"Castanets" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Andrew Spooner was small, thin, and wiry, with the beak of a turkey-buzzard, the complexion of an Indian, and a set of large, white, very ill-fitting false teeth, which clicked like castanets whenever the old man ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Weight—the first one—was called Squash-nose at school, I remember. He wasn't popular, and I understand Ephraim, his son, wasn't either. They called him Meal-bag, and he looked it. Te-hee!" she laughed, a little dry keckle, like the click of castanets. "Did ever I tell you the trick your grandfather and my brother played on old Elder Weight and Squire Tree? That was great-grandfather to this present Weight boy, and uncle to my husband. The old squire was high in his notions, very ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... observed, they proceeded silently and with caution,—the only noise made among them being the chattering of their teeth, which were going like three complete sets of castanets. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... he danced in the night. Summoning once to the Palatium, in the second watch of the night [458], three men of consular rank, who feared the words from the message, he placed them on the proscenium of the stage, and then suddenly came bursting out, with a loud noise of flutes and castanets [459], dressed in a mantle and tunic reaching down to his heels. Having danced out a song, he retired. Yet he who had acquired such dexterity in other exercises, never ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... of which I have forgotten, consists of four couples posturing to waltz time, changing from one partner to another as the dance progresses, and finally waltzing off with the original one, the motion of clinking castanets at different parts of the dance suggesting for it a ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... they sing hymns before the high altar of the cathedral. In other towns, on the festivals of the Virgin, a saraband is slowly danced round Her statue, with striking of sticks, and the rattle of castanets; and to close the ceremony by way of Amen the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... Sparkled that flower of Egypt's lakes, The silvery lotus in whose hue As much delight the young Moon takes As doth the Day-God to behold The lofty bean-flower's buds of gold. And, as they gracefully went round The worshipt bird, some to the beat Of castanets, some to the sound Of the shrill sistrum timed their feet; While others at each step they took A tinkling chain ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... been derived from life in a rough mining camp. Before her half-closed eyes still shimmered a vista of strange, exotic scenes and people, the thronging crowds of carnivals and fetes; the Mexican girls swaying through the movements of the fandango to the music of guitars and castanets; the great rodeo with its hundreds of vaqueros, which was held at one of the ranchos just outside the town; and, lastly, and most vividly of all, the never-to-be-forgotten thrill ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... broke, on a sudden, into the beautiful and piquant air of Pedrillo, which he sang with a taste and spirit that made the assembled cavaliers gaze at him open-mouthed. At the same moment, a guitar and castanets were heard in the adjoining room, accompanying ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... indefinitely. He strove like a hero, and was actually sick several hours before the watchful eyes of his mother and aunt discovered his plight. The moment came when he could hold out no longer, with his teeth rattling like castanets, and his red face so hot that it was painful to the touch. Since the performance did not open until two o'clock in the afternoon, he did not ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... shapely head, armed with her fan,—that article of comfort and coquetry, as it has been called,—which is at once a shield and an allurement as wielded by her deft fingers. With the thought of Spain there comes also the snap of the castanets and the flash of bright-colored skirts as they move in time to the tarantella. All in all, it is the poet's land of beauty and pleasure, music and the dance, with Dolce far niente as ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... no singing voice, and was totally ignorant of music; but Joe kindly informed me that any fool could play the bones, and made two pairs of castanets for me out of beef bones supplied by the soldiers (we had no joints ourselves, but only a bullock's cheek now and then) so that I too was able to bear my part in the concerts which ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... in this cell, where he sometimes passed whole nights. That day, at the moment when, standing before the low door of his retreat, he was fitting into the lock the complicated little key which he always carried about him in the purse suspended to his side, a sound of tambourine and castanets had reached his ear. These sounds came from the Place du Parvis. The cell, as we have already said, had only one window opening upon the rear of the church. Claude Frollo had hastily withdrawn the key, and an instant later, he was on the top of the tower, in the gloomy ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the midst of continuing torrential tropical downpours, we climbed out of the hot valley to the cold heights of Pampaconas. We were soaked with perspiration and drenched with rain. Snow had been falling above the village; our teeth chattered like castanets. Professor Foote immediately commandeered Mrs. Guzman's fire and filled our tea kettle. It may be doubted whether a more wretched, cold, wet, and bedraggled party ever arrived at Guzman's hut; certainly nothing ever tasted better than ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... lead-dog followed their course; Nick, on the right of them, moved wide, and craned to obtain a first view of the hut. Suddenly he gave a great shout. The dogs dropped in their harness and crouched, snarling and snapping, their jaws clipping together with the sound of castanets, whilst their wiry manes rose upon their shoulders bristling with ferocity which had in it something of fear. Ralph reached his brother's side and peered ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... tentative, half-hearted rattle of some castanets—which could have been managed by the Swami wiggling one knee, if he happened to have them concealed there. This was followed by the thin squawk of a bugle—which could have been accomplished by sitting over toward one side and squashing ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... own horse to which it has happened, Excellency," he said. "The padre say it is not the fault of any one, for the bush is high there, and who could see through them? But it is the snake—the one you say has the castanets in the tail, and it has put the poison in ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... all colours; she-devils or abducted shepherdesses in white and pink dresses; and at the head of them Lucifer himself, horned and, except the blood-red face, all black. The strange noise, however, turned out to be the rattling of castanets, and the terrible-looking figures a merry company of rich farmers and well-to-do villagers who were going to have a dance in Maria Antonia's cell. The orchestra, which consisted of a large and a small guitar, a kind of high-pitched violin, and from three to four pairs ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... vengeance—for every little street arab had beef bones for castanets, and every new song was roared out in the streets until it nauseated. Punch drew policemen and dustmen as Ethiopian Serenaders, and even suggested that Lablache, Mario and ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... Jack's hand, inside Mr. Stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook Bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets, and his good-looking pink face grew more and more like ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Shall she surprise, or shock, or only please? What shall the art that is older than the pyramids do for these kneeling Christians? The drum taps, the ney pipes, the mandolin twangs, her arms are extended—the castanets clink, a foot is thrust out, the bosom heaves, the waist trembles. What shall it be—the old serpent dance of the Nile, or the posturing of decorous courtship when the olives are purple in the time of the grape harvest? Her head, wreathed with coils of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his scared condition is not unnoticed. It is heard, if not clearly seen. Two or three, standing close to him, can hear his teeth clacking like castanets! ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... in bushy whiskers and a faded velvet dress came singing and jumping after our party,—not singing to a guitar, it is true, but imitating one capitally with his voice, and cracking his fingers by way of castanets, and performing a dance such as Figaro or Lablache might envy. How clear that fellow's voice thrums on the ear even now; and how bright and pleasant remains the recollection of the fine city and the blue sea, and the Spanish flags floating on the boats that ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... work till evening: then take their lute or guitar and walk about the city, or upon the sea shore with it, to enjoy the fresco. One sees their little brown children jumping about stark naked and the bigger ones dancing with castanets, while others play on the cymbal to them."[46] "Kennst dud ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the crowd pressed in front. Two o'clock came, and we succeeded in leaving the palace quite unobserved, thanks to the private door. It was bitterly cold and snowing hard, and we had scarce left the court-yard when I fell to shivering, my teeth clicking like castanets. Lady Morley-Frere, seeing my plight, held out a silver flask, and from the depths of her cloak growled out, "Drink, drink! 'Twill set you right in a trice. 'Tis hot and spiced, and good for you." I obeyed her. I had hardly swallowed it ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... their market and drew a larger number, between buyers and curious people, than usual. When the day's business was over, they called for some musical instruments—the templanaste—and taking out their own castanets and timbrels, they began to chant ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... alike, Grasp'd his good sword and half unsheath'd to strike. "Oh born to wander with your flocks," he cried, "And bask and dream along the mountain-side; To urge your mules, tinkling from hill to hill; Or at the vintage-feast to drink your fill, And strike your castanets, with gipsy-maid Dancing Fandangos in the chesnut shade— Come on," he cried, and threw his glove in scorn, "Not this your wonted pledge, the brimming horn. Valiant in peace! Adventurous at home! Oh, had ye vow'd with pilgrim-staff to roam; Or with banditti ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... for by different institutions,) we saw the splendid painting by West, "Christ healing the Sick." We then visited the Musical Fund Hall, and heard the far-famed Ethiopian serenaders, Messrs. German, Hanwood, Harrington, Warren, and Pelham, upon the accordion, banjo, congo-tambo, and bone-castanets, in all of which they stand unrivalled in the world. They were representing Niggers' lives, with songs, &c. Home and to ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... their dances the nails of wild pigs, which they attached to their feet in order to produce a noise something like castanets. That ornament was ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... The dancing frenzy must have seized upon her while she was dressing; for she was in her bodice, bare-armed, her hair floating unbound far below the waist of her barred or banded skirt. She had caught up her castanets, and rattled them as she danced with a kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body undulating with flexuous grace, her diamond eyes glittering, her round arms wreathing and unwinding, alive and vibrant to the tips of the slender fingers. Some passion seemed ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the arcade and sat down in a quiet spot to look about. The moon was nearly full and flooded half the patio with silver light; the rest was in shadow and rows of colored lamps twinkled in the gloom. A band played behind the pillars, the rattle of castanets breaking in on the tinkle of the guitars when the beat was sharply marked. The music was seductive, unlike any Kit had heard in England, and he thought it tinged by the melancholy the Moors had brought, long since, from the ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... door, then shrank back. Leaning against the jamb was the Russian. His manner had changed subtly. His thin lips spread from ear to ear in a wolfish grin. His fingers clicked like castanets. ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... regarding churning, pickles, pancakes, etc. Mrs. Ripley wore a shawl over her head and carried her queer little black bonnet in her hand. Tewksbury was also wrapped in a shawl. The boy's teeth were pounding together like castanets by the time they reached Cedarville, and every muscle ached with the fatigue of shaking. After a few purchases they drove down to the railway station, a frightful little den (common in the West) which was always too hot or too cold. It happened to be hot just now-a ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... their voices, in one of their quaint, monotonous, endless, negro-Methodist chants, with obscure syllables recurring constantly, and slight variations interwoven, all accompanied with a regular drumming of the feet and clapping of the hands, like castanets. Then the excitement spreads: inside and outside the inclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre; some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... was very simple and friendly; Otero found good seats among the aficionados for the guests presented to him, and then began calling his pupils to the floor of the long, narrow room with quick commands of "Venga!" A piano was tucked away in a corner, but the dancers kept time now with castanets and now by snapping their fingers. Two of the oldest girls, who were apparently graduates, were "differently beautiful" in their darkness and fairness, but alike picturesquely Spanish in their vivid ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... perspiration was pouring in streams from the girl's face, whilst the slim body shook and shook like a young tree in a storm; her teeth chattered like castanets, her closed eyes were sunk in purple black orbits, the cheeks were drawn and grey, and the nostrils were dilating like those ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Under every tall pine along the way stood merchants' booths, each with a goodly crowd. Now a herd of brown goats came, the offering of a pious Phocian; now a band of Aphrodite's priestesses from Corinth whirled by in no overdecorous dance, to a deafening noise of citharas and castanets. A soft breeze was sending the brown-sailed fisher boats across the heaving bay. Straight before the three spread the white stuccoed houses of Cenchraea, the eastern haven of Corinth; far ahead in smooth semicircle rose the green ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... young girl was a good musician, and sang agreeably; but, which appeared to me as ridiculous as indecent, she danced the ballet before a large company in her mother's house, in a costume almost as light as those of the opera, with castanets or tambourines, and ended her dance with a multiplicity of attitudes and graces. With such an education she naturally thought her position not at all unusual, and was very much chagrined at the short duration of her liaison with the Emperor; while the mother was in despair, and said to me with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... many wagons full of concubines; like the vipers and asps people talk of, all the foremost and more visible parts fierce and terrible with spears and arrows and horsemen, but the rear terminating in loose women and castanets, music of the lute, and midnight revellings. Rustius, indeed, is not to be excused, but the Parthians had forgot, when they mocked at the Milesian stories, that many of the royal line of their Arsacidae had been born of Milesian ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... kitchen. The table was covered with tin plates. Beneath it, wedged knelt Tommy with a pistol firm in his hand; but the plates were rattling up and down like castanets. ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... forth the lunch-table as favors and bonbonnieres. Then come plaster or pasteboard gondolas, skiffs, wherries, steamships, and ferry-boats, all made with wondrous skill and freighted with caramels. Imitation rackets, battledoor and shuttlecock, hoops and sticks, castanets, cup and ball, tambourines, guitars, violins, hand-organs, banjos, and drums, all have their little day as ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... and oyster Their two shells did roister, Like castanets flitting; While limpets moved clearly, And rocks very nearly ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... sure of safety, as I made an inspection of my provision chest. They came pouring forth, those precious cakes, spilling out at the touch, and cracking together like castanets. ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... afternoon, he saw two celestials in a tree. He silently ran under them and uttered a terrific yell. One of the Chinamen was so frightened that he let go all holds and dropped into the water, while his companion remained in the tree, his teeth chattering like castanets. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... troop of chorister boys, called los seises. These boys are dressed up with much elegance in the picturesque Spanish costume of the fifteenth century, and, in the progress of the procession, they dance with large castanets to the sound of an ancient kind of music, much admired by those able to form a judgment on such matters. This custom had its origin in the will of a devotee, who left a considerable sum of money to be so employed, under a condition ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... view, rather like a perversion of life, and has the quality of an enormous "note" or memorandum, rather than of a representation. A woman in a voluminous white silk dress and a black mantilla pirouettes in the middle of a dusky room, to the accompaniment of her own castanets and that of a row of men and women who sit in straw chairs against the whitewashed wall and thrum upon guitar and tambourine or lift other castanets into the air. She appears almost colossal, and the twisted and ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... glou! the crystal trumpets slowly repeat their notes, the powerful sonority of which has a labored and smothered sound, as though they came from under water; they mingle with the jingling of rattles and the noise of castanets. We also have the impression of being carried away in the irresistible swing of this incomprehensible gayety, composed in proportions we can scarcely measure, of elements mystic, puerile and even ghastly. A sort of religious ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... pike Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops, Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops, The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beat Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,— Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,— An empty ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... an hour. The friends of the Costa Rican envoy were as amusing as himself, and in very much the same line. The mistress of the house had worn a yellow satin dress, and gold heels to her slippers, and at the close of the entertainment had sent for a pair of castanets, tucked up her petticoats, and danced a fandango, while the gentlemen sat cross-legged on the floor. "It was awfully low," Roderick said; "all of a sudden I perceived it, and bolted. Nothing of that kind ever amuses me to the end: before ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... this motley audience for two hours with selections from the gramophone, with illustrated Scripture lessons and pictures from the Life of Christ, and by calling on her "band" for "music" with a big drum, castanets, cymbals, and various other instruments of Indian manipulation. Salvation Army methods have great influence over a childlike people, and Mrs. Baker would make, in case of necessity, a first-class Salvation ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... humbug about them, no trying to be something else; whereas the others, that pretended to be Etruscan vases or umbrella-stands or flower-pots, were failures in my eyes. Why are they ashamed of themselves? Why do they call themselves by the graceful name of "cuspidor"—suggestive of castanets and Andalusian wiles? Why such foolish masquerading? Spittoons will be spittoons—they risk not being recognized. I said as much as this to Mr. Blaine. "You are right," he said, "to fight their battles. Did you ever hear the story ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... dentists filled teeth with gold; their farmers hatched poultry by artificial beat. They were the first musicians; they possessed guitars, single and double pipes, cymbals, drums, lyres, harps, flutes, the sambric, ashur, etc.; they had even castanets, such as are now used in Spain. In medicine and surgery they had reached such a degree of perfection that several hundred years B.C. the operation for the removal of cataract from the eye was performed among ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... correct,' observed Blathers, nodding his head in a confirmatory way, and playing carelessly with the handcuffs, as if they were a pair of castanets. 'Who is the boy? What account does he give of himself? Where did he come from? He didn't drop out of the clouds, did ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... line on shelves sealed to the walls; every shelf ornamented with one of those pink paper frills, cut in designs, which are manufactured in Spain and on which are printed, invariably, series of personages dancing with castanets, or scenes in the lives of the toreadors. In this white interior, before this joyful and clear chimney, one felt an impression of home, a tranquil welfare, which was augmented by the notion of the vast, wet, surrounding ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... sight the most distinguished-looking man I've ever met except Lord—well, we won't name names, it sounds showy—you a clerk in a city bank! There, excuse me, but simply—" Poppy snapped her fingers like a pair of castanets, making the little dogs start and whimper. "Fiddle!" she cried; "tell it to a bed-ridden spinster in a ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... terrible head was lowered threateningly, and his deep, sonorous bellow was thick with pain and fury. The watching coyotes sat down or walked around, barking, yelping, howling, snapping their teeth like castanets, sure of a feast to come and hungrily impatient for its beginning. One, hungrier or bolder than the rest, made a rush too soon, and the quick horn of the old bison caught him. Up, up he went, whirling over and over, and ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... Colonel came on the stage leading the great bear, such a cheering and clapping began that they both looked around, half frightened; but the boys followed immediately and the Little Colonel, dressed as a flower girl, danced out to meet Keith, who came in clicking his castanets in time to Malcolm's whistling. The bear was made to go through all his ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a shock of surprise and a yell of fright. He blubbered as his teeth went together like a pair of castanets. ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... white. Again, shades of scarlet and blue harmonize well together. Black has a wonderful power in softening down any intrusive brilliancy. It tones down scarlet and pink, blue and yellow, and gives them an indescribable charm, suggesting all kinds of pleasant things—the Cachuca and castanets, and the mantilla worn with such inimitable grace and coquetry by the Spanish ladies. Black and white is also a pleasing combination. White has generally the opposite effect of black. It adds to the brilliancy of the colours, and smartens rather ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... divine service. At their national celebrations, in their homes, at their diversions, even on their journeys and their pilgrimages to the sanctuary, their hymns were at once religious, patriotic, and social.