"Viol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still retained in use to this day. I was seasoned to that kind of poetry in my early days by the verses of Tate and Brady, which I used to hear "entuned in the nose ful swetely," accompanied by vigorous rasping of a huge bass-viol. No wonder that Scotland welcomed the song ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... tithing-man and sterner tradition. There was at first neither organ nor stove nor clock. The shivering congregation warmed itself as best it might by the aid of foot-stoves; the parson timed his sermon by an hour-glass; and in the singing-seats the fiddle and the bass—viol formed the sole link (and an unconscious one) between the simple song-service of the Puritan meeting-house and the orchestral accompaniments to the high masses of European cathedrals. The men still sat at the end of the pew—a custom which had grown up in the days when they went ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... The plaining wail of muted violin, The hushed oboe and the distant din, Of muffled drum or viol's raucous groan— Sudden arises one pure voice-like tone, A silver trumpet's tongue that stirs the soul To feel the theme, and the harmonious whole A sonant setting seems for that alone; So, high ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... is Mi, this Do, and that Fa; and that, boys, is a part of what we call a scale." Then turning to a tall, thin, shabby-looking man, very much out at the elbows, whom I had not seen before, he said—"Mr. Smith, how is your base viol? Hav'nt you got it ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... all," said my father, "unless the road comes clearer before me. I love our old meeting-house, Mr. Davis; my good old father played the violin there for years, and when a youth, I stood with him and played the bass viol, while my brother, now gone, added the clear tones of the clarionet, and the voice of my sweet sister Lucy could be heard above all else, in the grand old hymns 'Silver Street' and 'Mear.'" At these recollections my father's voice choked with emotion, and strange for him, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... towers, from heaven—a story Of just, majestical, and giant groans. But man—we, scaffold of score brittle bones; Who breathe, from groundlong babyhood to hoary Age gasp; whose breath is our memento mori— What bass is our viol for tragic tones? He! Hand to mouth he lives, and voids with shame; And, blazoned in however bold the name, Man Jack the man is, just; his mate a hussy. And I that die these deaths, that feed this flame, That ... in smooth spoons spy life's masque mirrored: ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... this my Ancestor was not only of a military Genius, but fit also for the Arts of Peace, for he played on the Base-Viol as well as any Gentlemen at Court; you see where his Viol hangs by his Basket-hilt Sword. The Action at the Tilt-yard you may be sure won the fair Lady, who was a Maid of Honour, and the greatest Beauty of her Time; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the fore and main masts, serving to stretch a rope, heave upon the jeers, and take the viol to. Very seldom used. It is indeed deemed the spare capstan, and is frequently housed ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... back of the canvas, between these two rows of houses, rises a great avenue, at the end of which in a dappled sky sits God the Father with Christ on His right, choirs of Seraphim playing on guitar and viol; God the Father immovable under his lofty tiara, His breast covered by His long beard, holds scales which balance exactly, the holy captives expiating precisely by their penances and prayers the blasphemies of the rascals ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... the viol's pleasing swifter grow— Let Music's madness fascinate the will, And all Youth's pulses with the ardour thrill! Hast thou, Old Time, e'er ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... mid burn the wold bass-viol that I set such vallie by." Squire.—"You may hold the manse in fee, You may wed my spouse, my children's ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... folks at home—and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young folks go up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you ever heard. For what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar, a cornet, and a bass viol to trip the quadrille to ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... strains to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay! For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay, Once more the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms thou sport'st thy merry night, Trail'st the long ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... one that would disturb The fairy architects, or curb The wild creations of their mirth, All that would wake the soul to earth. Choose ye the softly-breathing-flute, The mellow horn, the loving lute; The viol you must not forget, And take the sprightly flageolet And grave bassoon; choose too the fife, Whose warblings in the tuneful strife, Mingling in mystery with the words, May seem like notes of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... that you'l say so: he playes o'th Viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without booke, & hath all the good ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... head are grouped the stops which imitate the tones of such stringed instruments as the Viola, the Violoncello, the Double Bass, and more especially the old form of Violoncello, called the Viol di Gamba, which had six strings and was ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... exclaimed the skipper, who thought that the aforesaid graven image on the cut-water of his old ship, far excelled the Venus de Medici in beauty of feature and form. 'She must be almighty beautiful; and then, my son, she is as rich as the Rajah of Rangoon, who owns a diamond as big as our viol-block. Did you fall in love ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... for tradesmen and artisans to take part in autiphons, glees, and part-songs of all kinds, while ballads were in such general favour that ballad-mongers could earn twenty shillings a day. A bass viol generally hung in a drawing-room for the visitors to play; but the few ladies who used this instrument were thought masculine. The education of girls at this time admitted of scarcely any accomplishment but music: they were taught to read, write, sew, and cook, to play the virginals, lute, and ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... recall its clang? And how the seats would slam and bang? The voices high and low? The basso's trump before he sang? The viol and its bow? Where was it old Judge Winthrop sat? Who wore the last three-cornered hat? Was Israel Porter lean or fat?— That's what I'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... you sonny, yes. Why, Sunday morning, when the sea was all still, I used to hear the bass-viol a-soundin' down under the waters, jist as plain as could be,—and psalms and preachin'. I've reason to think there's as many hopefully pious mermaids as there be folks," ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... doubt. You must have three voices—a tenor, a soprano, and a bass, who will be accompanied by a bass-viol, a theorbo, and a clavecin for the chords, with two violins to play ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... that song was great; Would sing as finely to this suffering child As at the court where princes on him smiled.) Gently he entered and sat down by her, Asking what sort of strain she would prefer,— The voice alone, or voice with viol wed; Then, when she chose the last, he preluded With magic hand, that summoned from the strings Aerial spirits, rare yet palpable wings That fanned the pulses of his listener, And waked each sleeping sense with blissful stir. Her cheek ...
— How Lisa Loved the King • George Eliot
... the service, when there was time to check its pertinacity by adjustment of the machinery. At its best, the singers—even George Hewlett—were much hurt, and the compromise was made that it never should uplift its voice when they were present in full force with bass, flute, and viol, but should only draw forth its four tunes when there were only the children ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heaves and pantings that accompanied the action, from the beginning to the end; the sound and sight of which thrilled to the very soul of me, and made every vein of my body circulate liquid fires: the emotion grew so viol-lent that it ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... and drum and viol, and he would have frequent music. Each day toward evening each man was given a cup of wine. And before sunset all were gathered for vesper service, and we sang Salve Regina. At night the great familiar stars shone out ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... Manitou. The breeze stirs the pulse like a tonic; birds, bees, and butterflies dance in the air; the leaves have the gloss of varnish—there is no dust there,—and everything is cleanly, cheerful and reposeful. From the hotel veranda float the strains of harp and viol; at intervals during the day and night music helps us to lift up our hearts; there is nothing like it—except more of it. There is not overmuch dressing among the women, nor the beastly spirit of loudness among the men; the domestic atmosphere is undisturbed. A newspaper printed ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... hear; And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial: 80 He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addrest; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best; They would have thought who heard the strain 85 They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing, While, as his ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... his tune so well because their natures had unblunted edges, and were keen for bliss, confiding in it as natural food. To gentlemen and ladies he fine-draws upon the viol, ravishingly; or blows into the mellow bassoon; or rouses the heroic ardours of the trumpet; or, it may be, commands the whole Orchestra for them. And they are pleased. He is still the cunning musician. They languish, and taste ecstasy: but it is, however sonorous, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... feeling, by slight and repeated contact, so that the mind is attentive to constantly recurring impressions, and readily learns to discern their variations. This difference is clear in the use of musical instruments. The harsh and painful touch of the 'cello, bass-viol, and even of the violin, hardens the finger-tips, although it gives flexibility to the fingers. The soft and smooth touch of the harpsichord makes the fingers both flexible and sensitive. In this respect the harpsichord is to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... with a knife. When several plants are put in the same jar, a label, thus marked, should be attached to each. Without this precaution, the collection is useless. Flowers of the different species should not be put in the same viol. If it is ever necessary, a label should be attached to each. Or they should be put in paper pasted together, with the ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... small town, when sick o' my roaming, Whare ance play'd the viol, the tabor, and flute; 'Twas the hour loved by labour, the saft smiling gloaming, Yet the green round the cross-stane was empty ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Virgin Mary is seen sitting at the door, and still more often a young John the Baptist looks up to you from the pavement. Their own postilion reminded the whole party of the Suonatore di Violino of Raphael—whose fiddlestick, by the way, being that of a bass viol, might at first sight be mistaken for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... alas, The barrier overpass That screens him in those Mournful Meads hereunder, Where no fiddling can be heard In the glades Of silentness, no bird Thrills the shades; Where no viol is touched for songs or serenades, No bowing ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... the music man could make There they heard in plenty; Timbrel, psaltery, lyre, and lute, Harp and viol dainty; Voices that in part-song meet Choiring forte, lente; Sounds the diatesseron, ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... task? Do they not come to these sacred services with reluctance, continue in them by constraint, and quit them with gladness? And of how many of these persons may it not be affirmed in the spirit of the prophet's language: "The harp, and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands?" Are not the youth of one sex often actually committing, and still more often wishing ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... superior to the style of the Troubadours. In performing their works, they did not, like their western brethren, have recourse to hired accompanists, or Jongleurs, but supported the vocal part by playing on a small viol. The Jongleurs were essentially a French institution, and no class of musicians similar to them existed in Germany. The Minnesingers, like the Troubadours, were amateurs, and aimed to keep free from the taint of professionalism. Men of the highest ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... Billings introduced the bass viol into the services of the Church, and thus began to break down the ancient Puritanical prejudices against musical instruments. He was also the first to use the pitch-pipe in order to ensure some degree of certainty in "striking ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... damsel!" Then he bade the fifth damsel come forward and sing (now she was from the land of Syria and her name was Rayhanah; she was passing of voice and when she appeared in an assembly, all eyes were fixed upon her), so she came forward and taking the viol (for she was used to play upon all instruments) recited and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... heads disapprovingly, while viewing with wonder the great lumbering coach, its passengers inside and out, and, behind, the large wagon with its load of miscellaneous trappings. Now on the stage throne lolled the bass viol player, even as Jacques assumed the raiment of the Duke of Aranza, reclining the while in his chair of state. Contentment was written upon his face, and he was as much a duke or a king, as Jacques when he swelled like a shirt bleaching in a high wind and looked ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... idea, is a typical one—he "could dance admirably well, but neither in youth nor riper years made any practice of it; he had skill in fencing such as became a gentleman; he had great love to music and often diverted himself with a viol, on which he played masterly; he had an exact ear and judgment in other music; he shot excellently in bows and guns, and much used them for his exercise; he had great judgment in paintings, graving, sculpture, and all liberal ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... they were piled on top of one another; the chairs were arranged in a row along the wall; the floor, newly waxed, shone like glass. A small upright piano manipulated by an elderly female in glasses; a tremendous bass viol in charge of a small man, and a violin played by a ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... in the high pew, until her sight Swept the west gallery, and caught its row Of music-men with viol, book, and bow Against the ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... de Mortimer played first viol in the Court minstrelsy. Up and yet higher up he crept, till he could creep no further, as I writ a few leaves back. On the eve of Saint Pancras was crowned the new Queen of France in the Abbey of Saint Denis, which is to France as Westminster ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... well-behaved young gal in the singers' seat of a Sunday is a means o' grace: it's sort o' drawin' to the unregenerate, you know. Why, boys, in them days, I've walked ten miles over to Sherburne of a Sunday mornin', jest to play the bass-viol in the same singers' seat with Huldy. She was very much respected, Huldy was; and, when she went out to tailorin', she was allers bespoke six months ahead, and sent for in waggins up and down for ten miles round; for the young fellers was allers 'mazin' anxious to ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Joy's ecstatic trial; He, with viny crown advancing, First to the lively pipe his hand addressed; But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best: They would have thought, who heard the strain, They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, Amidst the festal-sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as his flying ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... soon to win the love of a lady like that? Lucky indeed might they deem themselves, if they did it, those young gallants that go about, day and night, up and down, a strumming on the one-stringed viol, and would not know how to gather a handful of nuts once in a millennium. Mayst thou be by to see when I bring her the rebeck! thou wilt see fine sport. List well what I say: I am not so old as I look; and she knows it right well: ay, and anyhow I will soon let her know it, when I come ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... we are told, being infirm of body, was comforted through God's goodness by a vision of the joy of the blessed. "Suddenly there appeared to him an angel in a great radiance, which angel held a viol in his left hand and a bow in his right. And while St. Francis remained in stupefaction at the sight, this angel drew the bow once upwards across the viol, and instantly there issued such sweetness of melody as melted the soul of St. ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... the prows resting on the beach; having done this, they place the mast lengthwise across the prow and the poop, and spread the sail over it, so as to form a tent; beneath these tents they sing their songs, drinking wine freely, and accompanying their voices with the lyre, or three-stringed viol. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... this pitchy gloom, wondering what and where this scuttle might be, I crouched, a very wild and desperate creature, peering into the gloom and starting at every sound; thus presently I heard the scrape of a viol somewhere beyond the bulkheads that shut me in and therewith a voice that sang, the ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... cunning!" said he, "I find the anchor holds fast! I did suppose as how you would have slipt your cable, and changed your berth; but, I see, when a young fellow is once brought up by a pretty wench, he may man his capstans and viol block, if he wool; but he'll as soon heave up the Pike of Teneriffe, as bring his anchor aweigh! Odds heartlikins! had I known the young woman was Ned Gauntlet's daughter, I shouldn't have thrown out ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... on foot to Nice, where the Duke of Savoy held his court; there he entered the service of the Duke of Moreto, and this lord having been appointed, some years afterwards, to the Scottish embassy, Rizzio followed him to Scotland. As this young man had a very fine voice, and accompanied on the viol and fiddle songs of which both the airs and the words were of his own composition, the ambassador spoke of him to Mary, who wished to see him. Rizzio, full of confidence in himself, and seeing in the queen's desire a road to success, hastened to obey her command, sang before her, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... apt to go astray when intent on rhyme. With so much to abstract him from outward life, he could hardly be said to live in the world that was bustling around him. Almost the only relaxation that he allowed himself was an occasional performance on a bass-viol which stood in the corner of his study, and from which he loved to elicit some old-fashioned tune of soothing potency. At meal-times, however, dragged down and harassed as his spirits were, he brightened up, and generally gladdened the whole table ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bright carelessness of Laurence, who dashed at any speech in idiomatic but ungrammatical outlander's French, gradually won upon him. As also the fact that Laurence was clerk-learned and could sing and play upon the viol with surprising skill for ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... a shell. From me you shall not hear The splendid tramplings of insistent drums, The orbed gold of the viol's voice that comes, Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear. Yet, if you hold me close against the ear, A dim, far whisper rises clamorously, The thunderous beat and passion of the sea, The slow surge of the tides that drown ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... is really open now. Guests stroll about and listen to the music, or sit on the balcony chairs and watch the dancing. By and by there are some soft melodious waves with no especial meaning, then the French horns pipe a delicious thrill, "viol, flute and bassoon" burst into beguiling bloom of the Zamora, and hands steal out to other hands, arms cling to arms, and ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the rich viol, trump, cymbal, nor horn, Guitar, nor cittern, nor the pining flute, Are half so sweet as ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... were read before the King." The Rawi would declaim the recitative somewhat in conversational style; he would intone the Saj'a or prose-rhyme and he would chant to the twanging of the Rabab, a one-stringed viol, the poetical parts. Dr. Scott[FN301] borrows from the historian of Aleppo a life-like picture of the Story-teller. "He recites walking to and fro in the middle of the coffee-room, stopping only now and then, when the expression requires some emphatical attitude. He ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... Torelore!" she said, Nicolette the lovely maid, "Fool I seem in your folk's sight! When my sweet friend clips me tight, Smooth and soft for his delight, Then am I at such a school, Ball nor dance nor gay carole, Harp nor viol nor cithole, Nor the pleasures of nimpole, ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... and "appropriate instrumental music by the band," which consisted of a drum and a bass-viol, the people dispersed to amuse themselves as they saw fit, till dinner should ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... Tout Etat qui aura viol une des mesures provisoires prescrites par le Conseil pendant la priode de procdure, vises l'article 7 du ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... resort of gentlemen performers was greater than the house would admit of; a small subscription was set on foot, and they removed to the 'Queen's Head' tavern, in Paternoster Row. Here they were joined by Mr. Woolaston and his friends, and also by a Mr. Franckville, a fine performer on the viol de Gamba. And after a few winters, being grown rich enough to hire additional performers, they removed, in the year 1724, to the 'Castle,' in Paternoster Row, which was adorned with a picture of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... return to the conference, observing, that all these parties were sitting down on the deck, and that Jemmy Ducks had his fiddle in his hand, holding it with the body downwards like a bass viol, for he always played it in that way, and that he occasionally fingered the strings, pinching them as you do a guitar, so as to send the sound of it aft, that Mr Vanslyperken might suppose that they were all met for mirth. Two or three had their eyes directed aft, that the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Then comes Monkton, close to Maiden Castle. The church is Norman, much restored. St. Martin follows; a picturesque hamlet with a fine church, the last in the west of England to dispense with clarionet, flute and bass-viol in the village choir. On sign-posts as well as colloquially this hamlet is known as "Martinstown." Steepleton boasts a stone spire, rare for Dorset, and a curious and very ancient figure of an angel on the outside wall declared by most authorities to be Saxon. The last of the villages ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... nearer to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass—this green, barnacled thing, which the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... stately galliard, for this rugged and decayed dungeon of rusty-coloured stone—quitting the gay theatre, for the solitary chimney-nook of a Scottish dog-house—bartering the sounds of the soul-ravishing lute, and the love-awaking viol-de-gamba, for the discordant squeak of a northern bagpipe—above all, exchanging the smiles of those beauties, who form a gay galaxy around the throne of England, for the cold courtesy of an untaught damsel, and the bewildered stare of a miller's maiden. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... this my ancestor was not only of a a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court; you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the tilt-yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of honour, and the greatest beauty of her time; here she stands the next picture. You see, Sir, my great-great- great-grandmother ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... needed to excuse a serenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window—or, it might be, her father's, or that of an ailing maiden aunt—and flute, harp, fiddle, 'cello, cornet, and bass viol would presently release to the dulcet stars such melodies as sing through "You'll Remember Me," "I Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls," "Silver Threads Among the Gold," "Kathleen Mavourneen," or "The ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... much that it was Miserie for him to hear anie that was not of the beste. I secretlie resolved he should never heare mine. He added, he was come of a musicalle Familie, and that his Father not onlie sang well, but played finely on the Viol and Organ. Then he spake of the sweet Musick in Italy, until I longed to be there; but I tolde him nothing in its Way ever pleased me more than to heare the Choristers of Magdalen College usher in May Day by chaunting a Hymn at the Top of the Church Towre. Discoursing of this ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... Caroline, destined in later years for an illustrious career. William soon learned all that his master could teach him in the ordinary branches of knowledge, and by the age of fourteen he was already a competent performer on the oboe and the viol. He was engaged in the Court orchestra at Hanover, and was also a member of the band of the Hanoverian Guards. Troublous times were soon to break up Herschel's family. The French invaded Hanover, the Hanoverian Guards were overthrown in the battle of Hastenbeck, ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... informant, perhaps Deborah Clarke, who libelled her as "a termagant." She was pretty, and had golden hair, which one connects pleasantly with the late sunshine she brought into Milton's life. She sang to his accompaniment on the organ and bass-viol, but is not recorded to have read or written for him; the only direct testimony we have of her care of him is his verbal acknowledgment of her attention to his creature comforts. Yet Aubrey's memoranda show that she could ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... old-fashioned blue, straight-bodied coat with brass buttons, a buff vest, and nankeen pantaloons which were said to have come down as an heirloom in his family from a remote generation. He was addicted to rather a pompous style of speech. He was very fond of playing the bass-viol, of which he was by no means a very skilful master. He had, as a subject for his mock part, "The Base Violation of all Rules of Harmony." One Sunday evening he had a few friends with him who were singing psalm tunes to the accompaniment of his bass-viol. They made a prodigious noise, not at all ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... another magnum of strong red wine, and procured from the neighbourhood a blind fiddler, who had acquired a local reputation. His instrument, the favourite one of Servia, is styled a goosely, being a testudo-formed viol; no doubt a relic of the antique, for the Servian monarchy derived all its arts from the Greeks of the Lower Empire. But the musical entertainment, in spite of the magnum of wine, and the jovial challenges of our fellow traveller ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... they great joy of her, and led her to the castle with great honor, as a king's daughter. And they would have given her to her lord a king of Paynim, but she had no mind to marry. There dwelt she three days or four. And she considered by what device she might seek far Aucassin. Then she got her a viol, and learned to play on it; till they would have married her one day to a rich king of Paynim, and she stole forth by night, and came to the seaport, and dwelt with a poor woman thereby. Then took she a certain herb, and therewith smeared her head and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Fiddler, Sir Roger Lestrange, who played the base-viol at the musical parties held at John Hingston's house, where Oliver Cromwell was a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... out in fuel-house so long for?" said the tranter. "Never such a man as father for two things—cleaving up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass his life between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door and ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy |
