"Fiddlestick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fiddlestick!" said Sidney Meeks. "It's a queer thing that so much virtue and real fineness of character can exist in a woman without the slightest trace of taste ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... place, where he was presently told of a characteristic reply just made by Wolfe to some officers who had apologized for not having taught their men the new exercise. "Poh, poh!—new exercise—new fiddlestick. If they are otherwise well disciplined, and will fight, that's all I ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... blarney. I wish you only to think of me as you did ten years ago. I will not have our hearts polluted by the vulgarity of fame. I want you to feel for me as you did when we were children. I will not be an object of interest, and admiration, and fiddlestick to you; I will not ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... situation for two women to find themselves in? A fiddlestick's end for the situation! We have got an easy way out of it—thanks, Mother Oldershaw, to what I myself forced you to do, not three hours before the Somersetshire clergyman met ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... managed it somehow. Well, he was at the bow when we took the rapids, and a first-rate bowman he made. His pole was twice as long and twice as thick as any other pole in the boat, and he twisted it about just like a fiddlestick. I remember well the night before we came to the rapids, as he was sitting by the fire, which was blazing up among the pine-branches that overhung us, he said that he wanted a good pole for the rapids next day; and with that he jumped up, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the makers and scientists of France for bringing the indispensable "fiddlestick" to such a degree of perfection, we must not overlook the claims of certain of our own countrymen for recognition in the same ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... "As great a fiddlestick!" ejaculated the other with infinite scorn, having the reputation of being as much of a woman-hater as Diogenes. "If I was as big an ass about those 'chawming girls' as you call them, I tell you what I would do—I'd go and ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to fiddlestick, Hedzoff,' said a female voice. It was Gruffanuff, who had come out in her dressing-gown when she heard the noise. 'The King said you were to hang the Prince. Well, ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... got us into, with your nodding head and the deference due to a man of pedigree! POOH. Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. PITTI. Corroborative detail indeed! Corroborative fiddlestick! KO. And you're just as bad as he is with your cock— and-a-bull stories about catching his eye and his whistling an air. But that's so like you! You must put in your oar! POOH. But how about your big right arm? PITTI. Yes, and your snickersnee! KO. Well, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... "A fiddlestick!" retorted Bob. "We'll only drift about like this for a short time; and, when the tide turns again, it will sweep us back to ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Princess Luisante is not really the heroine, and is absent from the greater part of the tale, though she is finally provided with the hero's brother, who is a reigning prince, and has everything handsome about him. The actual hero Tarare (French for "Fiddlestick!" or something of that sort, and of course an assumed name), in order to cure Luisante's eyes of their lethal quality, has to liberate a still more attractive damsel—the title-heroine—putative daughter of a good fairy and actual victim of a bad one, quite in the orthodox ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... "Fiddlestick, woman, with your haunted Tower!" said the magistrate, who was apt soon to lose his patience; "I suspect that you and your one-armed companion there, who looks as scared as if he had a real goblin at his heels, ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... is, keeps order in the establishment, and checks her follies. She wanted to marry her cousin, Tom Poyntz, when they were both very young, and proposed to die of a broken heart when I arranged her match with Mr. Newcome. A broken fiddlestick! she would have ruined Tom Poyntz in a year; and has no more idea of the cost of a leg of mutton, than I have ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... polish and fiddlestick ends," echoed Henderson; and Mackworth, who had every intention of making a very flourishing speech, was so disconcerted by this unwonted pruning of his periods, that he somewhat abruptly sat down, muttering anathemas on Henderson, and flustered quite ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... oscillations of the abdomen, synchronising with the contractions of the motor muscles of the cymbals, determine the changing volume of the sound, which seems to be caused by rapidly repeated strokes of a fiddlestick. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... a fiddlestick's end, goodman! You may know well about fishing and be good at shearing sheep for what I know; but you are little of a judge of damask sheets. And the best word I can say is just this," she says, laying hold of one end of the goods, "that if ye are made up to ...
— The Waif Woman • Robert Louis Stevenson
... uniform. This afforded James Buchanan an opportunity of making one of the best speeches attributed to him. The circular of Mr. Marcy threw consternation into the breasts of certain ancient functionaries of the European courts, for shortly after its appearance the lord high fiddlestick in waiting called upon Mr. Buchanan, who was then the United States minister in London, and said that a certain very distinguished person had heard of the recent wish which the American government had expressed with regard to the costume of its agents, and that while ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... the world, and, in the face of the gigantic stars, cannot stop to split differences between two degrees of the infinitesimally small, such as a tobacco pipe or the Roman Empire, a million of money or a fiddlestick's end. ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evening before his visit to the Dodds, Dr. Sampson dined with the Hardies, and happened to mention the "Dodds" among his old patients: "The Dodds of' Albion Villa?" inquired Miss Hardie, to her brother's no little surprise. "Albyn fiddlestick!" said the polished doctor. "No! they live by the water-side; used to; but now they have left the town, I hear. He is a sea-captain and a fine lad, and Mrs. Dodd is just the best-bred woman I ever ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... well?" he said gravely, and was silent for a minute. "However," he added in a cheerful tone, "I have no fears that all will be right, and that, before many evenings are over, we shall have you fingering your fiddlestick as merrily as ever." ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... Answer: her grandmother. There!" she said, triumphantly, "what do you think of that?" Poor Polly did not know what to think of it. She looked at the book, which looked exactly like Colburn's Arithmetic. "Is that Colburn's Arithmetic, ma'am?" she asked timidly. "Colburn's Fiddlestick!" said the old woman, shortly. "Here's another for you. Put a boy up an apple-tree, and divide him by a good sized bull-dog; what will remain? hey?" "I'm sure I don't know," said poor Polly, faintly. "Mince-meat, ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... moment, old Jack Truck, who was standing in the rigging, dripping with he spray, that had washed over him, with a naked head, and his grey hair glistening, shouted like a Stentor, "Haul in your fore-braces, boys! away with the yard, like a fiddlestick!" Every nerve was strained; the unwilling yards, pressed upon by an almost irresistible column of air, yielded slowly, and as the sail met the gale more perpendicularly, or at right angles to its surface, it dragged the vast ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... 'Cottage! Fiddlestick! The idea of a man coming to look after his trumpery cottage on the first day of his showing himself as lord of his own property! Perhaps he is demanding that you shall be delivered up to him. If he does ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... sir—an accursed fiddlestick!" snorted Sir Richard. "How is a boy, an unsophisticated, hot-headed young fool of a boy ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... 'He is as inconstant as the Moon, which he lives under ... His Mind entertains all Things very freely, that come and go; but, like Guests and Strangers they are not welcome, if they stay long ... His Ears are perpetually drilled with a Fiddlestick. He endures Pleasures with less Patience, than other Men ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... to the grave with fiddlestick!" Mrs. Milliken said with some asperity. "And, as we are going to part, mamma, and as Horace has paid EVERYTHING on the journey as yet, and we have only brought a VERY few circular notes with us, perhaps you will have the kindness ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Noble fiddlestick! Monsieur le Marquis, in this country, and the inhabitants are not fools, we allow money to weigh against rank. It purchases that, as it does everything else, except heaven. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... "Untimely fiddlestick!" was Mr. Hastings' still more irritable reply. "He thinks he is a hero, and presumes upon it to intrude himself in a most insufferable manner. I have no doubt Jonas would have got along without ...
— Three People • Pansy
... "Break your fiddlestick!" said Mr. Jasmin, irreverently. "Let us sit down on this green bank, and you shall tell me all about the Diamond while I try the quality of these cigars. I ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... "Miserable fiddlestick!" said Joe, smoothing down his hair with both hands and accidentally stooping down so low that her lips came near enough to his forehead to breathe on it and send a pleasant creeping chill to the very tips of his toes. "I read you sermons, as you call them, because you are very impatient ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... doo, My dame has lost her shoe; My master's lost his fiddlestick, And knows not what ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies - Without Addition or Abridgement • Munroe and Francis
... a kind of fiddlestick!" said the enraged Master Chuter; and turning round his eye fell on Jan, who was looking as disconsolate as himself. Day after day had he come in hopes of seeing Master Linseed at work, and now it seemed indefinitely postponed. But the innkeeper's face brightened, and, seizing Jan by the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... frightened countryman his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria: 'Oh, jabbers! I wish some of my greatest enemies was kicking me down Dame street.' Lady Cork met me at the door: 'What! no harp, Glorvina?'—'Oh, Lady Cork!'—'Oh, Lady Fiddlestick! You are a fool, child: you don't know your own interests.—Here, James, William, Thomas! send one of the chairmen to Stanhope street ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... valued fiddlestick! Who wanted him to come back? Why couldn't he stay where he was, and poison the foreigners? He might have been of ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... your fiddlestick," exclaimed the baronet, with less than his usual dignity. "You could make no promise without my sanction, and that I cannot give you. You can let the girl know this ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Fiddlestick, man! You are full of music. Who has not heard leaves rustle in the wind, or listened to the babble of a brook; yet to the majority they are no more than what they seem—rustling leaves, a babbling brook—but to you and me these are an inspiration, voices of Nature, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... "A few moments private fiddlestick," answered Mr. Middleton. "What the devil—whose little boy are you? Ain't you Miss Dunn's little boy? You'd better scratch gravel for home, and if I catch you here again dickerin' after Fanny, I'll pull every corn-colored ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... the king's fiddlestick!" answered the baron. "What do you mean by coming here with your cock and bull, stories of my daughter grievously bruising the sheriff of Nottingham? You are a set of vagabond rascals in disguise; and I hear, by the bye, there is a ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... "See a fiddlestick. If she's not fretted she won't want a doctor till the time comes when the doctor will be with her whether she wants him or not. There's nothing so bad as coddling. Everybody knows that now. The great thing is to ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... "Title! Fiddlestick! I looked over the deeds myself. Besides, haven't I told you the ancestors of Dursley, from whose executors Palliser purchased the estate, were in possession of it for centuries. What better title than prescription can ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... fiddlestick's end!" said Priscilla, as she arranged her discarded dress, and closed her bandbox. "Who shall I have to work for when father's gone, if you are to go and take notions in your head and be an old maid, because some folks are no better than they should be? I haven't a bit ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... "Sounded like a fiddlestick!" replied another; "you with your sharp ears are always hearing something that nobody else ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... him a sort of universal joint—it never seemed to know what weariness was. His fiddle stood always on the board in a corner by him, and no sooner had he ceased to brandish his needle, than he began to brandish his fiddlestick. If ever he could be said to be lazy, it was when his father was gone out to measure, or try on; and his fiddle being too strong a temptation for him, he would seize upon it, and labor at it with all his might, till he spied his father turning his next corner ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... 'Used against a fiddlestick end!' said Mrs. Blake. 'I married Robert Sigglesfield in the name of William Alderton, and he sitting trembling there, like a shrimp half boiled! He got ready the kind of will we wanted instead of the one the old man meant, and gave it to the old ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... who do you think presented himself as Lord Bute's guardian angel? only one of his bitterest enemies: a milk-white angel [Duke of York], white even to his eyes and eyelashes, very purblind, and whose tongue runs like a fiddlestick. You have seen this divinity, and have prayed to it for a Riband. Well, this god of love became the god of politics, and contrived meetings between Bute, Grenville, and Bedford; but, what happens to highwaymen ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... "Cat's foot—fiddlestick—folderol—fudge! She's no more dead than I am. Don't talk to me! Hold on to yourself now, Willie Jaquith, and don't make a scene; it is a thing I cannot abide. It was Maria Jaquith that died, over at East Corners. Small loss she was, too. None of that family was ever worth their salt. The ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... "Fiddlestick-end!" snapped the unconscionable lady, not removing her eyes from mine. "Was this man Stimcoe drunk, eh? No; I beg your pardon," she corrected herself. "I oughtn't to be asking a boy to tell tales out of school. 'Thou shalt not say anything ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... fiddlestick!" said my adored Dorothy. And, rising, she confronted me, a tinted statuette of decision. "Now, Frank," says she, "I would like to know the meaning ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... something at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... "Instruct! O, fiddlestick! What instructing do you think I should do? I look like it! As to Marie, she has spirit enough, to be sure, to kill off a whole plantation, if I'd let her manage; but she wouldn't get the cheatery out ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "An earl's fiddlestick! What do you suppose American girls would care for that? Nor would they believe it, even, unless I had diamonds and coronet and every thing to match. Your mother had diamonds, I know, but mine had not. By-the-by, where are they, Miriam? I have ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... "Brown fiddlestick! Hold your head steady. Well—I never! The vanity of some folk! The apings of some people. Oh, I haven't a word to say if you like to make a show of yourself. I respect my years. I live up to them. Some ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... gittern^, rebeck^, bandurria^, bandura, banjo; bina^, vina^; xanorphica^. viol, violin, fiddle, kit; viola, viola d'amore [Fr.], viola di gamba [It]; tenor, cremona, violoncello, bass; bass viol, base viol; theorbo^, double base, contrabasso^, violone^, psaltery [Slang]; bow, fiddlestick^. piano, pianoforte; harpsichord, clavichord, clarichord^, manichord^; clavier, spinet, virginals, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, vielle^, pianino^, Eolian harp. [Wind instruments]; organ, harmonium, harmoniphon^; American organ^, barrel organ, hand organ; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... "A fine fiddlestick, sir!" quoth my father. "The man is talking largely on matters of which he can know nothing; and in five minutes (I bet you) he will come ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Dwarf gliding along, and surrounded by countless sparkling lights. The lad stood still, and stared with astonishment at the apparition. Dissevered tones, as of a violin, floated in the disturbed air; and when the phantom lifted his fiddlestick, it seemed as if he sent a recognising nod towards his godchild. Klaus urged his beast forward, and at the same moment the Dwarf turned off at a cross-road, and with the speed of an arrow swept towards the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... daughter of the parish-clerk. She came daily to wind the church clock, and for this purpose had to pass through the schoolroom, where sat Master Parker, teaching the A B C and playing the fiddle at intervals. He was as clever with his tongue as with his fiddlestick, the big schoolmaster; and while helping the sweet little maiden to wind the clock in the belfry, he told her wonderful tales of his doings in foreign lands, and of his travels through many countries. And now the old, old story, as ancient ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... 'Vow of fiddlestick!' I cried. 'Who do you think is the bigger chief, the Inkulu or Ratitswan? I tell you Ratitswan is now driving Inkulu before him as a wind drives rotten leaves. It will be well for you, men of Machudi, to make peace with Ratitswan and take me to him on the Berg. If you bring me to him, I ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... "Dear fiddlestick," said Sally. "Love is love; and when a person loves all she can, it isn't much use to talk so. I've been a wicked sinner, that I have. Love? Do you suppose I would bear with Moses Pennel all his ins and outs ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe |
