidly nearing the rocks, but both the men are utterly unconscious of their danger—the ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... What though my harp and viol be Both hung upon the willow tree? What though my bed be now my grave, And for my house I darkness have? What though my healthful days are fled, And I lie number'd with the dead? Yet I have hope, by Thy great power, To spring; ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... the girl airily; "trust Adele to get away with it. That young woman is sure of a crown and harp in the hereafter if only because she'll make St. Peter himself believe black is white. You've got nothing to worry about. Now I'm off for a bath and nap; just time before luncheon. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... right merrily were they struck or thrummed with the ivory hashi (plectrum). The pretty maids of the Queen put on their ivory thimble-nails, and the Queen again listened to the sweet melodies on the koto, (flat harp), while down among the smaller fry of fishy retainers and the scullions of the kitchen, were heard the constant thump of the tsutsumi (shoulder-drum), the bang of the taiko (big drum), and the loud ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... merry was the glee of the harp-strings, And their dancing feet so small; But oh! the sound of their talking ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... to find the Father-land, Where there are many homes. Oh! grant of all yon shining throngs Some dim and distant star, Where Judah's lost and scatter'd sons May worship from afar! When all earth's myriad harps shall meet In choral praise and prayer, Shall Zion's harp, of old so sweet, Alone be wanting there? Yet place me in the lowest seat, Though I, as now, lie there, The Christian's jest—the Christian's scorn, Still let me see and hear, From some bright mansion in the sky, Thy loved ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... be answerable to the magnificence of this delicate feast, he had provided vast quantifies of strong beer, flip, rumbo, and burnt brandy, with plenty of Barbadoes water for the ladies; and hired all the fiddles within six miles, which, with the addition of a drum, bagpipe, and Welsh harp, regaled the guests ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... in order to keep away the charms of the tempter, the prayer is only on the lips, the Virgin is deaf, the angel sleeps! The breath of passion against which one struggles runs through every fibre of the heart, like a storm over the chords of an Tolian harp, and extorts from it those magic melodies to which a poor, troubled, and frightened woman listens with remorse and despair; but to which she listens, and with which at last she is intoxicated, for the allegory of Eve is an immortal myth, that repeats itself, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... higher and nobler enjoyments, and Hortense was never happier than when her mother dispensed with her attendance at the entertainments at the house of Madame Tallien or Madame Barras, and permitted her to remain at home, to amuse herself with her books and harp in a better and more useful, if not in a more agreeable manner, than she could have done in the brilliant parlors to which her mother had repaired. Early matured in the school of experience and suffering, the ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... throb and swing, Of a plaintive note, and long; 'Tis a note no human throat could sing, No harp with its dulcet golden string,— Nor lute, nor lyre with liquid ring, Is sweet as the ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... were singing above my head; wall-flowers were waving at my feet; a procession of chanting monks was walking slowly around the great cross in the arena below. I was on the highest tier, and their voices reached me only as an indistinct wail, like the notes of a distant Aeolian harp; but the joyous sun and sky and songs, were darkened and dulled by their presence. A strange sadness oppressed me, and I sank into a deep reverie. I do not know how long I had been sitting there, when I was suddenly roused by a cry ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... to usurp to themselves the sole power of ministering to popular wants. Nothing which could strike the mind through the senses was neglected. They offset tournaments by religious shows and pageantry, rivalled the attractions of the harp by sacred music, and to wean their flocks from the half dramatic entertainments of the minstrels, they invented the Miracle Play and the Mystery. The church forced herself on the attention of every man without doors or within, by the friars ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... have told you, has come the Lay that minstrels chant to harp and viol—fair is that song and ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... descant, comment, argue, persuade, plead, lecture, preach, harangue, rant, roar, spout, thunder, declaim, harp>. (With this group compare the Say group, above, and the Talk ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... look up in fear and reverence and say, "GOD is the great maker of romance. HE, from whose hand came man and woman,—HE, who strung the great harp of Existence with all its wild and wonderful and manifold chords, and attuned them to one another,—HE is the great Poet of life." Every impulse of beauty, of heroism, and every craving for purer love, fairer perfection, nobler type ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... hues, and seated himself for his noonday meal. After satisfying his hunger and again quenching his thirst at the stream, he sat down to rest; a stupor came over him, as the gentle breeze fanned the mountain-side and whispered among the lofty branches of the forest trees, like the AEolian harp of passing time. ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... Let me not harp longer upon this theme, but end with a quotation from the pages of a non-Catholic historian. Referring to the Franciscans and their mission work on the Pacific coast, Josiah Joyce, assistant professor of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... it's kind of you to harp on that. Yes, it has, if you want to know. He's positively handsome—or will be when the—when his nose heals perfectly. And I don't think that's anything one should hold against Ford; it seems ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... is the husband of Laurette Taylor and the author of plays in some of which she appears. His drama The Harp of Life has as its theme the love of two women, his mother and a courtesan, for a nineteen-year-old boy, and their willing self-sacrifice that he may go forward unbroken and unsmirched. The interesting thing, aside ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... again as the evening was waning, and when they were gotten within a furlong of the Gate, lo! there was come the minstrelsy, the pipe and the tabor, the fiddle and the harp, and the folk that had learned to sing the sweetest, both men and women, and Redesman at the ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... orchestra, as the only instrument for the deepest adorations in man; . . . when our young women shall ask themselves for any serious reason why they should all, with one accord, devote themselves to the piano instead of to the flute, the violin, the hautboy, the harp, the viola, the violoncello, the horn instruments which pertain to women fully as much as to men, and some of which actually belong by nature to those supple, tactile, delicate, firm, passionate, and tender fingers with which the woman is endowed; when ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... and closed every evening at the hour suggested by the city council. When Mrs. Vanni gave the signal, and the harp struck up 'Home, Sweet Home,' all Black Hawk knew it was ten o'clock. You could set your watch by that tune as confidently as by ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... his hand, and had a tame eagle perched on his shoulder. Near him was a very good-looking, self-satisfied fellow with long curls, who had evidently been entertaining the company with a performance on a Jew's harp. Then there was a lame old gentleman, who looked as if he would be all the better for his bath when the time came, who carried a big sledge-hammer in his hand; and another fishy sort of person, who flourished about with a three-pronged ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... black. The Motier and Lepelletier tables still groan with viands; roofs ringing with patriotic toasts. On the fifth evening, which is the Christian Sabbath, there is a universal Ball. Paris, out of doors and in, man, woman and child, is jigging it, to the sound of harp and four-stringed fiddle. The hoariest-headed man will tread one other measure, under this nether Moon; speechless nurselings, infants as we call them, (Greek), crow in arms; and sprawl out numb-plump little limbs,—impatient for muscularity, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... with a marvel of green. A wind blows in from the sea, and the lilacs nod from over the hedge. The tender corn rustles its soft little chimes, and all across it the wind sends arpeggio chords of delicate music, like a harp played on silver strings. A great big horse-chestnut tree, carrying its flowers proudly like a bouquet, showers the road with petals, and the shy hedges put up a screen all laced and decorated with white may. It just seems as if Mother Earth had become young again, and was tossing ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... the singer With calmly folded eyes, And on the breast of the bard at rest The harp that ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... settle of black wood, sat the chief. Some females, evidently the ladies of his family, were seated on piles of sheepskins, and were plying their distaffs; while an aged man was seated on the end of the dais with a harp of quaint form on his knee; his fingers touched a last chord as Archie entered, and he had evidently been playing while the ladies worked. Near him on the dais was a fire composed of wood embers, which were replenished from time ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Ferdinand roaming an Isle of Voices. He resigned Miranda to the grown-up prince, for whom (as he saw at a glance, being wise in the ways of story-books) she was eminently fitted. It was in Ariel, perched with harp upon the shrouds of the king's ship, that he recognised the unseen familiar of his own voyaging. "O spirit, be my friend—speak to me often!" As children will, he gave Prospero's island a local ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Coppee's charming duologue, 'Le Passant,' a graceful scene between a world-weary courtesan and a youthful troubadour who passes beneath her balcony. Mascagni's music, which is scored only for strings and harp, is both delicate and refined, and instinct with a tender melancholy, for which it would be vain to look in his earlier works. 'Iris' (1898), an opera on a rather unpleasant Japanese story, has met with a certain degree of favour, but 'Le Maschere' (1901), an attempt ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... damnation. It's a bogey invented by priests to enchain mankind. But if there is and if that muddle-headed old gentleman you call God really exists and if he's a just God, why then let him damn me and let him give you your harp and your halo while I burn for both. Essie, my mad foolish frightened Essie, can't you understand that if you give me up for this God of yours you'll drive me to murder. If I must marry you to hold you, why then I'll kill that cursed wife of mine. . ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... any verse of either of those writers. But there is an air of melodrama in them all. Harmonious delights of novel readers, they will not stand against the winnowing wind of deliberate criticism. They harp on the same string, without the variations of a Paganini. They are potentially endless reproductions of one phase of an ill-regulated mind—the picture of the same quasi-melancholy vengeful man, who knows no friend but a dog, and reads on the tombs of the great only "the glory ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... think—when it was, as they said, in my power to give him back his own,—I did think,—but no, it would have been mean to look for payment. It is all over, and I will say nothing further, not a word. I am not a girl to harp on such a thing day after day, and to grow sick with love. I shall be better away. And therefore I am going, and I have now come to say goodbye, because we were friends ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... he could take would seem fabulous to an ordinary drinking man. He never let it interfere with his work, he generally drank at night and on Sundays. Every night, as soon as his chores were done, he began to drink. While he was able to sit up he would play on his mouth harp or hack away at his window sills with his jack knife. When the liquor went to his head he would lie down on his bed and stare out of the window until he went to sleep. He drank alone and in solitude not for pleasure or good cheer, but to forget the awful loneliness and level of the Divide. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... as to be ready for the worst. Now was the time when a bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid for by the life of the aeronaut. But she held together bravely. Every cord and strut was humming and vibrating like so many harp-strings, but it was glorious to see how, for all the beating and the buffeting, she was still the conqueror of Nature and the mistress of the sky. There is surely something divine in man himself that he should rise so superior to the limitations which Creation seemed to impose—rise, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I sing of the deeds which my Fathers have done, And raise my loud harp to the fame of my sires? For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is my tone! For Heroes' exploits how unequal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... chief topics of the evening were those on which public curiosity was most anxiously alive at the moment—the hazards of the revolutionary tempest, which they had left raging on the opposite shore. Yet, "Vive la France!" we had our cotillon, and our songs to harp and piano, notwithstanding the shock ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the harp of prophecy; too sweet Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch, Nor can the wonders it records be sung To meaner music, and not ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... two handsome pieces of mahogany, a bookcase full of books bound in old calf, a table on which are tropical fruits and cooling drinks in earthen jugs, one or two palm-trees, and Caribbean pottery on shelves. In one corner is a harp. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... almost exclusively sailors' grievances against the Navy Department. He spent a great deal of time working up these cases, occasionally writing contributions to the Maritime Register, for which publication he was a regular correspondent for several years. In these papers he would constantly harp on the irregularities and illegalities of many of the government affairs. At home he always acted in a peculiar manner, never had much to say to anyone, was unreasonable, fault-finding and complaining; he always wanted things his own way. Several years ago he came to live with his sister, ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... creaked above us, and a deep, sonorous moan was sweeping through the woods, as if the fingers of the wind had touched a mighty harp string in the timber. We could hear the crash and ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... have troublemakers on the Range." Now the voice, too, was tired. The youthfulness which had impressed Drew on their initial meeting had drained from this man tonight. He was taut as if pulled harp-string tight inside. Drew knew that feeling also. But what battle had Rennie emerged from—some struggle ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... for—Frost? Fuller? Father and mother don't want the Bride to come; and mother thinks the Bride don't want to come. So why should they ask her to come? And why should she come? I wouldn't," Edith said; "but I hope she will, for I love her! And oh, I hope she'll bring her harp! I've never seen a harpy. But people are funny," Edith summed it up; "inviting people and not wanting 'em; and visiting 'em and not wanting to. It ain't ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... spot was erected a church, which is now collated to the metropolitan seat of Ardmachia. And the two magicians, for that they had educated the damsels, were sorely grieved at their deaths, and reproached the saint with bitter and angry words; but he, touching the harp of David, and preaching unto them the kingdom of God, converted them unto the ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... translated into the old Norse language, and no doubt somewhat modified by the influence of Scandinavian legends on the mind of the translator. In its present form it is not a poem but a prose work, and though the flow of the ballad and the twang of the minstrel's harp still often make themselves felt even through the dull Latin translation of Johan Peringskiold, there are many chapters of absolutely unredeemed prose, full of genealogical details and the marches of armies, as dry as any ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... not the attention sufficiently fixed to give precision and expression to the performance. The minstrel, described by Sir Walter Scott, with his fingers wandering wildly through the strings of his harp, resembles poor Laura giving utterance, thus imperfectly, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... work!— Claim thy hero, proud New York; Harp of him when feasts are spread, Tomb him with thy valiant dead. Who that, bent on just renown, Seeks a Christian's prize and crown, Would not spurn whole years of life, For one hour of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... to the detriment of appearance, or to its subjugation as an art work, but as an adjunct or accessory of such importance that it is apparent it must imperatively assume pre-eminence; just as we forget the plain box of the AEolian harp the moment the strings are struck by the passing gale into the most exquisite chords; as, on the contrary, do we seem to wish for no song from the tropical bird of magnificent plumage, and express no surprise that none comes from it. I may put this more plainly as I proceed, and in ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... room like many you've seen hereabouts, with a good horse-hair sofy and the mahogany furniture nice and shiny from being varnished every spring, and over the sofy was thrown a fur rug made in lozenges of harp seal and some other fur and a dark fur border. It was real pretty—it was always wonderful to me that folks like Eskimos can make the things they do. There was some little walrus ivory carvings on the what-not, and on the mantel a row of pink mounted shells, and the model of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... beautiful flower-garden, while beyond were hills and woods; on the other, glass doors opened out upon a grassy lawn, shaded by large trees, and beyond, far away in the distance, rolled the blue sea; all around her she saw the evidences of a father's thoughtful love; a beautiful piano, a harp, a small work-table, well furnished with every requisite; books, drawing materials—everything to give pleasure and employment; while luxurious couches and easy-chairs invited to rest and repose. Several rare ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... as they traveled they had talked and sung hymns together, like Pilgrim and his friends, and Joe's voice was the loudest and sweetest among them; but now he hanged his harp upon the willows, and could sing ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... Bible and it is a harp without a player, a song without a singer, a palace with all the doors locked, a labyrinth with no Ariadne thread ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... restlessness in the whole body. Glow-worms threw her into the magnetic sleep. Music somnambulised her. When she wanted to be cheerful, she requested Kerner to magnetise the water she drank, by playing the Jew's-harp. She used to say in her sleep, "Magnetise the water by seven vibrations of the harp." If she drank water magnetised in this manner, she was constrained involuntarily to pour forth her soul in song. The eyes of many men threw her into the state of somnambulism. She said ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... dining-table; then putting his hand to his throat, as if to free it from the grip of his collar, he pours out a glass of water, and drinks it of. In the street, outside the bay window, two street musicians, a harp and a violin, have taken up their stand, and after some twangs and scrapes, break into music. MORE goes towards the sound, and draws aside one curtain. After a moment, he returns to the table, and takes up the notes of the speech. He is in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... an ovation as it was borne up the aisle by four men, and hauled up on to the stage by a man who came from the side scenes. It was a harp made entirely of flowers, about six feet high. It made quite a screen for me as I went in and out. The card of the harp was brought to me, and I read, "H. P. Stalton, 'Asleep in Jesus,' North Conway." I had no idea what it meant, but ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... to have one at, Madame de Noailles'. They will last till Ash-Wednesday. They will begin an hour or two later than they used to, that we may not be so tired as we were last year when we came to Lent In spite of the amusements of the carnival, I am always faithful to my poor harp, and they say that I make great progress with it. I sing, too, every week at the concert given by my sister of Provence. Although there are very few people there, they are very well amused; and my singing gives great pleasure to my two sisters.[8] I also find time to read a little. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... old bones away through the dark passage into the heart of the hill. The far, far-away stories were in my mind of Finn and his warriors, of his great dogs and his queens. Did Ossian the bard tune his harp to great deeds, and to lovely women of the land of the Ever Young, in the cave of the past? Into my musings—for sleep had nearly come over me—broke the voice of ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... and I complied, although I could play but a crude accompaniment to my voice. First of all I sang "Rise and Shine" and "The Sweet Story of Old" in acknowledgment of the Sabbath, then passed to "The Old Musician and His Harp," ending with "When You and I Were Young, Maggie," in which I discerned a darker significance—a deeper pathos than ever before. It had ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... history. They also appear to have successfully applied it to the cure of diseases. The whole of David's power over the disorder of Saul may, without any miraculous intervention, be attributed to his skilful performance upon the harp. In 1st Samuel, c. xvi., we read that Saul's servants said unto him, "Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee: Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... cares a house demands, arises from a confusion very common but none the less unfortunate, which comes from the belief that beauty and poetry are within some things, while others lack them; that some occupations are distinguished and agreeable, such as cultivating letters, playing the harp; and that others are menial and disagreeable, like blacking shoes, sweeping, and watching the pot boil. Childish error! Neither harp nor broom has anything to do with it; all depends on the hand in which they rest and the spirit that moves it. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner |
