"Singer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or may I linger? Wax the shadows, wanes the day." Then, with voice of sweetest singer, That hath all but died away, "Go," she said, but tightened finger Said ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... a scotched snake, he advanced and retired by a complicated shuffle, keeping time with the tom-tom and jingling his brass anklets, which weighed at least three pounds, and which, by the by, lamed him for several days. But he was heroic as the singer who broke his collar-bone by the ut di petto. A peculiar accompaniment was a dulcet whistle with lips protruded; hence probably the fable of Pliny's Astomoi, and the Africans of Eudoxus, whose joined lips compelled them to eat a single grain at ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... polite that never fail to please; Yet in those arts how very few excel! Ten thousand men may read—not one read well. Though all mankind are speakers in a sense, How few can soar to heights of eloquence! The sweet melodious singer trills her lays, And listening crowds go frantic in her praise; But he who reads or speaks with feeling true, Charms and delights, instructs, and moves ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Raj, in the Province of Chorasan in Persia. He seems to have had a liberal early education in philosophy and in philology and literature. He did not take up medicine until later in life, and, according to tradition, supported himself as a singer until he was thirty years of age. Then he devoted himself to medical studies with the ardor and the success so often noted in those whose opportunity to study medicine has been delayed. His studies were made at Bagdad, where Ibn Zein el-Taberi was his teacher. He returned to his ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... this task, I have derived material assistance from the extensive researches made in that class of literature by Mr. Weber, who, though personally unknown, most promptly supplied the wanted information. The ingenious conjecture as to the origin of the story of Gismonde and Guiscardo, is by Mr. Singer. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... scarce in those days, and musical notation defective. Teaching was chiefly by word of mouth. The Director of the Choir had his manuscript to teach from, and his pupils had to learn the melodies by heart. The chief singer also had his liber cantatorius from which to sing the solos, such as the Graduals and Tracts. The School was, necessarily, not merely for teaching correct versions of the chant, but for preserving the correct tradition of the method of performance. Most of ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt
... root to root, dodging in and out of his hiding-places, and watching all intruders with a suspicious eye. He has a very pert, almost comical look. His tail stands more that perpendicular: it points straight toward his head. He is the least ostentatious singer I know of. He does not strike an attitude, and lift up his head in preparation, and, as it were, clear his throat; but sits there on a log and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or even ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... how limited is the circle of fame for even a successful writer. For one person who would read a book, there were fifty who would go to hear a famous singer or actor, and a hundred who would crowd to see a clever acrobat. As she read more she discovered that what she had fondly imagined were ideas originated by her own intellect, was, in reality, the echo only of thought long since given to mankind by other minds, in other words, often better than ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... is a fine singer, but it is bald-headed. The natives often capture it and train it to talk. Formerly this little black bird was not so bald as it is to-day: its head, in fact, was covered with a thick growth of feathers. And the crow, too: it was not black once, ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... wagons for conveying the heavier baggage and to carry the sick, were assigned. The tale of those dreary marches has never yet been told; the song of the heroism and sacrifice displayed by these pilgrims for conscience sake is awaiting a singer worthy the theme. Wading the streams with carts in tow, or in cases of unfordable streams, stopping to construct rafts; at times living on reduced rations of but a few ounces of meal per day; lying down at night with a prayer in the heart that they wake no more on earth, a prayer which had its ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... letters were of a harmless and innocent nature, relating wholly to paintings, which the count was to purchase from the Saxon galleries, or to music, which Frederick wished to obtain from amongst the collection of the dead Hesse, or to an Italian singer Frederick wished to ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... hardly see that Mrs. Chepstow is a famous woman. She is not a writer, a singer, a painter, an actress. She does nothing that I ever heard of. I shouldn't call such a woman famous. I daresay her name is known to lots of people. But this is the age of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... came to try the critic's piano filled his room with melody. All the time Madame Theophile would evince great pleasure. She was, however, made nervous by certain notes, and at the high la she would tap the singer's mouth with her paw. This was very amusing, and my visitors delighted in making the experiment. It never failed; the dilettante in fun was not ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... altogether,—apparently regarding the vast power, and the immense resources that were at his command, as only means for the more complete gratification of his own personal propensities and passions. The only ambition which ever appeared to animate him was a desire for fame as a singer and actor ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... wise government set aside the head waters of the Yellowstone to be a sanctuary of wild life forever. In the limits of this great Wonderland the ideal of the Royal Singer was to be realized, and none were to harm or make afraid. No violence was to be offered to any bird or beast, no ax was to be carried into its primitive forests, and the streams were to flow on forever unpolluted by mill or mine. All things were to bear witness that such as this ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... our redemption, the words that he had often read in the Bible: "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him?" came forcibly to his remembrance, and he felt the appropriateness of that sentiment which the sweet singer of Israel has expressed in the words: "Praise ye him, sun and moon; praise him, all ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the specimens before us we should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to be a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and we congratulate our own sweet singer 'Blue Bird,' who has so often made these columns melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of being exhibited in Messrs. —— and Co.'s aviary." I should add that this simile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir was relentlessly slaughtered; ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... portraits, and are in private hands. Her picture called "The Singer" was purchased by the Atlanta Exposition, and is in a collection in that city. She works mostly in oils, but has been successful in portraits in pastel; two admirable examples were exhibited in Boston recently, and were favorably noticed ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... Us never played no games in slavery times, 'cept jus' to run around in a ring and pat our hands. I never sung no songs 'cause I warn't no singer, and don't talk 'bout no Raw Head and Bloody Bones or nothin' lak dat. Dey used to skeer us chillun so bad 'bout dem sort of things dat us used to lay in bed at night a-shakin' lak us was havin' chills. I've seed plenty of ha'nts right here in Athens. Not long atter I had left Crawfordville and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... genial Irishman, who tried to make us all feel at home in his mess. But I doubt whether the Irish really understand the Northumbrians or vice versa. At this time John Coates, the famous tenor singer, came out as a lieutenant in the Yorkshire Regiment. He was attached to us for a time. It was a sporting thing for him to do, but he was neither young enough nor hard enough to stand the severities of the campaign. He acted as General's Orderly-Officer for a time and afterwards became ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... scarlet bodices came on board with baskets of melons, grapes, figs and peaches; and under the trellises on the landings, lads and girls with flowers in their hair were dancing the monferrina to the rattle of tambourines or the chant of some wandering ballad-singer. These scenes were so engaging to the comedians that they could not be restrained from going ashore and mingling in the village diversions; and the Marquess, though impatient to rejoin his divinity, was too volatile not to be drawn ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... to the echo by "the unskilful," until he came to believe himself a great singer. This belief was strengthened when the girl who performed the Spanish dance bestowed her affections upon him. He was very happy and very vain, and for the first time he forgot the people down in a little old Virginia cabin. ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... William, Anne, and the two first Georges, the pride and courage of the disarmed and disinherited population abiding at home, drew new life and vigour from the exploits of their exiled brethren. The channel smuggler and the vagrant ballad-singer kept alive their fame for the lower class of the population, while the memoirs of Marlborough and Eugene, issuing from the Dublin press, communicated authentic accounts of their actions, to the more prejudiced, or better educated. The ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... because they do not move. They are like... They are like no tangible thing in all the world. They are like faint, beautiful songs of an unseen singer; they are like temptations to some unknown sin. They make me think of the tigers that slip ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... set out in the summer on my first journey as a musician. My sister Clara, who was married to the singer Wolfram, had an engagement at the theatre at Magdeburg, whither, in characteristic fashion, I set forth upon my ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... pelted up under the counter of the sloop. The singer rose suddenly, clutched at a man-rope, and came ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... whom people spoke continually, and had spoken for years. In fact, two generations had found him a fruitful topic of conversation without increasing their knowledge of him. If he had only been that which is called a public man, a novelist or a singer, his fortune would have been easy. All his advertising would have been done for him by others. For there was in him that unknown quantity which the world must ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... pleased them very much. So, after they had heard their fortunes, one of them asked if any of our women could sing; and I told them several could, more particularly Leviathan—you know Leviathan, she is not here now, but some miles distant, she is our best singer, Ursula coming next. So the lady said she should like to hear Leviathan sing, whereupon Leviathan sang the Gudlo pesham, and Piramus played the tune of the same name, which, as you know, means the honeycomb, the song ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... ravishing tenor voice, which had been approaching, ceased, and was succeeded by a heart-breaking and equally melodious whistling to finish the bar of the singer's song. And the next moment Jack Hamlin appeared ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... the innocent letter he had once received, in which a young and unlearned girl had given precisely the same testimony as the inspired royal singer. Precisely the same. And surely what Esther had found, another could find, and he might find. But while he was musing, Mrs. Dallas grew more and more uneasy. She knew better than to try the force of persuasion upon ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... citizens were passing in front of the Singer Building on the Nevsky in Petrograd at noon February 25th, Russian time (March 10th), stopping occasionally to watch a company of Cossacks amiably roughing some students with a miscellaneous following who ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... a child, there came To his father's table, one who called him kin, In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin. His look was grave and kind; he bore the name Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile. Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke; "I've been in the laurel since the winter broke; Four months, I reckon; yes, sir, quite ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... smiled. Gazing into my eyes intently, as though to dispel a mist that shrouded both our minds, she went on in a whisper that yet was startlingly distinct, though with little pauses drawn out between the phrases: "I was a singer... in the Temple. I sang—men—into evil. You ... I sang ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... PROPOSING.—In Peru they have a romantic way of popping the question. The suitor appears on the appointed evening, with a gaily dressed troubadour under the balcony of his beloved. The singer steps before her flower-bedecked window, and sings her beauties in the name of her lover. He compares her size to that of a pear tree, her lips to two blushing rose-buds, and her womanly form to that of a ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poetical associations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of 'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literature must be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has founded ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... same purpose, quoth Bridlegoose, in continuing his discourse, that in the time when at Poictiers I was a student of law under Brocadium Juris, there was at Semerve one Peter Dandin, a very honest man, careful labourer of the ground, fine singer in a church-desk, of good repute and credit, and older than the most aged of all your worships; who was wont to say that he had seen the great and goodly good man, the Council of Lateran, with his wide and broad-brimmed red hat. As also, that he had beheld and looked upon the fair and beautiful ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of a child somewhere in the forest pricked our ears, the clear falsetto of its fright silencing the singer and leaving his mouth agape. I began drawing on my moccasins, but before I could finish a wonderful transformation had taken place in the clearing. As if the cry had been a prearranged signal, six of the young men filed silently into ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... wrote poetry, and composed music; to the study of the latter she professed to be entirely devoted, following it with an indefatigable perseverance, assisted by a schoolfellow,—a young woman without fortune whose talent promised to develop into remarkable powers as a singer. It was rumored that she was an object of almost paternal interest to one of the principal composers of the day, who excited her to spare no pains in the cultivation of her voice, which might hereafter prove a source of wealth and independence. But this counsel ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with Cyril he climbed onwards across the rowing benches, and the noise of their stumbling footsteps reaching the singer's ears, caused her to pause in her song. Then stepping forward a little, as though to look, she came under the lantern so that its light fell full upon her face, and, seeing nothing, once more took ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... sayin' nothin', but Mr. Man aint mo'n out de gate 'fo' he 'gun ter sing; en in dem days Brer Rabbit wuz a singer, mon," continued Uncle Remus, with unusual emphasis, "en w'en he chuned up fer ter sing he make dem yuther creeturs hol' ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... the dream glow in the towering talent of a 12-year-old, Tyrone Ford. A child prodigy of gospel music, he has surmounted personal adversity to become an accomplished pianist and singer. He also directs the choirs of three churches and has performed at the Kennedy Center. With God as your composer, Tyrone, your music will be the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sought in vain for a situation. She possessed a remarkable voice and very decided musical talent. The idea of the concert-room next suggested itself; but her naturally fine organ lacked the long cultivation that could alone fit her to embark upon the career of a singer. Her mind then turned to the stage; but, setting aside the difficulty of obtaining engagements, even to fill some position in the lowest ranks of the profession, she had no means, no time, to go through a long course of requisite study, or to procure herself the costly wardrobe indispensable ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... forth a bar of a beautiful melody and then losing it again. He does not know what quiver or what turn his note will take before it ends; the note leads him and completes itself. It is a song which strives to express the singer's keen delight, the singer's exquisite appreciation of the loveliness of the days; the golden glory of the meadow, the light, the luxurious shadows, the indolent clouds reclining on their azure couch. Such thoughts can only be expressed in fragments, like ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... answers to a boastful Frenchman has been related; and to an impertinent he made another equally proper. During his embassy, he sat at the opera by a man, who, in his rapture, accompanied with his own voice the principal singer. Prior fell to railing at the performer with all the terms of reproach that he could collect, till the Frenchman, ceasing from his song, began to expostulate with him for his harsh censure of a man who was confessedly the ornament of the stage. "I know all that," says the ambassador, "mais ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... complete hush seemed to betoken sudden recollection on the singer's part; that was quite too private and confidential a matter to be trilled out at the top of one's voice. Presently again, slow and clear like the tinkle of a streamlet down the rocks, came ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... eighteen-sixty-one; And never rested till 'neath the tree That shadowed the glory of Robert Lee. And then he inquired, with martial frown, "Americans, must we go down?" And as an answer from Heaven were sent, The stand gave way, and down he went. A singer or two beneath him did drop— A big fat alderman fell atop; And that was the way Our orator lay, Till we fished him out, on the eloquent day, That gave us— Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! (With a clash of arms, Pat. Henry would say,) ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... Moritz Abel, Fallows, Poltneck, the singer, and others.... This morning I thought I could not bear to live. It was as you told him—about yourself. You see we had no anesthesia, except for cases of ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... did not see this singer?" said Mr Hatton, sidling up to Lady Maud, and speaking in a ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... rattle of tin wash-basins, the swish of water as it was heaved at the singer, and then a howl ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... his mouth, the singer stepped out of the crush, and approached the figure standing by itself under the heavy ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... treatment in these circles of musical composition as an independent branch of art. On the other hand it happened sometimes that the subject of the song was some terrible event which had befallen the singer himself. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... when the great Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, came to Memphis. It was during her famous tour through America, in 1851. Our folks were all enthused over her. Boss went in and secured tickets to her concert, and I was summoned to drive ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... his burned that did not impress some moral; even in love-verses, it might be flung in by the way." What poet was it who took this medicinal view of poetry? Dr. Watts, or James Montgomery, or some other singer of spotless life and ardent piety? Not at all. It was Waller. A significant fact in relation to our position, that the predominant didactic tendency proceeds rather from the poet's perception that it is good for other men to be moral, than from any overflow of ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... dreams of the woman he will some day marry are apt to be meretricious, or at all events conventional. A young poet, especially, is likely to err in the direction of paragons of beauty, or fame, or romance. Perhaps he dreams of a great singer, or an illustrious beauty, ignorant of the natural law which makes great singers and illustrious beauties, in common with all artists, incapable of loving really any one but themselves. Or perhaps it will be some woman of great ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... Chatillon to get back to Paris, Rodolphe met in the square before the church a baptismal procession, in which he recognized one of his friends who was the godfather, with a singer ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Murphy, whose monument in the church has been mentioned, lived at No. 17. He wrote lives of Fielding, Johnson, and Garrick, besides numerous essays and plays, and was well known to his own contemporaries. Mrs. Mountain, the celebrated singer, also had a ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Edmund was sent to Concord and became a cordwainer or shoemaker. Davy Fiske was a weaver, and soon after the fox hunt I was apprenticed to Robert Harrington, to learn the blacksmith's trade. He was a large, strong man, of a kindly nature, and was an excellent bass singer. As we worked together in his shop, with his son Thaddeus, we frequently sang psalm tunes, and his younger son Dan piped ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... briefly before him, there swept across her vision the memory of what she had always prophesied as her wedding:—a crowded church, "The Light That Breathed O'er Eden" from an unseen singer; then the warm air trembling to the Lohengrin march; all heads turning; the procession down the aisle; herself appearing—climax of everything—a delicious and brilliant figure: graceful, rosy, shy, an imperial prize for the ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... employed by a politic and mysterious government, recounted, with a rapid utterance, and in language suited to the popular ear, at the foot of the spars which upheld the conquered banners of Candia, Crete, and the Morea, the ancient triumphs of the Republic; while there, a ballad-singer chanted, to the greedy crowd, the glory and justice of San Marco. Shouts of approbation succeeded each happy allusion to the national renown, and bravos, loud and oft-repeated, were the reward of the agents of the police, whenever ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... were in Lynn, a very handsome yellow-winged singer came into the box, and ate three crickets. We put him in another box with his mate, which he brought with him. In the same box were a large female, and a common sized white-winged cricket, both ...
— The Nursery, June 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... hastily, "I'd rather not! I—I mean, of course, it is not of the smallest consequence, Margaret. It is pleasant to hear singing at night, but perhaps all the pleasanter when the singer is unseen and unknown. Now let us go ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... from useless decoration and stuck to simple lines, the result, if not beautiful, has at least been inoffensive. It is where inappropriate elaboration is added that taste is offended. Such structures as the Singer building, corner of Liberty Street and Broadway, and the home of Life, in Thirty-first Street, prove that beauty and grace of façade can be adapted ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... sketch bearing the title of Madame Catalani and the Bishop of Limbrig, having reference to some musical festival at Cambridge, the point of which has been lost, but which is remarkable for the admirable likeness of the popular singer. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... sings clear at the edge of night all alone in the greyness, the nightingale's only rival; a rival like some unknown in the midst of a crowd who for a moment leads some well-loved song, in notes more liquid than a master-singer's; and all the crowd joins in and his voice is lost, and no one learns his name. At once a host of birds answered him out of dim bushes, whose shapes had barely as yet emerged from night. And in this chorus Perez ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... words of an old song, sung by a drunken street singer, brought a stronger and deeper stab to the heart of this lonely girl, than to the exile in the back-blocks of Maori-land, or on the edge of the golden West, eating his heart out over a period of years for a glint of the heather hills of home, or the sound of the little ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... affair, as all these new individualities entered into it. Instead of being a mere matter between himself and Miss Sally, it was involving men and women, one after the other. It seemed to become a fight between himself, a singer stranger in Kilo, and an endless chain of interested citizens. Already there was Pap Briggs, who hated book agents; the Colonel and Skinner, who hoped to win Miss Sally; Mrs. Smith, who would serve as a defense against Eliph's attacks; and, as he walked down the street, he seemed to see in every ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... complete works of Shakespeare of the nineteenth century whose labours, although of some value, present fewer distinctive characteristics are:—William Harness (1825, 8 vols.); Samuel Weller Singer (1826, 10 vols., printed at the Chiswick Press for William Pickering, illustrated by Stothard and others; reissued in 1856 with essays by William Watkiss Lloyd); Charles Knight, with discursive notes and pictorial illustrations ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... without havin' been let in on a thing—with nobody callin' on her, or even noddin' as she drove by. Most of her neighbors was a lot younger, folks who barely remembered that there had been such a party as Clara Belle Kinney, and who couldn't have told whether she'd been a singer or a bareback rider. They only knew her as a dumpy freakish dressed old girl whose drugged hair ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... singer to their rescue. The girls did not know who he was, but he led well, and the singing became decidedly enjoyable. Suddenly he disappeared, and they went back again into utter confusion. They stopped singing and began ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... "La Corbeille," a lady's journal, and the "Sylphe des Salons." She devoured, without skipping a word, all the accounts of first nights, races, and soirees, took interest in the debut of a singer, in the opening of a new shop. She knew the latest fashions, the addresses of the best tailors, the days of the Bois and the Opera. In Eugene Sue she studied descriptions of furniture; she read Balzac and George Sand, seeking in them imaginary satisfaction ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... First published by O. Benndorf, E. Weiss, and A. Rehm, Jahreshefte des oesterreichischen archaeologischen Institut in Wien, 1903, vol. 6, pp. 32-49. I have given further details of its construction in A history of technology, ed. Singer, Holmyard, and Hall, ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... strutted about, raised himself on his heels, and received compliments with a deprecating air; but modesty did not prevent him from going from group to group for his meed of praise; and when there was no more to be said about the singer, he returned to the subject of the song, discussing its difficulties or ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... the whole story. Presently, you will know the victim: some ballet-dancer, probably, some singer at a music-hall. On the other hand, the chances are that the criminal lives near the Pont-Neuf, most likely on the left bank. Lastly, here are all the exhibits. I make you a present of them. Set to work. I shall only keep this end of the scarf. If ever you want to piece the scarf together, ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... I retired to my apartment, overcome by heat and fatigue. I lay listlessly thinking of Auld Reekie, the mysterious murder, and all the strange occurrences of my past life. My attention was awakened by a voice the sweetest I had ever heard. I listened in rapture. It was only a few notes, as the singer was trying the pitch of her voice, and soon ceased. I was wondering which of the family it could be who sang so well, when I heard one of the daughters say, "Do, governess, sing me one song, and I will be a good girl all to-morrow. Pray do!" I became all ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... in the Italian world, were natives of Bearn: one of these, Garat, surnamed "the musical Proteus," was born at Ustaritz. Nothing appeared impossible to this prodigious singer: his voice was splendid and his taste exquisite: his only defect was an inordinate vanity—by no means an uncommon fault in artists of this description. A person on one occasion, thinking to embarrass him, inquired how high in the scale he could go; "I can mount as high as it pleases me to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... so little to tell," replied Sir John. "Violet Oliver comes of a family which is known, though it is not rich. She studied music with a view to making her living as a singer. For she has a very sweet voice, though its want of power forbade grand opera. Her studies were interrupted by the appearance of a cavalry captain, who made love to her. She liked it, whereas she did not like studying music. Very naturally she ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... reproachfully. She had always had that to contend with. People had always tried to "buy her off," as she expressed it, by proposing that she become a singer instead of an actress. Now, as always, she rebelled at the idea, and again her vision of a public singer came to her—a very stout blonde lady in a very low-cut gown with a very small waist (the picture had not adapted itself to more modern fashions), ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... necklaces? If you read the accounts in the newspapers, as no doubt you did, you will already have guessed her name. Yes, in truth, she was your great soprano, whom they called Madame Chiara, or La Chiara: so modest are you English, at least in all that concerns the arts, that when an incomparable singer is born to you she must go to Italy to borrow a name. She was returning from South Africa, where the finest of the three necklaces had been presented to her by subscription amongst her admirers. They say her voice so ravished the audiences ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Verstage, interrupting the singer, "We all of us know that there ballet, pretty well. It's vastly long, if I remembers aright, something like fourteen verses; and I think we can do very well wi'out it to-night. I fancy your ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Northland, From the land of the Ojibways, From the land of the Dacotahs, From the mountains, moors, and fenlands, Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, Feeds among the reeds and rushes. I repeat them as I heard them From the lips of Nawadaha, The musician, the sweet singer.' ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... The wall concealed them from view, but they saw a sitting-room furnished with bright wall-paper and a blue Roman carpet. The throbbing voice ceased. The piano ended with a last chord; and the singer rose and appeared framed ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... he said, "the Church in England, which is my Church,—the Church which I love,—is beautiful. She is as a maiden, all glorious with fine raiment. But alas! she is mute. She does not sing. She has no melody. But the time cometh in which she shall sing. I, myself,—I am a poor singer in the great choir." In saying which Mr. Emilius no doubt intended to allude to his eloquence ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... floats a-top—well, well; it hides a while That gulf too black for speech—My husband's dead! I dare not think on't. A small bird dead in the snow! Alas! poor minstrel! A week ago, before this very window, He warbled, may be, to the slanting sunlight; And housewives blest him for a merry singer: And now he freezes at their doors, like me. Poor foolish brother! didst thou ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... figure, associated with lessons and punishments, stood before her. The convivial friend of Donald, the established Missus of Lord Northlake, disappeared—and a polite pupil took their place. "If you please, Miss Minerva, Redshanks is nickname for a Highlander." Who would have recognised the singer of "We're gayly yet," in the subdued young person who made ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... days does exactly what the Greeks rarely attempted: it concerns itself with private life, and especially with that most characteristic feature of modern private life—love. Love is, consequently, the main topic of Scottish song. It is a theme of which neither the song-writer nor the song-singer ever wearies. It is the one great passion with which the universal modern mind sympathises, and from the expressions of which it quaffs inexhaustible delight. This holds true even of the cynical people who profess a distaste for love and lovers. For love has ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of low singing came from the right. Without realizing that he had moved, he began to make his way in that direction, and the old Michel, carbine upon arm, followed behind him. He had no doubt of the singer. He knew well who it was, for the girl's speaking voice had thrilled him long before this. He came to the eastern margin of the grove of chestnuts and found that he was beside the open rond point, where the pool lay within ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... the Ark, singing a calm and high farewell to earth, that alone was meet for the untroubled lips of that silent singer in their midst. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... illuminated by lanterns which hung on the boughs of the orange-trees, and so lit up the ripe fruits that they gleamed like gold. 'White marble statues stood among the dark-leaved trees; fountains sent up jets of perfumed spray; among the shrubberies one saw ladies with their gallants; here a singer was accompanying himself on the lute; there a poet was ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... Ultonians, having plunged into the sea-depths, there slew a monster which had wrought much havoc amongst fishers and seafaring men. The heroes attended to his song, leaning forward with bright eyes. They applauded the song and the singer, and praised the valour of the heroic man [Footnote: This was Fergus Mac Leda, Fergus, son of Leda, one of the more ancient kings of Ulster. His contest with the sea-monster is the theme of a heroic tale.] who had done that deed. Then the champion struck the table with his clenched hand, ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... eloquent when descanting on the merits of some particular animal; but she can do much more; she is a prophetess, though she believes not in prophecy; she is a physician, though she will not taste her own philters; she is a procuress, though she is not to be procured; she is a singer of obscene songs, though she will suffer no obscene hands to touch her; and though no one is more tenacious of the little she possesses, she is a cutpurse and a shoplifter whenever opportunity shall offer. . . . Observe, for example, the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the second edition, 1624, the first stanza of the first book is given precisely as in Mr. Knight's reprint. But in the very beautiful edition published by Bensley, 1817, and edited by Mr. Singer, that stanza which T. N. terms an "elegant variation," introduces the canto. The editor's preface states that the first edition, 1600, had been followed in that re-impression, "admitting some few corrections of errors, and emendations of orthography, from the second, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... from the organ alone should continue about eight or nine minutes for the voluntary and six or seven minutes for the postlude, the offertory conforming to the time required to take the collection. The solo singer shall not neglect to sing any special hymn selected by the Board ...
— Manual of the Mother Church - The First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts • Mary Baker Eddy
... through the soul of the Singer, a pity so vast Mixed with his anguish that, smiting anew on his lyre, He caught up the sorrows of hell in his utterance at last, Comprehending the need of them all in ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... had its place on a silken cushion close to the Emperor's bed. All the presents it had received, gold and precious stones, were ranged about it. In title it had come to be High Imperial After-Dinner-Singer, and in rank it was Number One on the left hand; for the Emperor reckoned that side the most important on which the heart is placed, and even in an Emperor the heart is on the left side. And the Play-master wrote a work of five-and-twenty volumes about the toy bird: it was so learned ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... later that opinion deepened within him as he listened to her singing in the drawing-room. She had been known to bluntly, flatly refuse an Emperor who had asked her to sing, and yet to take a little Sicillian street singer's tambourine from her hand, and sing the coppers and silver out of the pockets of the folk who had crowded the market-place at the first liquid notes of her song. She rarely sang in the houses of her hosts and hostesses. Tonight she had ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... these songs sung in the Arctic, the singer at my side—these songs of nature, songs of hope, home, heart. They seem a part of my life. I heard them as the cry of a lone bird in the vast silence of ...
— Out of the North • Howard V. Sutherland
... as though aeons long gone by an iceberg had perched it there. The dog would have bounded in upon Sim where he sat and sang at his work, but Ralph checked him with a look. Inexpressibly eerie sounded the half-buried voice of the singer in that Solitary place. The weird ditty suited ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... was, for Markheim, the one displeasing circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain day in a fishers' village: a gray day, a piping wind, a crowd upon the street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal voice of a ballad singer; and a boy going to and fro, buried over head in the crowd and divided between interest and fear, until, coming out upon the chief place of concourse, he beheld a booth and a great screen with pictures, dismally designed, garishly colored: Brownrigg with her apprentice; the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... and stood irresolute. The song proceeded with less assurance, slower and lower, till it stopped, and the singer dropped to the ground, watching him with wide eyes. He looked down at her, slight, tired, scratched, but undaunted, striving blindly toward the light with stanch, unfaltering faith. A pity surged in his heart. He put his arm about her shoulders ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Nero exhibited himself as a singer and flute-player on the stage at Naples, the musicians of that province assembled to hear him; and Suetonius tells us that the emperor selected five thousand among the best to be his household musicians, and clothed them in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... Anaximenes, doctrine of Andromeda, legend parodied Anthesteria. See Dionysia Antimachus, the historian Apaturia, a feast —festival of Aphrodit Colias, the goddess of sensual love Archeptolemus, treatment of Archers, as policemen Archilochus, singer of his own shame Archimedes, fires Roman fleet Argives (the), their misfortune Army, Athenian Artemesia, the Queen Artemis, the huntress Artemisium, naval battle of Artichokes, to make tender Arignotus, a soothsayer Ariphrades, obscene habits —a flute-player Aristogiton, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... some one called them "The Lake Poets," as if there were poets and lake poets. And Lamb was spoken of as "a Lake Poet by grace." Literary London grinned, as we do when some one speaks of the Sweet Singer of Michigan or the Chicago Muse. But the term of contempt stuck and, like the words Methodist, Quaker and Philistine, soon ceased to be a term of reproach and became something of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... accused of forming the most dangerous of these intermediate agents; but in my opinion, without justice. The most formidable, to my thinking, is the conductor of the orchestra. A bad singer can spoil only his own part; while an incapable or malevolent conductor ruins all. Happy indeed may the composer esteem himself when the conductor into whose hands he has fallen is not at once incapable and inimical; for nothing can resist the pernicious ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... new ideas, which each pupil works out for himself in his own way. The piano student learns from so many different sources. He attends a piano recital and acquires many ideas of touch, tone, phrasing and interpretation; he hears a great singer or violinist and absorbs a wholly new set of thoughts, or he listens to a grand orchestra, and gains more than from all the others. Then there is life to study from: experience—living—loving: all go into the work of the musician. A musical career is indeed the ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... of the present opportunity to send you my best wishes. The bearer of this asked me to recommend her to you; her name is Cornega; she has a fine mezzo soprano, and is a very artistic singer, and has, moreover, been ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... knelt down, and the old man recited the Litanies and a succession of Ave Marias. After this one of the young girls chanted a canticle, assisted by the others, who joined in. The singer had scarcely finished her hymn, when l'Encuerado, perfectly electrified, entreated the audience not to move, and at once struck up one of his favorite chants. He kept us at least half an hour in the burning sun, till, being tired of kneeling, I made signs to him ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... hear the crisp sounds of our workers abroad. The tones of voices, the swish of ski or the chipping of an ice pick carry two or three miles on such days—more than once to-day we could hear the notes of some blithe singer—happily signalling the coming of the spring ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... risen, when the light was still grey in the coming dawn, Robinette was awakened by a bird that called out from a tree close to her open window, every note like the striking of a golden bell. She jumped up and looked out, but the little singer, silenced, had flown away. Instead, she caught sight of a figure stealing across the lawn towards the side door which opened from the library. Even in the dim light she could distinguish that it was ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... once told him in jest that her youngest brother, a lad of twelve years old, had called his donkey Braham, in honour of the great singer of that name. Tom made no answer, but started abruptly away. Three months after, she happened to encounter him on the same spot, when he accosted ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... guests, old and young, for whose cheer, and to grace Ulysses more, Alcinous made a kingly feast with banquetings and music. Then Ulysses being seated at a table next the king and queen, in all men's view; after they had feasted, Alcinous ordered Demodocus, the court-singer, to be called to sing some song of the deeds of heroes, to charm the ear of his guest. Demodocus came and reached his harp, where it hung between two pillars of silver: and then the blind singer, to whom, in recompense of his lost sight, the muses had given ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... this Shakespeare, this Dante may still be young;—while this Shakespeare may still pretend to be a Priest of Mankind, of Arabia as of other places, for unlimited periods to come! Compared with any speaker or singer one knows, even with Aeschylus or Homer, why should he not, for veracity and universality, last like them? He is sincere as they; reaches deep down like them, to the universal and perennial. But ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... who undertook the part of Armida was Madame Saint Huberti. The Queen was very partial to her. She was principal female singer at the French opera, was a German by birth, and strongly recommended by Gluck for her good natural voice. At Her Majesty's request, Gluck himself taught Madame Saint Huberti the part of Armida. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the whole poetical period with which we are now busied. In passing, moreover, from the group of miscellaneous poets to these two schools, if we lose not a little of the harmony and lyrical sweetness which characterise the best work of the Elizabethan singer proper, we gain greatly in bulk and dignity of work and in intrinsic value. Of at least one of the poets mentioned in the last paragraph his modern editor—a most enthusiastic and tolerant godfather of waifs and strays of literature—confesses ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... and scatters halfpence that they may tumble once more in the dirt. See the great Muchross, the clean-shaven face of the libertine priest, the small sardonic eyes. Hurrah for the great Muchross! Long may he live, the singer of "What cheer, Ria?" the type and epitome of the life whose outward signs are drags, brandies-and-soda, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the platform and side seats were Dr. Strieby and Dr. Beard, of New York, the honored Secretaries of the American Missionary Association, Dr. Woodworth, of Massachusetts, Dr. Pentecost, of Brooklyn, N.Y., with Mr. Stebbins, his sweet singer, now holding revival meetings in Atlanta, and the faculty and workers generally ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... breast Let other lovers lie, in love and rest; Not we,—articulate, so, but with the tongue Of all the world: the churning blood, the long Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed Sharply together upon the escaping guest, The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong. Longing alone is singer to the lute; Let still on nettles in the open sigh The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute As any man, and love be far and high, That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit Found on the ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... as he listened, and put his finger to the little dent in his own chin, wishing the singer would finish this pleasing song. But she never did, though he often heard that, as well as other childish ditties, sung in the same gay voice, with bursts of laughter and the sound of lively feet tripping up and down the boarded walks. Johnny longed intensely ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... of his charms and abilities. "And in the human world," he continues, "it is the same; without the modest reserve of the woman that must, in most cases, be overcome by lovable qualities, the sexual relationship would with difficulty find a singer who would extol in love the highest movements of the human soul." (Groos, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... that Venetian portrait of a poet, which was formerly called Ariosto by Titian. And, most suggestive of all, there are the Mycenaean bay leaves of beaten gold, so incredibly thin one might imagine them to be the withered crown of a nameless singer in a forgotten tongue, grown brittle through ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... know she is not a professional singer": these words escaped the artist in spite of him. "She is an heiress of one of the wealthiest old families of this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... a heap of slain, singing the praises of the Amal and the glories of Valhalla, while the shrieks of his lute rose shrill above the shrieks of the flying and the wounded, and its wild waltz-time danced and rollicked on swifter and swifter as the old singer maddened, in awful mockery of ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... to call forward that public attention she has so long merited; her qualifications as an actress are uncommonly general—whether we see her in genteel comedy, or in the English opera, we are equally gratified with the diversity of her talents. As a singer, her voice and judgment are equally conspicuous, and those who have seen her in the character of Ophelia, will readily admit her ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... was the last of his mellowness and jolly companionship. The man from Sparta said he was a "bum singer," and for ten minutes Babbitt quarreled with him, in a loud, unsteady, heroic indignation. They called for drinks till the manager insisted that the place was closed. All the while Babbitt felt a hot ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... scenes and creatures, familiar or exceptional, in a poetic light, bright and warm rather than fierce or dazzling. The millions are waiting to be stirred and charmed, and will be very thankful to the singer who shall do it for them. Studied obscurity of thought and language, verbal finicalities and conceits, and mere ingenuities of any kind, rhythmic, mental or sentimental, will not meet the occasion: that sort of thing is overdone already. It is the "swollen imposthume" of refinement, an excrescence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... were hardly audible; but we were so moved by the marvellous purity of the pathetic voice that tears stood in our eyes. As for the singer, tears rolled down his face. It was one of those rare and perfect pleasures that are never forgotten. A few years later Villaret made his debut as first tenor at the Opera in Paris with great success. He was very generous with tickets to his early friends and fellow-citizens; some of his most ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... difference of gifts in each consummate artist, but comprehended in its unity by study of the four together. Lionardo is the wizard or diviner; to him the Renaissance offers her mystery and lends her magic. Raphael is the Phoebean singer; to him the Renaissance reveals her joy and dowers him with her gift of melody. Correggio is the Ariel or Faun; he has surprised laughter upon the face of the universe, and he paints this laughter in ever-varying movement. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds |
