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Flute   Listen
verb
Flute  v. t.  (past & past part. fluted; pres. part. fluting)  
1.
To play, whistle, or sing with a clear, soft note, like that of a flute. "Knaves are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness." " The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee."
2.
To form flutes or channels in, as in a column, a ruffle, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Flute" Quotes from Famous Books



... his fiddle and the tree toad with his drum, and the lark with her flute and little Jenny Wren with her piano. And what do you suppose Billy Bunny had tucked away in his knapsack? Why, Uncle Lucky's ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory

... way with unerring instinct through the forest. We had gone some distance, when we heard a deep, loud, and long-sustained flute-like note. It was that of a bird. The young Indian stopped, and pointing ahead, uttered the word nira-mimbeu, which I afterwards ascertained meant fife-bird, evidently from the peculiar note we had just heard. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... came the careless ripple of a flute, showering light and sensuous music. There was a dare-devil lilt and sway to the flippant strains and Aunt Agatha covered her face ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... sings should be beautiful, after the Hindoo type;—that is, she should have the complexion of chocolate and cream; "her face should be as the full moon, her nose smooth as a flute; she should have eyes like unto lotuses, and a neck like a pigeon's; her voice should be soft as the cuckoo's, and her step as the gait of a young elephant of pure blood." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... tents, no one asked him where he was bound, or how soon he would be back. He passed along walking very straight as became a uniformed soldier, whistling a march-tune, now and then interrupting himself to introduce a clear flute-like note. ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock

... was yet afraid of this strange witch maiden, whose fairness and beauty were regarded by the men of Flute as betokening the spell of her subtle sorcery. But seeing him recoil, Aasta lowered the weapon and ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... touch all the chords of sentiment. Two new types of verse appeared,—the Elegiac and the Iambic. At first the elegy was probably a lament for the dead. It was accompanied by the soft music of the Lydian flute. The instruments which the Greeks had used were string-instruments. The early Greek elegies related to a variety of themes,—as war, love, preceptive wisdom. The iambic meter was first used in satire. Its earliest master ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... consider with some attention such of the Lacedaemonian poems as are still extant, and get into those airs which were played upon the flute when they marched to battle, we must agree that Terpander and Pindar have very fitly joined valour and music together. The former thus speaks ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... to come. The knowledge that this spirit, which is essentially one, is in one's own, and in all other bodies, is the wisdom of one who knows the unity of things. As one diffusive air, passing through the perforations of a flute, is distinguished as the notes of a scale, so the nature of the Great Spirit is single, though its forms be manifold, arising from the consequences of acts. When the difference of the investing form, ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... small help given grudgingly, eked out by much advice, and coupled with conditions. Amongst the conditions there was a very proper and prudent one,—exchange into a less expensive regiment. Exchange effected; peace; obscure country quarters; ennui, flute-playing, and idleness. Mr. Digby had no resources on a rainy day—except flute-playing; pretty girl of inferior rank; all the officers after her; Digby smitten; pretty girl very virtuous; Digby forms honourable intentions; excellent sentiments; imprudent marriage. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... came there, And the Pobble who has no toes, And the small Olympian bear, And the Dong with a luminous nose. And the Blue Baboon who played the flute, And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute, And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat,— All came and built on the lovely Hat Of the ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... would of course capsize immediately, as the top weight of the upper works would overturn the flute-like body upon which they rested. This is prevented by an outrigger, which is formed of elastic rods of tough wood, which, being firmly bound together, project at right angles from the upper works. At the extremity of these two rods, there is a tapering ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... afternoon wore away Lillian grew calmer, though her mind never deviated from the subject. The trio had ceased to sit in the large reception hall, for its gun-rack and rods and reels, its fur rugs, its trophies of sport, its mandolin and flute and piano, were now pathetically reminiscent of the vanished presence of its joyous and genial owner. They used instead the small library which opened from it, where a spacious bay-window gave ample light in the dreary ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... flourished, through the elegant taste of Vitruvius, and the patronage of the emperor. Painting, statuary, and music, were cultivated, but not with that degree of perfection which they had obtained in the Grecian states. The musical instruments of this period were the flute and the lyre, to which may be added the sistrum, lately imported from Egypt. But the chief glory of the period is its literature, of which we ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... almost certainly Posidon, and the others are perhaps Apollo and Artemis. In Fig. 125 three youths advance with measured step, carrying jars filled with wine, while a fourth youth stoops to lift his jar; at the extreme right may be seen part of a flute-player, whose figure was completed on the next slab. The attitudes and draperies of the three advancing youths, though similar, are subtly varied. So everywhere monotony is absent from the frieze. Fig. 126 is taken from the most animated and crowded ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... flower-maidens, Amazons, rain of fire, magic mountains, magic fountains, trees of the sun and of the moon, are introduced with a liberal hand. The hero is specially distinguished by the virtue of liberality; a jongleur who charms him by lays sung to the flute, is rewarded with the lordship of Tarsus, a worthy example for the twelfth-century patrons of the poet. The ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... ten years of repose and preparation, during which he is lauded and nattered, yet retaining simplicity of habits, sleeping but five hours a day, finding time for state dinners, flute-playing, and operas, of all which he is fond; for he was doubtless a man of culture, social, well read if not profound, witty, inquiring, and without any striking defects save tyranny, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... makes in drawing in his breath are not perceptible. If he stayed too close to the microphone, however, that drawing in of breath, or some other little peculiarity of his delivery, would be so plainly heard that it would interfere with the effect of his performance. So, with certain instruments. A flute, for instance, has no mechanical stops, so a flute player can stand comparatively near the microphone. The player of a cornet, however, must stand some distance back or else the clicking of the stops of his instrument ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... Vermilionville and Carancro was a Creole gentleman who looked burly and hard when in meditation; but all that vanished when he spoke and smiled. In the pocket of his cassock there was always a deck of cards, but that was only for the game of solitaire. You have your pipe or cigar, your flute or violoncello; he had his little table under the orange-tree and ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... are gratified with very moderate excellence. In childhood every tune is delightful to a musical ear: in our advanced years, an indifferent tune will please, when set off by the amiable qualities of the performer, or by any other agreeable circumstance. The flute of a shepherd, heard at a distance, on a fine summer day, amidst beautiful scenery, will give rapture to the wanderer, though the tune, the instrument, and the musician be such as he could not endure in any other place. If a song, or piece of music, should ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball

... the Scottish kirk, but he could not get preferment because he came from our GROUND. He returned from college hopeless and broken-hearted, and fell into a decline. My father supported him till his death, which happened before he was nineteen. He played beautifully on the flute, and was supposed to have a great turn for poetry. He was affectionate and compassionate to his brother, who followed him like his shadow, and we think that from him Davie gathered many fragments of songs and music unlike those of this country. But ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... Cuba, as plentiful as blackberries; but, as they 'never perform out of' the island, their renown is purely local. The mulatto, Urriola, is famous for his performances on the cornet-a-piston and the double-bass, and his young son is a favourite flute-player. Lino Boza is the name of a distinguished negro performer on the clarionet. He is also a popular composer of Cuban dance music. These musical geniuses are all free, and reside in La Calle del Rey Pelayo—a quarter of the town much frequented ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... for music, and that in boyhood he could, although untutored, play on almost every kind of instrument. He preferred the violin, in playing which he sometimes sank into a deep trance, but in deference to his father's view gave it up for the flute, his power over which we shall hear of farther on. At first, strange to say, he considered music unworthy of one's sole attention, but later he came to rank it as his ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... himself, made his way by a variety of stratagems, sometimes recruiting his finances by the acquisition of small sums proposed in the foreign universities to public disputants; at others, securing himself a hospitable reception by the exercise of a moderate share of skill in playing the flute—his "tuneless pipe," as he calls it, in that passage of The Traveller, where he alludes to this method ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... the straw and chaff amid which they had slept. Above them, under the open gable of the barn, Daniel Nothafft was lying in the straw. With an absorbed and devout expression he was seeking to elicit a melody from a flute which one of the musicians had ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... this conception of "peerless Poesie" in our minds, we turn to Aristotle's Poetics, and it gives us a sensible shock to read on the first page, that "Epic Poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and dithyrambic Poetry, and the greater part of the music of the flute and of the lyre are all, generally speaking, modes of imitation" ([Greek: pasai tynchhanoysin ohysai mimheseis to hynolon]). "What?" we say—"Nothing better than that?"—for "imitation" has a bad name among men and is apt to suggest the ape. But, first bearing in mind that there ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... crayfish. The surgeon was a clever little dapper man, well-read, shockingly irritable, fond of controversy on ethics, etymology, and giving the blue pill. I need not acquaint my reader he was from York. The purser was the shadow of a man, very regular in his accounts, fond of peach-water, playing the flute, of going on shore, receiving his necessary money and taking all imaginable care of number one. The captain of marines was a soldierly-looking, little, strong-built man, very upright, fond of his ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... among those who are doing their duty, and afar from those who do nothing, and who ought to know that the cause is a common one. If I am ever caught dancing the German cotillon, or playing the German flute, or eating pike with German sauce, I hope it may ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... fishing, and walking: he understood painting, read much, and played upon several instruments, so that he was glad to be freed from the fantastic humors of Furibon. One day as he was walking in the garden, finding the heat increase, he retired into a shady grove and began to play upon the flute to amuse himself. As he played, he felt something wind about his leg, and looking down saw a great adder: he took his handkerchief, and catching it by the head was going to kill it. But the adder, looking ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... single flute a little tune is played, and the child's eyes light up. Music excites her, sets all the gaiety in her free. If it wasn't for the help that music is she'd quite despair sometimes ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker

... worse tale, since it was an eternal blight on the name of Douglas. Well, we got to Blair Adam in due time, and our fine company began to separate, Lord Chief Baron going off after dinner. We had wine and wassail, and John Thomson's delightful flute to ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... insert this note: "Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments, [Greek: Aiolis molpe, Aiolides chordai, Aiolidon pnoai aulon], Aeolian song, Aeolian strings, the breath of the Aeolian flute." ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... fine collection of statues. The most remarkable among them were the Fighting Gladiator; Silenus and a Faun; Seneca, in black marble, or rather a slave at the baths; Camillus; the Hermaphrodite; the Centaur and Cupid; two Fauns, playing on the flute; Ceres; an Egyptian; a statue of the younger Nero; the busts of Lucius Verus, Alexander, Faustina and Verus; various relievos, among which was one representing Curtius; an urn, on which was represented the festival of ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... contented people! How heavy the time must hang upon their hands, and what on earth do they occupy their thoughts with, supposing that they have any? Reading the paper and smoking seems to be the intellectual food of the majority of them, to which the more energetic add playing the flute and talking about the ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... any possibility have availed themselves of Richard's invitation had put in an appearance. Most of the men from the club known to these pages were present, together with their wives and children—those who were old enough to sit up late; and Nathan Gill, without his flute this time, but with ears wide open—he was beginning to get gray, was Nathan, although he wouldn't admit it; and Miss Virginia Clendenning in high waist and voluminous skirts, fluffy side curls, and a new gold chain for her eyeglasses—gold rims, too, of course—not ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... was repeated to Pales, asking blessings upon the flocks and herds, and pardon for any offences committed against the nymphs of the streams, the dryads of the woods, and the other deities of the Italian Olympus. This over, bonfires of hay and straw were lighted, music was made with cymbal and flute, and shepherds and sheep were purified by passing through the flames. A feast followed, the simple folk lying on benches of turf, and indulging in generous draughts of their homely wines, such, probably, as the visitor to-day may regale himself with in ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... an accompanymint f'r ye on th' flute,' says th' prisident iv th' coort. 'While Gin'ral Merceer is proceedin' with his remarks, call Colonel Pat th' Clam, who is sick an' can't come. Swear Gin'ral Billot, Gin'ral Boisdeffer, Gin'ral Chammy, an' th' former mimbers iv ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne

... he had known and struggled against, all unconsciously, throughout his wayward life. And Geisner, Geisner at whom Nellie was looking fondly, Geisner who he supposed had written a book or a bit of poetry or could play the flute, and who raved about the spoiling of a bit of an island when the happiness of millions upon millions was being spoiled—well, he would just like to tell Geisner what he thought of him in emphatic bush lingo. Nellie, herself, seemed peacefully happy. Yet ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... band was, but the strains of "Sweet Evelina, dear Evelina," came floating on the air, and, looking up, she saw two crows perched on the bar from which the swing hung in summer. One had a little fiddle, and the other a flute. ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... she unfolded large Babylonian hangings, and stretched them on cords all around the room, for Salammbo did not wish to be seen even by the walls. The kinnor-player squatted behind the door and the young boy standing upright applied a reed flute to his lips. In the distance the roar of the streets was growing feebler, violet shadows were lengthening before the peristyles of the temples, and on the other side of the gulf the mountain bases, the fields of olive-trees, and the vague ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... in the field where he lay, his shoulders and naked chest pressed to the earth. A gentle wind stirred the grass, and the flute-like warble of a song bird was repeated close to his ear, over and over with ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long

... box for her geranium on an improved plan; and above all, that he was remarkably particular in his attentions to Aunt Sally—a stroke of policy which showed that James had a natural genius for this sort of matters. Even when emerging from the meeting house in full glory, with flute and psalm book under his arm, he would stop to ask her how she did; and if it was cold weather, he would carry her foot stove all the way home from meeting, discoursing upon the sermon, and other serious matters, as Aunt Sally observed, "in ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... easy that, with your eyes shut, you do not know you move. The route is so direct, that when you are once shielded from the sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read, you write, or you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on your flute or your guitar, without one hint of inconvenience. At a "low bridge" you duck your head lest you lose your hat,—and that reminder teaches you that you are human. You are glad to know this, and you laugh at the memento. For ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... feelings, break social ties, and freeze piety in the most generous soul. It suddenly struck the constable's wife that she had never, in fact, seen either of her lodgers exercising any human function. Though the younger man's voice was as sweet and melodious as the tones of a flute, she so rarely heard it that she was tempted to think his silence the result of a spell. As she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white face, and saw in memory the fine hair and moist brilliancy of those eyes, she believed that they were indeed the artifices ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac

... a hero's temple, crowned With myrtle boughs by lovers, and with palm By wrestlers, resonant with sweetest sound Of flute and fife in summer evening's calm, And odorous with incense all the year, With nard and spice and ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... to him,—was he suddenly possessed, or was he losing his wits? He tried to force his voice back into its usual tone, tried even to speak gently, though his heart was beating so wildly at the way she looked, at the sweet notes of her voice, like a flute in its lower notes, that he could hardly hear his own words. "No, no music!" he said. "There must be no music here, among Christian folks. Put away that thing, young woman. It is an evil thing, bringing ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards

... telling an English naval officer about the adventures of three sailing ships which had bested two submarines three days before in the Mediterranean; some Moroccan sailors were flirting across two tables with some pretty Piedmontese girls, and inside the cafe, the harp, the flute and the violin were doing what they could to make all our hearts beat young! A picture show across the street sprayed its gay crowd over the sidewalks and a vaudeville house down stairs gathered up rivulets of humanity from the spray. Somewhere near by was a dance, for we heard the rhythmic swish ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White

... tell you how I occupy my spare time in reading, writing, and playing the flute. We are forming a band here. I shall play either the flute or hautboy. I enjoy myself pretty well. In Latin I am studying Sallust. As to ease, all I have to do is study straight ahead. It comes pretty easy. My Greek is rather hard. I am as yet studying the grammar and Jacob's Greek Reader. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... his sleeve a flute, at the sound of which all the rats came out of their holes and followed him; he led them straight to the river, into which they ran and were drowned. On his return he asked for the promised reward, which was refused him, apparently on account of the facility with which he had exterminated ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... the Messiah walked on the afternoon of the abolished fast, and a vast concourse seethed around him, dancing and singing, with flute and timbrel, harp and drum. Melisselda's voice led the psalm of praise. Suddenly a whisper ran through the mob that there were unbelievers in the city, that some were actually fasting and praying in the synagogue. And at once there was a wild rush. They found the doors ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... pulls out a Flute Doux, and falls to playing. Har. throws down his, and falls a dancing; after ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... find? Listen. First: stratum number one, the top floor; that's Cyril's, you know. They'd note the bare floors, the sparse but heavy furniture, the piano, the violin, the flute, the book-lined walls, and the absence of every sort of curtain, cushion, or knickknack. 'Here lived a plain man,' they'd say; 'a scholar, a musician, stern, unloved and ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... tears the evening shower addeth another trace. Alone thou lean'st against the coloured rails as if with sense imbued. As heavy-hearted as the fond wife, beating clothes, or her that sadly listens to the flute, thou mark'st the fall ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... and comes off the nest after a merry lay, cackling her triumph. Then there is something more of a difficult and painful nature on the piano; and nearly always, too, there is a large lady wearing a low-vamp gown on a high-arch form, who in flute-like notes renders one of those French ballads that's full of la-las and is supposed to be devilish and naughty because nobody can understand it. For the finish, some person addicted to elocution usually recites a poem to piano accompaniment. The poem Robert of Sicily is much ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... or tappe, a flute, a whistle, apipe as well to conueigh water, as an instrument of ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... generationes"), each part overlaying the other as it enters, and closing in canon form in grave and colossal harmony. Its next number is an aria for bass ("Quia fecit mihi magna"), of a simple and joyous character. It is followed by a melodious duet for alto and tenor ("Et misericordia"), with violin and flute accompaniment, setting forth the mercy of God, in contrast with which the powerful and energetic chorus ("Fecit potentiam") which succeeds it, is very striking in its effect. Two beautiful arias ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... Clear and flute-like the maiden's cultured voice swelled out on the still night air, and the mountain echoes caught up the strains and lent a wild ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... the general result being a large number of closely written and finely torn scraps in the waste-basket. Then coatless, collarless, with open vest and hair disarranged in the manner traditional among love-sick youths, he would pour mournful airs from a flute. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... night's tempest, is a pure and dazzling blue. The air—the delicious air!—is full of sweet resinous odors, shed from the countless pine-boughs broken and strewn by the gale. In the neighboring bamboo-grove I hear the flute-call of the bird that praises the Sutra of the Lotos; and the land is very still by reason of the south wind. Now the summer, long delayed, is truly with us: butterflies of queer Japanese colors are ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn

... appearance which rooms are accustomed to present, when their occupants are about to depart. The books were all stowed away in boxes—the pictures taken down—the bed unmade—the sofa littered with papers, and the violin, and flute—the general air of the desolate room, that of a man who has parted with his last hope and ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... translation are the Epithalamium or Epos of the marriage of Vinia and Manlius, and the Parcae in that of Peleus and Thetis. Sir Richard laid great stress on the following in his notes, headed "Compare with Catullus, the sweet and tender little Villanelle, by Mr. Edmund Gosse," for the Viol and Flute—the XIX ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... alleyway that led to his office. The door was hooked back, but the passage was narrow and a fat Spanish lady blocked the entrance. She was talking to the purser and Dick saw that he must wait until she had finished. A man stood a few yards behind her, unscrewing a flute, and as a folded paper that looked like music stuck out of his pocket he appeared to belong ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... commencement of human existence a source of melody: but so far as musical instruments are concerned, it is probable that percussion came first, then wind instruments, and lastly, those with strings: first the Drum, then the Flute, and thirdly, the Lyre. The early history of Music is, however, unfortunately wrapped in much obscurity. The use of letters long preceded the invention of notes, and tradition in such a matter ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... should like to relate here that one of his seemingly gross but really innocent diversions was occasionally visiting a certain black house of prostitution, of which there were many in St. Louis. Here while he played a flute and some one else a tambourine or small drum, he would have two or three of the inmates dance in some weird savage way that took one instanter to the wilds of Central Africa. There was, so far as I know, no payment of ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... village elders, who requested, in the name of the community, to be allowed to kiss the feet of his mysterious son—that little, rainbow-coloured bird, which had a horn upon its head and played the flute. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... lad, than this: wherever you wish to seem wise, be wise. Examine as many cases as you like, and you will find that what I say is true. If you wished to be thought a good farmer, a good horseman, a good physician, a good flute-player, or anything else whatever, without really being so, just imagine what a world of devices you would need to invent, merely to keep up the outward show! And suppose you did get a following to praise ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... There's nine, I see,—the Muses, too, are nine. Who would refuse to die a death like mine! 1. Thou first rung, Clio, celebrate my name; 2. Euterp, in tragic numbers do the same. 3. This rung, I see, Terpsichore's thy flute; 4. Erato, sing me to the Gods; ah, do't: 5. Thalia, don't make me a comedy; 6. Urania, raise me tow'rds the starry sky: 7. Calliope, to ballad-strains descend, 8. And Polyhymnia, tune them for your friend; 9. So shall Melpomene mourn my fatal ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... down from the sanctuary one afternoon I heard the landlord's comic song, of which I have spoken above. It was about the musical instruments in a band: the trumpet did this, the clarinet did that, the flute went tootle, tootle, tootle, and there was an appropriate motion of the hand for every instrument. I was a little disappointed with it, but the landlord said I was too serious and the only thing that would cure me was to learn the ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... the table, Wardor proposed their calling on a Roman family, who were spending the summer in the town. They found the house they occupied crowded with guests, who, having finished dinner, were busily employed dancing to the music of two guitars and a flute; that is, the younger part of them, while the elders applauded vociferously, entering into the amusement with a reckless spirit of fun and good nature, which people who have to keep shady nine tenths of the year for fear of their rulers, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... robin, while the rain slashed over her, and the thunder boomed and re-echoed from crag to crag like warning guns in magnificent alarums. "I love this!" she cried, her clear voice piercing the veil of water like a flute note. "Don't you?" ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... began his song. It was of that day when the pipings of love's flute startled for the first time the hushed air of the Vrinda forest. The shepherd women did not know who was the player or whence came the music. Sometimes it seemed to come from the heart of the south wind, and sometimes ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... learned the language that he might read and enjoy something profitable and thoroughly Roman in spirit.—Greek artists flocked to Rome; and doubtless the more fifth-rate they were the better a thing they made of it: but it was risky for good men to rely on Roman appreciations. Two flute-players are contending at a concert; Greek and perhaps rather good. Their music is soon drowned in catcalls: What the dickens do we Romans want with such footling tootlings? Then the presiding magistrate has an idea. He calls on them to quit that fooler and get ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... Queen sat on a dais at the end of the banqueting hall, and above them in a little gallery there was a band of fiddlers and flute-players. On either side of the royal pair sat the twelve fairy godmothers, six on the right hand and six on the left. In front of each fairy was a golden plate and a golden casket made to hold her knife, fork and ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans

... silver. The hangings are sewn with silver pomegranates and the steps that are of silver are strewn with saffron and with myrrh. My lovers hang garlands round the pillars of my house. At night time they come with the flute players and the players of the harp. They woo me with apples and on the pavement of my courtyard they write my ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde

... there was a cry for his flute; and in vain did Mahony protest that weeks had elapsed since he last screwed the instrument together. He got no quarter, even from Mary—but then Mary was one of those inconvenient people to whom it mattered not a jot what a fool you ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... She is such a wee little thing, and her face is so sweet, and her eyes so childish and wistful, and her voice so musical and flute-like that before I knew what I was doing I lifted her from her feet and hugged her hard and said I meant to love her, first for Guy's sake and then for her own. Was it my fancy, I wonder, or did she really shrink back a little and ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes

... has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and sentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is Will to Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, ACTUALLY—played the flute... daily after dinner: one may read about the matter in his biography. A question by the way: a pessimist, a repudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES A HALT at morality—who assents to morality, and plays the flute to laede-neminem morals, what? ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... seems to be faithfully represented in the German version. This moon-stricken Pierrot chants—rather declaims—his woes and occasional joys to the music of the Viennese composer, whose score requires a reciter (female), a piano, flute (also piccolo), clarinet (also bass clarinet), violin (also viola), and violoncello. The piece is described as a melodrama. I listened to it on a Sunday morning, and I confess that Sunday at noon is not a time propitious to the mood musical. It was ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... ici une histoire, de la certitude de laquelle on n'eut pas lieu de douter. Des-que la nouvelle fut venue a Batavia [Anno 1659], que le vaisseau le Dragon, qui venoit de Hollande aux Indes, avoit fait naufrage sur les cotes d'une Terre Australe inconnue, on y envoia la flute la Bouee a la Veille, pour ramener ceux des gens de l'equipage qui auroient pu se sauver, et les efets qui auroient ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... Sharp, "the gambler produces skill; and there can be no doubt that hundreds of men derive as much pleasure from an exhibition of skill with the billiard-cue as others derive from an exhibition of skill with the flute or violin." ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... had obtained with such trouble, and for my own purposes? Can it be that he pretended his intoxication the more easily to outwit me? I had no fear, but believed that he would be sure to select some slim youth who could be taught to play the flute before him or act as cupbearer. What demon put it into his head so suddenly to look for bone and muscle rather than for ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... changed. A Mr. Clinton, a fine looking man of six feet six inches, son of Lord Charles Clinton, a Mr. Dickson, a very gentlemanlike nice ex-guardsman, a Mr. and Mrs. Drake, who are very musical, and he plays the flute better than anyone I ever heard, all sat near us, but for two or three days we had the old story, and the waves beat and rolled us about, and the passengers disappeared like mice to their holes, and we could not ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh

... cloud rolled up, darkening the earth save for a queer saffron light that stained everything, and made our very faces yellow. And then a wind burst out of the east with a high mournful note, as from a great flute afar, filling the air with leaves and branches of trees. But it bore, too, a savor that was new to me,—a salt savor, deep and fresh, that I drew down into my lungs. And I knew that we were near the ocean. Then came the rain, in great billows, as ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... country offended him at every step. He was consumed with ennui. Moreover, every one in the house, except his mother, looked at him with unfriendly eyes. His father did not like his town manners, his swallow-tail coats, his frilled shirt-fronts, his books, his flute, his fastidious ways, in which he detected—not incorrectly—a disgust for his surroundings; he was for ever complaining and grumbling at his son. "Nothing here," he used to say, "is to his taste; ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... although old age has to abstain from extravagant banquets, it is still capable of enjoying modest festivities. As a boy I often used to see Gaius Duilius the son of Marcus, then an old mali, returning from a dinner-party. He thoroughly enjoyed the frequent use of torch and flute-player, distinctions which he had assumed though unprecedented in the case of a private person. It was the privilege of his glory. But why mention others? I will come back to my own case. To begin ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... through the story; the deep and prodigal beauty which she wears in rural Kentucky shines on every page; the tremendous forces which sweep through her disclose their potency in human passion and impulse. There was a fine note in Mr. Allen's earliest work; a prelusive note with the quality of the flute.... In Summer in Arcady a deeper note in the treatment of Nature was struck, and Mr. Allen's style took on, not only greater freedom, but a richer beauty. The story is a kind of incarnation of the tremendous vitality of Nature, ...
— James Lane Allen: A Sketch of his Life and Work • Macmillan Company

... the ghost of Jezebel and I danced a fandango together in the graveyard up yonder, while the Devil himself sat cross-legged on old Daniel Root's tombstone and blew on a dry, dusty shank-bone by way of a flute. And now" (here he swore a terrific oath) "you know the worst that is to be known, with only this to say: if ever a man sets foot upon Pig and Sow Point again after nightfall to interfere with the Devil's ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... you can entertain this poor imprisoned Princess. Your Highness, where is the Crown Prince's flute? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... hunting-belt, and his hat. A swinging shelf displayed a few books, being eagerly added to as he could bitterly afford it—with a copy of Paley, lent by the Reverend James Moore, the dreamy, saintlike, flute-playing Episcopal parson of the town. In the middle of the room a round table of his own vigorous carpentry stood on a panther skin; and on this lay some copy books in which he had just set new copies for his children; a handful of goosequills ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... in his twenty-first year; it was necessary that he should do something; and his education seemed to have fitted him to do nothing but to dress himself in gaudy colours, of which he was as fond as a magpie, to take a hand at cards, to sing Irish airs, to play the flute, to angle in summer, and to tell ghost stories by the fire in winter. He tried five or six professions in turn without success. He applied for ordination; but, as he applied in scarlet clothes, he ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... young men and women in vehicles and on horseback, and in expectation of great fun, were wending their way to Yabtree—nearly every trap containing a fiddle, concertina, flute, or accordion ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, My best guide now. Methought it was the sound Of riot and ill-managed merriment, 172 Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds, When, for their teeming flocks and granges full, In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth To ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... town of Durdlebury, Doggie Trevor began to feel appreciated. He could play the piano, the harp, the viola, the flute, and the clarionette, and sing a mild tenor. Besides music, Doggie had other accomplishments. He could choose the exact shade of silk for a drawing-room sofa cushion, and he had an excellent gift for the selection of wedding-presents. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... upon the flute. He is in love. That is why he plays when he ought to be watering the flowers and raking out ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... for you, Margaret, full an hour. Mother sent me after you to beg that you will come there this evening. Old Jenks has come up from the river, and brought a store of fine things—there's a fiddle for Ned, and Jason Lightner has a flute, and I—I have a small lot of books, Margaret, that I think will ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... you have the relation between the great masters of the Muse's teaching, and the pleasant fingerer of his pastoral flute among ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... there is no mistaking his blackbird this time for the European species, though it is true there is nothing fluty or flute-like in the redwing's voice. The flute is mellow, while the "O-KA-LEE" of the starling is strong and sharply accented. The voice of the thrushes (and our robin and the European blackbird are thrushes) is flute-like. Hence the aptness of this line ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... thought also of his form, of the rhythmic and harmonious character of his action. If an athlete showed ugly form, they would hiss him, as they would an incompetent actor. Most of their exercises were done to the accompaniment of the flute. In all the statues of athletes which have come down to us, not one shows an inharmonious development, powerful chest and weak legs, or muscular legs and poor arms. It is more than probable that as the features of Alexander the Great influenced the portraits of his officers ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... Christians. This is challenged, after all its predecessors, by the fine little bare-foot book[9] of Leipzig, which comes along on clogs—nay, on stilts. It imagines that it alone (among all the others) does not step into the mud; perhaps it would gladly dance if some one would buy it a flute. I must have a ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... cost of an armed police, headed by Wellington himself, which held her chief fortresses for three years, and saw that her chains were kept bright and strong. Never, since Lysander demolished the Long Walls of Athens to the music of the Spartan flute, had the world seen so bitter a spectacle of national humiliation, so absolute a reversal of fortune,—the long-conquering legions perishing by the sword, and him who had headed so many triumphal processions perishing as it were in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... leave me cold and mute, A traitor to his care, I smile to hear his honeyed flute Hang on ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West

... through this noise and get a little rest, but I give up the idea of ever seeing Portland," answered Dora, staring with all her blue eyes at the display of musical instruments about the room, and longing to stop her ears, for several of the children were playing on the violin, flute, horn or harp. They were street musicians, and even the baby seemed to be getting ready to take part in the concert, for he sat on the floor beside an immense bass horn taller than himself, with his rosy lips at the mouth ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... the other looks on to St. James's Park, where I go to walk with Aunt Barbara. We went to the Abbey last Sunday; it reminded me of the churches abroad, and the singing was so beautiful. In Cornwall there was only a fiddle and a cracked flute, and everybody sang out of tune; I did not like going to church there at all. Please write to me soon, Monsieur Horace, and tell me where you are, and what you are doing; I fancy it all to myself—the big forests, and the rivers, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... a magnificent brass band, while Kershaw had only a fife corps headed by that prince of players, Sam Simmonds, who could get more real music out of a fife or flute than some musicians could out of a whole band. The music of the fife and drum, while it may not be so accomplished, gives out more inspiring strains for the marching soldier than any brass band. The cornet, with its accompanying pieces, makes fine music on the stillness of the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... brass duck was the work of a very ingenious mechanist, M. Vaucanson; it is reported to have uttered its natural voice, moved its wings, drank water, and ate corn. In 1738, he delighted the Parisians by a figure of a shepherd which played on a pipe and beat a tabor; and a flute-player who performed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Siouan music was limited to the chant and rather simple vocal melody, accompanied by rattle, drum, and flute, the drum among the northwestern tribes being a skin bottle or bag of water. The music of the Omaha and some other tribes has been most appreciatively studied by Miss Fletcher, and her memoir ranks among the Indian classics.(47) In general the Siouan ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... spend our own, or secure some other body's, money, a message of beauty, distinction and serene confidence in its own truth, has been overlooked by this distracted world. There is little wonder. As well might a blackbird flute on Margate Sands on a Bank Holiday as this Quaker message, "To all men," breathe love and goodwill among them just now. The effect has been much the same: to those who heeded it matter for tears that such heavenly balm should be within our hearing ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... of the Mozart Society, in which she was soprano soloist. He writes: "Let us thank God it was light with her at the evening of life." This was indeed true. A few hours before the end, when seemingly at the very brink, strength was given to sing in her remarkably clear, flute-like tones the verse, "God moves in a mysterious way." We sang this at her funeral; also by her request, "O mother, dear Jerusalem." These constituted a part of the memorial service ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various

... I went. I chose a room looking out upon the Hudson and the noble Palisades. I took with me a flute, a copy of the Bucolics of Virgil, and numerous linen garments. A great calm came over me. I was no longer haunted, goaded, oppressed. With peace nestling in my bosom, I went down to my first supper in the new ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... at Lucia. "That's you, Lucy. You've been talking to him about that flute. I suppose you told him you would love to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... erratic? Nothing, apparently, but to let him qualify for orders, and for this he is too young. Thereupon ensues a sort of 'Martin's summer' in his changing life,—a disengaged, delightful time when 'Master Noll' wanders irresponsibly from house to house, fishing and flute-playing, or, of winter evenings, taking the chair at the village inn. When at last the moment came for his presentation to the Bishop of Elphin, that prelate, sad to say, rejected him, perhaps because of his college reputation, perhaps ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... echoes of Italian song; Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, And all the pleasant place is like a home. Hark, on the right, with full piano tone, Old Dante's voice encircles all the air; Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling rare Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan. Pass thou the lintel freely; without fear Feast on the music. I do better know thee Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me Will wrong thy gentle ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... nobler than a domestic fowl. There was a musician among the camel-drivers, chosen especially—so said Ben Hadj—because he knew and could sing a hundred famous songs of love and war. Also he was master of the Arab flute, and the raeita, "Muezzin of Satan," strange instrument of the wicked voice that can cry down ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... of such a taste, is given on the authority of the celebrated musician, Haydn. He and several other gentlemen were making a tour through a mountainous part of Lombardy, when they fell in with a flock of sheep, which a shepherd was driving homeward. One of the gentlemen, having a flute with him, commenced playing, and immediately the sheep, which were following the shepherd, raised their heads, and turned with haste to the spot whence the music proceeded. They gradually flocked around the musician, and listened ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth

... the liberties of his wit. He, the conqueror, the irresistible, had never met one of that audacious, self-willed race. So he enveloped her in all the magnetic currents of his seductive charm, while around them the murmur of the fete, the flute-like laughter, the rustling of satins and strings of pearls played an accompaniment to that duet of worldly passion ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... strange to me—as I have thought since—how he conveyed to us in few words the essential emotional note of his life. It was no violin tone, beautifully complex with harmonics, but the clear simple voice of the flute. It spoke of his wife and his baby girl and his home. The very incongruity of detail—he told us how he grew onions in his back yard—added somehow to the homely glamour of the vision which he gave us. The number of his house, the fact that he ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... at a county ball; There when the sound of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall, Of hands across and down the middle. 137 PRAED: Belle of the Ball-Room, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... the fire, seldom lifting her head from her long knitting-needles, except to cast a look on her grandson or at the sleeping child. The little wooden shutter of the house was closed. Some winter roses bloomed in a pot beneath the little crucifix. Bernadou's flute lay on a shelf; he had not had heart enough to play it since the news of the ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... every unimaginable contortion, as though grinning through a horse-collar, has the bass confided to his faithful keeping; and emits a variety of growls and groans truly appalling, though evidently to his own great comfort and satisfaction. The bassoon, the clarinet, the flute—but how shall we describe them! Suffice it to say, that they appeared to be suffering inexpressible torments at the hands of their apoplectic-looking performers; who were all at the last gasp, and all determined to die bravely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... Off to the left, between them and the negro quarters, were two or three fires, around which the Union soldiers were reclining, some already asleep after the fatigues of the day, others playing cards or spinning yarns, while one, musically inclined, was evoking from a flute an air plaintive and sweet in the distance. Further away under the trees, shadows in shadow, the horses were dimly seen eating their provender. The Confederate prisoners, smoking about a fire, appeared to be taking the "horrors of captivity" very quietly ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego? do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous

... that it is attached to; the geometer who studies his science with pleasure becomes more acute and successful in prosecuting it. On the other hand, the pleasures attached to one exercise impede the mind in regard to other exercises; thus men fond of the flute cannot listen to a speaker with attention, if any one is playing the flute near them. What we delight in doing, we are more likely to do well; what we feel pain in doing, we are not likely to do well. And thus each ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... horribly out of practice and all that," explained Lanse, distributing scores, and helping to prop up Celia so that she might try to play, "but since you insist we'll give you all you'll want in a very few minutes. Here's your flute, Uncle Ray. If you'll play along with Celia it will ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... clowns, Playing at "pitch and toss," sport their "Browns," Two or three damsels, frank and free, Are ogling, and smiling, and sipping Bohea. Parties below, and parties above, Some making tea, and some making love. Then the "toot—toot—toot" Of that vile demi-flute,— The detestable din Of that cracked violin, And the odors of "Stout," and tobacco, and gin! "—Dear me!" I exclaim'd, "what a place to be in!" And I said to the person who drove my "shay" (A very intelligent man, by the way), "This, all things ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... beginning to be the fashion with young men, and worked out problems in arithmetic and geometry, while, after his regular work was done, he would carry a French or Latin chronicle to his small window, and pore over the history of bygone times. In his spare moments he would play some old music on the flute or practise on ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... In the portico, at a little distance, there began to sound the notes of a flute played ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... coat-tails to the back of his seat, and scream with delight when he rose to his feet; they would send him at Christmas a box full of bricks, and play on his temper all manner of tricks. One evening they pressed him to play on the flute, and he blew in his eyes a rare scatter of soot! He took it so calmly, and laughed while he spoke, that they hugged him to pardon their nasty "black joke." One really appeared so sincere in her sorrow, that he vowed to himself he would ASK ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... joins in melody with her mother, who, like all German mothers, seems only her daughter's self, subdued by an additional twenty years. The bow of one violin is handled with the air of a master by an elder brother; while a younger one, an university student, grows sentimental over the flute. The same instrument is also played by a tall and tender-looking young man in black, who stands behind the parents, next to the daughter, and occasionally looks off his music-book to gaze on his young mistress's eyes. He is a clerk ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... of its being handed down to us, so far at least as concerns the name of the instrument played at such a price; and on the antiquarian principle that consonants are changeable at pleasure, and vowels go for nothing, we take leave for hurdy-gurdy (what a vulgar sound it has!) to read flute, violin, lute, or, in short, any other presentable musical instrument that may chance to find the greatest favour in our eyes. A change which has the twofold merit of saving Abel's character for taste, and preserving so excellent a story from carrying a lie on the face of it; and for this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... were covered with standing grain, and their acres shone like gold in the level rays of the morning sun. Far and near the farmers worked in their fields of corn and other grain, giving vent to their joy by short snatches of song or loud, clear whistling, as full and flute-like as the notes of the red birds that sang in the trees which bordered them. The drought and extreme heat had forced grain into premature ripeness and the yield thereby was somewhat diminished. We passed men and boys on the road going to ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... a jade flute and a golden flageolet. In a third were antique jewels, gold furnishings and a hundred ornaments worth thousands of ounces each. She threw them all into the river. The stricken onlookers ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli

... of all the out-door accessories of a London life are the strains of fugitive music which one hears in the quiet by-streets or suburban highways—strains born of the skill of some of our wandering artists, who, with flute, violin, harp, or brazen tube of various shape and designation, make the brick-walls of the busy city responsive with the echoes of harmony. Many a time and oft have we lingered entranced by the witchery of some street ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various

... and then they empty 'em into red jars till they are full; and then they pack it in buckskin sacks of one arroba each—an arroba is twenty-five pounds—and store it in a stone house, with an engraving of a idol with marcelled hair, playing a flute, over ...
— Options • O. Henry

... busy practising on the flute beside the fire. This he always did, every evening, after ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... out of joint, swallow much dust, sometimes be flogged, and after all this be defeated. When you have considered all this, if you still choose, go to the contest: if you do not you will behave like children, who at one time play at wrestlers, another time as flute players, again as gladiators, then as trumpeters, then as tragic actors. So you also will be at one time an athlete, at another a gladiator, then a rhetorician, then a philosopher, but with your whole soul you will be nothing ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus

... by all that's sacred! did not Socrates cause his associates to despise the established laws when he dwelt on the folly of appointing state officers by ballot? (3) a principle which, he said, no one would care to apply in selecting a pilot or a flute-player or in any similar case, where a mistake would be far less disastrous than in matters political. Words like these, according to the accuser, tended to incite the young to contemn the established constitution, rendering them violent and headstrong. ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... for war.—Armed at all points, covered with armour.—Armed "en flute," see FLUTE.—Armed mast, made of more than one tree.—Armed ship, a vessel fitted out by merchants to annoy the enemy, and furnished with letters of marque, and bearing a commission from the Admiralty ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... sliding down, With sharp white bubbles Shooting and dancing, Flinging quickly outward. Nosing the bubbles, Swallowing them, Fish. Blue shadows against silver-saffron water, The light rippling over them In steel-bright tremors. Outspread translucent fins Flute, fold, and relapse; The threaded light prints through them on the pebbles In scarcely tarnished twinklings. Curving of spotted spines, Slow up-shifts, Lazy convolutions: Then a sudden swift straightening ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... sound and shriller lay 10 In sweet harmonious notes decay, Softened and mellowed by the flute. 'The flute that sweetly can complain, Dissolve the frozen nymph's disdain; Panting sympathy impart, Till she ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... you know?" Lucy asked, looking at the incoming schooner from under her half-closed lids. The voice came like the thin piping of a flute preceding the orchestral crash, merely sounded so as to let everybody ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... being regilded, crowds are surging under the market porticos, encumbered with wheat that is being measured, wine-skins, oar-leathers, garlic, olives, onions in nets; everywhere are chaplets, sprats, flute-girls, black eyes; in the arsenal bolts are being noisily driven home, sweeps are being made and fitted with leathers; we hear nothing but the sound of whistles, of flutes and fifes to encourage the work-folk. That is what you assuredly would ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes

... of the legends of the earlier and ruder world coming to us "breathed softly through the flutes of the Grecians." But even the Grecian flute, as in the lay of the strife of Apollo and Marsyas, comes more tunably in the echo of Mr. Arnold's song, that beautiful song in "Empedocles on Etna," which has the perfection of sculpture and the charm of the purest colour. ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... thought of pain or heed of ill, Watching the long warm silent hours take flight, And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill, From the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill, Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering One to ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... had better get some old soldier used to nursing. "And don't whisper in the room," said he; "nothing irritates them worse; and don't let anybody play a piano within hearing; but in a day or two you may try him with slow and continuous music on the flute or violin if you like. Don't touch his bed suddenly; don't sit on it or lean on it. Dole sunlight into his room by degrees; and when he can bear it, drench him with it. Never mind what the old school ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... one and inseparable. What a pair! yet they are well related. A finer bloom than the foam bell in an eddying pool is this little bird. We may miss the meaning of the loud-resounding torrent, but the flute-like voice of the bird—only love ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... these people she could not recollect a word of it. Still that did not trouble her, she was already a very bold little damsel, and she frankly dropped her bouquet and sprang at the necks of Mathieu and Marianne, exclaiming in her shrill, flute-like voice: "Grandpapa, grandmamma, it's your fete, and I kiss you ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... the toot of the flute, an' the twiddle of the fiddle, Dancin' in the middle, like a herring on a griddle! Up an' down, hands come round, cross into the wall— Faith, hadn't we the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... spectroscope. Light as a medium. The composition of the heavenly bodies. The solar spectrum. The boys remember John's story of the cave. His story confirming their knowledge about the savages. The concert with the flute and violin. Making glass for windows. Silver and mercury. Looking-glasses. Amalgam. Making small glass mirrors for the inhabitants. The chief's surprise at the mirrors. His contribution to the larder. The Amarylla. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay

... in soft embrace; The crimson of the rose eclipse With kisses from thy rosy lips. Or if thou wilt, be this my meed And breathe thy soul into the reed; Then shall my songs be shamed and mute Before the music of thy flute. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... ends and a mouth hole and six finger holes extemporized at the side. With this he sought the woods to emulate the trills and cadences of the song birds." Santa Claus's gift one year took the form of a small, yellow, one-keyed flute, on which simple instrument he would "practice with the passion of a virtuoso." Like Schumann, he organized an orchestra among his friends and young playmates. Simultaneously he was receiving his first initiation into the joy of literature. He would frequently ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... deep poetry of summer, the story of the hedges and the fields, of orchards shot through with the voices of birds, of cattle knee-deep in cool water where the dragon-flies keep up their eternal dance to the flute-like ripple of the river amidst ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... has been considerably enlarged in the treble. The high registers in which every ordinary violinist must be able to play nowadays would in those days have seemed too break-neck for the foremost virtuosos. Men themselves were not tuned high enough to take pleasure in such poignant chirping. The flute of the seventeenth century was a fourth lower than that of the eighteenth. In the flute and the piccolo of the nineteenth century we have again risen a third, yes, an entire octave above the eighteenth century! Our ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... saith Love, "Although ye serve no more Mine images of ivory and bronze With flute-led dances of the days of yore, But leave them to barbarian orisons Of dull hearth-loving hearts, mistaking me: Yet from mine incense ye shall not divorce Remembrance. Fools, these recantations be Ardours that prove ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... banquet was resumed again— And, hark, the softly warbled strain, As harp and flute, in union sweet, The voices of the singers meet. The black-eyed damsels now display Their art in many an amorous lay; And now the song is loud and clear, And speaks of Rustem's welcome here. "This is a day, a glorious day, That drives ungenial thoughts away; This ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... stamping out every trace of decency in him, to show that some such traces must have been there. If the younger and greater Frederick ever had a heart, it was a broken heart; broken by the same blow that broke his flute. When his only friend was executed before his eyes, there were two corpses to be borne away; and one to be borne on a high war-horse through victory after victory: but with a small bottle of poison in the pocket. It is not irrelevant thus to pause upon the high and dark house of his childhood. ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton

... out like the sound of a flute, high and pure; they rose in her throat, swelling it out as she sang, pouring through the arch of her ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... threshold than he saw their jaws part, their eyes grow small, their entire faces expand; and he heard the tempestuous puffing of the fat men, the rusty grating jeers of the lean ones, amidst all the shrill, flute-like laughter of the women. Opposite him, against the hand-rails, some young fellows went into contortions, as if somebody had been tickling them. One lady had flung herself on a seat, stifling and trying to regain breath with her handkerchief over her mouth. Rumours of this ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... the forest, Tapio's girl, with mouth of honey, Play upon thy flute of honey, Whistle through thy pipe of honey, 70 In thy noble mistress' hearing, Gracious queen of all the forest, That she soon may hear the music, And from her repose may rouse her, For she does not hear at present, And she but awakens rarely, Though I supplicate for ever, ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... out on clear-cut, swallow-like wings; in speaking of Paul Alexis' book "Le Besoin d'aimer," he said: "Vous avez trouvé un titre assez laid pour faire reculer les divines étoiles." I know not what instrument to compare with his verse. I suppose I should say a flute; but it seems to me more like a marvellously toned piano. His hands pass over the keys and he ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... Pan! Your Panic-pipes, far from the river! Deafening shrill, O Poster-Pan! Turning a man to a timorous brute With irrational fear. From your frantic flute Good sense our ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various

... friends, who, much to the disgust of his fellow boarders, is constantly playing an adagio movement in B flat upon a flute, (that may not be the correct musical term, but no one will ever know it unless you tell,) informs me that you are astute; another friend, who makes cigar stumps into chewing tobacco, says, you're "up to snuff." Assuming the truth of those statements, I apply to you for ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... rest there and went up with Locke again to enjoy the brilliant moonlight and listen to the impromptu concert which the crew had begun with a mouth organ and a flute. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... down the stairs and Lyman went to bed to forget the mob and to dream of the rippling creek and a voice that was softer and sweeter than the echo of a flute. At early morning there came a rapping on the stairway, to summon him to breakfast. Old Jasper, with his hot hands in his pockets and with a sick expression of countenance was doddering ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read

... the villain! Well, you know the sheep are grazing in the churchyard this week, and that 'mwnki' is watching them there. Well—he seated himself yesterday on a tombstone when we were in church, and whit, whit, whitted 'Men of Harlech' on his flute! and the Vicare praying so beautiful all the time, too! praying against the wiles of the devil ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... half so fatiguing as pleasure. I longed for a change: behold, a change was at hand! Then, to say truth, I was heartily glad of a pretence of escaping from a numerous cohort of folles amours, with Madame D'Anville at the head; and the very circumstance which men who play the German flute and fall in love, would have considered the most vexatious, I regarded as ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... arrived in London, years ago, with only two possessions which he seemed to value, and, indeed, but two which were worth valuing. One of these, of course, was his exquisite young daughter, then a little child; the other was his wonderful old flute. The daughter he secluded with the jealous care of a far-eastern parent; the flute he played upon with an artistic skill unequalled in the history of ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... them is objectionable; I allude here to the pretenders to art. Their poor messmates can have little respect for these pretending Rembrandts and Paganinis; and the happiness of the mess would be considerably improved if authority were given to pitch every such sketch-book and every flute out ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought from Boston to this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to the pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. And now to-night my flute has waked the echoes over that very water. The pines still stand here older than I; or, if some have fallen, I have cooked my supper with their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around, preparing another aspect for new infant eyes. Almost ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's I who ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti



Words linked to "Flute" :   crimp, wood, pinch, vertical flute, wineglass, fluting, flautist, flute player, nose flute, woodwind, fipple flute, woodwind instrument



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