"Castanets" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... utensils shone, in a line on shelves sealed to the walls; every shelf ornamented with one of those pink paper frills, cut in designs, which are manufactured in Spain and on which are printed, invariably, series of personages dancing with castanets, or scenes in the lives of the toreadors. In this white interior, before this joyful and clear chimney, one felt an impression of home, a tranquil welfare, which was augmented by the notion of the vast, wet, surrounding night, of the grand darkness of the ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... style, nor the English style: though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told, deriving a delightful air of off-hand inspiration, from the chirping little castanets. As they danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly round and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed to spread and spread, in the sun-lighted scene, like an expanding circle in the water. ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... savage nature of his disposition. Even Gibault felt a little uneasy, and began to think himself a fool for having ventured on such an expedition alone. His state of mind was not improved by the sound of the artist's teeth chattering in his head like castanets. ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the midst of continuing torrential tropical downpours, we climbed out of the hot valley to the cold heights of Pampaconas. We were soaked with perspiration and drenched with rain. Snow had been falling above the village; our teeth chattered like castanets. Professor Foote immediately commandeered Mrs. Guzman's fire and filled our tea kettle. It may be doubted whether a more wretched, cold, wet, and bedraggled party ever arrived at Guzman's hut; certainly nothing ever tasted better than that ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... music, how the great festival at Bubastis in honour of the Egyptian Diana (Bast or Pascht), to whom the cat was sacred, was attended yearly by 700,000 people who came by water, the boats resounding with the clatter of castanets, the clapping of hands, and the soft tones of thousands of flutes. Again he tells us of music played during banquets, and speaks of a mournful song called Maneros. This, the oldest song of the Egyptians (dating back ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... for nothing else, unless it be its waxen and bejewelled Saint in a glass case, with two odd hands; or the enormous number of beggars who are constantly rapping their chins there, like a battery of castanets. The cathedral with the beautiful door, and the columns of African and Egyptian granite that once ornamented the temple of Apollo, contains the famous sacred blood of San Gennaro or Januarius: which ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... monotonous, endless, negro-Methodist chants, with obscure syllables recurring constantly, and slight variations interwoven, all accompanied with a regular drumming of the feet and clapping of the hands, like castanets. Then the excitement spreads: inside and outside the enclosure men begin to quiver and dance, others join, a circle forms, winding monotonously round some one in the centre; some "heel and toe" tumultuously, others merely tremble and stagger on, others stoop and rise, others whirl, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Rossi led the Fandango, with a grace and activity that pleased me beyond idea. Music was never more rapturous than that which accompanies this dance. It quite enchanted me, and I longed to have sprung upon the stage. The cadence is so strongly marked by the castanets, that it is almost impossible to be out of time; and the rapidity of steps and varied movements scarcely allows a moment to think of being tired. I should imagine the eternal dance, with which certain tribes of American savages think they are to be rewarded in a future existence, might be formed ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... waiting, sir, for you to draw," said the major quite briskly. "I will shoot it out with you to see whether right or might shall control this convention." And his heels clicked together like castanets. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... perspiration was pouring in streams from the girl's face, whilst the slim body shook and shook like a young tree in a storm; her teeth chattered like castanets, her closed eyes were sunk in purple black orbits, the cheeks were drawn and grey, and the nostrils were dilating like those of a ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... luminous and soft; I think of the cities, the white cities bathed in light; of the desolate wastes of sand, with their dwarf palms, the broom in flower. And in my ears I hear the twang of the guitar, the rhythmical clapping of hands and the castanets, as two girls dance in the sunlight on a holiday. I see the crowds going to the bull-fight, intensely living, many-coloured. And a thousand scents are wafted across my memory; I remember the cloudless nights, the silence of ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... from his pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter's swing to its chorus, rather than ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... more than once. Another very graceful dance, the name of which I have forgotten, consists of four couples posturing to waltz time, changing from one partner to another as the dance progresses, and finally waltzing off with the original one, the motion of clinking castanets at different parts of the dance suggesting for it a ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... was taking his time about turning to give us directions, and one great fifteen foot brute had raised itself on the causeway behind us and was snapping its paws together like a pair of vicious castanets. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... and repassed these, others in brave attire; with castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... young girl snapped her fingers together till they cracked like castanets; while her countenance, instead of expressing any very painful emotion, exhibited an air ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... leaping again at the end of his chain. His jaws snapped like castanets of steel,—and the sound awakened him, and he sprang to his feet, his spine as stiff as a brush, and his snarling fangs bared like ivory knives. He had awakened just in time. There was movement in the tent. His master was awake, and if he did ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... girl dancing; hold these slips of wood in your hand, they are supposed to be castanets; now just imagine that music is playing and that you are keeping time to it with them, and swaying your body, rather than moving your feet to ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... was jangling in the market, whilst a huge leering fellow in bushy whiskers and a faded velvet dress came singing and jumping after our party,—not singing to a guitar, it is true, but imitating one capitally with his voice, and cracking his fingers by way of castanets, and performing a dance such as Figaro or Lablache might envy. How clear that fellow's voice thrums on the ear even now; and how bright and pleasant remains the recollection of the fine city and the blue sea, and the Spanish ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by eight gitanas, with one gitano, an excellent dancer, to lead them. The others were all very well, but such was the elegance of Preciosa, that she fascinated the eyes of all the spectators. Amidst the sound of the tambourine and castanets, in the heat of the dance, a murmur of admiration arose for the beauty and grace of Preciosa; but when they heard her sing—for the dance was accompanied with song—the fame of the gitana reached its highest point; and by common consent the jewel offered as the prize of ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the lady's person, well worth omitting. "And such a jolly girl! brightens them all up wherever she goes; and such a dancer; did the cachouka with a little Spanish bloke Bosanquet has got hold of, and made his black bolus eyes twinkle like midnight cigars: danced it with castanets, and smiles, and such a what d'ye call 'em, my boy, you know; ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... which should have the kingdom. Then the youngest took from his pocket the nut the Cat had given to him, and there was seen a little dog so tiny that it could go through a ring without touching it; he was also able to dance, and play the castanets, while his ears touched the ground. The King was embarassed, for it was impossible to find a flaw in ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... not dreamed the rattling of glass, nor the jarring sensation, nor yet the smoke and heat and lurid light. The walls shook with a dull vibration, and the window-panes were like castanets. Through the glass transom over the door I could see a shimmering, ruddy glow that rose and fell, and was brightened by bursting sparks and little darting tongues of yellow flame. Apart from this one lurid spot all was thickly ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... longer believing themselves observed, they proceeded silently and with caution,—the only noise made among them being the chattering of their teeth, which were going like three complete sets of castanets. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... orchestra were sounding the preliminary whimpers to a maxixe, a tune full of castanets and facile faintly languorous violin harmonies, appropriate to the crowded winter grill teeming with an excited college crowd, high-spirited at the approach of the holidays. Carefully, Gloria considered several locations, and rather ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... all the rest of that day; so I kept the bottle corked after that. But his favorite nook was among the ferns in the vase which a Parian dancing-girl carried. She stood just over the stove on one little toe, rattling some castanets, which made no sound, and never getting a step farther for all her prancing. This was a warm and pretty retreat for Buzz, and there he spent much of his time, swinging on the ferns, sleeping snugly in the vase, or warming his feet in the hot air that blew up, like ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... said, "he had acquired, while he filled a place at the bursar's table at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen; when," said he; "if you did not move your jaws as fast as a pair of castanets, you were very unlikely to get any thing to put between them. And as for the quantity of my food, be it known to this honourable company," continued the Captain, "that it's the duty of every commander of a fortress, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... this scene of simple pleasure. The group before him consisted of French and Spanish peasants, the inhabitants of a neighbouring hamlet, some of whom were performing a sprightly dance, the women with castanets in their hands, to the sounds of a lute and a tamborine, till, from the brisk melody of France, the music softened into a slow movement, to which two female peasants danced a ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... board-walk, with heels clicking like castanets, conscious that the world was hushed in ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Daggett." Mr. Boltwood was uninterestedly fumbling in his money pocket. Behind Milt Daggett, Claire shook her head wildly, rattling her hands as though she were playing castanets. Mr. Boltwood shrugged. He did not understand. His relations with young men in cheap raincoats were entirely monetary. They did something for you, and you paid them—preferably not too much—and they ceased to be. Whereas Milt Daggett respectfully but ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... scared condition is not unnoticed. It is heard, if not clearly seen. Two or three, standing close to him, can hear his teeth clacking like castanets! ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... lead-dog followed their course; Nick, on the right of them, moved wide, and craned to obtain a first view of the hut. Suddenly he gave a great shout. The dogs dropped in their harness and crouched, snarling and snapping, their jaws clipping together with the sound of castanets, whilst their wiry manes rose upon their shoulders bristling with ferocity which had in it something of fear. Ralph reached his brother's side and ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... of his descendants in innocent sport and festivity, keeping a young heart under the weight of years. Clara and Magdalena were particularly struck by the native grace displayed by the youths and maidens in the bolero, a dance originally introduced by the Moors: with castanets in their hands, accompanying their steps with unpremeditated music, they would alternately advance and retreat, fly and pursue, until, exhausted by the exercise, they would rest upon the rustic bench or the green bank, and while away the hours with song and guitar. What noble-looking ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... the door, then shrank back. Leaning against the jamb was the Russian. His manner had changed subtly. His thin lips spread from ear to ear in a wolfish grin. His fingers clicked like castanets. ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West |