[109] They had the viol and the cithara, flutes, cymbals, and castanets, and, if our authorities interpret correctly, an organ (magrepha), whose volume of sound surpassed description. When, on the Day of Atonement, its strains pealed through the chambers of the Temple, they were heard in the whole of Jerusalem, and all the people bowed in humble adoration before ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... they gathered large sums, for it was a fashionable luxury to have them sing at the end of suppers, and everyone showered money on them in order not to be behind the others. They accompanied on guzlas, on castanets, on tambourines, and sang the old airs, doleful and languorous, or excitable and breathless as the flight of the earliest nomads in the ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... cracked voice proceeded to give an excellent imitation of a police whistle, and concluded with that of the clicking of castanets. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... sound of any kind to emphasize the dead stillness, except the occasional hollow barking of a dog in the distance and the fainter answer of a further dog. Presently up the street I heard a bony clack-clacking, and guessed it was the castanets of a serenading party. In a minute more a tall skeleton, hooded, and half clad in a tattered and moldy shroud, whose shreds were flapping about the ribby latticework of its person, swung by me with a stately stride and disappeared in the gray gloom of the starlight. It ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hardly possible for a woman to be more ugly, with so fine a shape; but as a recompense, her ugliness was set off with every art. The use she was put to, was to dance with Flamarens, and sometimes, towards the conclusion of a ball, possessed of castanets and effrontery, she would dance some figured saraband or other, which amused the court. Let us now see in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... bodies to be devoured by the wild beasts, and hanging up the skulls in the temples as trophies of their misguided piety. In this place likewise there were many vipers and serpents, the most dangerous of which have a kind of rattle on their tails, making a noise like our castanets. These are kept in vessels filled with feathers, where they breed, and are fed with human flesh and the carcases of dogs. I was assured, after our expulsion from Mexico, that these animals were fed for many days on the bodies of our companions who perished on that occasion. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... dance languidly, carelessly, as if already weary. Above her head she swung copper bells, castanets or 'crotals,'—swung them lazily, so that they tinkled very faintly. Gradually her movements became more emphatic, and suddenly under their long lashes, yellow eyes shone out, clear and bright as the eyes of a leopardess. She drew her body up to her full height ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... ran over the road to his cousin's. Western clouds were blackening and his little cousin was pulling the pig into the cabin as a man puts other sort of treasure out of danger into a safe. Paddy listened a moment. He could hear the castanets of the tweed weaver's loom and the hum of his uncle's deep voice as he sang at his work. He ran to the rear of the cabin and up the stone steps to the little addition. A lantern filled the room he entered with black, harp-like ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... and is particularly remarkable for nothing else, unless it be its waxen and bejewelled Saint in a glass case, with two odd hands; or the enormous number of beggars who are constantly rapping their chins there, like a battery of castanets. The cathedral with the beautiful door, and the columns of African and Egyptian granite that once ornamented the temple of Apollo, contains the famous sacred blood of San Gennaro or Januarius: which is preserved in two phials in a silver tabernacle, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... those few minutes of concentrated agony had in truth made me ill. My wet clothes clinging round my body began to chill me now, and as I crept into the house and upstairs to my room, my teeth were chattering like castanets. ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... palfreys wait, And the page—Dan Cupid—frets, Holding at the garden gate Reins that chime like castanets, Bits a-foam with fairy flakes Flung from seas whence Venus rose: Come, for Father Time awakes And the star ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... morning in question he found Madame Carolina writing. At the end of the apartment a lady ceased, on his appearance, humming an air to which she was dancing, and at the same time imitating castanets. Madame received Vivian with expressions of delight, saying also, in a peculiar and confidential manner, that she was just sealing up a packet for him, the preface of Haroun; and then she presented ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... enough of it, for he was rather corpulent. His jumps grew fewer and clumsier, until at last he withdrew from the circle, puffing violently, and mopping the moisture from his forehead with a snowy pocket-handkerchief. Meanwhile, the young man, who had regained his composure, brought from the inn some castanets, and before I was aware all were dancing merrily beneath the trees. The sun had set, but the crimson sky in the west cast bright reflections among the shadows, and upon the old walls and the half-buried columns covered with ivy in the depths of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... sounds of animals—and each musical instrument was originally devised to imitate these sounds. For all instruments—the bass drum, flute, clarinet, trombone, trumpet, violin, and even pipe organ—an animal may be mentioned that owns the fundamental tones in its voice, and which man has imitated. Castanets, for example, were imitations of the rattlesnakes; the first musical instruments of any savage tribe of men are made so as to represent the voices of the chief animals of that ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... I ever s-s-struck!" chattered Toby, whose teeth were apparently rattling like castanets, either from cold or excitement, possibly ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... fell sullenly to the task of gathering dead branches and underwood. They were weak and paused often, catching themselves, in the act of stooping, with giddy motions, or staggering to the center of operations with their knees shaking like castanets. ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... cold. They balanced and "sashayed" from the tropics to the arctic circle. They swung at corners and made "ladies' change" all through the temperate zone. They stamped their feet and did double-shuffles until the floor trembled beneath them. The tin lamp-reflectors on the walls rattled like castanets. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... women range themselves side by side, and dance to the sound of drums, to which they keep good time. The men have a rude kind of iron cymbal in each hand, which opens and shuts; this they beat in the manner of castanets, both sexes singing at the same time in chorus. The movements consist in stepping forward, the whole line at once, at a particular turn of the tune, as if to catch something with their two hands, which they hold out; they balance themselves a short time on the advanced ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... said, "he had acquired, while he filled a place at the bursar's table at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen; when," said he; "if you did not move your jaws as fast as a pair of castanets, you were very unlikely to get any thing to put between them. And as for the quantity of my food, be it known to this honourable company," continued the Captain, "that it's the duty of every commander of a fortress, on all occasions ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... to take down your pride. Why, it's the Castanet song from 'The Zingara!' Tum-tum-tum, tum-tum-tum," and she began swaying her body in time, humming an air and banging out the accompaniment, "'With my castanets, with my castanets.' That's exactly the way it goes only I don't know the words." She whirled again to Mark. "It's the most delicious thing! ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... was served in the same way, Pieced out for different marts in the Levant, Except some certain portions of the prey, Light classic articles of female want, French stuffs, lace, tweezers, toothpicks, teapot, tray,[ck] Guitars and castanets from Alicant, All which selected from the spoil he gathers, Robbed for his daughter by the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... happiness, any more than on the misery of others, with indifference, halted to enjoy this scene of simple pleasure. The group before him consisted of French and Spanish peasants, the inhabitants of a neighbouring hamlet, some of whom were performing a sprightly dance, the women with castanets in their hands, to the sounds of a lute and a tamborine, till, from the brisk melody of France, the music softened into a slow movement, to which two female ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... was also in triple time, but its movement was slow and stately. In Spain, whence it was derived, it was sung to the accompaniment of castanets, a fact which in itself suffices to indicate that it was originally of a lively character, and took on its solemnity in the hands of the later composers. Handel found the Sarabande a peculiarly admirable vehicle for his inspirations, and one of the finest examples ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... uproar, mingle boat-women crowned with roses. He who has seen the Basque country wishes to see it again. It is the blessed land. Two harvests a year; villages resonant and gay; a stately poverty; all Sunday the sound of guitars, dancing, castanets, love-making; houses clean and bright; storks ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... complicated, are generally seen on the stage only in Madrid, where they must charm all who can appreciate the poetry of motion. The dance of the peasant in Castile is always the jota Aragonesa. The part the tambourine and the castanets play in these dances must be seen and heard to be understood: they punctuate not only the music, but also the movement, the sentiment, and the refrain. The Andaluces excel in playing on the castanets. These are, according ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... at the tilting match, or the riding at the ring; none was more bold and dexterous in the bull-fight; none composed more gallant madrigals in praise of his lady's charms, or sang them with sweeter tones to the accompaniment of her guitar; nor could any one handle the castanets and dance the bolero with more captivating grace. All these admirable qualities and endowments, however, though they had been sufficient to win the heart of Serafina, were nothing in the eyes of her unreasonable father. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Gallipolis as to her costume, but firmly to Seville or Valladolid I am held by her eyes; castanets, balconies, mantillas, serenades, ambuscades, escapades—all these their dark ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... blowing of the cattle were well imitated by the music. All this was succeeded by vineyards, grape trellises, and arbors, with busy elves gathering the fruit which hung in purple clusters, and beneath the arbors other elves rattling castanets, beating ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... rattling of glass, nor the jarring sensation, nor yet the smoke and heat and lurid light. The walls shook with a dull vibration, and the window-panes were like castanets. Through the glass transom over the door I could see a shimmering, ruddy glow that rose and fell, and was brightened by bursting sparks and little darting tongues of yellow flame. Apart from this one lurid ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... of the country; the style, tone, and allusions were thoroughly Spanish; and, through the French dress, the Castilian idiom seemed here and there to peep forth, confirming the notion of a translation. Clara was an Andalusian, half gipsy, half Moor, skilled in guitars and castanets, saynetes and boleros. L'Estrange makes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... in from all parts of Egypt; the river craft were overflowing with men and women, who converted the journey into one long carnival. Every time the vessel put in to land, the women rushed on shore, amid the din of castanets and flutes, and ran hither and thither challenging the women of the place with abuse to dance against them with uplifted garments. To the foreigners there was little to distinguish the festival of Bastit from many other Egyptian ceremonies of the kind; it consisted of a solemn procession, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... poojah was performed. The car, filled with idols, was covered with gilding and silk, and drawn by noble bulls, festooned and garlanded. A procession was formed in front; and it opened into an avenue, up and down which gaily dressed dancing-boys paced or danced, shaking castanets, the attendant worshippers singing in discordant voices, beating tom-toms, cymbals, etc. Images (of Boodh apparently) abounded on the car, in front of which a child was placed. The throng of natives was very great and ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... give an Indian dance in costume, and the Dutch dance is in clogs, and oh, you can't imagine how funny and clumpy it sounds, but it is real pretty with the aprons and the caps, but the Spanish is beautiful with castanets. You must all come. Is ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... to side, that indicated but too clearly the savage nature of his disposition. Even Gibault felt a little uneasy, and began to think himself a fool for having ventured on such an expedition alone. His state of mind was not improved by the sound of the artist's teeth chattering in his head like castanets. ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Citoles, Domras, Goules, Serpents, Crwths, Pentachords, Rebabs, Pantalons, Conches, Flageolets made of Pelicon bones, Tam-Tams, Carillons, Xylophones, Crescents of beating bells, Mandoras, Whistling Vases of Clay, Zampognas, Zithers, Bugles, Octochords, Naccaras or Turkish castanets and Quinternas. He heard blare the two hundred thousand curved trumpets which Solomon had made for his temple, and the forty thousand which accompanied the Psalms of David. Jubal played his Magrepha; Pythagoras came with his Monochord; Plato listened to the music of the spheres; the priests of ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... coarse stiff hair and beard, a wrinkled forehead, a broad flat nose which makes a marked angle with the forehead, pointed ears (modern, but guaranteed by another copy of the head), and a short tail sprouting from the small of the back The arms, which were missing, have been incorrectly restored with castanets. The right should be held up, the left down, in a gesture of astonishment. In this work we see again Myron's skill in suggesting movement. We get a lively impression of an advance suddenly checked and ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... to humor one of her tastes already known to the reader, that he said to her one morning,—"Come, Elsie, take your castanets, and let us ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... danced in a circle around a leader of the dance in the centre. At first, it is a simple walking round, face to back, the legs raised, and a little swinging, and the steps keeping time to the iron castanets fastened on the hands of each. Meanwhile, they sing, and the chorus comes at intervals between the noise of castanets, or finger-clappers. They now turn round and face their leader, some prostrating before him, and others twirling ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... such a jolly girl! brightens them all up wherever she goes; and such a dancer; did the cachouka with a little Spanish bloke Bosanquet has got hold of, and made his black bolus eyes twinkle like midnight cigars: danced it with castanets, and smiles, and such a what d'ye call 'em, my boy, you ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... presence by sounds which are audible in the inmost darkness of the chals. He is the beetle of the pedlar tribe. He does not sing, he does not cry—he stridulates. Carrying in his hand a large number of small coffee-cups, fitted one within another, he strikes them together like a string of castanets, while in the left hand he bears a portable stove-like article on which rests his tin or ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... go to supper," she announced. "Form yourselves into a procession, children. Johnnie shall take this tambourine and Willy Parker these castanets, and we will march in to the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... attempted, I at least came up to the expectations of my partner, who said, and almost swore, 'I was prime at it;' while, stimulated to her utmost exertions, she herself frisked like a kid, snapped her fingers like castanets, whooped like a Bacchanal, and bounded from the floor like a tennis-ball,—aye, till the colour of her garters was no particular mystery. She made the less secret of this, perhaps, that they were sky-blue, and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... sarrusophones, 4 saxophones, 4 cornets, 2 trumpets, 1 soprano saxhorn (fluegelhorn), 4 French horns, 4 trombones, 2 contra-bass tubas, 4 tubas, 1 snare drum, 1 bass drum, 2 kettle drums, cymbals, triangle, bells, castanets, xylophone, etc. ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... made at amusement when we gave two dances; one with castanets and tambourines and much swirling and swooping; another with Spanish shawls draped on us. This latter one was more or less of a failure, for we couldn't seem to get into step when we did it a second time. The audience, however, applauded, regardless ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter's swing to ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... all vulgar sentimentalism and that you had a more independent mind. I was mistaken in you, that's all.' With that he pretends to dash a tear from his eye-crocodile!—and goes out, leaving me in my fur by the blazing fire, my teeth going like castanets. . . Did you ever hear of anything so stupid as this affair?" she concluded in a tone of extreme candour and a profound unreadable stare that went far beyond us both. And the stillness of her lips was so perfect directly she ceased speaking that I wondered whether all this had come through them or ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... its recipient, she lost no time in adopting it. As a preliminary, she went to Madrid. There, under expert tuition, she learned to rattle the castanets, and practised the bolero and the cachucha, as well as the classic arabesques and entrechats and the technique accompanying them. But she did not advance much beyond the simplest steps, for the time at her disposal was short, and the ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... scent of blossoming gardenias was in her nostrils and she was out under a Mexican night. Her pulses leaped to the throbbing notes, and she flung herself sinuously into the measures of the tango, snapping her fingers in lieu of castanets. ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... yards away, was taking his time about turning to give us directions, and one great fifteen foot brute had raised itself on the causeway behind us and was snapping its paws together like a pair of vicious castanets. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... loins that made it spring forward like a goat, almost jumping out of the traces; and then, away it tore along the road towards the village at the rate of twenty miles an hour, the gig bounding from rut to rut as if it were a kangaroo, and shaking Teddy's bones together like castanets. ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... instruments, horribly twisted, worth, as I should conceive, some thousands of pounds, and which it is utterly impossible that anybody in any season can ever play or want to play. It had five triangles in the window, six pairs of castanets, and three harps; likewise every polka with a coloured frontispiece that ever was published; from the original one where a smooth male and female Pole of high rank are coming at the observer with their arms a- kimbo, to the Ratcatcher's Daughter. Astonishing establishment, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... "It's fine of you," she said eagerly. "Yes, I'm sure you can do it. Not one person in fifty will know whether the tunes you play are national or not. Something quaint and queer for the Hungarian, and jigsy and gay for the Irish. Castanets in the ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... along the board-walk, with heels clicking like castanets, conscious that the world was ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... gitano, an excellent dancer, to lead them. The others were all very well, but such was the elegance of Preciosa, that she fascinated the eyes of all the spectators. Amidst the sound of the tambourine and castanets, in the heat of the dance, a murmur of admiration arose for the beauty and grace of Preciosa; but when they heard her sing—for the dance was accompanied with song—the fame of the gitana reached its highest ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... if his teeth were castanets, the babu trod gingerly down damp stone steps whose center had been worn into ruts by countless feet. The German came last, and ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... Herodotus (born 485 B.C.) tells us much about Egyptian music, how the great festival at Bubastis in honour of the Egyptian Diana (Bast or Pascht), to whom the cat was sacred, was attended yearly by 700,000 people who came by water, the boats resounding with the clatter of castanets, the clapping of hands, and the soft tones of thousands of flutes. Again he tells us of music played during banquets, and speaks of a mournful song called Maneros. This, the oldest song of the Egyptians (dating back to the first ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... of science. Science yearns ever to know and to tell. Truth for truth's sake! He had no strong moral feeling against a lie; but he had never had the slightest use for a lie, and a prevarication on his tongue would have been as strange to him as castanets in his palms. Guile takes alertness, adroitness; and the slim pennyworth of these that he could command he used up, no doubt, on Fontenette. I noticed that after an hour with the Creole he always looked tortured and exhausted. With us he was artless ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... way back, we again passed through the slave market, and saw a freshly arrived caravan pitching their tents after a long and weary journey. A snake-charmer was busy amusing an idle group of boys and girls in one of the small squares, and a group of dancing girls, with tambourines and castanets, looked wistfully at us, hoping to get an audience; but our yet unhonored breakfast awaited us, and the mountain excursion had imparted ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... green sleeveless velvet coats, red plush knickers, silk stockings and shoes with scarlet bows, while the girls wore gay skirts, striped sashes, lace fichus, and aprons, and gold beads round their shapely throats. They danced several sprightly measures, waving tambourines and rattling castanets, or twining silk scarves together, while the musicians fiddled and strummed their hardest; then six of them stood aside and the two principal artists advanced to do a "star turn." "Romeo" sang an impassioned love ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... time ago, on the bank of the river where there is water, at Gao, where my father was a prince, there was.... Well, one day, one feast day, there came from the interior of the country an old magician, dressed in skins and feathers, with a mask and a pointed head-dress, with castanets, and two serpents in a bag. On the village square, where all our people formed in a circle, he danced the boussadilla. I was in the first row, and because I had a necklace of pink tourmaline, he quickly saw that I was the daughter of a ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... passed and repassed these, others in brave attire; with castanets of pearl shells, making ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... dance, specially in favour among the Andalusians; is in 3/4 time, and is danced to the accompaniment of guitars and castanets. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Mr. Boltwood was uninterestedly fumbling in his money pocket. Behind Milt Daggett, Claire shook her head wildly, rattling her hands as though she were playing castanets. Mr. Boltwood shrugged. He did not understand. His relations with young men in cheap raincoats were entirely monetary. They did something for you, and you paid them—preferably not too much—and they ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis |
