"Chorister" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of St. Nicholas' was in existence in 1227, and in the Chorister's Square was a school established and endowed as far back as the year 1314, to support fourteen choristers and a master to teach them. Their costumes must have been rather picturesque, for they were ordered to be dressed in knee-breeches and claret-coloured ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... in it, under any pretext or dispensation whatever.—Among their peculiar customs, they imitated that of the see of Rouen, in the annual election of a boy-bishop upon Innocents'-day; a practice prevalent in many churches in Spain and Germany, and notoriously in England at Salisbury. The young chorister took the crozier in his hands, during the first vespers, at the verse in the Magnificat, "He has put down the mighty from their seats, and has exalted the humble and meek;" and he resigned his dignity at the same verse in the second vespers.—The ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... singing, the chaplain deaconing out the hymn in their favorite way. This ended, he announced his text,—"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his trouble." Instantly, to my great amazement, the cracked voice of the chorister was uplifted, intoning the text, as if it were the first verse of another hymn. So calmly was it done, so imperturbable were all the black countenances, that I half began to conjecture that the chaplain himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... there was a sudden hush, everybody scuffled back into their places. The best man put his nose out of the vestry door, and the "Wedding March" struck up. Then came a procession of chorister boys down the church, each bearing a small bouquet of fern and white flowers. They ranged themselves on either side of the porch, and the bride and bridegroom came down the ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... organized a church in a small house on L Street between Third and Fourth Streets. They subsequently built a house of worship near New York Avenue. Robert H. G. Dyson who had been active as a class leader and chorister in Zion Wesley, became the first pastor. It developed from its little frame church on L Street, Northwest, into a larger congregation in the modern structure on its present location, under N. J. Green, the pastor in charge. This church has figured conspicuously in the religious, moral and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... palace, long satires in short stanzas upon the personages of the time. Butcher-boys and scullions, carrying large cutlasses, beat the charge upon saucepans, and dragged in the mud a newly slaughtered pig, with the red cap of a chorister on its head. Young and vigorous men, dressed as women, and painted with a coarse vermilion, were yelling, "We are mothers of families ruined by Richelieu! Death to the Cardinal!" They carried in their arms figures of straw that looked like ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... with a very fine voice and correct ear for music, I was selected to be brought up as a chorister in a Dominican convent of great reputation. At the age of ten years, I was placed under the charge of the leader of the choir. Under his directions, I was fully occupied receiving my lessons in singing, or at other times performing the junior offices of the church, such ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... to go, that my feet must needs take me there, whatsoever might befall. And when I had been in the dale a little, thither came the carline, and sat down by me and fell to teaching me wisdom, and showed me letters and told me what they were, and I learned like a little lad in the chorister's school. ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... don't you, that even a poor monotonous chorister and grinder of music—in his niche—may be troubled with some stray sort of ambition, aspiration, restlessness, dissatisfaction, what shall we ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Miss Wetherby had a caller. It was the chorister of her church choir. The man sat down gingerly on one of the slippery haircloth chairs, and proceeded at once to state ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... fellow," standing in the corner behind the door so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of about fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was cut square on his forehead like a village chorister's; he looked reliable, but very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, his short school jacket of green cloth with black buttons must have been tight about the arm-holes, and showed at the opening of the cuffs ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... 'What for? We're dead men, and it'll do no good. She can't stand up even empty.' We stayed swamped that way all night, expecting to be drowned any minute, and I myself said to the Lord—I was a chorister once—that if I had done anything wrong in ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... he sent all the little chorister boys on, in the lugubrious funeral procession in "Romeo and Juliet," with pieces of brown paper in their hands ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... those elfin things, Clad all in white like any chorister, Come fluttering forth on his melodious wings, That made soft music at each little stir, But something louder than a bee's demur Before he lights upon a bunch of broom, And thus 'gan he with Saturn to confer,— And O his voice was sweet, touch'd with the gloom Of that ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... seen one which was carefully concealed in a box that had a leather binding like a book, and which was ostentatiously labelled in large gilt letters "Holy Bible;" a piece of barefaced and unnecessary deception on the part of some pious New England deacon or chorister. ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer^, trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. vocalist, melodist; singer, warbler; songster, chaunter^, chauntress^, songstress; cantatrice^. choir, quire, chorister; chorus, chorus singer; liedertafel [G.]. nightingale, philomel^, thrush; siren; bulbul, mavis; Pierides; sacred nine; Orpheus, Apollo^, the Muses Erato, Euterpe, Terpsichore; tuneful nine, tuneful quire. composer &c 413. performance, execution, touch, expression, solmization^. V. play, pipe, strike ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a farmer, pursuing agriculture at Ratwood in Sussex, Ipswich, Fairsted in Essex, Norwich, and other places; that he was not successful, and had to betake himself to other occupations, such as those of a chorister, fiddler, &c.; and that, finally, he died a poor man in London in the year 1580. Tusser has left only one work, published in 1557, entitled 'A Hundred Good Points of Husbandrie,' written in simple but sometimes strong verse. It is our first, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... several days, when the Teacher proposed that a systematic plan should be formed, by which there night be singing regularly at the close of school. It was then proposed, that a number of Singing books be obtained, and one of the scholars, who was well acquainted with common tunes, be appointed as chorister. Her duty should be, to decide what particular tune may be sung each day, inform the Teacher of the metre of the hymn, and take the lead in the exercise. This plan being approved of by the scholars, was adopted, and put into immediate execution. Several brought ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... by any means an ideal chorister. His surplice makes his brown skin look browner, and his curly head blacker than ever; and there is not a heavenly expression in his quick dark eyes. He is not in the least like one of those saintly boys we read of ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... despite that we had them not in their due season. Guide me no more; I can no longer go. Of so many parts as make up a sufficiency, patience is the most sufficient. Give the capacity of an excellent treble to the chorister who has rotten lungs, and eloquence to a hermit exiled into the deserts of Arabia. There needs no art to help a fall; the end finds itself of itself at the conclusion of every affair. My world is at an end, my form expired; I am ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... all the Gods had gathered there, Each one for his allotted share: Brahma, the ruler of the sky, Sthanu, Narayan, Lord most high, And holy Indra men might view With Maruts(105) for his retinue; The heavenly chorister, and saint, And spirit pure from earthly taint, With one accord had sought the place The high-souled monarch's rite to grace. Then to the Gods who came to take Their proper share the hermit spake: "For you has Dasaratha slain The votive steed, a son to gain; Stern penance-rites the king has tried, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... heard the chorister boys chant the evening psalms; then went on to the little village of Kildonan, standing among green fields and thriving farms; or turned in another direction across the Assineboine, up a lovely road leading for miles through the woods. One morning we went to ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... Whip took oath afterward that it was no fault of his. He had suspected three of the hounds for a day or two—Chorister, White Boy, and Bellman—and had separated them from the pack. That very evening he had done the same with Rifler, who was chewing at the straw in a queer fashion and seemed quarrelsome. He had said nothing to the Squire, whose ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the tone in which the name was uttered, that, although the chorister's face, with the light from the doorway falling upon it, was turned for a second in the speaker's direction, the boy failed to grasp the meaning of the sound, and hurried on with his companions; and with a deep sigh the poor wanderer ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... own the gay lark is the blythest bird That welcomes the purple dawn; But a sweeter chorister far is heard When the veil of ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... the cool tinkle of moss-choked watercourses ever in our ears, mingling with melodies of woodland birds—shy, freedom-loving birds that came not with the robins to the city. Ah, I knew these birds, being country-bred—knew them one and all—the gray hermit, holy chorister of hymn divine, the white-throat, sweetly repeating his allegiance to his motherland of Canada, the great scarlet-tufted cock that drums on the bark in stillest depths, the lonely little creeping-birds that ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... was forced from his father's house when a little boy, and driven like a POSTING HORSE, being impressed to sing as a chorister, at Wallingford College; his miseries there, and the stale bread they gave him; the fifty-three stripes the poor lad received at Eton, when learning Latin; his happy transfer to Trinity College, which to him seemed a removal from hell to heaven; the generosity ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... was St. Paul's Cathedral, where Brind the organist often persuaded him to play the organ after evening service, to the great delight of the congregation. He appears to have made Brind's acquaintance first through young Maurice Greene, then aged seventeen, who had been a chorister of St. Paul's, and, after his voice broke in 1710, was articled to Brind as a pupil. After service was over, Handel, Greene, and some of the members of the choir would repair to the Queen's Arms Tavern close by for an evening ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... is her shrine, amidst the noise, the thunder of multitudes. Silent, lonesome, motionless, yet full of life; for were we not more dead than the stones, which built into that sublime structure witness continually to what is great and everlasting,—did priest or chorister, or the casual worshipper but apprehend the grandeur of his function in that spot,—the very heart must burst with the tide of emotions gathering within it. Oh for speed, speed to the wings of that day when this glorious unfulfilled outline of a church ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... pronounced most disdainfully. The chorister, with head unbroken, and temper unruffled, arose and begged they might all be forgiven their heedlessness; it would be so great a disappointment to have the meeting broken up so prematurely, it would give them great pleasure if Uncle Mat would be so kind as to dispense with singing and ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... have, to these, Their curious copes and surplices Of cleanest cobweb, hanging by In their religious vestery. They have their ash-pans and their brooms, To purge the chapel and the rooms; Their many mumbling mass-priests here, And many a dapper chorister. Their ush'ring vergers here likewise, Their canons and their chaunteries; Of cloister-monks they have enow, Ay, and their abbey-lubbers too:— And if their legend do not lie, They much affect the papacy; And since the last is dead, there's hope Elve Boniface shall next ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... 1786 to Michael Kelly, who was a friend of Attwood and a pupil of Mozart at the time. [Thomas Attwood was an English musician, born in 1765. He was chorister of the Chapel Royal at the age of nine, and at sixteen attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV., who sent him to Italy to study. He studied two years in Naples and one year in Vienna with Mozart. Returned to London he first composed for the theatre and afterward ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... boyhood days may assist the reader to make my acquaintance. In my early teens I was, for one year, a member of a boy choir. Barring my voice, I was a good chorister, and, like all good choir-boys, I was distinguished by that seraphic passiveness from which a reaction of some kind is to be expected immediately after a service or rehearsal. On one occasion this reaction in me manifested itself in a fist ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... months he was able to enter the Seminary in the Rue Montesquieu as a free scholar. He now served at Mass. Having a good ear for music,he became a chorister, and sang the Tantum ergo. He was a diligent boy, and so far everything prospered well with him. He even received a prize. True, it was only an old cassock, dry as autumn heather. But, being trimmed up by his father, it served to hide ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... The bass chorister was a very amusing man. His voice was sepulchral but his conversation skittish. Eileen's repartees smote him to almost the only serious respect of his life, and one day he said: "Why, there's a future in you. Why don't ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the sarcophagus was placed on the car, the whole was covered with a magnificent imperial mantle brought from Paris, the four corners of which were borne by Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud, Baron Las Cases and M. Marchand. At half-past three o'clock the funeral car began to move, preceded by a chorister bearing the cross, and by the Abbe Coquereau. M. de Chabot acted as chief mourner. All the authorities of the island, all the principal inhabitants, and the whole of the garrison, followed in procession from the tomb to the quay. But with the exception ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... became admiral in the Navy. Experts tell of the amount of lead used in the construction of its pipes. It is still pumped by hand as in the olden days. John Pye was the first man to do this. George Loder was the first organist, and P. A. Andri the first chorister. ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... until 9:30, when Elder "B." taking his place at the left of the pulpit, "reckons that they's all here that's going to com." Elder F. sits down beside him and neither of them can read. Deacon L. who serves as chorister, occupies a shortseat in front of the pulpit. The wives of the elders, the lady missionary and other leading sisters occupy seats—a bench—at ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... Martino, always showed great kindness to me; and I spent many hours with him at the convent. It was through him that I became chorister in the Capuchin church, and was allowed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... that is of the time which we call the present day, are very seldom seen, and such as there are do not come within the scope of this work. There is one in West Wickham Churchyard devoted to a chorister, and sculptured with a representation of the church organ-pipes. Memorials to deceased Freemasons are perhaps the most frequent of late carvings, as in the sketch from Lydd ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... materially changed, there is still a close official connection between the two, particularly in the country. In many cases the pastor is the local superintendent of the school, and the teacher is the clerk and chorister of the church. As fast as Lutheran churches were organized, schools were also established in connection with them. Nor were boys alone included in the work of education. Girls' schools were organized and an effort was made at universal education. Many provinces adopted advanced school ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... of Eboli, Princess of, epigram on her losing an eye Eclectic Review Eddleston, the Cambridge chorister, Lord Byron's protege Edgecombe, Mr Edgehill, Battle, seven brothers of the Byron family at Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, esq., sketch of ——, Maria Edinburgh Annual Register Edinburgh Review Its effect on the author Its review of the 'Corsair' and 'Bride of Abydos' Education, English system ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... not an ill Call. And when we have discussed our neat Repast, thou, Ned, shalt touch the Theorbo, and let us hear thy balmy Voice. Time was, when thou didst sing like a young Chorister." ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... Thursday. Your hearty letter again brought what to me is the pleasantest news in the world. Thank you for it, and let those know of it who share your sincere, friendly, and faithful sentiments! First let me mention Carl Gotze, [A chorister in Weimar (a favorite copyist of the Master's) became a musical conductor in Magdeburg and died in 1886.] whose kindly words I should so gladly like to answer in accordance with his wish, and then my dear Kammer-virtuoso, Grosse. Grosses ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... harmony in these mounting wails. The principle motif seemed to be furnished by the cat that had first voiced his complaint. But now, as Janice plunged down the stairs after Olga, the thin, high scream of the initial feline chorister was crossed, in warp and ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... kind-hearted old man, and he had a Robin Redbreast of which he was very fond,—a black-eyed fellow who ate his breakfast out of the Saint's hand. And when the master chanted the Psalms the little chorister would perch on Servan's shoulder and flap his wings, twittering as if he were trying to join in the ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... young Underwoods to begin life elsewhere. The Thomas Underwoods had desired that Alda and Edgar should meet them at the station, and at Felix's entreaty had also undertaken to convoy Clement, who, thanks to Mr. Audley, was to be a chorister, and live in the clergy-house at St. Matthew's, Whittingtonia. It would have been Fulbert, only unluckily he had no ear, and so he was left at home, while Lady Price, Mrs. Thomas Underwood, and all the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gentleman who had instigated the effort, adding, with a quaint glance at the grizzled visage and towering proportions of the singer, "You're very much improved, old chap—not so shy, more power, more volume. If you mind your music, I'll get you a place as a chorister-boy in the Chapel Royal, after all. You're just the size, and your manner's ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and chilled again to her queer absence of spirit.... There was a chorister at the end of the line near her, a pale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shining rapt eyes. While he sang he slipped his hand under his white surplice and took out his watch. Still singing "Glory be to the Father, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... carried the bier from the house to the church, a few paces distant. The village priest came, preceded by three chorister-boys and the venerable singing-clerk of the parish, to perform the ceremony. A portion of the little churchyard, railed off from the rest and planted with evergreen-trees, contains the graves of her grandmother, her father, and the two ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... fourth, Public Business; the fifth, the Mirror of Heaven. [4] The Greeks also had a name for each note. The so-called Gregorian notes were not invented until six hundred years after Gregory's death. The Monastery of St. Gall possesses a copy of Gregory's Antiphonary, made about the year 780 by a chorister who was sent from Rome to Charlemagne to reform the Northern music, and in this the notes are indicated by "pneumss," from which our notes were gradually developed, and first arranged along one line, to ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... the eldest of the twenty children of Matthias Haydn, a wheelwright at Rohrau, Lower Austria, where he was born in 1732. At the age of twelve years he was engaged to sing in Vienna. He became a chorister in St. Stephen's Church, but offended the choir-master by the revolt on the part of himself and parents from submitting to the usual means then taken to perpetuate a fine soprano in boys. So Haydn, who had surreptitiously picked up a good deal of musical knowledge apart ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Arise in Gothic traceries, As if a vast cathedral deep and dim; And through the solemn atmosphere The low winds hymn Such thoughts as solitude will hear. To lead your way across Gray carpet aisles of moss Unto the chantry stalls, The sumach candelabra are alight; Along the cloister walls, Like chorister and acolyte, The shrubs are vested white; The dutiful monastic oak In his gray-friar cloak Keeps penitential ways And solemn orisons of praise; For beads upon the cincture-vine Red berries warm with color shine, And to their constant rosary The bedesmen ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... be passed over and not to be allowed. What! a black monk stalking along with a bull-pup at his heels, and a jackdaw, worse than the Jackdaw of Rheims, using bad words in the garth, and showing an evil example to the chorister boys, with ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... from a stall in the church of which on Sundays he is the fairest ornament, where his is the most imposing voice, where he distorts his huge mouth with energy to thunder out a joyous Amen. So is he chorister. At four o'clock, freed from his official servitude, he reappears to shed joy and gaiety upon the most famous shop in the city. Happy is his wife, he has no time to be jealous: he is a man of action rather than of sentiment. His mere arrival spurs the young ladies at the counter; their bright eyes ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... he was busily rehearsing his part in the chorus of Iphigenia; he had applied for the post of second tenor chorister; the conditions were that he should be able to read music at sight. This he could not do, and his utter incapacity was tested at the Mahlcasten, before a crowd of artists, by the conductor. Barty failed signally, amid much laughter; and he impudently sang quite a little ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... chorus beginning "Now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and confusion; each shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or rather as soon, as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to stand a little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... from the Tower before her coronation, January, 1559, Gogmagog the Albion, and Corineus the Briton, the two Guildhall giants, stood on the Bar; and on the south side there were chorister lads, one of whom, richly attired as a page, bade the queen farewell in the name of the whole City. In 1588, the glorious year that the Armada was defeated, Elizabeth passed through the Bar on her way to return thanks to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... 1769. As his father intended him for the medical profession, he was sent in 1781 to the Latin school at Breslau, and some years later to the University at Vienna. Having already been encouraged by the rector in Grottkau to cultivate his beautiful voice, he became in Breslau a chorister in one of the churches, and after some time was often employed as violinist and singer at the theatre. Here, where he got, if not regular instruction, at least some hints regarding harmony and kindred matters (the authorities are hopelessly at variance on this and on many ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... daughters or their husbands. Christophe was his only fellow-mourner; Christophe, who appeared to think it was his duty to attend the funeral of the man who had put him in the way of such handsome tips. As they waited there in the chapel for the two priests, the chorister, and the beadle, Rastignac grasped Christophe's hand. He could not ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... him for a musician, and that he could never succeed in anything prosaic or mechanical. Accordingly his father taught him not only to play, but also instructed him in the theory and literature of music, and, when he was old enough, had him entered as a chorister in Bristol Cathedral, where, in addition to vocal music, he was carefully taught the art of organ-playing by ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... search; They've done just as they said they'd do, And fetched it into church. They're bound the critter shall be seen, And on the preacher's right They've hoisted up their new machine, In every body's sight. They've got a chorister and choir, Ag'in' my voice and vote; For it was never my desire, To praise the ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... chief noblemen of Rome, who had therefore the power of bringing together the rarest musicians Italy could produce. The voices began with a psalm in motet form, and then the instruments played a symphony, after which the voices sang a story from the Old Testament. Each chorister represented a personage in the story, etc. He spoke of the great organist at St. Peter's, and the wonderful inventions he is said to have displayed in his improvisations. No one since had played the harp like the renowned Horatio, but there was no one who could play the lyre like the ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... the folded paper and moved a little nearer the light. Then he read aloud, as if it had never entered his mind that what was addressed to him might be meant for his eyes alone. And as he read he reminded Father Anthony of some childish chorister pronouncing words beyond his understanding. The tears came to the eyes of ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... deities are building night, block on block, for the cooling and soothing of the world. The heliographing ceases. The foam writing blurs in the shadows. Down long aisles of perfumed green the voice of the wood thrush rings mellow and serene. Here is a woodland chorister who sings of peace and calls to holy thoughts, voicing the evening prayer of the woodland world. As his angelus rings out I fancy all wild heads bowed in adoration. Certainly the wood thrush's call touches that ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... grandfather was a substantial yeoman, living at Stanton St. John, about five miles from Oxford, within the forest of Shotover, of which he was also an under-ranger. The ranger's son John was at school in Oxford, possibly as a chorister, conformed to the Established Church, and was in consequence cast off by his father, who adhered to the old faith. The disinherited son went up to London, and by the assistance of a friend was set up ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... stone-cutters and masons were even now at work on the exterior. At our first visit, we found no entrance; but coming again at ten o'clock, when the service was to begin, we found the door open, and the chorister-boys, in their white robes, standing in the nave and aisles, with elder people in the same garb, and a few black-robed ecclesiastics and an old verger. The interior of the cathedral has been covered with a light-colored paint at some recent ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... up at Her, They linger, Gaul and Briton, side by side: Death they know well, for daily have they died, Spending their boyhood ever bravelier; They wait: here is no priest or chorister, Birds skirt the stricken tower, terrified; Desolate, empty, is the Eastertide, Yet still they wait, ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... domine was the voorleezer or chorister, who was also generally the bell-ringer, sexton, grave-digger, funeral inviter, schoolmaster, and sometimes town clerk. He "tuned the psalm"; turned the hour-glass; gave out the psalms on a hanging board to the congregation; read the Bible; gave up notices ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... that all elementary schools should teach Reading, Writing, Drawing and Music. Music then was no longer a part of the general curriculum, but was chiefly restricted to the Cathedral Choir Schools, where the young chorister had a career opened up for him either in the church or as a member of a troupe of boy-actors. It is therefore of some interest to find that in 1548 the Master at Giggleswick had a knowledge of plainsong as well ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... fuss and search; They've done just as they said they'd do, And fetched it into church. They're bound the critter shall be seen, And on the preacher's right They've hoisted up their new machine In everybody's sight. They've got a chorister and choir, Ag'in' my voice and vote; For it was never my desire To ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... congregation spluttered. The squire grew purple and all, And every little chorister bestrode his carven stall. The parson flapped like a magpie, but none could hear his prayers; For Tom Fool flourished his tabor, Flourished his nut-brown tabor, Bashed the head of the sexton, and stormed ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... chorister intoned the Plain Song, to which a full chorus responded. Later this manner was altered to antiphonal singing—two choruses being used, one for the initial and the other for the responsive chant. Such music thus rendered was singularly ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... beadle, sacristan, chorister, bell-ringer, and grave-digger of the parish of Blangy (Bourgogne), during the Restoration; nephew and only heir of Niseron the cure; born in 1751. He was delighted at the Revolution, was the ideal type of the Republican, a sort of Michel ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... to guide and interpret the sympathies of the spectators. In its modern application, however, this generic term has its subdivisions, and includes les choristes proper, who boast musical attainments, and are obedient to the rule of a chef d'attaque, or head chorister; les accessoires, performers permitted speech of a brief kind, who can be entrusted upon occasion with such simple functions as opening a door, placing a chair, or delivering a letter, and who correspond ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Micawber. 'He has a remarkable head-voice, and will commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our local connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy that may arise ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... with the worship below, they can discuss the comparative fashionableness of the "basque" and the "polonaise," the one lady vowing she thinks the first style is "horrid," and the other saying she would rather die than be seen in the latter; all this while the chorister is gone out during sermon to refresh himself with a mint-julep, hastening back in time to sing the last hymn. How much like heaven it will be when, at the close of a solemn service, we are favored with snatches from Verdi's "Trovatore," Meyerbeer's ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... made friends who were worthy of his choice. Among them were the scholar-dandy Scrope Berdmore Davies, Francis Hodgson, who died provost of Eton, and, best friend of all, John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards Lord Broughton). And there was another friend, a chorister named Edleston, a "humble youth" for whom he formed a romantic attachment. He died whilst Byron was still abroad (May 1811), but not unwept nor unsung, if, as there is little doubt, the mysterious Thyrza poems ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... robe came down the aisle, accompanied by a surpliced acolyte bearing a cup of oil. As the cardinal passed each kneeling person, he dipped his thumb into the oil and then, repeating a formula, made a sign of the cross with his thumb on the worshiper's forehead. A priest in black cassock and a chorister in white followed the cardinal, the priest wiping the foreheads with a piece of cotton and the chorister taking the candles which were handed to him as offerings to ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... every Sunday for us to pray together, and I have invested myself with all the attributes of a minister of the Gospel. I celebrate the marriages, I pour water upon the foreheads of the infants, and I offer consolations to the dying. In my youth, I was a chorister; I remembered the church ceremonies; and if I do not actually possess the necessary attributes for the functions I have given myself, I practise them with faith and love. This is the reason I trust that my good intentions ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... Christian cathedrals would have passed the Censor of Plays. We talk of the inimitable grandeur of the old cathedrals; but indeed it is rather their gaiety that we do not dare to imitate. We should be rather surprised if a chorister suddenly began singing "Bill Bailey" in church. Yet that would be only doing in music what the mediaevals did in sculpture. They put into a Miserere seat the very scenes that we put into a music hall song: comic ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... until her perfectly arched eyebrows were famous. Her air of well-bred and conventual calm never had been known to desert her; and her high, light, colorless soprano had something in it of the sexless timbre of the boy chorister. With her blond hair pressed meekly to her shapely head she was the delight and despair of poets, painters and musicians, for she turned an impassable cheek to their pleadings. Mrs. Minne would never remarry; ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... disposed to send her to the king and let her take her chance. But days dragged on, and when Joan was not working she would be on her knees in the crypt or underground chapel of the Chapel Royal in Vaucouleurs. Twenty-seven years later a chorister boy told how he often saw her praying there for France. Now people began to hear of Joan, and the Duke of Lorraine asked her to visit him at Nancy, where she bade him lead a better life. He is said to have given her a horse ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... yielded to his insistence. In the corner there was a single tiny crumb they had overlooked. He lifted it gently with his great hand. He held it up in the air a moment striving to think. He was an English sailor and in his boyhood had been a chorister in a great Cathedral. The mighty words came back to him. He bent over ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... over five years old, Wolfgang was chosen to take the part of chorister in a Latin comedy which was given at the close of the school year of the Salzburg Gymnasium, and among the one hundred and fifty young people who took part in the entertainment one can picture the charming little musical fellow ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... windows escape during the Civil War? There is one story that the west window was broken by Cromwell's soldiers (who certainly were quartered in the chapel), and that the rest of the glass was taken out and concealed inside the organ screen. Another, which appears in a small book called "The Chorister," is that all the glass was taken down and buried in pits in the college grounds in one night by a man and a boy. Both these stories are entirely fictitious. The best answer to the question may be found in the words of the Provost of Eton (Dr. M. R. James), who says, ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... divine service, and he was still occupied with his religious exercises when his Grace of Norfolk entered the church, and to his inexpressible astonishment saw the keeper of the king's conscience in the flowing raiment of a chorister, and heard him give "Glory to God in the highest!" as though he were a hired singer. "God's body! God's body! My Lord Chancellor a parish clerk?—a parish clerk?" was the duke's testy expostulation with the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... flax-haired man, who carries a tuning-fork in his waistcoat-pocket, and who leads the choir. His position is in the very front rank of gallery benches facing the desk; and by the time the old clergyman has read two verses of the psalm, the country chorister turns around to his little group of aids—consisting of the blacksmith, a carroty-headed schoolmaster, two women in snuff-colored silks, and a girl in pink bonnet—to announce ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... have taken up two bottles for you." The flesh-coloured coat was then Moiselet. I followed him into his room, and we began to drink with all our might. Two other bottles arrived; we only went on in couples. Moiselet, in his capacity of chorister, cooper, sexton, &c. &c. was no less a sot than gossip; he got tipsy with great good-will, and incessantly spoke to me in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... them stowed in your own silly brain; don't make a ghost-parlor of my forecastle. The lads begin to look to leeward, now, oftener than I would have them. Go, sirrah, go, and take example from Mr. Merry, who is seated on your namesake there, and is singing as if he were a chorister in his father's church." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... had been sung, the monks retired, but one lingered, for he was blind and walked slowly, led by a little chorister. As he drew near, Prince Henry started back ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... flowers and some banners and draperies—church property, which always figured upon any great occasion. They told us with pride that the school-master had arranged the music. I suppose the poor man did what he could with the material he had, but the result was something awful. The chorister, a very old man, a hundred I should think, played the harmonium, which was as old as he was. It groaned and wheezed and at times stopped altogether. He started the cantique with a thin quavering voice which was then taken up by the school-children, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... paid than the general of an army, or a minister of state; when each note of a tenor's voice was worth a corresponding one, and of no small figure, issued from the Bank of France. The salary of a first rate tenor or barytone, was then less than is now given to a chorister or walking gentleman. Sixty pounds were the highest yearly sum granted by Louis XIV. to the best opera singer. The first female dancer received thirty-six pounds! We are quite sure, that the waiting maid of an Elssler or a Taglioni, would turn up her nose at such a pittance. Louis XIV. was gathered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... is this blending of all voices and all hearts in one common song of praise! Some will sing a little loud, perhaps,—and now and then an impatient chorister will get a syllable or two in advance, or an enchanted singer so lose all thought of time and place in the luxury of a closing cadence that he holds on to the last semi-breve upon his private responsibility; but how much more of the spirit of the old Psalmist in the music of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... tow-path which, at this point, would be overhung in summer by the bluish foliage of a hazel, under which a fisherman in a straw hat seemed to have taken root. At Combray, where I knew everyone, and could always detect the blacksmith or grocer's boy through his disguise of a beadle's uniform or chorister's surplice, this fisherman was the only person whom I was never able to identify. He must have known my family, for he used to raise his hat when we passed; and then I would always be just on the point of asking his name, when some one would make a sign to me to be quiet, or I would frighten ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the age of 14 I was a chorister at —— church, whose choirmaster, an Englishman named M.W.M., was an accomplished man, seemingly a perfect gentleman, and a devout churchman. He never seemed to care for the society of ladies, never mingled much with the men, but sought companionship ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... gathering at Vale Leston, including both the Harewoods; and the Bishop of Albertstown came to spend that last fortnight in England with Clement, the boy who had been committed to him as a chorister, then trained as a young deacon, and almost driven out in his inexperience to the critical charge of the neglected parish and the old squire, only to be recalled after seven years to the more important charge in London on the Bishop's appointment, there to serve till strength gave ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... between 1780 and 1814 were all of one pattern, and the one which Gourdon composed upon the Cup-and-Ball will give an idea of them. They required a certain knack or proficiency in the art. "The Chorister" is the Saturn of this abortive generation of jocular poems, all in four cantos or thereabouts, for it was generally admitted that six would wear the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... and the Minstrels; executed by Mr. Oliphant, from designs by W.R. Dyce, Esq., R.A.: the gift of Mr. Thomas Ingram, Professor of Music, formerly a Chorister and Pupil in ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... rice, and kneel down before the Buddha. As time went on, and more kept coming in, small heaps of rice had collected in front of the chief altar and before the cabinets. And when the women retired, a chorister came round and swept with his fingers all the little heaps into a basket. To the gods the spirit! To ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... I liked you much better as you were before," said Anthea decidedly. "You look like the picture of the young chorister, with your golden hair; you'll die young, I shouldn't wonder. And if that's Robert, he's like an Italian organ-grinder. His ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... delegated to him the domestic duties. It is probable, that if Mrs. Shmendrik, formerly the widow Finkelstein, ever received these dainties, she found her good man had purchased fish artificially inflated with air, and fowls fattened with brown paper. Hearty Sam Abrahams, the bass chorister, whose genial countenance spread sunshine for yards around, stopped Esther and gave her a penny. Further, she met her teacher, Miss Miriam Hyams, and curtseyed to her, for Esther was not of those who jeeringly ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... their teeth, fought to the death. A large amount of gold and many other things of value were found among their plunder. The soldiers, as good Christians, declared all the church property they found—among other things, a gilded lunette, a chalice and paten, three chorister's mantles, and ornaments and images which had been misused. One ship was seized, because it was needed for the men who were crowded in the others; also two cannons with ladles [pieas de cuchara], two culverins, and thirty ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... an old college friend of uncle Jacob's, was a Benedictine monk, and a man famous for his learning; as for me, I was at that time my uncle's chorister, clerk, and sacristan; I swept the church, chanted the prayers with my shrill treble, and swung the great copper incense-pot on Sundays and feasts; and I toiled over the Fathers for the other ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she kept stealing glances across the aisle, but Mrs. Marvin did not turn again. The sight of the bright child face had stirred the memory of an earnest little chorister who used sometimes to smile at her over his book as he passed, and she did not want to remember those old days; she wished ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... be called, and time hath ratified the appellation—lieth buried on the north side of the cemetery of Holy Paul, to whose service his nonage and tender years were dedicated. There are who do yet remember him at that period—his pipe clear and harmonious. He would often speak of his chorister days, when he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... hero of my Cornelian" was a Cambridge chorister named Edleston, whose life, as Harness has recorded in a MS. note, Byron saved from drowning. This began their acquaintance. (See Byron's lines on "The Cornelian," Poems, vol. i. 66-67.) Edleston died of consumption in May, 1811. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... was my connection with it; and my apostles were no better appreciated, for they were soon after whitewashed over, and disappeared like a dream. Sometimes, in damp weather, they were still to be seen "craning" their necks as heretofore (much to the amusement of the chorister boys) though with a kind of veil upon them. Doubtless, in a future generation, when the plaster begins to blister, some antiquarian will discover this "wonderful mediaeval fresco," and call the attention of the ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... From the moment Michael's pure young voice filled the vast spaces of the cathedral, it was plain that Josef's singing could not compete with it. His soprano showed signs of breaking, and gradually the principal solo parts, which had always fallen to him, were given to the new chorister. On a special church day, when there was more elaborate music, the "Salve Regina," which had always been given to Josef, was sung so beautifully by the little brother, that the Emperor and Empress were delighted, and they presented the young ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... think half so much of the chorister's vote as that of Miss Dunstable," said the Honourable George: "that's the interest that ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the venerable pile of St. Cross, surrounded by some of the finest scenery in the county. Our Correspondent P.Q. earnestly observes "it was in and near this hospital that he was educated; in its noble church he was a chorister, and his feelings of veneration for the whole establishment, dedicated to the highest of Christian virtues, will never be effaced." Would that every heart beamed with so amiable a sense of gratitude. Reverting to the ancient purposes of the foundation it is to be feared they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... "Yes," said Geraldine. "Chorister that he was, and champion of Church teaching that he is, he makes the cause of Christian education everywhere his own, and is coming down to see what he can do inexpensively with native talent for concert, or ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... farm sang from every corner. In the evening, Pierre invented games and related stories of his regiment. On Sunday Agathe made cakes for the girls. Marie knew some canticles, which she sang like a chorister. She looked like a saint, with her blond hair falling on her neck and her hands folded on ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... Mogente was out. He had crossed the Plaza, the servant thought to say a prayer in the Cathedral. On the suggestion of the servant, the Sarrions decided to wait until Leon's return. The man, who had the air of a murderer (or a Spanish Cathedral chorister), volunteered to ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... let thy last kindness be With leaves and moss-work for to cover me: And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter, Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister! For epitaph, in foliage, next write this: Here, here the ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... "He had a bad memory, I a good one. He was of the people; I of the aristocracy." Byron was capable, of unbending, where the difference of rank was so great that it could not be ignored. On this principle we may explain his enthusiastic regard for the chorister Eddlestone, from whom he received the cornelian that is the theme of some of his verses, and whose untimely death in 1811 ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... it will soon be over. I heard one of the priests say he thought they had a new chorister at the Cistercians whose voice is as good as mine. So that the archduchess may not like our ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... going to church; I keep it staying at home, With a bobolink for a chorister, And an orchard ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... world, Rafael had caught a glimpse, barely, during the few days he had spent in Milan. His companion, the canon, had run across a former chorister from the cathedral of Valencia, who could find nothing to do but loiter night and day about the Gallery. Through him Brull had learned of the life led by these journeymen of art, always on hand in the "marketplace", waiting for ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... colder; and if people then staid at home on Sunday afternoons, they had a better excuse for doing so than their successors can muster. The chorister, even, was frequently among the missing, but was charitably supposed to be subject to the ague. Efforts were made to prevail upon the elderly part of the parish to permit the introduction of stoves with long funnels. They scorned the enervating luxury! ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... dating from the middle of the fourteenth century. Our illustration shows it as it appeared in 1825; when it formed a portion of the Grammar School, of which more is to be seen in the building to the right. The upper story was afterwards used as the school-room of the chorister boys, but a new building has recently been erected for them. Entrance to the cemetery and to the west door of the cathedral was formerly, and can still be, obtained through the rather later College Gate, which stands beside the High Street, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... the year of the Spanish Armada, 1588, that William Byrd published "Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety," the first Elizabethan song-book of importance. Few biographical particulars concerning Byrd have come down. As he was senior chorister of St. Paul's in 1554, he is conjectured to have been born about 1538. From 1563 to 1569 he was organist of Lincoln Cathedral. He and Tallis were granted a patent, which must have proved fairly lucrative, for the printing of music and the ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... two no sound came from the mighty crowd of miraculously-delivered refugees. Then, suddenly, one of the late priests of the Temple, a chorister-priest, burst ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... each individual chorister could do, shook his head, and began to tell the boy from Malta for what good reason the master preferred the two sick youths; but little Hannibal interrupted by exclaiming, in tones of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... brilliancy, more tremolo in the execution, the song of the Common Black Cricket. Indeed the mistake would certainly be made by any one who did not know that, by the time the very hot weather comes, the true Cricket, the chorister of spring, has disappeared. His pleasant violin has been succeeded by another more pleasant still and worthy of special study. We shall return to him at an ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... not promise more than to be chorister to-night," she said, sitting down to the piano with her back toward us. "Let us have familiar hymns that all can sing. Miss Adah has a sweet voice, and Mr. Morton, no doubt, is hiding his talent in a napkin. There's a book for you, sir. I'm sorry it ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... darkness before Mirza; but this time it was from anger. The linkman never suspected his peril. Fortunately for him, the voice of the female chorister issued from the doorway in tremulous melody. Mirza listened, and became tranquillized. The voice sank next into a sweet unearthly pleading, and completely subdued, he began arguing with himself.... She had ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... for maintaining a school; the instructor often enjoyed, through an endowment, a metayer farm or a piece of ground; he was generally provided with a lodging; if he was a layman he was exempt, besides, from the most onerous taxes; as sexton, beadle, chorister or bell-ringer, he had small perquisites; finally, he was paid for each child four or five sous[3156] a month; sometimes, especially in poor districts, he taught only from All Saints' day down to the spring, and followed another ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... morning light! Reveller of the spring! How sweetly, nobly wild thy flight, Thy boundless journeying: Far from thy brethren of the woods, alone A hermit chorister ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... the figure, in a deep, resonant voice. Yourii remembered that Ivanoff's uncle was an old, drunken church chorister. He had a grey moustache like one of the soldiers at the time of Nicholas the First, and his shabby black coat had a ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... after service. The chorister seemed much pleased to meet an American, and showed me every mark of attention. When asked whether all the churches of Liverpool had their chancels in the east ends, he answered in the affirmative. I afterwards found this to be true all over Europe. The dead ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... the scene on his way to the reading-desk as the white procession ranged itself in the oaken stalls. At that moment—the worst moment for such a thought—it suddenly flashed over him that, after all, a wreath of spring flowers or a chorister's surplice was scarcely worth suffering martyrdom for. This horrible suggestion, true essence of an unheroic age, which will not suffer a man to be absolutely sure of anything, disturbed his prayer as he knelt down in silence to ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the dark underground, or under wood and leaves, where nobody saw him and nobody cared. But the Nightingale's case was really quite too pitiful! Fancy the sweetest singer among all the birds, the favorite chorister, going about with but one eye, while every one else, even the tiniest little Humming Bird of all, ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the ruination of them. I shall never forget a pretty boy we had once; he was called the "cherub," and had been a chorister—sang divinely. He was only four years in the regiment, and his case was brought to me before he was discharged. He came to us an angel, and departed a finished young blackguard. He drank, stole, and lied to any extent, and was as well versed ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... a little bird upon that pile; It perch'd upon a ruin'd pinnacle, And made sweet melody. The song was soft, yet cheerful, and most clear, For other note none swell'd the air but his. It seem'd as if the little chorister, Sole tenant of the melancholy pile, Were a lone hermit, outcast from his kind, Yet withal cheerful. I have heard the note Echoing so lonely o'er ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... [Henry Cooke, chorister of the Chapel Royal, adhered to the royal cause at the breaking out of the Civil Wars, and for his bravery obtained a captain's commission. At the Restoration he received the appointment of Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal; he was an ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... concluded, the canon turns round to the chorister, saying "tu autem," giving him a shilling; to which the chorister replies, "Domine ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... cloistered by snow-white surplices, with the little chorister enthroned in the midst, Clothes-line Park had seemed a ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... surplices of the Saint Werner's men as they sat on either side down the narrow passage, it was no wonder that every single eye from that of the Senior Dean [Pace Decani dixerim!] to that of the little chorister boy was turned upon her for an instant, as she passed up to the only vacant seats, and Mr Norton caused room to be made for her beside the tutor's cushion by the chaplain's desk. She was happily unconscious ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... but perceptibly, towards the place where he remained fixed as an image. He marked the last wave of her veil—it was gone—and a darkness sunk upon his soul, scarce less palpable than that which almost immediately enveloped his external sense; for the last chorister had no sooner crossed the threshold of the door than it shut with a loud sound, and at the same instant the voices of the choir were silent, the lights of the chapel were at once extinguished, and Sir Kenneth remained solitary ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... wants to say mass," one peasant will observe.—"He will never find a boy to serve it for him," will rejoin another. And that is what I really am—an incomplete priest. Quellien has very clearly discerned what will always be lacking in my church—the chorister boy. My life is like a mass which has some fatality hanging over it, a never-ending Introibo ad altare Dei with no one to respond: Ad Deum qui loetificat juventutem meam. There is no one to serve my mass for me. In default of any one else I respond for myself, but ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... of filling it for a starving family. At last, one day, the ambitious mother entered out of breath, announcing the joyous tidings that her son was admitted gratis into a free school. He became a scholar in a few months, a chorister in a few more, his fine voice doubtless recommending him; he gained a prize, and was in a fair way of advancement, when some childish frolic, punished too severely, caused him to be expelled. On reaching his home, he found all in consternation, for his bad conduct had been ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Julia's figure to shrink as she knelt with her face in the chair hard by her father's desk-pulpit. I received the hearty congratulations of my comrades for singing out 'Amen' louder than Heriot, like a chorister, though not in so prolonged a note, on hearing to my stupefaction Mr. Rippenger implore that the heart of 'him we know as Richmond Roy' might be turned. I did it spontaneously. Mr. Rippenger gazed at me in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... acceptable were his services that scholars were offered to him and held until his return from school. In 1877 on account of failing health he remained out of school, and was chosen as the principal of the city school at his native home. He was always known as the "Mocking Bird" of Laurens. He was the chorister in Sunday School and church. Returning to Biddle University in the fall of 1878, was taken under the care of Catawba Presbytery as a candidate for the ministry, and graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1881. In October, 1881, he entered the seminary of Biddle University, was licensed to preach ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... to a lady of fine musical qualities (she being especially remarked as a singer), and who was also of a musical family. Soon after his arrival at New Haven, Mr. Luca, having acquired by this time quite a fine knowledge of music, and being an excellent vocalist, was chosen chorister of a Congregationalist church. In a short time his choir was considered the equal of any in the city; which was high but well-deserved praise. Some time previously to the formation of what was called professionally the "Luca family," the subject of this sketch organized a quartet consisting ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... your editorial back upon me because I am incapable of the more earnest sacrifice. Even if I only chirrup a green-tree ballad, I shall need a chorister to aid me in winning those "laughing honours of society." And your supervision is all the more necessary, since, as you said to me, I live in a section where the literary point of view is more sentimental than accurate. This is accounted for, not by a lack of native wit, ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... was choral. An anthem was sung at the close of the sermon, the collection being made during the hymn before it. The professional singer looked like any other chorister in his surplice, save for his swarthy face and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... life, and who turn to him, as it were, with the smile of the convalescent." Another German, Sebastian Bach, might have been named whom Wagner resembles most in that universal dominating quality of mind which is even visible in the half-ironical, laughing eye of the simple Thuringian chorister, and brings home to us the truth of Faust's words, "creating delights for the gods to enjoy." He played at that time many of Bach's compositions, such as the "Well Tempered Clavicord," with his young assistant, Hans Richter, who had been recommended ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... are all gone, save one who lingers, Absorbed in deep and silent prayer. As if his heart could find no rest, At times he beats his heaving breast With clenched and convulsive fingers, Then lifts them trembling in the air. A chorister, with golden hair, Guides hitherward his heavy pace. Can it be so? Or does my sight Deceive me in the uncertain light? Ah no! I recognize that face Though Time has touched it in his flight, And changed the auburn hair to white. It is Count Hugo of the Rhine, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... fine stained glass. There in the town school, under a master who was afterwards one of the guardians of his scanty patrimony, Erasmus' schooldays began, and he made acquaintance with the Latin grammar of Donatus. After an interval as chorister at Utrecht, he was sent by his parents to the school at Deventer, which, with that of the neighbouring and rival town of Zwolle, enjoyed pre-eminence among the schools of the Netherlands at that date. It was connected with the principal ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... and gold velvet, So gorgeous to see, Comes with his bass voice The chorister bee. Green fingers playing Unseen on wind-lyres, Low singing bird voices,— These are his choirs. The violets are deacons— I know by the sign That the cups which they carry Are purple with wine. And the columbines bravely As sentinels ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... something more than a myth or topic of amusement. He may be visible among the first who will declare every man in his own tongue wherein he was born the wonderful works of God, and he may be audible among the first who will lift their hallelujahs of undivided praise when every satellite shall be a chorister to laud the universal King. Let us, brothers of earth, by high and holy living, learn the music of eternity; and then, when the discord of "life's little day" is hushed, and we are called to join in the everlasting ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer[obs3], trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. vocalist, melodist; singer, warbler; songster, chaunter[obs3], chauntress[obs3], songstress; cantatrice[obs3]. choir, quire, chorister; chorus, chorus singer; liedertafel[Ger]. nightingale, philomel[obs3], thrush; siren; bulbul, mavis; Pierides; sacred nine; Orpheus, Apollo[obs3], the Muses Erato, Euterpe, Terpsichore; tuneful nine, tuneful quire. composer &c. 413. performance, execution, touch, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... little tale ends, it may be told that five weeks later Oyvind and Marit were united in the parish church. The school-master himself led the singing on the occasion, for the assistant chorister was ill. His voice was broken now, for he was old; but it seemed to Oyvind that it did the heart good to hear him. When the young man had given Marit his hand, and was leading her to the altar, the school-master nodded at him from the chancel, just as Oyvind had seen ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the crowd. We are so completely one that other people scarcely affect us. We can talk together, and whisper old secrets about the garden, and Babs, and the animals, and the organ in the church, and the funny chorister-boy who would never sing in tune; we can talk of all these things, although there are throngs and throngs around us, for in a crowd those who love each other often find the best sort of solitude. Come down, Judy, come down, and let's ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... others who did their duty with the same daring, intelligence, and conscientiousness, to the hundreds of more humble airmen who, while the infantry says the sanguinary mass, throw down from above, like the chorister boys in the corpus Christi procession, the ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... wind sighs through the golden strings of a harp, musically, pathetically. These little chorister boys made him feel that his youth had slipped from him, and left him alone with his intellect and his epigrams. Sometimes he shivered with cold among those epigrams. He was tired of them. He knew them so well, and then so ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Choice elekto. Choir hxoro. Choke sufoki. Choke up obstrukci. Choler kolero. Cholera hxolero. Choleric kolera. Choose elekti. Chop haki. Chop down dehaki. Chopper hakilo. Choral hxora. Chorister hxoristo. Chorus hxoraro. Chrism sankta oleo. Christ Kristo. Christen bapti. Christendom Kristanaro. Christian Kristano. Christian-name baptonomo. Christianity Kristanismo. Christmas Kristnasko. Christmas-box Kristnaskdono. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... hare, which the dread of all her numerous enemies, and chiefly of that cunning, cruel, carnivorous animal, man, had confined all the day to her lurking-place, sports wantonly o'er the lawns; now on some hollow tree the owl, shrill chorister of the night, hoots forth notes which might charm the ears of some modern connoisseurs in music; now, in the imagination of the half-drunk clown, as he staggers through the churchyard, or rather charnelyard, to his home, fear ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... was, but had the "petit Savoyard" possessed the cultivated voice of a chorister, I could not have listened to his notes with half the satisfaction with which I dwelt upon his history, as stated by the waiter. He had no sooner concluded and made his bow, than I bought the slender volume from which his songs had been chanted, and had a long gossip ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is conceded on all hands. He is a proficient in the use of brass instruments, the Mohawk Brass Band always taking high rank at band competitions. He has usually fine vocal power, and is in great request as a chorister. He has a full repertory of plaintive airs, the singing of which he generally reserves for occasions, resembling much the "wakes" that obtain with Roman Catholics, where he watches over night the body of some departed ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... by the presence of the two gentlemen, he beckoned to a housekeeper, who followed him. Dressed in a blue cloth jacket with short tails, and blue-and-white striped trousers, his hair cut short all round, the boy's expression was that of a chorister, so strongly was it stamped with the compulsory propriety that marks every member of ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... a sea of delight. A short time after, "Preciosa" was given, and Lipp told me that I could play the gypsy boy. They put a white frock on me and wound red bands crosswise about my legs. Then a chorister took me by the hand and led me up and down the back of the stage two or three times. That was ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... place will have a memory—the river and the meadow, and the white falling weir: his heart will build a temple here; and the skylark will be its high-priest, and the old blackbird its glossy-gowned chorister, and there will be a sacred repast of dewberries. To-day the grass is grass: his heart is chased by phantoms and finds rest nowhere. Only when the most tender freshness of his flower comes across him does he taste a moment's calm; and no sooner does it come ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Grammont threw the money into the apron of the Bancal woman, saying: "Take it! We are not killing him for his money." A key, too, was found; that Bastide kept. Madame Bancal had a hankering for the fine shirt of the dead man, and remarked covetously that it looked like a chorister's shirt; she was diverted from her desire, however, on being presented with an amethyst ring on Fualdes' finger. This ring was taken away the following day by a stranger for a consideration of ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... protector, and the pleasure of exciting gratitude, seem to have constituted to his mind the chief, pervading charm. The person, whom he now adopted in this manner, and from similar feelings to those which had inspired his early attachments to the cottage-boy near Newstead, and the young chorister at Cambridge, was a Greek youth, named Nicolo Giraud, the son, I believe, of a widow lady, in whose house the artist Lusieri lodged. In this young man he appears to have taken the most lively, and even brotherly, interest;—so much so, as not only to have presented to him, on their ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... already had many schools scattered through the towns. In New York, during the Dutch period, it was customary for the schoolmaster, in order to increase his earnings, to ring the church-bell, dig graves, and act as chorister and town clerk. In the English period, some of the schools were kept by Dutch masters, who taught English as an accomplishment. As early as 1702, an act was passed for the "Encouragement of a Grammar Free School in the City of New York." In 1795, George Clinton laid the foundation of the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... stay-at-home, is to spend the remainder of her long life? We are in autumn, the weather is already turning cool. This is how the Field Cricket sets to work: as long as the days are fine and the nights not too cold, the future chorister of spring rambles over the fallows, careless of a local habitation. At critical moments, the cover of a dead leaf provides him with a temporary shelter. In the end, the burrow, the permanent dwelling, is dug as ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... earnestly, and after he has prayed, heed what he shall say, even as you would heed the words of your Abbot. No better Abbot and counsellor could you have, for he hath still preserved his baptismal innocence. It is Ambrose, the little chorister." ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton |
