"Bass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ways and haunts of fish. He is wise in the salmon, the perch, the trout, the tarpon, and the muscalonge. He says. To-day the bass will bite on dobsons, but to-morrow ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... Further, we looked long and hard at our charts, which seemed well marked for the passage we were bound on. The English fellow, we discovered, had been several times that way; and, though he was no pilot, he said he yet knew the Bass Rock from a mud bank, and, provided we fell in with neither pirates, tempest, nor the Spaniard, could put us into Leith Roads right side uppermost as well as any man. Whereat we felt easier in our minds ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... was playing bass, struck the first chords of the sonata loudly and decisively, but Lisa did not begin her part. He stopped and looked at her. Lisa's eyes were fixed directly on him, and expressed displeasure. There was no smile on her lips, her whole face looked ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... of a musical chord, or the faint vibrations of a wineglass when its rim is rubbed by a moistened finger. It was not one sustained note, but a multitude of tiny sounds, each clear and distinct in itself, the sweetest treble mingling with the lowest bass. On applying the ear to the wood-work of the boat the vibration was greatly increased in volume." Similar sounds have been heard elsewhere in the Indian seas, and doubtless the ancients connected this mysterious music of the ocean with the animals round which they had thrown such a halo of romance. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... bays and harbours in Van Diemen's Land, and most of those likewise which are in Bass's Straits, and on the southern coast of New Holland, abound with these fish at the same season. If the colonists, therefore, were not thus restricted from this fishery, it would soon become an immense ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... through the oak and making one great utterance out of the thousand and thousand of little murmurs which each leafy tongue had caused by its rustling. And now, though it still had the tone of a mighty wind roaring among the branches, it was also like a deep bass voice speaking, as distinctly as a tree could be expected to speak, ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... information was gained, not only regarding the interior of New Holland, in the vicinity of the settlement, but also regarding part of its coast: the most interesting and important discovery relative to the latter was made towards the end of the year 1797, by Mr. Bass, surgeon of His Majesty's ship Reliance. He made an excursion in an open boat to the southward of Port Jackson, as far as 40 degrees of south latitude, and visited every opening in the coast in the course of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... overture to Wilhelm Tell. We must admit that the voice in which he sang the andante of the Swiss mountaineer's chorus resembled a reed pipe more than a hautboy; but, to make amends when he reached the presto, his voice, a rather good bass, struck the horse's ears with such force that the latter redoubled his vigor as if this melody had produced upon him the effect of a trumpet sounding the charge on ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... magnificent chorus of bass voices I had never heard; the jungle cracked, as with repeated roars they dragged the carcase of the buffalo through the thorns to the spot where they intended to devour it. That which was music to our ears was discord to that of Mahomet, who with terror in hs face came ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... voices I seem to catch the sweeter strains of my children in heaven, singing their joy. Those deep, manly bass voices remind me of the psalms up yonder—like the sound of many waters. Why, the very crape some of you wear reminds me of some who sat by your side, and who are now clad in ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... violin. This was the occasion for another surprise. Red Angel was at the feet of George in an instant. Tom could not keep his hands still, as he had also learned to play the instrument, and ventured to suggest that he would like to assist in building a bass viol, and not to be outdone Ralph offered to ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... broad-chested man, not yet thirty, with flaxen hair standing erect, and large lightish-gray eyes, which were always very wide open; he had a sonorous bass voice, and an air of defiant self-confidence inclining to brazenness. He had entered on his career with great vigor, and intended to make a considerable impression on his fellowmen. The Rev. Walter Stelling was not a man ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... with a blatting of trumpets, and a circus parade rolled in. It was composed of the Zenith brokers, dressed as cowpunchers, bareback riders, Japanese jugglers. At the head was big Warren Whitby, in the bearskin and gold-and-crimson coat of a drum-major. Behind him, as a clown, beating a bass drum, extraordinarily happy ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... distribution of Banksia, it is a singular fact in the geographical distribution of this genus that its species, which have been traced through almost every meridian of the south coast, upon the islands in Bass Strait, in Van Diemen's Land, and widely scattered throughout the whole extent of New South Wales to the north coast, at which extreme Banksia dentata has been observed as far west as longitude 136 degrees south, should be wholly wanting on the line ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... for he would lie in chairs. No one loved him much, for he was not amiable in temper, but bit and scratched if touched, worried the bows off our slippers in his play, and if we did not attend to him at once, he complained in the most tremendous bass growl I ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... said the landlord. "He's a Yankee; and that lady you seen drivin' him around, she's a Yankee. He courted her here and he married her here. Major Jimmy Bass wanted him to marry her in his house, but Captain Jack Walthall put his foot down and said the weddin' had to be in his house; and there's where it was, in that big white house over yander with ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... numbers of small birds, particularly the rice-bird, which is very like the ortolan. There are rattlesnakes, but not near so frequent as is generally reported. There are several species of snakes, some of which are not venomous. There are crocodiles, porpoises, sturgeon, mullet, cat-fish, bass, drum, devil-fish; and many species of fresh-water fish that we have not in Europe; and oysters upon the sea-islands in ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... rumbling away in the bass with a pair of hands that would have been the better for some of the above-mentioned soap, for he did not love to do much in the washing and ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... a patent "plug" they had purchased and cast near a lily pond, reeling in so slowly that Hazel and Cora had both had "strikes" before the twins saw their white make believe fish come to the surface. This sort of casting was for bass ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... the carpenter in a weak voice, very unlike his usual sturdy bass. "True Blue, is it you, my lad? Right glad to see you!" he exclaimed in a more cheerful tone. "Well, we have had a warm brush. Only sorry you were not with us; but we took her, as you see, though we had a hard struggle ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... trouble on the subject, till the accidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so ancient, roused my rhyming mania. Clarke's set of the tune, with his bass, you will find in the Museum, though I am afraid that the air is not what will entitle it to a place in ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... particular. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffries—Mr. Jeffries is our clergyman, you know, Colonel Quaritch—and Dr. Bass and the two Miss Smiths, one of whom he is supposed to be in love with, and Mr. and Mrs. Quest, and Mr. Edward Cossey, and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... old coach of my Great-grandmother Craddock, sitting pensively alone while father occupied the front seat beside Uncle Cradd, both of them in deep converse about a line in Tom Moore, while Uncle Cradd bumbled the air of "Drink to me only with thine eyes" in a lovely old bass, I should have been softly and pensively weeping at the thought of the devastation of my father's fortune, of the poverty brought down upon his old age, and about my fate as a gay social being going thus into exile; but I wasn't. Did I say that I was sitting alone ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... interrupted, taking her by the hand and leading her away. "All such planning will do after breakfast, but I'm starving! How about a five-pound bass on the coals, eh? Come ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... hundred gods, whose images are known to all persons who have visited Canton, is hung along the walls. The big bell outside the main hall is rather remarkable on account of the great beauty of the deep bass waves of sound which it rolls through the city than on account of its size, which is as nothing when compared with that of the big bells of Moscow and Peking; still it is not to be despised even in that respect, for it is ten feet high and five ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... king. The anecdote was as long as the doctor himself; and when it was over, the gentlemen adjourned to the drawing-room, and all conversation was immediately drowned by "Row, brothers, row," which had only been suspended till the arrival of Mr. Tiddy, who had a fine bass voice. ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... three-part composition on a keyboard. Chopin was a magician. The first of the Mazurkas in C-sharp minor bears the early Op. 6, No. 2. By no means representative, it is nevertheless interesting and characteristic. That brief introduction with its pedal bass sounds the rhythmic life of the piece. I like it; I like the dance proper; I like the major—you see the peasant girls on the green footing away—and the ending is full of a sad charm. Op. 30, No. ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... with a pipe of tobacco. There was an air of importance in his manner which corresponded to the rural dignity of his exterior, and a habit which he had of throwing out a number of interjectional sounds, uttered with a strange variety of intonation running from bass up to treble in a very extraordinary manner, or breaking off his sentences with a whiff of his pipe, seemed adopted to give an air of thought and mature deliberation to his opinions and decisions. Notwithstanding all this, Alan, it might be DOOTED, as our old Professor ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... and its supposed resemblance in appearance and productions to their native land, have appeared preferable to all the advantages which the larger island possesses. Van Diemen's Land is divided from New Holland on the north by Bass's Straits, its extreme points of latitude are 41 deg. 20', and 43 deg. 40' S., and of longitude 144 deg. 40', and 148 deg. 20' E. Its shape is irregular, being much broken by various inlets, but its greatest extent from N. to S. is ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Contrabassoon (Fr. contrebasson; Ger. Kontrafagott), a wood-wind instrument of the double reed family, which it completes as grand bass, the other members being the oboe, cor anglais, and bassoon. The contrafagotto corresponds to the double bass in strings, to the contrabass tuba in the brass wind, and to the pedal clarinet in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... of Aufhausen he overtopped by a head, and all his limbs were coarse and uncouth. And at this time also he lost his boyish voice and assumed a rasping bass. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... enemy of our neighbours is levity, ours heaviness. In the ancient bass-fiddle, Europe, the thickest string is the German, with deep tone and heavy vibration; but once in vibration, it hums as if it would go on humming for an eternity. Our primitive ancestors deliberated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... it! Stop imagining that, then. Now imagine something else. The violins are playing a melodious plaint; the flutes are singing gently; the double bass ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... full throat. The one court was filled with a clashing upon its pavement, and the other with a soft singing upon its grass, with which mingled a sound as of little castanets from the broad leaves of the water-lilies in the moat. Ever and anon came the lightning, and the great bass of the thunder to fill ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... seized her with both her muscular arms, and held her at arm's length, at the same time wrinkling her thick black eyebrows as if to scrutinize her the better, and then drew her towards her, patting her on the back all the time, and exclaiming in her bass-viol-like voice, "We like each other, my little sister; we like each other, eh?" Yes, there could be no doubt about it, Fanny was a success. Her beauty won the hearts of the gentlemen, and her correct deportment the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... was now on her way to Australia, somewhere to the south of the Suez Canal. Her officers were the same as in '95, with one exception. The first officer, Mr. Jack Croker, had been made a captain and was to take charge of their new ship, the BASS ROCK, sailing in two days' time from Southampton. He lived at Sydenham, but he was likely to be in that morning for instructions, if we cared ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the canyon, Capt. Ned climbed a tree and arranged the halter, then came down and noosed his man. He opened his Bible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting a chapter at random, he read it through, in a deep bass voice and with sincere solemnity. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... more ado, where old and young leap about together: thence they can not escape, for the holes are all surrounded with heaps of ice. It is a regular witches' dance—wide-mouthed carp leaping high in air, the pike in its despair wriggling like a snake among the gasping heaps of perch and bass. One conger after another is hauled out with a hook and thrown on the frozen surface, where, laying down his ugly head, he flaps his fellow-prisoners into pieces with his heavy tail. The space around the hole is all covered with fishes. The carp jump like ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... to serve as a resonance-chamber. When the musician of early times enlarged this chamber, moved it to the end of the bow, and multiplied the strings, he constructed the cithara of antiquity,—the ancestor of a host of modern types, from the harp to the bass-viol ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... Harry took down the guitar, suspended from the wall, tuned it up, and sung in a clear mellow voice a number of ballads, to which the "General," much to the surprise of both Redburn and Anita, lent a rich deep bass—a voice of superior culture. ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... are sure to be pickerel. Down below there in the twilight of the warmest water next the bottom are perch and dace, bass and eel, and all these are likely to hunger for shiner. The largest eel I ever saw caught came up through the ice in this way and I have even known the clumsy and stupid sucker to come out of the hole on the hook, making the fisherman think for a moment that he had hold of the one big pickerel ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... fire, by which, in the first week, twelve heavy guns were disabled. The 10-inch columbiad in water battery 4 was dismounted at long range. This gun was known to the Union soldiers, and perhaps to the Confederates first, as the "Lady Davis," and great was the dread awakened by the deep bass roar and the wail of the big shells as they came rolling down the narrow pathway, or searched the ravines where the men lay massed. The fire of the navy also did great damage among the heavy batteries along ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... apartment, East met West, unabashed by Kipling's dictum. Roman tear-vases and Egyptian tomb-offerings stood upon the same shelf as empty Bass bottles; and a hideous wooden idol from the South Sea Islands leered on eternally, unmoved by the presence upon his distorted head of a soft felt hat ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... those who came with us to St. Ann's, or who were there when we arrived were Messrs. Swim, Burkstaff, McComesky, three named Ridner, Wooley, Bass, Paine, Ryerse, Acker, Lownsberry, Ingraham, Buchanan, Ackerman, Donley, Vanderbeck, Smith, Essington and ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... two things — rhythm and crude harmony. Its rhythm is perfect, but though there is an appreciation of harmony as is seen in the recognition of, we may say, the "tenor" and "bass" tones of co-ong'-an and ka'-los, respectively, yet in the actual music the harmony is lost sight ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... all delighted with the result, and another selection was made, in which Burt's tenor and Webb's bass ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... fierce Virago cries, And swift as lightning to the combat flies. All side in parties, and begin th' attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; 40 Heroes' and Heroines' shouts confus'dly rise, And bass, and treble voices strike the skies. No common weapons in their hands are found, Like Gods they fight, nor ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... Quaver, as he tossed his tobacco-quid into a spittoon, and an Ahem! from Miss Gamut. She was the leading first treble, a small lady with a sharp, shrill voice. Then Mr. Fiddleman sounded the key on the bass-viol, do-mi-sol-do, helping the trebles and tenors climb the stairs of the scale; then he hopped down again, and rounded off with a thundering swell at the bottom, to let them know he was safely down, and ready to go ahead. ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... out of Bass Harbor, last October, who went in a power-boat to Clay Bank after hake. His engine played out and he got blown off by a northwester. For over five days he didn't have a thing to eat or drink. Then he got back to Mount Desert Rock. That's the ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... gone back across the Green Meadows and Farmer Brown's boy had gone home for his supper. Then Grandfather Frog had climbed back on his big green lily-pad and had sat there half the night without once leading the chorus of the Smiling Pool with his great deep bass voice as he usually did. He was thinking, thinking very hard. And now, this bright, sunshiny morning, he ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... potatoes and beans, and pie and coffee, and came out with his skin stuffed tight as a football. And then, through the rain and the darkness, far down the street he saw red lights flaring and heard the thumping of a bass drum; and his heart gave a leap, and he made for the place on the run—knowing without the asking that it ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... it! When she had finished the duet with her daughter, Frau Lenore observed that Emilio had a fine voice, like a silver bell, but that now he was at the age when the voice changes—he did, in fact, talk in a sort of bass constantly falling into falsetto—and that he was therefore forbidden to sing; but that Pantaleone now really might try his skill of old days in honour of their guest! Pantaleone promptly put on a displeased air, frowned, ruffled up his hair, and declared that he had given ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... gorgeous golden hero And my trade is taking life. Hear the twittle-twittle-tweero Of my sibillating fife And the rub-a-dub-a-dum Of my big bass drum! I'm an escort strong and bold, The Grand Army to protect. My countenance is cold And my attitude erect. I'm a Californian Guard And my banner flies aloft, But the stones are O, so hard! And my feet are ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... the vein, Mr. Sampson," answered Pleydell; "here's metal more attractive—I do not despair to engage these two young ladies in a glee or a catch, wherein I, even I myself, will adventure myself for the bass part—Hang De Lyra, man; keep him ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... singing. His deep bass voice, not always true, boomed out above the sound of the small organ. Ed had been a good brother to him; he had ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... realize is that happy 'Jock' Hume is dead," exclaimed Louis Cross, a player of the bass viol. "He was the merriest, happiest young Scotchman you ever saw. His family have been making musical instruments in Scotland for generations. I heard him say once that they were minstrels in the old days. It is certainly hard ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... these years, with their freshets and floods, the cabin had clung to its perch. Within doors the ears never lost the drone of the waters. There were top-notes that lifted or sank as the wind blew, but below them the deep bass thundered on. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... catch fish." It was true the boy had caught the fish and the skilful angler had not. All of which goes to prove that if it is fish you want, just any kind of fish and not the excitement of the sport, a pole like the boy's will probably be equal to all requirements. But there are black bass in the lake, and had one of them been in that particular part of it, no doubt the fly would have tempted him, and the experience and skill of Mr. J. supplemented by his long, flexible rod, his reel ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... his flute they sang many songs. They were surprised how much talent they had in their own family circle. Aunt Bettie and Edith both had good soprano voices and Ruth a fair contralto. Bob sang tenor and his uncle bass. It was Maria, though, that surprised them with a ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... departure from the usual style of this hula was that the hoopaa, at the same time, devoted themselves with the right hand to playing upon the pu-niu, the small drum, while with the left they developed the deep bass of the pahu. The result of this outre combination must have been ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... household pets, I thought I would tell you about a pet fish we kept in a stone basin about three feet square and two feet deep. We caught the fish in Cross Creek, and brought it home in a bucket, and placed it in the basin. It was a yellow bass about ten inches long and very pretty. It soon got very tame, and would take a fishing-worm out of my fingers. It committed suicide one night by jumping out on the floor and killing itself. I have a sunfish in the basin now, but I don't expect ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... young gentleman near us with the blue stock forcibly remarks to his companion, 'bass! I b'lieve you; he can go down lower than any man: so low sometimes that you can't hear him.' And so he does. To hear him growling away, gradually lower and lower down, till he can't get back again, is the most ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... was six of us chilluns. My mem'ry ain't so good no more, but Charley was oldes', den come Dolly and Jennie and Susie and me and Laura. Law me, I guess old Dr. Bass, what was doctor for Marse John, use to be right busy with us 'bout once a year for quite ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the ownership of a hen claimed by George Bass and Joseph Nedrow, of Arnold City, Justice of the Peace John Reisinger hit upon a "Solomonesque" solution. "Take this fowl to Arnold City," he directed his constable, "and release it near the poultry yards of these two men. In whose hen house it goes to roost, ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... few lights on these music-stands dimly illumined the choir, gleamed on the shaven heads of the monks and threw their shadows on the walls. They were gross, blue-bearded, bullet-headed men, with bass voices, of deep metallic tone, that reverberated out of the ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... were not asked for at the door, it was of no consequence. About the centre of the room, at two small tables joined together, were to be seen the party from the Yungfrau; some were drinking beer, some grog, and Jemmy Ducks was perched on the table, with his fiddle as usual held like a bass viol. He was known by those who frequented the house by the name of the Mannikin, and was a universal object of admiration and good-will. The quadrille was ended, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... her answer it seemed to Diamond that just because she was so big and could not help it, and just because her ear and her mouth must seem to him so dreadfully far away, she spoke to him more tenderly and graciously than ever before. Her voice was like the bass of a deep organ, without the groan in it; like the most delicate of violin tones without the wail in it; like the most glorious of trumpet-ejaculations without the defiance in it; like the sound of falling water without the ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... ivories shone at door and windows where the slaves gathered to "see the whi' folks dance." But prominent and conspicuous, in a suit as nearly resembling his master's as might be, and in a position at the immediate right hand of the slave who played the bass viol, stood Caesar, the general's favorite man-servant. He bore himself with the same courtly dignity, the same dignified courtesy, and had stationed himself beside the viol in order to have a more thorough view of the dancers, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... more severe and warlike ones. Among them were throwing wands and snow-arrows. In the winter we coasted much. We had no "double-rippers" or toboggans, but six or seven of the long ribs of a buffalo, fastened together at the larger end, answered all practical purposes. Sometimes a strip of bass-wood bark, four feet long and about six inches wide, was used with considerable skill. We stood on one end and held the other, using the slippery inside of the bark for the outside, and thus coasting down long hills ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... click of the censer and slow singing.... Near Andrey Andreyitch stood the verger Matvey, the midwife Makaryevna, and her one-armed son Mitka. There was no one else. The sacristan sang badly in an unpleasant, hollow bass, but the tune and the words were so mournful that the shopkeeper little by little lost the expression of dignity and was plunged in sadness. He thought of his Mashutka,... he remembered she had been born ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... man, nor even to an Indian unless he had become a regular candidate. This chart measures 7 feet 1 inches in length and 18 inches in width, and is made of five pieces of birch bark neatly and securely stitched together by means of thin, flat strands of bass wood. At each end are two thin strips of wood, secured transversely by wrapping and stitching with thin strands of bark, so as to prevent splitting and fraying of the ends of the record. Pl. III A, is a reproduction of the ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... in Mr. Thaxter's brother, with a young lady whose position I do not know,— either a sister or the brother's wife. Anon, too, came in the apple-toddy, a very rich and spicy compound; after which we had some glees and negro melodies, in which Mr. Thaxter sang a noble bass, and Mrs. Thaxter sang like a bird, and Mr. Weiss sang, I suppose, tenor, and the brother took some other part, and all were very mirthful and jolly. At about ten o'clock Mr. Titcomb and myself took leave, and emerging into the open air, out of that room of song, and pretty youthfulness ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... broad-shouldered bass-voiced fellow of some thirty-five years, who was associated with Landry in executing the orders of the Gretry-Converse house, came up to him, and, omitting ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... be safe if they liked. But out of the sea the silly things come, into the great river down below, and we come up to watch for them; and when they go down again we go down and follow them. And there we fish for the bass and the pollock, and have jolly days along the shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and sleep snug in the warm dry crags. Ah, that is a merry life too, children, if it were not for ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... and cooking had become almost impossible without protection. The "varments" came in relays. A small gray variety took hold of us while it was warm, and when it became too cold for them, the big, black, "sticky" fellows appeared mysteriously, and hung around in the air uttering deep, bass notes like lazy flies. The little gray fellows were singularly ferocious ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... roaring of the lion. Then a dull sound followed as of some heavy object dashed against the wall. Then came a mournful howl—another, another—a noise like the crackling of bones—the "purr" of the great brute with its loud rough bass—and then a deep silence. The struggle was over. This was evident, as the dogs no longer gave tongue. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... parts, were thrown into the fearfulest alarm by indubitable symptoms of a ghost inhabiting the next house, or perhaps even the partition-wall! Ever at a certain hour, with preternatural gnarring, growling and screeching, which attended as running bass, there began, in a horrid, semi-articulate, unearthly voice, this song: "Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm meeserable! Clack-clack-clack, gnarr-r-r, whuz-z: Once I was hap-hap-happy, but now I'm meeserable!"—Rest, rest, perturbed spirit;—or indeed, as the ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... YARMOUTH, and young Master L—E,) "As for us in Pekin"—here, a devil of a din From the bed-chamber came, where that long Mandarin, Castlereagh (whom FUM calls the Confucius of Prose), Was rehearsing a speech upon Europe's repose To the deep, double bass ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sound of that big vibrant bass voice, the mere vitality of the magnate's presence was stimulating. Here was a two-fisted, hard-headed, straight-spoken man's man who had fought his way to the top by refusing pointblank to stay at the bottom. As Phil stood renewing acquaintance he realized more fully why ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... hardly be found in the Jardin des Plantes (the Paris zoological garden). In the background several polar bears were crouching, who smoked and hardly ever spoke, except to growl out now and then a real fatherland 'Donnerwetter' in a deep bass voice. Near them was squatting a Polish wolf in a red cap, who occasionally yelped out a silly, wild remark in a hoarse tone. There, too, I found a French monkey, one of the most hideous creatures I ever saw; he kept up a series of grimaces, each of ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... attend the temple twice a day. They are also obliged to assist at all the public festivals. Their band generally consists of wind, instruments, resembling clarionets and hautboys, to which they add cymbals and drums. They have a bass, produced by blowing into a kind of tube, widened below, and which gives an uninterrupted sound. Part of the musicians sing hymns in honor of ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... which she performed all the duties of her position; and Charlotte seated herself before the piano, and began to play little bits of waltzes, and odds and ends of polkas, in a dreamy mood, and with a slurring over of dominant bass notes, which would have been torture ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... face Hairless face Skin coarse and lean Skin fine and plump Muscles powerful Relatively weak Bones heavy Bones light Aggressive—bass voice ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... was executed with the same splendor and perfection as the other buildings of the Acropolis, and was a worthy gateway to the group of noble monuments which crowned that citadel of the Attic capital. The two orders were also combined in the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Phigala (Bass). This temple was erected in 430 B.C. by Ictinus, who used the Ionic order internally to decorate a row of projecting piers instead of free-standing columns in the naos, in which there was also a single Corinthian column of rather archaic design, which may have been used as a support ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... stated attendant upon my preaching,—never, as I believe, even an occasional one, since the erection of the new house (where we now worship) in 1845. He did, indeed, for a time, supply a not unacceptable bass in the choir; but, whether on some umbrage (omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus) taken against the bass-viol, then, and till his decease in 1850 (aet. 77,) under the charge of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported by others, on ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... than once around Shelter island, and down to Montauk—spent many an hour on Turtle hill by the old light-house, on the extreme point, looking out over the ceaseless roll of the Atlantic. I used to like to go down there and fraternize with the blue-fishers, or the annual squads of sea-bass takers. Sometimes, along Montauk peninsula, (it is some 15 miles long, and good grazing,) met the strange, unkempt, half-barbarous herdsmen, at that time living there entirely aloof from society or civilization, in charge, on those rich pasturages, of vast droves of horses, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... finally escaped from those who wished to honor them and made their way to the locker building where they sat and talked for a few minutes, regained their breath, rubbed their bruises and looked each other over. Outside they could hear the howling of the paraders and the booming of the bass drum as a line was being formed to march from ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... the stand, went over to the band-master, tapped him on the shoulder, and whispered excitedly in his ear. At last they got them all quieted down, except one tremendous man who sat on two stools, playing an enormous bass-horn. For quite two minutes after the others had ceased he went on with his: ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... It is a small orchestra to be sure. But if you have two double-basses and enough fiddles on top you can manage to make the flowing of a river sound quite well. The music makes you think of the Styx (which is a deep bass, never ending, four in a bar, sort of river) before ever Uncle Edward and Alice draw you the curtains and show you the picture. Rather an awesome picture it is with the cold blue river and the great black cliffs and the blacker cypresses that grow along its banks. There are signs ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... berths. Table-cloth for meals, light drab varnished cloth, imitating leather, very clean and pretty, china plates, and two metal plates in case of breakages. Luncheon consisted of excellent cold corned beef, tongue, bread and butter, Bass's ale, beer, whiskey, champagne, all Mr. Tyson's. We supplied cold fowls, bread, and claret. The door at the end opens on a sort of platform or balcony, surrounded by a strong high iron railing, with the rails wide enough ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... he conceived the romantic idea of coming to Hannibal without giving us notice, in order that he might furnish to the family a pleasant surprise. If he had given notice, he would have been informed that we had changed our residence and that that gruff old bass-voiced sailorman, Dr. G., our family physician, was living in the house which we had formerly occupied and that Orion's former room in that house was now occupied by Dr. G.'s two middle-aged maiden sisters. Orion arrived at Hannibal per ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... evolutions to the pulsating strains of the opera orchestra. The public dances in the remaining space—dances, promenades, and plays pranks, the special diversion of the evening being to "intrigue" some one. They are heard speaking in high squeaks, in bass rumbles, in any way that may disguise the voice. Many are in costume,—Mephistos, Pierrots, Figaros, Harlequins, but the ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... dormitories; plates and cups clattering at the bar, as the overwhelmed barmaids did their best to appease the impatient and supply the hungry; while the rumbling of control-wagons bringing up the baggage formed a sort of bass accompaniment to the concert. ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... probably feel the most acute humiliation should he take an occasional walk through a great rookery, such as that in Richmond Park. The black cloud of birds sweeps round and round, casting a shadow as it goes; the air is full of a solemn bass music softened by distance, and the twirling fleets of strange creatures sail about in answer to obvious signals. They are an orderly community, subject to recognised law, and we might take them for the mildest and most amusing of all birds; but wait, and we shall see something fit to ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... rudeness of your psalms; nor would he have failed to furnish you with a liturgy, by means of which you could have interred your dead in decency. Had such been the arrangement, no after writer could have remarked, as the Rev. Mr. Cumming does now, that no 'pealing organ' mingled 'its harmony of bass, tenor, treble, and soprano' when you sung, or have recorded the atrocious fact, that not only was John Brown of Priesthill shot by Claverhouse, but actually buried by his friends without the funeral service. And how ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... and dispersed through the apartment—the men to conjecture what the end of this mummery, as they supposed it, was likely to prove; and what jest, as Sedley said, the bass-fiddle had been brought to bed of—and the ladies to admire and criticise the antique dress, and richly embroidered ruff and hood of the Countess of Derby, to whom the Queen ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the rooms had been taken down and the entire floor made over. There was a wide hall, with a great living- room at the right. As we approached it we heard the gurgle of a baby's laugh, Katrina's answering ripple, and the murmur of a bass voice buzzing like a cheerful bumblebee. Our footsteps were deadened by the thick carpet, and our entrance did not disturb for a moment the pleasing family tableau on which we gazed. The professor was standing ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... reached the springy life net he straightened out and came down feet first, bouncing up, and down like a rubber ball. The instant he landed the bass drum gave forth a thundering "boom," and as Joe rose, and came down again, the drummer punctuated each descent with a bang, until the crowd that had applauded madly at the jump was laughing at the queer effect of Joe's bouncing to ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... was an enthusiastic admirer of the masterpieces of Raphael, Titian, Guido, Domenichino, and others; but he could never have been called a painter; for music he had considerable feeling; I think he must have known thorough-bass, but it was hard to say what he did or did not know. Of science he was almost entirely ignorant, yet he had assimilated a quantity of stray facts, and whatever he assimilated seemed to agree with him and nourish his mental ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... just as if somebody had taken the back of his finger," Laura added, "and run it all the way down the keyboard from the top note of the treble to the last note of the bass." ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... performed, and a tall Punch and Judy box occupies a conspicuous position. Benches and chairs are scattered about, and a raised platform is provided for the "orchestra," which consists of a piano, violin, and a bass viol. The centre of the room is a clear space, and is used for dancing. If you do not dance you must leave, unless you atone for your deficiency by a liberal expenditure of money. The amusements are coarse and low. The songs ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... "Sit down. You will have the canoe upset in a moment. Hold your rod steady and keep the line taut. That's right. Now lead him round toward me. There," and grasping the line he lifted a fine rock bass over the side of ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... seemed to smile on our enterprise; for by the time we reached Pedee, we had enlisted thirty-seven men, proper tall fellows, to whom we gave furloughs of two days to settle their affairs, and meet us at the house of a Mr. Bass, tavern-keeper, with whom we lodged. I should have told the reader, that we had with us, a very spirited young fellow by the name of Charnock, who ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... of the double basses; but it was utterly hopeless. Pohlenz was in a bath of perspiration, the recitative did not come off, and I really began to think that Beethoven must have written nonsense; the double bass player, Temmler, a faithful veteran of the orchestra, prevailed upon Pohlenz at last, in rather coarse and energetic language, to put down the baton, and in this way the recitative really proceeded ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... lamp shivered to a thousand pieces in the hands of Bill Kilduff. All the room was reduced to a place of formless shadow, dimly lighted by the shaft of moonlight. The voice of Jim Silent, strangely changed and sharpened from his usual bass roar, shrilled over the sudden tumult: "Each man for ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... as he aomits, ethical judgments are in a manner brought under an aesthetic form. His typical example of aesthetic relations of objects of sense-perception is that of harmony between tones. The science of thorough-bass has, he thinks, done for music what should be done also for other departments of aesthetic experience. This doctrine of elementary relations is brought into connexion with the author's psychological doctrine of presentarions with their tendencies to mutual inhibition and to fusion, and of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was plunged in these gloomy soliloquies, he heard the tramp of a horse on the other side of his enclosure, and a strong clear bass voice singing with the liveliness inspired by a ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... line is cast, and the fly like a feather glides, Close to the rock where the water's deep, and the wary black bass hides. There's a strike and a run as the game is hooked, and his rush with a snub is met, But he yields at last to the steady strain, and is ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... by the dawn of a new day, the Triton sent his bass voice booming across the maritime silence, several times intoning sentimental melodies that in his youth he had heard sung by a vaudeville prima donna dressed as a ship's boy, at other times caroling in Valencian the chanteys of the coast—fishermen's songs ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Mrs. Bass then strikingly illustrated how the business of being a woman now took women to legislative bodies in the interest of the State's dependent children, of the women in the industries, of the so-called fallen ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... performer. As if the pathos of her touch were insufficient, I found after some time that the lawless jarrings of the keys were chastened by her own more liquid notes. She played without a book, and, though her bass might be preconcerted, it was plain that her right-hand notes were momentary and spontaneous inspirations. Meanwhile Welbeck stood, leaning his arms on the back of a chair near her, with his eyes fixed on her face. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Moore's "charming style," "exquisite simplicity," and "undoubted talent." But strangers freely criticized, and Rose was so indignant at some of their remarks, she could not listen to anything on the stage, though a fine overture was played, a man with a remarkable bass voice growled and roared melodiously, and the orphans sang a lively air with a chorus of "Tra, la, la," which was a great relief to little ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... salmoides (Lacepede). DM 16, 17, 21, 30, 32, 34, 37. The largemouth bass occurs throughout the drainage at present, and should become established without supplemental stocking in future reservoirs. The absence of this species in early collections suggests that widespread stocking ...
— Fishes of the Wakarusa River in Kansas • James E. Deacon
... Catherine Bass an' my pappy wuz Ephriam Butts. Us b'longed ter Mars' Ben Bass an' my mammy had de same name ez marster twell she ma'ied pappy. He b'longed ter somebody else 'til marster bought him. Dey had ten chillun. No, mam, Mammy ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... gracious and mysterious odors of the Orient. It was a noble spectacle, a sublime spectacle! Of course the little skipper popped into the shrouds and squeaked out a hail, "Ship ahoy! What ship is that? And whence and whither?" In a deep and thunderous bass the answer came back through the speaking- trumpet, "The Begum, of Bengal—142 days out from Canton—homeward bound! What ship is that?" Well, it just crushed that poor little creature's vanity flat, and he squeaked back most humbly, "Only the Mary Ann, fourteen hours out from Boston, bound for ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... million sq km note: includes Arabian Sea, Bass Straight, Bay of Bengal, Great Australian Bight, Gulf of Oman, Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Strait of Malacca, ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... wait until the clock in the hall above struck some division of the hour for her guidance, and she rattled the brass rings that formed the handles of drawers on either side of the keyboard. Later, her fingers picking a precarious way through bass and treble, she heard Sidsall's voice at the door; the latter was joined by their mother, and they went out to the clatter of hoofs, the thin jingle of harness chains, where the barouche waited for them in the street. Once Camilla obtruded into the room. "I wonder ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... raven gleaming blackness, her cheeks were red, her manner so assured and commanding that she seemed to Maggie at once like a policeman directing the traffic. The policeman of Christian Skeaton she was, and it did not take Maggie two minutes to discover that Paul was afraid of her. She had a deep bass voice and a ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Fred rowed, Hector steered, and the ladies sang,—Mr Sudberry assisting with a bass. His voice, being a strong baritone, was overwhelmingly loud in the middle notes, and sank into a muffled ineffective rumble in the deep tones. Having a bad ear for tune, he disconcerted the ladies—also the rowers. But what did that matter? He was overflowing with delight, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... serious. "I'll tell you a place— it's honest. It's the next street, a few hundred yards down, on the left. There's a wooden fish over the door. It's called The Black Bass —that hotel. Say I sent you. Good luck to you, countryman! Ah, la; la, there's the second bell—I must be getting to Mass!" With a nod he turned and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... enthusiastic hurrahs of the guests, one of whom, with exclamations of Bueno! bravo! and the like, leaves his seat to scatter flowers over our traveler's head, wishing him at the same time every prosperity. At this moment a bass drum and a clarionet intervene in the clamor with a delicious French melody, "Ah! zut alors si Nadar est malade!" and the company retire to the ball-room to dance, and also, women as well as men, to smoke ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the instruments and the singers began the sextet. Edgar, flashing with fury, dominated all the others with his clearer voice; Ashton hurled homicidal provocations at him in deep notes; Lucie uttered her shrill plaint, Arthur at one side, his modulated tones in the middle register, and the bass of the minister pealed forth like an organ, while the voices of the women repeating his words took them up in chorus delightfully. They were all in a row gesticulating, and anger, vengeance, jealousy, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... southern portions being connected by a winding strait, so crooked that it requires the constant effort of the pilot to prevent the little steamer from running aground. There used to be fine fishing in it,—large perch, bass, and a species of fresh-water salmon often weighing from ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... cornice, sits a figure on each side; one represents Poetry, crowned with laurel, holding a scroll in one hand, the other with a pen in it, and resting on a book; the other, Painting, with a pallet and pencils, &c.: on the sweep of the arch lies one of the Muses, playing on a bass-viol; another of the Muses, on the other side, holding a trumpet in one hand, and the other on a harp. Between these figures, in the middle of the sweep of the arch, is a very large pannel in a frame of gold; in this pannel is painted, on one side, a Woman, representing the city of London, leaning ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... white hands. We were all in love with him—or with his voice, which was it?—when he began to read the commandments. I wish I could imitate him when he came to the fifth commandment. He began in his deepest bass voice: 'Honor thy father—' He stopped and looked up to heaven as if he saw the rest of it there. He went on with a tremendous emphasis on the next word. 'And thy mother,' he said (as if that was quite a different thing) in a tearful, fluty, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins |
