"Soiree" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Fading Flower step in at the close of this learned preparation, and with a woman's alchemy turn all this dust to gold. A little happy audacity converts the morning meetings into convenient gatherings for the groups of the day, the excursion resolves itself into a refined picnic, the learned soiree ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... there are even now genera of this order that have escaped the naturalist, or even well-known genera whose possibilities in growth and dietary are still unknown. Suppose some day a specimen of a new species is caught off the coast of Kent. It excites remark at a Royal Society soiree, engenders a Science Note or so, "A Huge Octopus!" and in the next year or so three or four other specimens come to hand, and the thing becomes familiar. "Probably a new and larger variety of Octopus so-and-so, hitherto supposed to be tropical," says Professor ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... She had her learned Beausobres and other Reverend Edict-of-Nantes gentlemen, famed Berlin divines; whom, if any Papist notability, Jesuit ambassador or the like, happened to be there, she would set disputing with him, in the Soiree at Charlottenburg. She could right well preside over such a battle of the Cloud-Titans, and conduct the lightnings softly, without explosions. There is a pretty and very characteristic Letter of hers, still pleasant to read, though turning on theologies now fallen ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... for the occasion that it was as brilliant and as dangerous as ice. The negro boy had surpassed himself; and here let me say that Moronval was in a great state of perplexity as to the part that the prince should take at the soiree. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... soiree given by Troupenas, the music publisher, in Paris, in 1830, Paganini gave one of the most wonderful exhibitions of his skill. Rossini, Tamburini, Lablache, Rubini, De Beriot, and Malibran were of the party. Malibran, after singing ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... lady went up to him at a soiree with a rose in her hand. "May I offer you my boutonniere?" said she, smiling. The mere fact of a question having been asked him suddenly put him instinctively upon his guard; an uncommunicative look spread over his face, and to her horror and his own subsequent ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... Athens was reconstructed for a night. A Greek feast, gathering at the same board the most aristocratic moderns, garbed in the antique peplum, as the caprice of a great artist. The invitation cards, on which the hostess had drawn the graceful figure of an Athenian beauty, were worded: 'A Soiree in Athens in the Time of Pericles. Madeleine Lemaire begs you to honor with your presence the Greek fete which she will give in her humble abode on Tuesday. Banquet, dances, games, and cavalcade. Ancient Greek costume de rigueur.' Every one invited responded yes, and from ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... neatness. It is quite as if Mme. Chaminade's maid laid out her musical thoughts as well as her dresses, being sure to have every frill and furbelow in its place, whether it be the robe d' interieur which she is to wear at breakfast, her robe de ville for calling, or her robe de soiree. True it is that serious musicians are apt to wear a somewhat supercilious expression at mention of her music and to pronounce it clever rather than deep, yet it is equally true that it takes its place among the best salon pieces of the day and gains value if only from the fact ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... by the part I played in founding a short-lived institution called the Anonymous Society, the choicest spirits in which affected canvas shirts and abstention from the use of neckties. As Socialists, we invited the waiters of the college to a soiree, at which a judicious blend of revolutionary economics and bitter beer was relied upon to provide a flow of reasonable and inexpensive entertainment. The society lapsed after a time, chiefly owing, if I remember rightly, to an insufficiency ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... A soiree fantastique! what would I not give to be present at a soiree fantastique! I had read of the Rosicrucians, of Count Cagliostro, and of Doctor Dee. I had peeped into more than one curious treatise on ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... met him at that breakfast, walked about the gardens with him all the morning, and my mother wrote to my aunt, I believe, that she was booked. Then at this Bryanstone soiree, the next night, Fitzhugh was in the ascendant—poor St. Erme could not so much as ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... formality of this people, who deride colder nations for inflexible manners; and I have certainly never seen society in any small town in America so ill at ease as I have seen society in Venice, writhing under self-imposed restraints. At a musical soiree, attended by the class of people who at home would have been chatty and sociable, given to making acquaintance and to keeping up acquaintance,—the young men harmlessly talking and walking with the young ladies, and the old people listening ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... annual balls of the Firemen and of the Eastern Star was there such prodigality of chiffon scarfs and tangoing and heart-burnings, and these rival institutions were not select—hired girls attended the Firemen's Ball, with section-hands and laborers. Ella Stowbody had once gone to a Jolly Seventeen Soiree in the village hack, hitherto confined to chief mourners at funerals; and