Bell (object)

“ A bell, yet not made of gross metal dug out of earth, but of an ethereal, sublimer material that floats impalpable and invisible in space—a vital bell suspended on nothing, giving out sounds in harmony with the vastness of blue heaven, the unsullied purity of nature, the glory of the sun, and conveying a mystic, a higher message to the soul than the sounds that surge from tower and belfry. ”

“ There were big bronze bells marked with the Florentine lily; bells of the Renaissance, representing a lady wearing a white gown; bells of the dead, decorated with tears and bones; bells covered with symbolical animals and leaves, which had rung in the churches in the time of St. Louis; table-bells of the seventeenth century, having a statuette for a handle; the flat, clear cow-bells of the Ruth Valley; Hindu bells; Chinese bells formed like cylinders—they had come from all countries and all times, at the magic call of little Miss Bell. ”

“ So it came to pass that Bell, who was very near the gate of heaven already, heard suddenly, as it seemed to her, the music of angels; a tone mingling with her own, pure, thrilling, ecstatic; lifting her on wings of lofty harmony, up, up,—far from earth and its uncertain voices, nearer and ever nearer to where love and light and music were blended in one calm blessedness. ”

“ I love them all, but O I now depart
A little sadly, strangely, fearfully,
As one who goes to try a Mystery.
The bell is sounding down in Dedham Vale:
Be still, O bell! too often standing here
When all the air was tremulous, fine, and pale,
Thy golden note so calm, so still, so clear,
Out of my stony heart has struck a tear. ”

“ One of the earliest recollections of our childhood is of a bell, which, being harsh and dissonant, so worked upon our youthful sensibilities as to cause paroxysms of tears; and now in these later years we are sure that should some genie set us down blindfolded in any place where we had ever remained for a time the mere tones of the bells would enlighten us as to our whereabouts. ”

“ With mimicry, with praises, with echoes, or with answers, the poets have all but outsung the bells. The inarticulate bell has found too much interpretation, too many rhymes professing to close with her inaccessible utterance, and to agree with her remote tongue. The bell, like the bird, is a musician pestered with literature. ”

“ And the eternal thought of God, which everywhere exists, but which is nowhere truly comprehended, and which no image or word can ever quite express, assumes form for our senses and becomes intelligible to our hearts only in the resounding circle of the bell. And so thou bringest to us, thou sweet music of bells, a comforting message from without and from within and from above!" The men gaze at me, wondering at my words and surprised that it is possible to say so much about the ringing of church bells, which one may hear every day over in Holdenschlag. ”

“ While the bell is cooling now, Rigorous toil may have its rest; As birds gambol on the bough, Each may sport as likes him best. When winking stars appear, Freed from every care, The workman hears the vespers toll, Doubts still vex the master's soul. ”

“ It will be seen, therefore, that bells form a kind of connecting link between the music of art and the music of nature; their fixed tone and synchronous vibrations connecting them with the art, while the irregular and formless character of the music produced from them even by the best peal-ringers, partakes of the wildness and vague character of natural sounds. It is this wildness of character which is one of the great charms of bell-music on a large scale, and which has caused it to be so much interwoven with the associations of men, both in real life and in imaginative literature. ”

“ And the bell, changing its note into a quicker and sweeter chime, invited the living to prepare for death, and the soul to rise above the cruelty and the falsehood, and the pleasure and the pomp, and the wisdom and the glory of the world! ”

“ The true test of a bell is its strength of sound. How far can you hear it? is the question, not how heavy it may be. High up in the steeple and on an elevation a bell ought to be heard for miles. In old times the bells summoned the people to gatherings called folk-motes. ”

“ What with the dinner-bell, safety yard bell, school, factory and jail bells, small cupola spring-bells, safety electric bells, not to forget baby’s coral and bells, bell-rattles, last reminiscence of the extinct fool’s cap and bells, and fool’s wand, with its crown of jingling baubles, we seem never to hear the last of bells. Bells are the landmarks of history as well as the daily ministers to our religious and secular life. The bell’s tongue is impartial and passionless as fate. ”

“ All that about its being the clapper of the bell is mere nonsense, and would hardly deceive a child. I don’t know why people say such things. Most Bell-people are very energetic busy folk, who love the sound of their own voices, and hate being idle, and when nearly two hundred years had gone by, and no princesses had been born, they got tired of living in bells that were never rung. So they slipped out of the belfry one fine frosty night, and left the big beautiful bells empty, and went off to find other homes. ”

“ The emotion that the artist felt in his moment of inspiration he did not feel for objects seen as means, but for objects seen as pure forms—that is, as ends in themselves. He did not feel emotion for a chair as a means to physical well-being, nor as an object associated with the intimate life of a family, nor as the place where someone sat saying things unforgettable, nor yet as a thing bound to the lives of hundreds of men and women, dead or alive, by a hundred subtle ties ”

“ It is not drama or anecdote or sentiment or symbolism that this would bring back to the plastic arts, but rather that mysterious yet recognizable quality in which the art of Raffael excels—a calm, disinterested, and professional concern with the significance of life as revealed directly in form, a faint desire, perhaps, to touch by a picture, a building, or a simple object of use some curious over-tone of our aesthetic sense. ”

“ For, if it is humiliating to reflect that the bell at my own door is not mine, it is extremely gratifying to be reminded that, beyond my door, there are millions and millions of bells that I can proudly call my own. I am not generally considered musical; but I spend a good deal of my time in bell-ringing. ”

“ Forever sounding in our ears, it has a mood for every hour,—stirring us at times as with the blast of a trumpet, then visiting us in solemn tones, like the bell which calls to prayer, and then again awaking us to unmistakable duty, like the same bell, when at midnight it summons all to stay the raging conflagration. ”

“ There is a real image in the front focus of the eye lens e, the rays passing it are refracted inwards instead of outwards, to the great advantage of the field, and any object placed in the image plane will be magnified together with the image. ”

“ With every event in the life of man the bell had made its voice heard. His mother also told him how the chiming of that old bell had once filled her heart with joy and confidence, and that in the midst of the sweet tones her child had been given to her. And the boy gazed on the large, old bell with the deepest interest. ”

“ If they can but muzzle the flanks of the bell-mare once in twenty-four hours, often stopping a jolt from the heels of this temperamental monster—the mules appear morally refreshed for any fate.
Miraculous toilers, sexless hybrids—successful ventures into Nature's arcanum of cross-fertilization—steady, humorous, wise, enduring, and homely unto pain! The bond of their whole organization is the bell. It is the source inseparable in their intelligence from all that is lovely and of good report—not the sound, but what the sound represents. ”

“ If we suppose that there are a great many bells precisely similar to each other, and that they are struck, first one and then another, in a perfectly irregular manner, yet so that, on an average, as many bells are struck in one second of time as in another, and also in such a way that, on an average, any one bell is not again struck till it has ceased to vibrate, then the audible result will appear a continuous sound, composed of the sound emitted by bells in all states of vibration, from the clang of the actual stroke to the final hum of the dying fundamental tone. ”

“ A peal, in technical language, is a performance on the bells of more than 5000 changes ; and it occupies the ringers a considerable period of time, generally more than three hours. But a touch or flourish on the bells, which is the ordinary method of notifying any joyful occurrence, is round ringing varied by changes at the option of the ringers, or according to the custom of the belfry. It is usual in the first instance to set the bells ; that is, to throw every bell, with its mouth upward, in a stationary position in the frame. ”

“ Descanting upon this congenial theme, the poet-novelist observes, in continuation, that while at first the vibrations of each bell rise straight, pure, and in a manner separate from that of the others, swelling by degrees, they blend, melt, and amalgamate in magnificent concert until they become at length one mass of sonorous vibrations, which, issuing incessantly from innumerable steeples, float, undulate, bound, whirl over the city, expanding at last far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of their oscillations. ”

“ I asked. “Is it known what he did while the owl hooted?”
“Rang the bell,” said Ikey.
I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to which their wires were conducted: as “Picture Room,” “Double Room,” “Clock Room,” and the like. ”

“ Although I do not recollect where the hand bells are used in town, yet I have more than once lately heard it mentioned in Fenchurch-street and its neighbourhood, that the ringers were in the practice of amusing themselves with hand bells at a public-house where they assembled for the purpose of practising; and it is more than probable, that some of your readers in that neighbourhood can furnish you with further particulars.
In most of the towns in the west of England, they have a custom of ringing one of the church bells (generally the treble bell) in the morning and evenings. ”

“ Bell by John Tonne, a Founder of Henry VIII’s time (1520–1540) . Ornamented in the French fashion. (See page 108) .
“Bells,” he says, “require very constant attention to keep them in ringing order.” Therefore it is not the use of the bells, not even change-ringing of the most violent description, which destroys the bells and endangers the belfries; but simply neglect or carelessness. It must [Pg 142] be borne in mind that bells are enormously heavy, and are yet required to move and revolve with perfect ease, and to be hung with perfect balance and adjustment of all their parts. ”

“ Once—only once—in centuries gone,
⁠That awful bell
Pour'd on an ancient woman's ear
⁠Its marvellous knell.
She went to wash her flaxen threads
⁠In that old well—
Her threads had bound the bell around,
⁠She shriek'd—and fell.
She shriek'd and fell—and long she lay
⁠In speechless dread—
She dropp'd the threads, and dropp'd the bell,
⁠And frighted fled.
And then the bell, with fearful sound,
⁠Sunk in the well;
And hill and forest echo'd round
⁠Its fateful knell:
"John, John! is for the greyhound gone." [1]
2. ”

“ Musical hand bells are the most handy for the practice of time, place, and position, and should accompany every ring of church bells anywhere and everywhere for this purpose, so much may be practised upon them in the quiet and comfort of a home fireside. But in ringing rounds on the bells of the church in the tower, every bell must be set at the start, and should be brought round to the hand stroke, as shown in the cut on page 15. ”

“ Bells are struck in three ways,— (1) with a hammer on the outside, let off either by a tambour or revolving drum, similar in appearance to the prickly cylinder of a musical box, which drum can be fitted with tunes or chimes by musical nuts or spikes, and altered at will; (2) the bell can also be struck by hand, as in the common stand of small bells to be seen occasionally in the London streets, the player having a hammer in each hand; or (3) the clapper may strike the bell internally, either being pulled by a rope, the bell being stationary, or by the bell swinging to and fro. ”

“ Now, a bell rings—a magic bell, which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells—and music plays, amidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil. Anon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, and the great green curtain rolls itself up majestically, and The Play begins! The devoted dog of Montargis avenges the death of his master, foully murdered in the Forest of Bondy ”

“ Bell′-rope, the rope by which a bell is rung.—adj. Bell′-shaped.—ns. Bell′-tow′er, a tower built to contain one or more bells, a campanile; Bell′-tur′ret, a turret containing a bell-chamber, usually crowned with a spire; Bell′-weth′er, the leading sheep of a flock, on whose neck a bell is hung: (fig.) any loud, turbulent fellow, esp. the leader of a mob.—Bell, book, and candle, a phrase popularly used in reference to a form of excommunication ending with the words, 'Do to [shut] the book, quench the candle, ring the bell.'—To bear or carry off the bell, to have or to gain the first place. ”