"Piano" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Owen Leath wandered into the next room, where the piano stood, and began to play among the shadows. His step-mother presently joined him, and Darrow sat alone with Madame ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... United States, and I would like to inform the correspondents that I will answer all of them in due time. Now I am very busy. I am getting a new book and fixing it up, my school has commenced, and I am taking music lessons on the piano. I can play familiar tunes like the "Racquet Polka," "Fatinitza," "Pinafore," and others. I ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... much now whenever I get a chance to. I think it is splendid and always amusing. I can play lots of little duets on the piano ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... of age, a person of light color, medium size, with a prepossessing countenance and smart; she could read, write, and play on the piano. From a child, Amarian had been owned by Mrs. Elizabeth Key Scott, who resided near Braceville, but at the time of her flight she was living at Westminster, in the family of a man named "Boile," said to be the clerk of the court. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... threw open the door of a large drawing-room and invited us in. On entering we found a company of men and women, well-dressed, some in ordinary evening attire and some costumed. The room was brilliantly lighted and beautifully furnished and decorated. At one end was a grand piano, round which several persons were grouped; others were seated on ottomans taking tea or coffee; and others strolled about, talking. Our host, who appeared to be master of the ceremonies, introduced ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... she centered on the child's head all her shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed of high station; she already saw him, tall, handsome, clever, settled as an engineer or in the law. She taught him to read, and even, on an old piano, she had taught him two or three little songs. But to all this Monsieur Bovary, caring little for letters, said, "It was not worth while. Would they ever have the means to send him to a public ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... because her voice had suffered—but still she sang true. She had a musical ear. She could accompany anyone on the piano, pas trop mal. She could dance. Oh, to that she owed her first engagement. She had also learned to play the castagnettes and the tambourine, a l'Espagnole. And she was accustomed to discipline.... ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... with a considerable success. As to myself, I evidently belong to the old school, for I do not understand the music of the present, which consists in a great deal of noise and confusion. Listening the last time to Miss Hilst's playing at Laura's, I thought to myself that if the piano were a man who had seduced her sister, she could not belabor him more mercilessly. She also plays on the harmonium. Her compositions are thought of a great deal here, and considered very deep; most likely because those who could not understand them, hearing them for the tenth time, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... preparations for a feast, while the men stretched themselves on the sofas in the dining-room. When Mrs. van Warmelo had lit the fire in the kitchen and set the kettle on to boil, Hansie opened the windows of the drawing-room as wide as possible, lit the lamps and candles, and opening the piano, played some "loud music" for the ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... smile. "Well, I like it immensely. I think it's so awfully uncommon. I suppose you could never get a piano that would go with ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... out and wash their faces and comb their hair, a valet would not be necessary. I've seen a man with no legs find a way to jump on a Broadway car and a man without arms can't be kept from playing the piano with his toes. This is because human nature has such a persistent way of trying to do the difficult thing, usually with wonderful success. Man can't fly nor be a fish naturally, but he wants to know how it would feel, and so he makes some startling ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... nor dance; I cannot recite verse nor play upon the piano; I am no acrobat nor leaper nor high kicker; yet I wish to go upon the stage. What shall ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... susceptibility of spiders to the sound of a tuning-fork, reports, in "Body and Mind," that by means of this instrument, a spider may be made to eat what it would otherwise avoid. Male birds charm their mates by warbling, and parrots seem to take delight in hearing the piano played, or in listening to ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... garden and dogs and birds and flowers. With his silver-claim money he had fifteen thousand dollars laid away, and she would never know what it meant to be poor. He would educate her and buy her a piano and she would have no end of pretty dresses and things to make her a lady. They would be together and inseparable always, and when she grew up he prayed deep down in his soul that she would be like the older Isobel, ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... her hands, her cheeks all aflame—"do you mean to say you do really and truly play on the piano?" ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... a sensation! I slunk back into a clump of bushes where I remained crouched up, watching, meanwhile, my furniture defile past—for everything walked away, the one behind the other, briskly or slowly, according to its weight or size. My piano, my grand piano, bounded past with the gallop of a horse and a murmur of music in its sides; the smaller articles slid along the gravel like snails, my brushes, crystal, cups and saucers, which glistened in the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... fifteen came under my care to be helped out of a mood of increasing depression and uneasiness. Her glance was furtive, yet anxiously expectant. Tears came unbidden as she sat alone or fingered the keys of the piano. Tactful questioning elicited no response as to reasons for her unhappiness. Opportunities for giving confidence were not accepted. At a chance moment our talk drifted to the subject of menstruation. "Your periods are regular and easy; and do you know what they are ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... must say that I do not admire your taste," laughed Phil. "It's the most hideous discord of noises I ever heard. I never did like the steam piano, but a circus wouldn't ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... smashing what they can with butt-ends of guns. I do not care to follow with words the ghastly truth of the picture into its detail; but the most expressive incident of the whole, and the one immediately to my purpose, is this, that one fellow has sat himself at the piano, on which, hitting down fiercely with his clenched fists, he plays, grinning, such tune as may be so producible, to which melody two of his companions, flourishing knotted sticks, dance, after their manner, on the top ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... Paine has been too busy to work up the matter—that piano wire made in this straight method could be drawn up to and kept at pitch, without approaching very near the elastic limit. In that case not only would they seldom if ever require tuning, but probably all along the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... listened for it half unconsciously; and tried not to hear, instead, Weber's "Invitation a la Valse," which came rippling in intermittent waves from the open window of the distant parloir, where Chardonnet was practising the piano. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... was sitting behind the parlor curtains with Mrs. Trimmer's Roman History, and Grandmamma was sitting, looking very grave in her new black dress, with a pocket handkerchief and book in her lap, and sherry and sponge biscuits on a tray on the piano, for visitors of condolence, when Dr. Brown came in, looking very grave too, and took off one of his black gloves and shook hands. Then he took off the other, and put them both into his hat, and had a glass of sherry and a sponge biscuit, so Margery ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... high descent, was a very aristocratic person: as the presence of the grand piano in the drawing-room would testify. She could no more live without a grand piano than ordinary people could exist without food: the grand piano, albeit a very dilapidated one, was a necessity of her well-descended condition. It was no matter that it displaced more useful furniture; in that ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... describe in a letter! I might as well attempt a panorama in a pill-box! We have fixed our settlement on the left bank of the river. In crossing the rapids we lost most of our heavy baggage, and all our iron work; but, by great good fortune, we saved Mrs. Paisley's grand piano, and the children's toys. Our infant city consists of three log-huts and one of clay, which, however, on the second day, fell in to the ground landlords. We have now built it up again, and, all things considered, are as comfortable as we could expect: and have christened our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... brain," she said, and began to pace about the room, up and down, up and down. Her mother watched her anxiously. Angelica closed the piano. Dr. Galbraith and the bishop came in from the dining room, and then Edith declared that driving in the open air had made her so sleepy she must ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... On the Saturday and Sunday we practically lived in a beastly little music-room at the offices of the publishers whose songs he proposed to use. A little chappie with a hooked nose sucked a cigarette and played the piano all day. Nothing could tire that lad. He seemed to take a personal interest in ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the piano, and any other packages that can't be accommodated inside the pie, will be hidden around in various other little corners of the room. My plan is to have the cards in the pie, however, and as they are drawn ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... works was his second, "Concord" piano sonata, one of the finest, and some would say the finest, works of classical music by an American. It reflects the musical innovations of its creator, featuring revolutionary atmospheric effects, unprecedented atonal musical syntax, and surprising ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... days when he would as soon have thought of mounting the king's throne as of seating himself in that arm-chair. He asks if Miss Stokes—she is the very image of her mamma—if she can play? He should like to hear a tune on that piano. She plays. He hears the notes of the old piano once more, enfeebled by age, but he does not listen to the player. He is listening to Laura singing as in the days of their youth, and sees his mother bending and beating time over the shoulder ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but neither shook hands with her nor rang the bell to have her shown out Mary found her own way, however, and presently was breathing the fresh air of the twilight fields on her way home to her piano and her books. ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... eyes; such a very little girl that every one in the house looked at her first, and then looked at no one else. She was apparently as unconcerned to all about her, excepting the pretty prima donna, as though she were by a piano at home practising a singing lesson. She seemed to think it was some new sort of a game. When the prima donna raised her arms, the child raised hers; when the prima donna courtesied, she stumbled into one, and straightened ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... athwartships at the after-end; a buffet loaded with richly-cut decanters and glass, backed up by a large gilt-framed mirror, occupied the whole space against the fore-bulkhead between the two entrance doors; and a very handsome piano, open, and with some music on it, occupied a similar position at the after-end of the saloon, two doors in the after-bulkhead proclaiming the existence of at least two more state-rooms. The apartment was lighted during the day by a large skylight filled in with ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... to bed, bathe his head, make Sam, de driver, hitch up de buggy, make West go wid him, and take Marse Gregg home. I never see or hear tell of dat white man anymore, 'til one day after freedom when I come down here to Robinson's Circus. Him drop dead dat day at de parade, when de steam piano come 'long a tootin'. 'Spect de 'citement, steam, and tootin', was too much ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... determined to call at the Kendall home, something he had not done for some time. As he came up to the front walk, between the arbor-vitae hedges, he saw that the parlor windows were alight. The window shade was but partially drawn and beneath it he could see into the room. Helen was seated at the piano and Edwin Raymond was standing beside her, ready to turn the page ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Warlock that she found Harrods' a confusing place, that she had not yet visited Westminster Abbey, that her health was quite good, that she had no brothers and no sisters, that she could not play the piano, and that she was afraid that she never ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... her from coming to a conclusion. Music, in common with all other accomplishments, was viewed by Miss Miranda as a trivial, useless, and foolish amusement, but she allowed Rebecca an hour a day for practice on the old piano, and a little extra time for lessons, if Jane could secure them without payment of ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in any Royston household, but it came at the beginning of this century when Lady Wortham as she was always styled—as the daughter of Sir Thomas Hatton, Bart., and wife of Hale Wortham, Esq.—became the owner of the first piano at their house in Melbourn Street (now Mr. ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Woodville. The scent from the lilac in the vases seemed to harmonise with the chintz furniture, covered with a design of large pink rosebuds and vivid green trellis-work; there was a mandoline on the lacquered piano and old coloured prints on the walls; books and music were scattered about in dainty disorder. Sylvia was sitting on the sofa with her pretty fair head bent down and turned away. She did not move when Savile came in, and he was shocked ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... enthusiasm Miss Fitzmannering pranced into the middle of it. Miss Fitzmannering had kindly allowed herself to be persuaded to do "only a few steps" of her celebrated skirt-dance. Miss Eline Fitzmannering officiated at the piano, and later on, while they were brushing their hair, they quarrelled because she took ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... how I ought to treat her, and the more at ease she appeared, the more embarassed I became. I paid her compliments, she laughed. Conversation was difficult, for I had no great knowledge of French. She took pity on me and sat down at the cottage piano. She played very prettily. Very often she turned round and smiled at me. She was extremely bewitching, and my heart glowed. I envied you. I planned all sorts of base things. I paid court to her. I confess it now. You are ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... himself to the amusement of his aged relatives for an hour or so; but this evening he sat down to the piano at once, with the deliberate intention of playing them off to sleep. Ten o'clock was their hour for retiring, and before that they would not move, although they dozed in ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Gethryn had been half-conscious of a piano sounding on the floor below. It suddenly struck him now that the apartment under his, which had been long vacant, must ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... good doctor's song. I turned to Miss Boulderstone, from whom I had borrowed a piano, and asked her to play a country dance for us. But first I said—not getting up on a ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... gun to shoot right at my sister Annie, and a big trumpet I can toot just awful loud at granny. I want a dreffle big false face to scare in fits our ba- by. I want a pony I can race around the parlor, maybe. I want a little hatchet, too, so I can do some chopping upon our grand piano new, when mamma goes a-shopping. I want a nice hard rub- ber ball to smash all into flinders, the great big mirror in the hall an' lots an' lots of winders. An' candy that'll make me sick, so ma all night will hold ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... idiots. The latter or accessory movements are those of the hand, tongue, face, and articulatory organs, and these may be connected into a long and greatly diversified series, as those used in writing, talking, piano-playing. They are represented by smaller and more numerous muscles, whose functions develop later in life and represent a higher standpoint of evolution. These smaller muscles for finer movements come into function later and are chiefly associated with psychic ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... two tunes for the Sapphic metre, Greek and Latin, to which my sister, at my request, has added an accompaniment. Will you be so kind as to get Mrs. Nicholson to play the piano while you sing it, and tell me what is to be said to it? While dabbling in some of these tunes, I have translated divers scraps of English poetry into Greek, experimentally, especially to test the possibility of retaining any Greek accent, such as the books mark, in singing. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... to normality, for which purpose, some quaint and interesting devices are used. One case given is that of a little girl whose senses of sound and form were defective and who therefore could not learn her letters. These letters were pasted on the keys of a piano and she was taught to play a piece with one finger, meanwhile chanting over the names of the letters as they were struck. In this way her sense of sound was trained, she learned her letters and gained ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... established a school of singing at Bologna. His most famous oratorio is entitled "Maria Vergine addolerata," and is without overture or chorus. Burney notes that in the close of this work degrees of diminution of sound, such as "piano," "piu piano," and "pianissimo," are used for the first time. Caldara wrote a large number of oratorios, mostly adapted to the poetry of Zeno and Metastasio, which are said to have been delightful productions. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... I've set into a saloon listening to that Lady that sings high up—higher than any piano can go. I've set and listened till I didn't know where I was settin'—of course I had to buy a drink, you understand, or I couldn't ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... stands in the centre of the room with a long paper wand, which can be made of a newspaper folded up lengthways, and tied at each end with string. The other players then join hands and stand round him in a circle. Someone then plays a merry tune on the piano and the players dance round and round the blind man, until suddenly the music stops; the blind man then takes the opportunity of lowering his wand upon one of the circle, and the player upon whom ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... a merchant, not for anything. I won't! As if I was brought up for that, and learned French[1], and to play the piano, and to dance! No, no; get him wherever you want to, ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... the house for hours that night. At one moment he found himself in the blue room, Auntie Nan's workroom, so full of her familiar things—the spinning-wheel, the frame of the sampler, the old-fashioned piano, the scent of lavender—all the little evidences of her presence, so dainty, so orderly, so sweet A lamp was burning for the convenience of the doctor, but there was ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... He went to the piano, and Amy sat down again. He sang with his usual inferiority—which was not so inferior that he failed of pleasing simple Amy. She expressed herself delighted. He sang half a dozen songs, then showed her a book of photographs, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... for his future wife. The very tint of the walls, and the way the light falls in through the windows, would become matters of grave importance. In what pleasant spot shall her favorite chair be placed? And what picture shall hang opposite it to catch her eye the oftenest? Where is her piano to stand? What china, and glass, and silver, is she to use? Where are the softest carpets to be found for her feet to tread? In short, where is the very best and daintiest of every thing to be had, for the best and daintiest little bride the sun ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... to his host, saying: "Tenez, voil ce que vous m'avez demand, mais j'ai peur que cela ne soit pas trop bon." "Que dites vous mon ami?" said Dietrich, after casting his eye over the MS.; "vous avez fait un chef-d'oeuvre." The mayor's wife having tried it on the piano, the orchestra of the theatre were engaged to perform it in the principal square of Strasburg, when such was the enthusiasm it created that the detachment marched off with nearly 1000 instead of 600 volunteers. For them Rouget called the ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the one who sings madrigals to-night, Uncle; she is going to read Colin a lesson"; and, sitting down at the piano, she let her hands run over the keys and burst out joyously into that variation of Raleigh's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... always some special dainty for tea, and then, after tea, the girls all gathered around the piano in the parlor, and Miss Emma played hymns for them, and they sang until it was time to go to bed. They all enjoyed this. Even the girls who could not sing very well themselves liked to hear the others sing, and they were sorry when the old clock in ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... the window, looking out into the twilight. Decima stood near the fire in a thoughtful mood. Lucy was downstairs in the drawing-room at the piano. They could hear the faint echo of her soft playing as they sat there in silence. Sibylla was in no humour to talk: she had repulsed Decima rudely—or it may rather be said fractiously—when the latter had ventured on conversation. Lady Verner ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... first floor is the drawing-room, which will be at our disposal," began Frances, evidently quoting "Sister." "It's pretty and sweet, Mother dear, very simple with a little upright piano and quite a number of books and a fireplace. Just behind is a room where we can have our meals. We can use as many bedrooms as we like; there are five and Sister said if we wished, one could be made into an up-stairs-sitting-room. The bathroom was ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... piece faithfully and diligently and purposed to surprise their mother by singing and playing it that very evening. After the Count and Countess had sung several operatic selections, the father turned to his children, saying: "Let us hear what you can do." Albert seated himself at the piano and played, while Marguerite modestly sang in ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... on the evening train from the north, so the conspirators would not have long to wait. To pass the brief intervening time Lottie went to the piano and gave them some music like herself, brilliant, dashing, off-hand, but devoid of sentiment and feeling. Then she sprang up and began playing the maddest pranks on languid Bel, and with Addie was soon engaged in a romp with De Forrest ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... feels as bad as that," says I, "I wish she'd wait until mornin' to express herself. That's the most doleful sound I ever heard. Come on; let's go in while you tinkle out something lively and cheerin' on the piano." ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his own age, and good-naturedly bullying those who ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... short, in the middle of that court, heedless of the crowd of pushing, shouting children who at once gathered about me. I had been struck by an old recollection. My sister used to sing. I remembered where her piano had stood in the great drawing-room. It had been carted away during those dreadful weeks and her music all burned; but the vision of her graceful figure bending over the keyboard was one not to be forgotten even by a thoughtless child. Could it be—oh, heaven! if this ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... and beautiful, lift their heads proudly above the works of art which surround them, and in splendid Chinese cages, birds of gorgeous plumage have learned to caress the rosy lips of their young mistress, or perch triumphantly on her snowy finger. Here are books, too, and music—a harp—a piano—while through a half open door leading from a little recess over which a multaflora is taught to twine its graceful tendrils, a glimpse may be caught of rosy silken hangings shading the couch where the queen of this little realm nightly ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition, like a school-dinner, of another long grace afterwards—the three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... I ever heard in music—is very common, and highly esteemed. The instruments resemble banjos, and there is a harsh kind of drum accompaniment; but there is one larger string instrument, the Japanese piano, upon which much older women play, the younger girls not being sufficiently skilled ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... your knee. A moment or two later, when you called the prisoner, he was intoxicated, and reeled. Do you mean to tell us that a drunken man could have made his way in the darkness, through a cabin filled with chairs, tables, and a piano, in ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... ten: "I should like to be a piano teacher, when I grow up, for then I shall be able to learn to ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... with results that left nothing to be desired. She fell to the floor in helpless, shrieking laughter when he came. In his honour she composed and sang songs to an improvised and spirited accompaniment upon her toy piano. His favourites among these were "'Cause Why I Love You" and "Darling, Ask Myself to Come to You." She rendered them with much feeling. If he were present when her bed-time came she refused to sleep until he had consented to ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... There should be a shop for wood and iron work, or at least a work bench and an anvil. There should be a library of good reading and a place to cook and bake and sew. There should be a typewriter, a piano or an organ, and such other conveniences for teaching and social center work as the community may wish and be able to secure, and, best of all, teachers living at the school who know how to operate the plant in every detail and to make ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... family portraits looked down from the oak panelling above the bookcases, and where the literary element was not obtrusively conspicuous. You felt that it was a room quite as well adapted for conviviality as for study. There was a cottage piano in a snug corner by the fireplace. The Squire's capacious arm-chair stood on the other side of the hearth, Mrs. Tempest's low chair and gipsy table facing it. The old oak buffet opposite the chimney-piece was a splendid specimen of Elizabethan ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... a large one, and it was full of beautiful and valuable things, but the furniture was huddled about in disorder. A large chamber-organ, a grand piano, a mandolin, and two violins, pictures on the floor as well as on the walls, many photographs scattered about everywhere, and the mirror over the mantelpiece fringed with invitation-cards, which were stuck between the glass ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... was no adept in the art of dissimulation, and when she entered the sitting room, Helen was the first to notice her altered countenance. It was fortunate for all present that Alice had seated herself at the piano, at the solicitation of Louis, and ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... porch and the living room were scrubbed spotlessly clean. There was a rug on the floor, while a piano across one corner, a chifforobe with mirrored doors, a bureau, and several comfortable chairs completed the room's furnishings. A motley assortment of pictures adorning the walls included: The Virgin Mother, The ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... of his duty again, in the soothing delight of finding himself, once more free, in all but heart, in the company of Ghita. In this manner the yawl moved ahead, though with materially diminished speed, until, by the formation of the heights, and the appearance of the lamps and candles on the piano, Ghita knew that they were drawing quite near to the indentation of the coast on which is situated ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... distinguish, when necessary, the five-sided Italian model from the rectangular instruments usually produced in northern Europe. Some rectangular virginals were made in Italy; one Flemish polygonal virginal, made by the elder Hans Ruckers in 1591, survives. Long instruments, resembling the grand piano in shape, are called harpsichords. Of course it is understood that both types of virginals as well as the spinet and the harpsichord were keyed chordophones employing the plucking action of jacks ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge
... conservatory, to the right, there is a low, oblong tea-table at which are placed three small chairs; and near-by, on the left, are a grand-piano and a music-stool. Against the piano there is a settee, and on the extreme left, below the door, there is an arm-chair with a little round table beside it. At the right-hand window in the wall at the back is another settee, and facing this window ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the big room. The tables had been moved out, the chairs set round the walls, everything shifted; the chandelier, the stove, and the walls were fantastically decorated with heather and black stuff from the store. The piano stood ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... their long-latent loyalty to the British Empire became too fervent to be restrained within the bounds of decency. "Remnants" of red, white and blue were ostentatiously sewn into a distant resemblance of the British flag; the parlour piano once more did its often unsatisfactory best with the British anthem; mamma's darling received strict injunctions not to play with that horrid little Dutch boy next door; and papa, jingling the sovereigns he had received in his latest deal with the Government, prepared ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... evening some of the sisters played a few pieces at the piano, and Miss Forrester sang a few songs. Mr Hall in the meantime went fast asleep. John Gordon couldn't but tell himself that his evenings at Kimberley were, as a rule, quite as exciting. But then Kattie Forrester did not belong to him, and he had not found himself ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... in the room of one of the girls if preferred. If possible, a piano is included in the furnishings, which may be as elaborate or as simple as desired. Two entrances must be provided, one covered by a square framework supposed to represent a bookcase. Books are across the top. In front of it hangs ...
— The Belles of Canterbury - A Chaucer Tale Out of School • Anna Bird Stewart
... was prompt. At six o'clock he was at my room. In his hand was a small roll addressed to me. On opening it I found it to be manuscript piano music, the Hora Tranquila Valse, or "Tranquil Hour Waltz," by Ernesto Becucci. I came for leopard skins, thought I, and the owner sends me sheet music instead. But the boy assured me that he would have the skins at the hotel at nine next morning, and I entrusted to him the ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... straight from Maslennikoff's to the prison, and went to the inspector's lodging, which he now knew. He was again struck by the sounds of the same piano of inferior quality; but this time it was not a rhapsody that was being played, but exercises by Clementi, again with the same vigour, distinctness, and quickness. The servant with the bandaged eye said the inspector was in, and showed Nekhludoff to a small drawing-room, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... little wood bordering upon a meadow is her favorite promenade. After half an hour's walk she returns to her room, leaving everyone to act as he pleases. Dinner takes place at six, which is a scene of more careful etiquette than the breakfast table. She walks again after dinner, and returns to the piano, for she is fond of music. The evening is spent in pleasant intercourse with her guests. Sunday is given up to a public theatrical representation for the people. Such is a specimen of ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... introduction to George Eliot, whose works I so admired. Mr. Lewes being away from home when I called, I requested that the introductory letter of Mr. Williams should be taken to George Eliot herself. She received me in the big Priory drawing room, with the grand piano, where she held her receptions and musical evenings; but she asked me if I had any business relating to the article which Mr. Williams had mentioned, and I had to confess that I had none. For once I felt myself at fault. I did not get on with George Eliot. ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... one time to learn the piano, as in that day every girl was, to the saddening of human existence and the torturing of human nerves. After taking a few lessons Barbara was shrewd enough to discover that she had no musical gifts worth cultivating. She therefore promptly requested ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... King's Palace in Luxemburg. On the wall are some handsome gold-framed mirrors, and from the ceiling costly chandeliers with two hundred and twenty lights. The mantel is exquisitely carved marble, with an ormolu frieze. On one side you will note a small piano; it is a French one, of very clear and fine tone, and beautifully finished in every respect. In this room Her Majesty the Queen may be imagined enjoying the balls given to the youthful aristocracy, ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... morning we reached Moldeoen, where the steamer landed us on a rock on which were a few acres of grass and half a dozen wooden houses. We had a good deal of luggage with us, also some casks, cases, and barrels of provisions, and a piano-forte, as our place of sojourn is somewhat out of the way and far removed from civilised markets. A few poverty-stricken natives stood on the rude stone pier as we landed, and slowly assisted us to unload. At the time I conceived that the idiotical expression of their countenances ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... maid must awake to her grief! Honora would never have expected so poetical a flight from her good old governess as the suggestion, 'Play to her;' but she took it eagerly, and going to the disused piano which stood in the room began a low, soft air. The little sleeper stirred, presently raised her head, shook her hair off her ears, and after a moment, to their surprise, her first word was 'Mamma!' Honora was pausing, but the child said, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... apparatus used for the research was made as follows: Two uprights were fastened to a table. These supported a cross-bar about ten inches from the table. To this bar was fastened a row of steel springs which could be pressed down in the manner of piano keys. To each of these springs was fastened a thread which held a bullet. The bullets, which were wrapped in silk to obviate temperature sensations, were thus suspended just above the fingers, two over each finger. Each thread passed through a small ring which ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... Hector opened the piano, and Mrs. Rivington sat down and touched the keyboard. Then she looked around for silence, and it fell completely. All the eye-witnesses present are agreed that it was in the moment of this pause that the drawing-room door ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... you are going to make a shopkeeper's wife of me, so that everyone will laugh at me [ready to cry]; so that I shall be an object of scorn for all. And why have you had me so well educated? Have I learned Russian and French and piano-playing for a man of that sort? What does a shopkeeper want of a piano? Pickle-jars and butter-tubs are useful to him, but not my French! I am curious as to how he would speak to me: Moi aller, vous joli ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... dwarf, seating himself upon a piano-stool, and screwing himself up until he was near the ceiling and on a level with the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the hands of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking him, two young women of the world, with that insouciance which appertains—in Limehouse—to sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his accompaniment: both ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... one commodity directly for another. Where the division of labor has been so little developed that the goods to be exchanged are relatively few, this may work very well, but in modern industry barter would be inexpedient, if not impossible. The farmer who had a surplus of cattle and desired a piano might have great difficulty in finding a man who had a surplus piano and who also desired cattle. Even though the farmer liked the piano in question, and even though the owner of the piano were pleased with the farmer's cattle, it might be impossible to measure the ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... lovely little villas and summer houses, these all hurriedly deserted by the necessities of war—the furniture and fixtures left all in place as the owners took their hastened departure. In one house we visited was left a handsome piano, on which those who could perform gave the soldiers ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... thousand, a million, ten millions? There is no possibility of heaven except as people are in perfect accord with the divine law and the divine life; for that is what heaven means. You can no more get heaven out of a disordered character than you can get music out of a disordered piano. This salvation which we preach is the constituent element of life. You cannot have a circle if you break the conditions of a circle. You cannot have a river if you break the conditions the very existence of which constitutes a river. So of anything in God's natural world. There are certain essential ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... I hope, to tell the Board to get rid of their latest craze. You'll hardly believe it," she went on, turning to 'Bias, "but I happened to pass the Girls' School the other day, and if there wasn't a piano going!—yes, actually a piano! When you come to think that the parents of some of those children don't earn ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... he was incapable of understanding the tricks that the contemporary masters had introduced into Catholic art. And he had not studied music with that passion which had led him towards painting and letters. He played indifferently on the piano and after many painful attempts had succeeded in reading a score, but he was ignorant of harmony, of the technique needed really to understand a nuance, to appreciate a finesse, to savor a refinement ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... intellect alone opens to the mind the existence of evils which are intensified by the difficulty of their removal, and on which the mind dwells with feelings kindred to despair. I have sometimes doubted whether an obscure farmer's daughter is any happier with her piano, and her piles of cheaply illustrated literature and translations of French novels, and her smatterings of science learned in normal schools, since she has learned too often to despise her father and mother and brother, and her uneducated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... little leisure for a scene; for I had placed both my other models in position together and I was pegging away at a drawing from which I hoped to derive glory. It had been suggested by the passage in -which Rutland Ramsay, drawing up a chair to Artemisia's piano-stool, says extraordinary things to her while she ostensibly fingers out a difficult piece of music. I had done Miss Churm at the piano before—it was an attitude in which she knew how to take on an absolutely poetic grace. I wished the two figures to "compose" together ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... moment upon the keyboard of the piano before which she was seated, awaiting Lessingham's arrival. Then she glanced at the clock. It was ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Navajo rugs covered the floor and hung on the walls. The skin of a silver-tip bear was stretched beneath a writing desk, a trophy of Arlie's rifle, which hung in a rack above. Civilization had furnished its quota to the room in a piano, some ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... a stove, bookshelves, side-board, piano, and all the comforts of a city residence, and will be drawn by ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... dissatisfied lot! Gershom to-night complained that his own name of "Gershom Binks" impressed him as about the ugliest name that was ever hitched on to a scholar and a gentlemen. And later on, after I'd opened my piano and tried to console myself with a tu'penny draught of Grieg, he inspected the instrument and informed me that it was really evolved from the six-stringed harps of the fourth Egyptian dynasty, which in the fifth dynasty was made with a greatly enlarged base, thus ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... that she has been a hypocrite,—it is that she is a transmigration. You marry a girl for her accomplishments. She paints charmingly, or plays like Saint Cecilia. Clap a ring on her finger, and she never draws again,—except perhaps your caricature on the back of a letter,—and never opens a piano after the honeymoon. You marry her for her sweet temper; and next year, her nerves are so shattered that you can't contradict her but you are whirled into a storm of hysterics. You marry her because she declares she hates balls and likes quiet; and ten to one but what she ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... war in most cases, was begun too nearly at the point where New England education had ended. Let me illustrate. One of the saddest sights I ever saw was the placing of a three hundred dollar rosewood piano in a country school in the South that was located in the midst of the "Black Belt." Am I arguing against the teaching of instrumental music to the Negroes in that community? Not at all; only I should have deferred those music lessons about twenty-five years. There are numbers of ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... piano keys!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "if I can get just one elephant, and pull out his big ivory teeth, I'll be satisfied. I want a nice pair of tusks to set up on either side of my ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... An old battered piano which he had used was also shown. This is the only article which belonged to him that is known to exist, as he died in extreme poverty. It seems sad that his genius was not properly appreciated until after his death, and that he who was to give so much to the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 17, March 4, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... was raised, and the violin Quivered and shook with the strain it bore, While the swelling forth of the sounds within Rose with a sweetness unknown before, And the chords fell soft and low. Piano! ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... myself to arrange them. What would be the use of the man if I did?" This view of the question struck Carmina dumb. Mrs. Gallilee went on. "By-the-by, talking of flowers reminds one of other superfluities. Have you tried the piano in your ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... replaced him in his chair. Now he was no longer a weak and decrepit old man; he felt strong and active, and he hastened forward with a rapid step through the orchestra toward the conductor's seat and the piano in front of it. He laid his hands, which trembled no longer, on the keys, and struck a full concord. He turned his face toward the imperial box; his eyes beamed with love and exultation, and he began to play his favorite hymn ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... her journal, "I have had the great honour to show my talent, or rather my ignorance, on the piano before the Queen. In my youth I had been a tolerable musician, but, alas, that was long ago. For thirty years I had forgotten the instrument. Who would ever have thought that I should one day be summoned to perform before a queen and her court, and at the age of sixty, when I fumbled more ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... ever visit our home (they lived just inside the village in a quaint old manor house I had often admired), we would consider it an honor indeed to entertain Monsieur le Chaplain and his friends," then naively adding, as if by way of further inducement, "we have the only piano in the village." ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... consideration of the design of furniture. Messrs. Broadwood's Grand Pianoforte (illustrated) was a rich example of decorative woodwork in ebony and gold, and may be compared with the illustration on p. 172 of a harpsichord, which the Piano had replaced about 1767, and which at and since the time of the 1851 Exhibition supplies evidence of the increased attention devoted to decorative furniture. In the Appendix will be found a short notice of ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... the firearms in the house, filled all vessels with water, and piled blankets here and there to fight fire. Then they made merry. The wife played her piano till after midnight. Whether moved by this show or not, the blacks failed to return, and next day the family escaped ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... in Fitzroy Square was behaving very well indeed: the rent would be ready by quarter-day, and there were several things in the house that he would be pleased if Mrs. Clair could take away: the piano, for instance; he would consider it a real kindness if she could remove that, he had no use whatever for it, and had a case of rare butterflies that would stand very comfortably in its place. So the instrument ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... out, and mother is going to a bridge party. I have an engagement, so here's the key. When you leave the flat, put it on the hall stand. Sophronia and mother will be back before I am, and they will let me in. I'll leave the centerpiece on the piano." ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... knew well that they were only waiting for him to depart to break forth into excited comments; and presently he heard the phrase, "What assurance!" followed by a lull, as if some one had made a cautioning gesture. Then the somewhat dilapidated piano began to tinkle, as it could tinkle only under the mincing fingers of Mrs. Parr. Had her random notes been given a name, they might have been called Mrs. Parr's Tale of a ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... piano in one corner, and muslin curtains—I give you my word, muslin curtains, besides the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the "Banner" Club—an organization of social intent, but with political streaks—were a blaze of light that Christmas Eve night. On the lower floor some one was strumming on the piano, and upstairs, where the "ladies" sat, and where the Sunday smokers were held, a man was singing one of the latest coon songs. The "Banner" always got them first, mainly because the composers went there, and often the air of the piece itself had been picked out or patched together, ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... been able to corner Rose-Marie. But at the entertainment they were placed, by the hand of circumstance, upon a wooden settee in the back of the room. And there, for the better part of two hours—while Katie Syrop declaimed poetry and Helen Merskovsky played upon the piano, and others recited long and monotonous dialogues—they were forced ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... of a piano was heard, and Standard Six set off hollowly down the big room. The boys had entered by another door. The piano played on, a march tune, Standard Five followed to the door of the big room. Mr. Harby was seen away beyond at his desk. Mr. Brunt guarded the other door of the room. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the great table, as a fixture, in the centre, but that of Eve, somewhat shorter, but of equal width, was free from all encumbrance of the sort. It had its sofas, cushions, mirrors, stools, tables, and an upright piano. The doors of the state-rooms, and other conveniences, opened on its sides and ends. In short, it presented, at that hour, the resemblance of a tasteful boudoir, rather than that of an apartment in a cramped ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... than this pretty town of suburban villas and orderly machine shops; with the muddy river for a street and the impenetrable jungle for a back yard. The home of the director at Dima is the proud boast of the entire Congo. And all they say of it is true. It did have a billiard table and ice, and a piano, and M. Fumiere invited me to join his friends at an excellent dinner. In furnishing this celebrated house, the idea had apparently been to place in it the things one would least expect to find in the jungle, or, without wishing to be ungracious, ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... too, in his own way; then he would have her join in the dancing, and bade Ellen Chauncey give her lessons. There was a little backwardness at first, and then Ellen was jumping away with the rest, and thinking it perfectly delightful, as Miss Sophia's piano rattled out merry jigs and tunes, and little feet flew over the floor as light as the hearts they belonged to. At eight o'clock the young ones were dismissed, and bade good-night to their elders; and pleased with the kind kiss Mrs. Marshman had given ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... young fellow who has stood behind her chair for six months, turned over her music, or accompanied her through a few liquorish airs, vows his tender passion, brings her the last new song, and at length swears to be her accompaniment throughout life. The piano is then locked up, the music sent to Bath or Canterbury, and the lady is married and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various |