Harry Haydock and Dr. Terry Gould always appeared in the town's only ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... dollars. Then there were little vases, and boxes, and caskets standing upon all possible places, with a rare flower in some one of them often, sent by some kind dowager who wished to make sure of Abel at a dinner or a select soiree. Pipes, of course, and boxes of choice cigars, were at hand, and in a convenient closet such a beautiful set of English cut glass for the use ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... children felt so stiff and funny in their new-shaped dresses made like other children's that they weren't natural, so I pretended we were having a soiree, and I went round and shook hands ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... history, the history of music, a polygraphist, composer—in fact, a good friend of mine. Be kind enough to tell him that I am awaiting his answer in the affirmative, respecting a lecture by him on Robert Franz at the extra Soiree arranged in honor of and for the benefit of Robert Franz; Dr. Ambros was at my request respectfully invited by Herr Dunkl ("Firma Roszavolgyi") to give us his assistance. I take part too as pianist, collector and arranger of the Soiree, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... been here a minute, and in that gorgeous dress, you're like a real Princess, not my chum. I shall suggest a court circular—'The Princess Helen drove out yesterday attended by Gen. Van Dam.'—'Her Serene Highness, Princess Helen, honoured the Misses Reid and Bryant last evening at a soiree.'—leaded brevier every morning on the editorial page. Oh, Nelly, can't I have your left-off looks? A homely girl starves on bread and water, while a pretty ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... ecrie "que son coeur lui disoit que pour trouver la terre, il falloit gouverner vers le sud-ouest." L'inspiration d'Alonzo etoit moins mysteriuse qu'elle peut le paraitre au premier abord. Pinzon avoit vu dans la soiree passer des perroquets, et il savoit que ces oiseaux n'alloient pas sans motif du cote du sud. Jamais vol d'oiseau n'a eu des suites ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... saddlebag seat on the hearth). Oh, how could you make me do such a silly thing, Finch! I haven't danced since the soiree at South Place ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... trotting at the heels of Fortune. Time has become the costliest commodity, so no one can afford the lavish extravagance of going home to-morrow morning and getting up late. Hence, there is no second soiree now but at the houses of women rich enough to entertain, and since July 1830 such women ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... encouragement to such to state that out of a fairly large collection of accounts of haunted places, only one relates to a churchyard. The story is told by Mr. G. H. Millar of Edgeworthstown: "During the winter of 1875," he writes, "I attended a soiree about five miles from here. I was riding, and on my way home about 11.30 P.M. I had to pass by the old ruins and burial-ground of Abbeyshrule. The road led round by two sides of the churchyard. It was a bright moonlight night, and as my girth broke I was walking the horse ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... Rosas, a great lounger, had returned from a journey around the world. What a piece of good fortune! She too had known De Rosas formerly, and if she could only get him to consent, she could announce a most attractive soiree: the travels of such a man as Monsieur de ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... however, at a brilliant soiree, I met an elderly lady, with whom I got quite well acquainted in the course of an agreeable conversation. She was a woman of keen intellect, and it seemed to me rather a masculine mind. I was astonished to find such an one amid this idle crowd of gay worldlings, and ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... week later than that soiree at Walpole Lodge, mentioned in a previous chapter—Mrs. Miller and her eldest daughter are sitting together in the large drawing-room at Shadonake. The room is furnished in that style of high artistic decoration ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... saddle me for a review of his polyglot Virgil. I fear I shall scarce convince him that I know nothing of the Latin lingo. Sir R.H. Inglis, Richard Sharp, and other friends called. We dined at Miss Dumergue's, and spent a part of our soiree at ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... amusement, and obtained an addition to his income, of more than four hundred pounds a year as house carpenter. In the morning you might see him trudging off to his work, and before night might meet him at some ball or soiree among ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... curvatures are so numerous and varied, that machine-sawing would scarcely be applicable. Yet attempts are from time to time made to construct such machines. Mr Cochran has invented one; and it is said that at the Earl of Rosse's first soiree as president of the Royal Society, a model of this timber-cutting machine was exhibited; that Prince Albert cut a miniature timber with it; and that he thus began an apprenticeship to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... finally arrived at a solution by inviting only the wives I knew. We had an indignant response from one gentleman: "M. X., Depute, ne valsant qu'avec sa femme, a l'honneur de renvoyer la carte d'invitation que le Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres et Madame Waddington lui ont adressee pour la soiree du 28...." (Mr. X., Deputy, who waltzes only with his wife, has the honour to send back the card of invitation which the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Madame Waddington have sent to him for the ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... though according to our notions curiously out of place, clearly correspond to the funeral games of antiquity. Thus we read not only of "offrande d'un repas aux urnes royales" but of "illuminations generales ... lancement de ballons ... luttes et assauts de boxe et de l'escrime ... danses et soiree de gala.... Apres la cremation, Sa Majeste ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... secession. Mrs. F., in common with the neighbors, illuminated. We walked out to see the houses of others gleaming amid the dark shrubbery like a fairy scene. The perfect stillness added to the effect, while the moon rose slowly with calm splendor. We hastened home to dress for a soiree but on the stairs Edith said, "G., first come and help me dress Phoebe and Chloe [the negro servants]. There is a ball to-night in aristocratic colored society. This is Chloe's first introduction to New Orleans circles, and Henry Judson, Phoebe's husband, gave five dollars ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... not here, and your question may be easily answered. All Paris is here! Women of every age and station, and men of all political creeds—Conservatives, Dynastics, Legitimists, Republicans and Communists. Indeed, this soiree seems to me, and I shouldn't wonder if it were designed so to be, a general reunion of the leaders of all the great parties in France, to compare notes ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... is a cafe concert. A "Grande Soiree Lyrique" is the entertainment offered us at the Maison Doucieux, as we learn from the rudely-written handbill which hangs at the entrance. Through a long, winding, narrow, dark and dirty passage, up a rickety stone staircase, through another passage, and we stand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... increasing success. But in spite of the artistic success, his finances ran low, and he began to consider a trip to America. Fortunately he met Prince Radziwill on the street at this time, and was persuaded to play at a Rothschild soiree in the evening. From this moment, it is said, his prospects brightened, and he secured a number of wealthy patrons as pupils. Whether this be true or not, he came to know many titled personages. One has only to turn the pages of his music to note how many pieces are dedicated to Princess This ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... three lamps did not give light enough both for the public-room and the supper-room—(which on ordinary occasions was a bed-chamber.) It was the first time that M. Lupot had borrowed any thing—but also it was the first time that M. Lupot gave a soiree. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... the existence of a great man in Angoumois. Mme. de Bargeton was praised on all sides for the interest which she took in this young eagle. No sooner was her conduct approved than she tried to win a general sanction. She announced a soiree, with ices, tea, and cakes, a great innovation in a city where tea, as yet, was sold only by druggists as a remedy for indigestion. The flower of Angoumoisin aristocracy was summoned to hear Lucien read his great work. ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... reason why you should attend a diplomatic soiree, and force yourself to bow and smirk to a number of white-handed little dandies whom ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... charming feuilleton of George Sand. It began: "Le Baron avait cause politique toute la soiree," which conversation apparently so exasperated the baronne and a young cousin that they wandered out into the village, which they immediately set by the ears. The cousin was an excellent mimic of all animals' noises. He barked so loud and so viciously that he started all the dogs in the village, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... upon the details of our arrangements for the morrow. Talbot, I learned from my betrothed, had just arrived in town. I was to see him at once, and procure a carriage. The soiree would scarcely break up before two; and by this hour the vehicle was to be at the door, when, in the confusion occasioned by the departure of the company, Madame L. could easily enter it unobserved. We were then to call at the house of a clergyman who would ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... relates, the Princess of Wales, with her accustomed mildness and benignity, used to say: "Hush! hush! Handel is in a passion." And Liszt never gave a finer exhibition of his wit and artistic courage than when, at an imperial soiree in the Russian capital, he suddenly ceased playing in the midst of a piece, because the Czar was talking loudly with an officer. The Czar sent an attendant to inquire of Liszt why he stopped; whereupon Liszt retorted that it was the first rule of court etiquette that when the Czar was speaking ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... laughed Harrach. "Quenched lights which yesterday shone like suns, and to-day are burnt to ashes! There is to be a soiree to-night at Bartenstein's. For the first time in eleven years I shall stay away ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... this time very much blown over; Basil Ransom had given no sign of life for ages, and Henry Burrage had certainly got his quietus before they went to Europe. If it had occurred to his mother that she might convert Verena into the animating principle of a big soiree, she was at least acting in good faith, for it could be no more her wish to-day that he should marry Selah Tarrant's daughter than it was her wish a year before. And then they should do some good to the benighted, the most benighted, the fashionable ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... library of Hardscrabble, and said traveler stated that he had seen a piano somewhere in New England with pantalets on; also, an old foreign paper was brought forward, in which there was an advertisement headed "Soiree," which informed the "citizens, generally," that Mr. Bobolink would preside at ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... Germany was for me the land of metaphysics, music, and poetry. I was greatly astonished to find that outside of the lecture courses the only thing discussed was the war which Prussia was about to make on France. Invited to a soiree, I heard it whispered behind me, Vielleicht ist er ein franzoesischer Spion—"Perhaps he is a French spy." Such were the words as I caught them. At the beer garden a student seated himself near me. He said to me, "We are going ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... donkeys and concertinas, crowded charabancs, and exchanged hats, though clumsy, are not so vicious or even so fundamentally vulgar as many of the amusements of the overeducated. People are not more crowded on a char-a-banc than they are at a political "At Home," or even an artistic soiree; and if the female trippers are overdressed, at least they are not overdressed and underdressed at the same time. It is better to ride a donkey than to be a donkey. It is better to deal with the Cockney festival which asks men and women to change hats, rather than with the modern Utopia ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... charmed circle must have genius, wit, or talent to recommend him. Though grave matrons shook their heads and looked prudish when the Countess Rosali was mentioned, yet to belong to her set was to receive the "stamp of fashion." No day passed without some amusement at the villa—picnic, excursion, soiree, dance, or, what its fair mistress preferred, private ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... gave a grand SOIREE, and she said to herself that it should be one of the greatest successes of the season. Three women were especially popular and sought after: Madame Vanira, whose beauty and genius made her queen of society; Lady Chandos, whose fair, tranquil loveliness was ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... was now finding its feet. On April 17th it had been resolved to send a delegate "to examine into and report upon the South Yorkshire Miners"! And on the same day it was determined to get up a Soiree. This gathering, held in Gower Street, was memorable because it was attended by Mrs. Annie Besant, then notorious as an advocate of Atheism and Malthusianism, the heroine of several famous law cases, and a friend and colleague of Charles Bradlaugh. Mrs. Besant was elected ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... certain evening in the spring of '95. If, on that evening, the Duchess of Hertfordshire had had a bad cold; or if she had decided that it WOULDN'T be rather interesting to go on to that party—that Annual Soiree, I think it was—of the Inkwomen's Club; or again—to go a step further back—if she hadn't ever written that one little poem, and if it HADN'T been printed in "The Gentlewoman," and if the Inkwomen's committee HADN'T instantly and unanimously elected her an Honorary Vice-President ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... black O'Connell," and lectured on slavery and on temperance to large and enthusiastic audiences. He was introduced to O'Connell, and exchanged compliments with him. A public breakfast was given him at Cork, and a soiree by Father Matthew, the eminent leader of the great temperance crusade which at that time shared with the repeal agitation the public interest of Ireland. A reception to Douglass and his friend Buffum was held in St. Patricks Temperance Hall, where they were greeted with a special song of welcome, ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... reek of a hotel ball, or the stewing soiree of a Cabinet secretary into the quiet salon of a West End home, the very atmosphere was different, and comparison came of itself with that old Quartier Saint Germain, which kept undefiled from the pitch that smirched its Paris, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... 'Browning evenings' there. For the rest, the English hunt lions too, Sarianna, but their favourite lions are chosen among 'lords' chiefly, or 'railroad kings.' 'It's worth eating much dirt,' said an Englishman of high family and character here, 'to get to Lady ——'s soiree.' Americans will eat dirt to get to us. There's the difference. English people will come and stare at me sometimes, but physicians, dentists, who serve me and refuse their fees, artists who give me pictures, friends who give up their carriages and make other practical ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... never more try With the Butterflies' party so vainly to vie; For what with the heat, the fatigue, and the fright, I never before passed so trying a night; I would not again undergo the vexation Of such a soiree, for the wealth of a nation." "With you I agree," the sage Emperor replied, Who deemed it a lesson to cure them of pride; "And I trust that the thread of our lives will spin out, Ere we ever again attempt such a rout. Alas! ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... there had the legend—at the news-room, at the milliner's, at the shoe-shop, and the general warehouse at the corner of the market; at Mrs. Pybus's, at the Glanders's, at the Honourable Mrs. Simcoe's soiree, at the Factory; nay, through the mill itself the tale was current in a few hours, and young Arthur Pendennis's ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bien jolie, au bal de la soiree, Quand l'eclat des flambeaux illuminait son front, Et que de bleus saphirs ou de roses paree De la danse folatre elle ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... forgot it. Once in Paris, in the opera, I used in jest emphatically the Russian word harrascho, "good," when a Russian stranger in the next box smiled joyously, and rising, waved his glove to me. Once in a brilliant soiree in Philadelphia there was a Hungarian Count, an exile, and talking with him in English, I let fall for a joke "Bassama terem-tete!" He grasped my hand, and, forgetting all around, entered into a long conversation. It was like the American who, on finding ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... day comes o'er me, What have I but flunks before me? Greek and Latin, how they bore me, After the Soiree. ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... to me, and we had such a flirtation! When he comes to Ireland we are to go to Donnybrook Fair together: in short, having cut me down with his tomahawk as a reviewer, he smothers me with roses as a man. I always say of my enemies before we meet, 'Let me at them!'" Of the same soiree she writes again: "There was Miss Jane Porter, looking like a shabby canoness. There was Mrs. Somerville in an astronomical cap. I dashed in in my blue satin and point lace, and showed them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the procession, which he describes, came the grand ceremonies of welcome at Haverley's Theatre. The next letter is written the following morning, or at least soiree time the following day, after a night ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... recu votre lettre Aujourdhui et comme le jour prochaine est mon jour de naisance je vous ecrit ce lettre. Ma grande gatteaux est arrive il leve 12 livres et demi le prix etait 17 shillings. Sur la soiree de Monseigneur Faux il y etait quelques belles feux d'artifice. Mais les polissons entrent dans notre champ et nos feux d'artifice et handkerchiefs disappeared quickly, but we charged them out of the field. Je suis presque driven mad par une bruit terrible tous les garcons kik ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sioux have been hunting about Rum River this winter and have killed great numbers of Dear—Our winter has been mild, one day only 30 below zero, and the rest comfortable.... Tonight Mumford gives a Soiree to the good folks of the garrison and this is the most exciting event of the week. What is the use of writing to you as I cannot find enough wherewith to ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... villa. Every morning she held an informal levee there, at which any stranger who sent in his card was welcome to call and pay his respects; and in the evenings, when she was not dancing attendance on Ludwig at the Palace, the Barerstrasse reception would be followed by a soiree. These gatherings attracted—in addition to a throng of artists and authors and musicians—professors and scholars from all over Europe; and, as Gertrude Aretz remarks, in her admirable study, The Elegant Woman (with considerable reference ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... pay a visit of ceremony to the governor's wife. Of course, no one had been more charmed and delighted by Yulia Mihailovna's words spoken at the marshal's soiree than she. They lifted a load of care off her heart, and had at once relieved much of the distress she had been suffering ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Mr. Weller's Absence, by describing a Soiree to which he was invited and went; also relates how he was intrusted by Mr. Pickwick with a Private Mission ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Melisande, based on the well-known play by Maeterlinck. A few comments may profitably be made on each of these types. With few exceptions all his pianoforte pieces have suggestive titles, e.g., Reflets dans l'eau, Jardins sous la pluie, La soiree dans Grenade, Poissons d'or, Voiles, Le vent dans la plaine, Bruyeres. They are mood-pictures in which the composer has tried to imprison certain elusive states of mind—or the impressions made on his susceptible imagination by the phenomena ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... 72; barbecue [U. S.], bee; corn-husking [U. S.], corn-shucking [U. S.]; house raising, barn raising; husking, husking-bee [U. S.]; infare[obs3]. party, entertainment, reception, levee, at, home, conversazione[It], soiree, matine; evening party, morning party, afternoon party, bridge party, garden party, surprise party; kettle, kettle drum; partie carre[Fr], dish of tea, ridotto[obs3], rout|!; housewarming; ball, festival &c; smoker, smoker-party;sociable [U.S.], stag party, hen ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... At a soiree given by the English committee to foreign visitors, the Prince of Wales and suit attended, thus showing the sanction of the English government to the congress. This sanction was also expressed by the attendance at one session ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... Lutheran as the Prussian Nation is, and strict to the bone:—heterodox wholly, to the length of no salvation possible; and times rose on the Berlin Court such as had never been seen before! "No salvation possible, says my Dearest? Hah! And an innocent Court-Mask or Dancing Soiree is criminal in the sight of God and of the Queen? And we are children of wrath wholly, and a frivolous generation; and the Queen ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... that she was displeased with him for daring to pursue her. Soon after her return from Moscow, on arriving at a soiree where she had expected to meet him, and not finding him there, she realized distinctly from the rush of disappointment that she had been deceiving herself, and that this pursuit was not merely not distasteful to her, but that it made the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the business was conducted. He seemed resolved to destroy all formality between parties who might desire to draw closer to each other, and he hit upon the lucky device of a table d'hote, very well managed, and held twice a-week, and often followed by a soiree dansante; so that, if they pleased, the aspirants to matrimonial happiness might become acquainted without gene. As he himself was a jolly, convivial fellow of much savoir vivre, it is astonishing how well ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as he put on my shawl. Adieu. I must refuse myself the pleasure of conversing longer with my sweet friend. Fresh toils await me. Madame la Grande will never forgive me if I do not appear for a moment at her soiree: and la petite Q—— will be jealous beyond recovery, if I do not give her a moment: and it is Madame R——'s night. There I must be; for all the ambassadors, as usual, will be there; and as some of them, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... women and hen-pecked husbands. The principle will gain more strength from the character of the arguments of its opponents than from any number of Bloomer conventions. The modern idea of the fashionable belle, floating like a bird of paradise through the soiree; the impersonation of motion and grace in the ball-room, indulging alternately in syncope and rapture over the marvelous adventures and despair of the hero of a mushroom romance, her rapid transition from one ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... close of this year the young Vicomte de Grandville was sent as deputy solicitor to the courts of Limoges. He came preceded by a reputation always given to Parisians in the provinces. A few days after his arrival, during a soiree at the prefecture, he made answer to a rather foolish question, that the most able, intelligent, and distinguished woman he had met in the town ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... rooms are small. Nevertheless, she shrinks not from bidding her friends come to see her. Either she has, in pleasant sociable fashion, a regular reception-evening, once a week, when she is "at home" to all her friends and acquaintances, or else she organizes a little soiree twice or thrice during the season. Fifty or sixty people, as many as her rooms will conveniently hold, are invited. The mistress of the house provides something in the way of some good amateur music, a charade or two acted in almost ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... over to the marchioness's and took advantage of the drawing-room being open to be aired, to open the piano and practice an aria which she had promised at the next soiree. There was nothing but praise for her singing, and old, retired tenors and obese soprani had assured her that she had but to have one hearing in the Opera to be placed among the stars. The aged pianist had often listened to her ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... could only emanate from a poet's brain with an extra-poetical poet's license. I was very indignant, and told him so, and said, "Est-ce que tous les poetes sont fous a cette heure de la soiree?" ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... remained in Jerusalem as a missionary, and is the same in spirit here. It is well to be servants of Christ everywhere, at home or abroad, wherever He may send us or take us.... I hope I may be enabled to say a word for Him on Monday. There is to be a grand dinner and soiree at the Lord-Lieutenant's on Monday, and I have got an invitation in my pocket, but will have to meet Admiral Trotter on Tuesday. I go off as soon as my lecture is over.... Sir Duncan Macgregor is the author of The Burning of the Kent East Indiaman. His son, the only infant saved, is now a devoted ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... not playing there. Sometimes there would come breaks in the seasons, and for a year the great building would be dark and silent. Then M'sieu Fortier would do jobs of playing here and there, one night for this ball, another night for that soiree dansante, and in the day, work at his trade,—that of a cigar-maker. But now for seven years there had been no break in the season, and the little old violinist was happy. There is nothing sweeter than a regular job and good music to ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... was said that our young men knew everybody at the Fosses' soiree, it was not strictly meant that there might not be a person or two whom they had not seen before: a plain little visiting cousin whom the Bentivoglios had begged permission to bring; a new face of a young Italian introduced by a fellow officer. But ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... on ascending the throne, he spoke of the "lively and warm interest" that bound him to the navy, shortly afterwards issued directions for a new marine uniform on the English model, and caused the introduction into the Lutheran Church service of a special prayer for the arm. He gave a parliamentary soiree at the New Palace in Potsdam, and before allowing his Conservative and National Liberal guests to sit down to supper, made them listen to a lecture which occupied two hours, giving particular attention, with the aid of maps ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... Mackerel gave a superb soiree, Standing on stilts to receive her guests; The gas-lights mimicked the glowing day So well, that the birds, in their flowery nests, Almost burst their beautiful breasts, Trilling away their musical stories In Mrs. Mackerel's conservatories. She received on stilts; a distant bow Was all the loftiest ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... shall my lord of the manor do? He pondered the day and the whole night through. He called on the gentry of hill-top and dale; And at last on Madame the Nightingale,— Inviting, in his majestical way, Her pupils to sing at his grand soiree, That perchance among them my lord might find Some singer to whom his heart inclined. What wonder, then, when the evening came, And the castle gardens were all aflame With the many curious lights that hung O'er the ivied porches, and flared ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... near Sceaux. [The Ball at Sceaux.] Raphael de Valentin desired her and would have sought her but for the fear of exhausting the "magic skin." [The Magic Skin.] In 1832 she was among the guests at a soiree given by Mme. d'Espard, where the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was maligned in the presence of Daniel d'Arthez, in love with her. [The Secrets of a Princess.] She was quite jealous of Mme. Felix de Vandenesse, the wife of her old-time lover, and in 1834-35 she manoeuvred, with ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Europe, 1854 Lines Written on the Morning, of the Dreadful Fire, March 9, 1854 To the Rev. J. W. and his Bride Stanzas on hearing an Auctioneer quote Scripture Winter's Ravages; An Appeal A Canadian National Song A Call to the Soiree An Address by the Members of the Institute at the Soiree Alcohol's Arraignment and Doom To Mr. James Woodyatt On hearing of Dr. O'Carr's Death Stanzas suggested by the Railway Accident at Desjardin's Canal To the Memory of Dr. Laycock Song of the Canadian Cradler Stanzas ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... digression will explain to you why Monsieur De La Fayette is so busy. He has more to do than all the Ministers together. However, my letters were presented, and he said to my friend that he had a soiree every Tuesday, and should be most happy to see me there. I drove to his house yesterday night. Of the interest which the common Parisians take in politics you may judge by this. I told my driver to wait for me, and asked his number. 'Ah! monsieur, c'est un beau numero. C'est un brave numero. C'est ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... bard?' 'Oh, yes, very sorry; don't you think so? molto triste—very mel-an-choly; don't you find him so? I always feel very sorry when I read him. I think he's far more sorry than PETRARCA; don't you?' This will remind the reader of the very strong term used by a Frenchman, who on being asked at a soiree what was the cause of his evident sadness, replied: 'I av just hear my fader he die: I am ver' mosh dissatisfied!' . . . WE shall probably find a place for the paper entitled 'Foreigners in America.' The writer touches with a trenchant pen upon 'the social abuses which ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... marriage, it is easily seen that Fritz Bagger was much sought for in company. He went, too, into it as often as allowed by his legal duties, from which he would hasten in the black "swallow-tail" to a dinner or soiree, and often amused himself where most others were weary; because conversation about anything whatever with the cultivated was to him a refreshment, and because he brought with him a good appetite and good humor, resting upon conscientious work. He could show interest in divers trifles, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... with this wealth of resource in her that she appeared at the soirees, or at least at the great fancy-dress soiree in which the historic truth of my experience, free lemonade and all, is doubtless really shut up, as the "genius of California," a dazzling vision of white satin and golden flounces—her brother meanwhile maintaining ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... young man, of whom his mother was so proud, whom his father so loved and honored, sat alone, shedding the bitterest tears that an honest man can, while in another part of the house Rosalie's white fingers were flying over the keys, practicing the difficult piece that was to astonish the next soiree? From that day dated a friendship between Anton and Bernhard which was a source of pleasure and profit to both. Anton described the studious youth to the free and easy Fink, and expressed his wish to bring about ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... people rose in their irresistible might, and between the rising of one day's sun and its setting this powerful machine went as goes the gum-drop on the red-hot stove cover at a pop-corn soiree. It melted, leaving nothing but a faint odor and a thin stain, both of which disappeared in the next morning's scrubbing, and the Louisiana Lottery was as though it had never been. Yet during its reign its insolent votaries could prove to the absolute satisfaction of all intelligent, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the midst of his dancing soiree at Fa'a. He was put in the calaboose, and when he frankly said that he had come to Tahiti to preach the gospel of I. W. W.-ism and that he believed the fishermen had all the right on their side, he was sentenced as "a foreigner without ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... beyond any other vulture's, Mirabeau perceived that here the end now was. And thereupon rushed off, to make arrangements for a courier, for flying pigeons, and the other requisites. And appeared that night at the Queen's Soiree in Schonhausen [Queen has Apartment that evening, dreaming of nothing], 'where,' says he, 'I eagerly whispered the French Minister,' and less eagerly 'MON AMI Mylord Dalrymple,' the English one;—neither of whom would believe me. Nor, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... at home I have renewed my German class for a few of my young friends. We have also commenced a soiree for German and French conversation. I love the society of my young friends, and am always, anxious to promote their learning to speak German ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... his evenings was spent at the house of Madame la Marquise de Barthelemy. An interesting account of the soiree is given by a correspondent of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, who was present on the occasion.{2} The salons of Madame la Marquise were filled to overflowing. Many of the old nobility of ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... et tremble le royaume. Si quelqu'un pouvait voir dans l'oeil de ce fantome, Debout en ce moment l'epaule contre un mur, Ce qu'on apercevrait dans cet abime obscur, Ce n'est pas l'humble enfant, le jardin, l'eau moiree Refletant le ciel d'or d'une claire soiree, Les bosquets, les oiseaux se becquetant entre eux. Non; au fond de cet oeil, comme l'onde vitreux, Sous ce fatal sourcil qui derobe a la sonde Cette prunelle autant que l'ocean profonde, Ce qu'on distinguerait, c'est, mirage mouvant, Tout un vol de ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... soiree at the West-end through Regent-street, Haymarket and the Strand once at midnight, I was struck, though accustomed to all manner of late hours in New-York, with the relative activity and wide-awake aspect of London at that hour. It seemed the High Change of revelry ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... things which this interesting lady did, was to get up a soiree in her apartments at the convent in aid of the sufferers of Lyons from an inundation of the Rhone, from which she realized a large sum. It was attended by the elite of Paris. Lady Byron paid a hundred francs ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... Frederick must indeed have been considerable, for in Clementina Tanska-Hofmanowa's Pamiatka po dobrej matce (Memorial of a good Mother) [FOOTNOTE: Published in 1819.] the writer relates that she was at a soiree at Gr——'s, where she found a numerous party assembled, and heard in the course of the evening young Chopin play the piano—"a child not yet eight years old, who, in the opinion of the connoisseurs of the art, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... to the crooked old emigrant whom he had taken into his house, and called for some unknown reason 'M. le Commandeur,' he recited in his deliberate, nasal voice, the impromptu he had once delivered at a soiree of the Duchesse de Polignac. I remember only the first two lines.... It had reference to a comparison between the ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... gathering, social reunion; assembly &c (assemblage) 72; barbecue [U.S.], bee; corn-husking [U.S.], corn-shucking [U.S.]; house raising, barn raising; husking, husking-bee [U.S.]; infare^. party, entertainment, reception, levee, at, home, conversazione [It], soiree, matinee; evening party, morning party, afternoon party, bridge party, garden party, surprise party; kettle, kettle drum; partie carree [Fr.], dish of tea, ridotto^, rout^; housewarming; ball, festival &c; smoker, smoker-party; sociable [U.S.], stag party, hen party, tamasha^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... me that she had fairly to give her books away—I didn't want to see her cry. She kept it up amazingly, and every few months, at my club, I saw three new volumes, in green, in crimson, in blue, on the book- table that groaned with light literature. Once I met her at the Academy soiree, where you meet people you thought were dead, and she vouchsafed the information, as if she owed it to me in candour, that Leolin had been obliged to recognise insuperable difficulties in the question of FORM, he was so fastidious; so that she had now arrived at a definite understanding ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... to the city at evening, we were invited to attend a grand soiree, got up in honor of the Bishop's first visit to that place. Several families of colored people combined to provide the splendid entertainment, while one lady presided at the board. She was very beautiful and very dark; but a complete model of grace and elegance, conversing with ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... a soiree this evening, to which I am invited. The superior, Miss Komorowska, is a very respectable personage. Madame Zamoyska, born Zahorowska, was the foundress of this community: she copied it from that existing at Remiremont, in Lorraine. It serves as an asylum for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... your success ever find the most joyful echo in Weymar, and I thank you much for the pleasant tidings in your letter. Haslinger, on his side, was so kind as to write me a full account of your first concert, as well as the Court soiree at H.R.H. the Archduchess Sophie's—and yesterday evening v. Dingelstedt gave me also full details of your concert ravages in Munich. All this plainly shows dass man Bock-Bier trinken kann, ohne deswegen Bocke zu schiessen! ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... you both," said the Duchess Amelia, extending her hand to her son, who pressed it to his lips most affectionately. "I have given out invitations for a soiree, for this evening. My daughter-in-law, the Duchess Louisa, has accepted, duke, and Frau von Stein also, Goethe. I hope to see you at Belvedere, gentlemen. The poet Gleim is in town, and will read his late 'Muse Almanach.' May I ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach |
