"Contralto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not a tenderfoot," she rallied, in a softly vibrant, contralto voice. "I heard shots, so came a-running. Your attacker must have vamosed, else you'd have collected lead ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... ten I had kept my word, and I stood once more at the Row of Mystery. The chairs were vacant, for the blue coats had wrought havoc there! A little apart sat a blonde beauty of petite figure, who talked in a deep contralto voice, astonishing for one so slight, with a young lieutenant who leaned close to her. I selected her for Tudie Devlin of Kentucky. She whom I fancied to be the "Evans girl from up North," was just promenading away with a young man ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... sing. The contralto throbbed, painted, told, brought delight and melancholy. He sat with his hand loosened from hers, his eyes upon the lake's blue-green depths. At ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... my age and size,' she explained. 'Contralto, you know, but it ought to be stronger,' and she began, her face all dark against the last of the soft ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... was peeping over the bannisters at him, and the vision's eyes were sparkling with a lucent mischief and a wonderful, half-hushed contralto was demanding ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... to scratch, but Parks said they were hard up for a good contralto; so I had to go in the team. I'm to be third man up in the anthem to-morrow—got half ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... now." The colonel gave the subject up. The ways of women were past his finding out. But Mrs. Culpepper had heard Jane Mason sing a duet in church with John Barclay, and the elder woman had heard in the big contralto voice of the girl something not meant for the preacher. And Mrs. Culpepper heard John answer it, so she knew what he did not know, what Jane Mason did not know, and what only Molly Culpepper suspected, and Bob Hendricks ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... replied in a very throaty contralto that went with her figure and her thousand dollars worth of simple skirt and blouse. "You needn't 'Fix' anything. Just be sure that it's Flying Heels, Moonbeam, and Lady Grace in that order. One, two, three. Do I ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... never heard it well but in a dream, and it was the same—a very rich and modulated voice—low—contralto, with many varied and delightful inflexions; and she used more action in speaking than the generality of Englishwomen, thereby reminding me of Madame Seraskier. I noticed that her hands were long and very narrow, and also her feet, and remembered that Mimsey's were like that—they were considered ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... The brunette, the contralto, the Rebecca, dazzles less, but touches the heart all the more deeply, perhaps; anyhow, Barty had no doubt as to which of the two voices was the voice for him. His passion was as that of Brian de Bois-Guilbert for mere strength, except that he was bound by no vows ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... have lent a charm to the driest of statistical details, what the hour was. I had never before been impressed with any particular interest attaching to the hour of three in the morning, but as I heard it announced in those low, rich, thrilling contralto tones, it appeared fairly to coruscate with previously latent suggestions of romance and poetry, which, if somewhat vague, were very pleasing. Turning out the gas that I might the more easily imagine the bewitching presence which the ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... music of Nature, must have observed how different are the songs sung by different brooks. Some are a mere tinkling, others are sweet as silver bells, with a tone besides which no bell ever had. Some sing in a careless, defiant tone. This one sung in a veiled voice, a contralto muffled in the hollows of overhanging banks, with a low, deep, musical gurgle in some of the stony eddies, in which a straw would float for days and nights till a flood came, borne round and round in a funnel-hearted ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... It's all right to talk now." She gave a little laugh of satisfaction and he noted that her voice was contralto and well modulated. "This has been the best night's work yet. Did you think ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... a low, contralto voice which ought to have some machine oil on it. The voice of this animal is not unpleasant if he would pull some of the pathos out of it and make it ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... contralto aria "He shall feed His flock," in Handel's Messiah, the unaccented word "shall" falls on the most strongly accented note of the bar. If performed thus, it would give a most aggressive character to the passage, implying that some one had previously denied the assertion. This would be entirely ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... restrain herself and began to chime in with him, and their singing proved to be very harmonious. Little by little, when she had by degrees completely ceased to be embarrassed before the prince, they sang together more and more frequently. Liubka proved to have a very soft and low contralto, even though thin, on which her past life with its colds, drinking, and professional excesses had left absolutely no traces. And mainly—which was already a curious gift of God—she possessed an instinctive, inherent ability very exactly, beautifully, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... wandering o'er the keys, The white enchantress with the golden hair Breathed all her soul through some unvalued rhyme; Some flower of song that long had lost its bloom; Lo! its dead summer kindled as she sang! The sweet contralto, like the ringdove's coo, Thrilled it with brooding, fond, caressing tones, And the pale minstrel's passion lived again, Tearful and trembling as a dewy rose The wind has shaken till it fills the air With light and fragrance. Such the wondrous charm A song can borrow when ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a husband and two children," Aline Goring murmured, in her soft contralto. "You remember Eugene? At the Springs that summer?" The husband, a tall, smooth-shaven, young man with glasses and the delicate air of the steam-heated ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Frothingham, not quite twenty-one, was studying at the Royal Academy of Music, and, according to her friends, promised to excel alike on the piano and the violin, having at the same time a 'really remarkable' contralto voice. Of late the young lady had abandoned singing, rarely used the pianoforte, and seemed satisfied to achieve distinction as a violinist. She had founded an Amateur Quartet Society, whose performances were frequently to be heard at the house ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... entirely. Gone were the heavy guttural tones. In their place was a rich, rather throaty contralto. Carnes gave a cry of astonishment and turned his ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... her mind to stay in the kitchen and then loses her mind. A product of modern society who has for her motto "Dimuendo contralto dumdum," which means, "She who cooks and runs away will live to ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... in some adjacent den, there floated a tenor aria, the Bella figlia del amore, pierced suddenly and beautifully by a contralto's rich voice. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... in the living-room, offering a rough, red hand to an exquisite creature who seemed a blurred mass of pale green and burnished gold, redolent of violets, and who murmured, in a beautifully modulated contralto: "How do you do, Miss Starr! I am very glad ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... be deafened,' said Rose, laughing, as she escaped from him a moment, to arrange for a song from a tall formidable maiden, built after the fashion of Mr. Gilbert's contralto heroines, with a voice which bore out the ample promise of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... violin, and the Van Ness boys produced a banjo and a madolin. Everybody seemed to sing at least fairly well, and some of the voices were really fine. Patty's sweet soprano received many compliments, as also did Elise's full, clear contralto. The girls were accustomed to singing together, and Mr. Pauvret proved himself a true musician by his ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... by his real name also," said the elder woman in her deep, smooth contralto voice, and with the display of an admirable set of teeth. "The bills advertising the reward, and stating the fact of the murder, bore my late ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... mistress's quiet authority in her boyish contralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive down the road as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near the right bank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by a fall. Bring him up here, unless somebody has found him already, or you happen to know who he is and ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... musical rippling of water under the counter, and the spirited motion of the boat combined, with the bland air and pleasant sunshine, to inspire the party with much vivacity. They had not been many minutes afloat before the guitar-case was opened, and the girls' voices—Laura's soprano and Hattie's contralto—rang melodiously over the waves, mingled with feeble attempt at bass accompaniment ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... tray on which there was a pitcher of something nice and cold that tasted of orange, and some small doughnuts. Miss Rand sat down on an apple branch, which seat she preferred to a chair, and she sang for them, at Peggy's request, some Scotch songs, in a sweet contralto voice. ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... call her so: the rankest bloom of fifty summers, in white satin and pearls: a faded dahlia. Women hinted that the fragrance of the dahlia had not been healthful in the world; but they crowded to hear her: such a wonderful contralto! The manager, a thin old man, with a hook-nose, and kindly, uncertain smile, stood by the stove, with a group of gentlemen about him. The wretch from the street ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... angry with me!" she said, a contralto note of tragedy coming suddenly into her silvery voice. "I wouldn't have told you ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... gay as his was grave. For Adriance, though he was ten years the elder, and though his hair was streaked with silver, had the face of a boy of twenty, so mobile that it told his thoughts before he could put them into words. A contralto, famous for the extravagance of her vocal methods and of her affections, had once said to him that the shepherd boys who sang in the Vale of Tempe must certainly have looked like young Hilgarde; and the comparison had been appropriated by ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... see, if she is going to sing in girls' duds, she's a contralto; but then, if she has to do her stunt in boys' clothes, ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... creation, the design of which was that of the Violono or Double Bass already referred to. The next and most important step was in all probability to make the common Geige or three-stringed Fiddle of the same shape as these Tenor and Contralto Viols, thus handing to us the present-shaped Violin. In the MS. notes of Lancetti, reference is made to a three-stringed Violin in the collection of Count Cozio di Salabue, which throws some light upon the question as to three-stringed Violins, of the form of the Italian Viola, having been ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... said she, the sound of her voice put these thoughts to flight and recalled him to the present. He felt how full and rich her contralto voice was, A moment ago he could have told her this, and more besides, as an introduction to still more. Now he sat down without answering, and she did ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... fact, into several small, select cliques, each engaged in deadly and bitter feud with the rest. When the moon-eyed soprano arose, with a gentle flutter, and opened her charming mouth in solo, her friends settled themselves in their pews with a general rustle of satisfaction, while the friends of the contralto exchanged civilly significant glances; and on the way home the solo in question was disposed of in a manner at once thorough and final. The same thing occurred when the contralto was prominent, or the tenor, or the baritone, or the ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... odd vocal performance—a low, croaking trill, preceded by a few longer notes, all delivered in the same key. It is, in fact, a contralto solo divided into brief stanzas, and easily might be mistaken for the grating buzz of an insect, especially if heard at a distance of a few rods. It possesses little or no musical quality, and is perhaps the most curious style of bird minstrelsy with ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... is of good compass and volume, but it is lacking in the "rich fruity tone" which, according to popular novelists, is indispensable to the exertion of a magnetic influence on the hearer. Is it possible by diet to remedy this deficiency?—CONTRALTO. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... performers was a distant cousin, Cecilia Morland, a young woman rather tall and fully developed; not strikingly beautiful, but with a lovely reddish-brown tint on her face, indicative of healthy, warm, rich pulsations. She possessed a contralto voice, of a quality like that of a blackbird, and it fell to her and to Frank to sing. She was dressed in a fashion perhaps a little more courtly than was usual in the gatherings at Mr Palmer's house, and Frank, as he stood beside her at the ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... too near the thrasher for his liking and he slips down into the brush. And then, by rare good fortune, a blue-bird begins his song. He has been chided by some because he has a magnificent contralto voice and scarcely ever uses it. Have we not been taught to chide the man who hides his talent in a napkin, or his light under a bushel? But how he can sing when he does sing! This is one of the mornings. The ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... existence. In a moment more the lady began to sing an odd little chanson. I need not remind you how much farther the voice is heard singing than speaking. I could distinguish the words. The voice was of that exquisitely sweet kind which is called, I believe, a semi-contralto; it had something pathetic, and something, I fancied, a little mocking in its tones. I venture a clumsy, but adequate translation of ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... voice differs from a man's not only in pitch but in timbre; its quality suggests the sex. There is great scope for variety, from the lowest contralto to the highest soprano, as there is in man's from the lowest bass to the highest tenor; a variety so great that voices differ as much as faces and can be instantly recognized; but unless it has the proper sexual quality a voice ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... fated to be left at the post; Tenor Di Grazia, his twin brother; Giovanni Baritono, a Soldier of Fortune; Piccolo, an innkeeper; Fra Tonerero Basso, a priest; Signorina Prima Soprano, a bar maid; Signorina Mezzo, also a bar maid, and Signora Contralto, Piccolo's wife, besides villagers, eight topers, musicians, five couples of rustic brides and grooms, and a dancing bear and his keeper. Let us not forget the mythical mouse and the ribbon from which The Garters were ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... was not the same Pen, yawning in a shooting jacket, in the Fairoaks parlour, who appeared alert and brisk, and smiling and well dressed, in Lady Clavering's drawing-room. Sometimes they had music. Laura had a sweet contralto voice, and sang with Blanche, who had had the best continental instruction, and was charmed to be her friend's mistress. Sometimes Mr. Pen joined in these concerts, or oftener looked sweet upon Miss Blanche as she sang. Sometimes ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... house just after the news of a considerable Carlist success had reached the faithful, I was seized round the neck and waist and whirled recklessly three times round the room, to the crash of upsetting furniture and the humming of a valse tune in a warm contralto voice. ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... said he, "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old—twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an andante in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... published by JOSEPH WILLIAMS of Berners Street. Justice was not done to it on the stage at the Royalty, but there are two morceaux in it which ought to become popular; one being a song entitled "Her Eye," which, were it wedded to serious words, would be highly popular as a contralto song, just as SULLIVAN'S charming "Hush a bye Bacon," in Cox and Box, became "Birds of the Night." Then the Gavotte in this book is as graceful and catching as the Gavotte de Louis Treize, and would be in great request with orchestras and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... in Jubilee Year that the British public were first charmed by the singing of this admirable American contralto. She sang in London, and successive audiences were quick to confirm the judgments of Sir Joseph Barnby and certain other critics who had heard her only in private. Her advance to the front rank of English singers was exceedingly rapid, and her position amongst us was long since made secure. Madame ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... tell," said Freda, and there was a shade of sadness in her tone. Her voice was deeper than most women's voices—a rich contralto with something striking and individual about it. I could hear her quite plainly; but Derrick spoke less distinctly—he always had a bad ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... growling of a broken-winded 'cello, nervous giggling and moaning of an excoriated violin—the three wringing from the score of O You Beautiful Doll an entirely adequate accompaniment to the perfunctory performance of a husky contralto. ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... out Olive's contralto, 'don't judge me by appearances. You're sure to be taken in. With me it's ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... continually. As soon as he had finished a piece, he had it rehearsed by the friends who happened to be present. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the day before his death, Schack, who was the first 'Tamino,' sang soprano, Mozart himself contralto, Hofer, his brother-in-law, tenor, and Geri, who was the first 'Sarastro,' bass. At the 'Lacrymosa' Mozart began to weep violently, and laid down the score. Toward evening, when his sister-in-law, Sophie Haibl, came in, Mozart begged her ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... with dark-golden face and hair that bushed and strayed. His fingers were always nervously seeking hidden keys and he was quick with enthusiasm,—instinct with life. His bride of a year or more,—dark, too, in her whiter way,—was of the calm and quiet type. Her soft contralto voice thrilled us often as she sang, while her silences were ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... his duty, the boy began to sing in a full, rich contralto voice, which betrayed a tremour, however, that evidently formed no part of the air. His words, so far as they might be distinguished, ran ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... seldom seen. Mrs. Vyvian's efforts had not been in vain; they were accomplished far beyond the ordinary run of young girls. Lillian inherited her father's talent for drawing. She was an excellent artist. Beatrice excelled in music. She had a magnificent contralto voice that had been carefully trained. Both were cultivated, graceful, elegant girls, and Lady Earle often sighed to think they should be living in such profound obscurity. She could do nothing; ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... to get one off. It was a good law and ensured the suppers being disposed of. There was no dancing to-night, it being an understood thing that when Mrs. Upjohn was asked there should be none or she would not come; but there was music. Bell Masters had a very nice contralto voice, and was always willing to sing, thus sure of securing one of Joppa's few young gentlemen to stand by and turn over her leaves; she thoughtfully took her music on that account, giving out that she could not play without notes. Phebe had been doing her best all unconsciously to herself ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... both are gone. Then as if by a preconcerted signal, the throats are all atune. I lie on my back with eyes half closed, and analyze the chorus of warblers, thrushes, finches, and flycatchers; while, soaring above all, a little withdrawn and alone rises the divine contralto of the hermit. That richly modulated warble proceeding from the top of yonder birch, and which unpracticed ears would mistake for the voice of the scarlet tanager, comes from that rare visitant, the rose-breasted grosbeak. It is a strong, vivacious strain, a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... excuse would disappear (and incidentally a much-mispronounced word would be eliminated) if the single word quality were to be adopted as the equivalent of timbre. Thus, e.g., the soprano voice singing c' has a quality different from the contralto voice singing ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... you about, who is going to marry my cousin Giovanni, Prince Della Robbia's younger brother," said Idina Bland to her companion; "the Miss Grant who has been so much talked about here." Idina had a contralto voice, with tones in it almost as deep as those of a very young man. It was musical, and gave an effect of careful training, as if she had studied voice-production and had ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and she, that day, lying in the single car behind, where I had made her a little yatag-bed from Tatar Bazardjik, continually played the kittur, barely touching the strings, and crooning low, low, in her rich contralto, eternally the same air, over and over again, crooning, crooning, some melancholy tune of her own dreaming, just audible to me through the slow-travailing monotony of the engine; till I was drunken with so sweet a woe, my God, a woe that ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... hurt, and not caring much, Fan sat down to her supper. Returning to the bedroom she heard the sound of the piano, and paused on the landing to listen. Then a fine baritone voice began singing, and was succeeded by a woman's voice, a rich contralto, for they were singing a duet; and voice following voice, and anon mingling in passionate harmony, the song floated out loud from the open door, and rose and seemed to fill the whole house, while Fan stood there listening, trembling with joy at ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... open side of the fell the wind blew strongly, and it was a struggle to toil upwards. The school tacked instead towards the sheltered bank of the stream, and with one accord broke into Scotch songs. Geraldine, in a full contralto, was singing "Green grow the rashes, O". Betty Blane's chirpy voice proclaimed "I'm ower young to marry yet",—a self-evident proposition, as she was only thirteen. Stuart and Loveday were crooning "Flowers of the Forest" as a kind of soprano dirge, which was drowned ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I took contralto; there was practically no treble, for Honor's squeak was drowned fathoms deep; Geoffrey and Mr Carr droned bass, and Stanor Vaughan took tenor, rather out of tune it's true, but no man with that profile could be expected to condescend to bass! We sang 'Come and see the daylight dawning, on the ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a 'cello or the lower register of a violin. And that is especially true when the voice is hushed to a half-articulate murmur. Indeed, this is but one of the many strange peculiarities of that most beautiful ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... an even, contralto voice, and sang with the charm of temperament; but to the sensitive listener the enchantment of the sea seemed to linger in the tones of this creature who, with the sparkling drops still shining in her dark ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... had never known himself. It was as if some potent element, undreamed of before, came rushing into the ordered sphere of his world, and shouldered its elements from the rhythm of their going. It was a full contralto, with pathos in the very heart of it, and it seemed to wrap itself round his heart like a serpent of saddest splendor, and press the blood from it up into his eyes. The ladies were too much occupied to hear him announced, ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... slightest demur, joined her friends. Lothair felt agitated, as he could not doubt Theodora was going to sing. And so it was; when Euphrosyne had finished, and the chorus she had inspired had died away, there rose a deep contralto sound, which, though without effort, seemed to Lothair the most thrilling tone he had ever listened to. Deeper and richer, and richer and deeper, it seemed to become, as it wound with exquisite facility through a symphony of delicious sound, until it ended in a passionate ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... had retired again) came guffaws, and gurgles, and wails of laughter. The three men in the automobile eyed each other inquiringly. The laughter drew nearer. They could distinguish, amid mirth unmistakably negroid, a beautiful contralto voice demanding. "Did you see 'em skedaddle, Lige? Oh, wasn't it glorious! Riding on their stomachs, their ears, any old way. Holding on ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... the now deserted pavement, exhorting and cheering him, a loud contralto voice vulgarised by an Italian accent ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... v.; reflexion [Brit.], reflection, reverberation; echo, reecho; zap, zot [Coll.]; buzz (hiss) 409. low note, base note, bass note, flat note, grave note, deep note; bass; basso, basso profondo [It]; baritone, barytone^; contralto. [device to cause resonance] echo chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make a resonating sound] bell, doorbell, buzzer; gong, cymbals (musical instruments) 417. [physical ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... drew the bow across the instrument, once, twice, and then she began to play, forgetful of the world. She had a contralto voice, and she sang with a depth of feeling and a delicate form worthy of a professional; on the piano she was effective and charming, but into the 'cello she poured ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to one class of listener the opera is decently if not scientifically constituted. There is the loud and cheerful, if not shrill, bleating of the soprano, the strenuous booming of the bass, the velvety softness and depth of the contralto and the thin high tenor. Hordes of the alert, sharp-featured, far-leaping grass frog represent the chorus, and they have a perfectly rehearsed theme. Down on the flat along the edge of the pandanus grove the preliminary chords are uttered—a merry, unreflective, chirrupy strain, gay as "the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. "That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the different parts—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that had misconducted herself. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de Cleopatre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et Camees," "La Symphonie en Blanc Majeure," in which the adjective blanc and blanche is repeated with miraculous felicity in each stanza. And then Contralto,— ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... apparently no claim whatever upon the smallest share of my attention. When the long and tedious meal was at an end, upon her uncle's suggestion, she seated herself at the piano, and sang in a deep, powerful contralto, Schubert's magnificent arrangement of Heine's song ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... carefully adjusting the collar. Then fingering an imaginary watch-chain, she began. Her face grew grave—her neck seemed to thicken. Her voice was a throaty contralto. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... (Vicomte Vaufreland, basso) makes love to a humble village maiden (myself, soprano); the lady of the manor (Madame Conneau, contralto) becomes jealous and makes a scene with her husband; the friend and adviser (Count d'Espeuilles, tenor) steps in and takes his friend's part and kindly says that it was he who had loved the village maiden. The wife is satisfied, and ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... by no means so complete as he expected. He presently was aware of a camp-meeting hymn hummed somewhat ostentatiously by a deep contralto voice, which he at once recognized as Melinda's, and saw that severe virgin proceeding from the kitchen along the ridge until within a few paces of the buckeyes, when she stopped and, with her hand shading her eyes, apparently began to examine the ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... beautiful, but has lovely dark eyes and eyebrows, with fair complexion and fair hair, and an expression of the most perfect goodness, with very amiable manners. I was surprised by hearing her sing several very difficult Italian songs with great expression and wonderful facility. She has a fine contralto, which has been cultivated; but some Spanish ballads, and little songs of the country, she sang so delightfully, and with so much good-nature and readiness, that had it not been a first visit, I should have begged her to continue during half the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... assented, "he was very, very old—too old for such a beautiful young wife." She started. "Not too old, M. Chardon," she said, slightly raising her contralto voice: "What if he was thirty years my senior! He married me to spare me the peril and fatigue of a singer's life; few women can stand them—I least of all. He loved me with a pure, narrow affection. I was his daughter, his staff. You, he often ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Harvard, with whom she had once played hop-scotch, to a seat on the stairs. A humorous reference to the past was all she needed. The things Isabelle could do socially with one idea were remarkable. First, she repeated it rapturously in an enthusiastic contralto with a soupcon of Southern accent; then she held it off at a distance and smiled at it—her wonderful smile; then she delivered it in variations and played a sort of mental catch with it, all this in the nominal form of dialogue. Froggy was fascinated and quite ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... next moment her deep majestic contralto, accompanied by my own thin and quavering soprano, were sending out into the silent air the holy notes which to me are like the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... promoted by one of those unreasonable objections people of Ann Veronica's temperament take at times—to the girl in the next cell to her own. She was a large, resilient girl, with a foolish smile, a still more foolish expression of earnestness, and a throaty contralto voice. She was noisy and hilarious and enthusiastic, and her hair was always abominably done. In the chapel she sang with an open-lunged gusto that silenced Ann Veronica altogether, and in the exercising-yard slouched round with carelessly dispersed feet. Ann Veronica decided ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... their furs, the callers were shown to the drawing-room. As the footman glided away to inform his mistress of their arrival, Dolores danced across to the door of the rear drawing- room and called in a clear, full-throated, contralto voice: "Ho, Vievie! Vievie! You in here? Hurry up! There's something I do ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... — A Pantheistic Madrigal The Poem of Woman - Marble of Paros A Study of Hands I Imperia II Lacenaire Variations on the Carnival of Venice: I On the Street II On the Lagoons III Carnival IV Moonlight Symphony in White Major Coquetry in Death Heart's Diamond Spring's First Smile Contralto Eyes of Blue The Toreador's Serenade Nostalgia of the Obelisks: I The Obelisk in Paris II The Obelisk in Luxor Veterans of the Old Guard, December 15 Sea-Gloom To a Rose-Coloured Gown The World's Malicious Ines de las Sierras — To Petra Camara Odelet, After Anacreon ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... sang 'Darby and Joan,' in a sweet contralto, but with a doleful slowness which hung heavily upon the spirits of the company, and a duly dismal effect having been produced, the young ladies were cordially ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... happens that at the most critical age while the vocal organs are being developed, children sing with all the strength they can command. Boys, however, in whom the larynx at a certain period undergoes an entire transformation, reach only with difficulty the higher soprano or contralto tones, but are not assigned a lower part until perceiving themselves the impossibility of singing in this way, they beg the teacher for the change, often too late, unhappily, to prevent an irreparable injury. Moderate singing without exertion, and above all things, within ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... watcher of the midnight sun gave himself up to the half painful, half delicious sense of being drawn in, absorbed, and lost in infinite imaginings, when the intense stillness around him was broken by the sound of a voice singing, a full, rich contralto, that rang through the air with the clearness of a golden bell. The sweet liquid notes were those of an old Norwegian mountain melody, one of those wildly pathetic folk-songs that seem to hold all the sorrow, wonder, wistfulness, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... miseries of her life, she would call me, "My poor little orphan." Otherwise it was, "Come here, my comfort," "Are you hungry, my little bean?" or, "You are a silly little dear, my comfort." These words of hers and the sonorous contralto in which they were uttered are ever alive in my heart, like the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... and sang, people were charmed in spite of themselves. She had a superb contralto voice, rich, deep, and melodious; and she played with brilliancy, and, what is much rarer, ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Church one Sunday morning a month later. And Miss Philura Rice—as was afterward remarked—sang the words with such enthusiasm and earnestness that her high soprano soared quite above all the other voices in the choir, and this despite the fact that Miss Electa Pratt was putting forth her nasal contralto with more than ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... talk where it had been left the previous watch; but neither was in a talking mood, and they soon fell silent. Presently a girl's rich voice rose to the accompaniment of Oddington's banjo, an instrument but poorly adapted to the motif of the music, which was plaintive, yearning. The deep contralto notes brought full meed of meaning, although the words were German; low, deep, uncertain at first—the ponderings of love, of devotion, of doubt—then swelling loud and full and free at the end; ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... was intensely reserved about herself, her family, her possessions, and her past; but Hugh had an inkling that there had been some deep disappointment in the background, which had turned a passionately affectionate nature into a fastidious and critical temperament. She had a wonderful contralto voice, and a real genius for music; she could rarely be persuaded to touch an instrument; but occasionally, with a small and familiar party, she would sing a few old songs with a passion and a depth of melancholy feeling that produced an almost physical thrill in her audience. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... were developing a kitchen garden, or emulating Professor Schliemann at Mycenae, the new-comers were evidently persons of refined musical taste: the lady had a contralto voice of remarkable sweetness, although of no great compass, and I used often to linger of a morning by the high gate and listen to her executing an arietta, conjecturally at some window upstairs, for the house was not visible from the turnpike. The husband, somewhere about the grounds, ...
— Our New Neighbors At Ponkapog • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... very low and sweet to hear. It died away and for a little while there was silence broken only by a rustling sound like to that of people taking their seats in a dark theatre. Then a woman began to sing in a beautiful, contralto voice, but in what language I do not know, for I could not catch the words, if these were words and not ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... the lady, in a sweet contralto. "I think I am not mistaken; this is the young lady who arrived last evening, and is registered,"—she looked full in the girl's ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was very merry. Louis, having unfastened the bundle, tried over some of the songs, and taught Frank readily the contralto of two. Then he wanted to try Hamilton, but this in the open air Hamilton stoutly resisted, though he promised to make an effort at some future time. After Frank and Louis had sung their duets several times over to their own satisfaction while sitting under a hedge, all the party grew ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... cried Chateau-Renaud, entering the stalls immediately on the descent of the curtain. "Heard you ever such a magnificent contralto?" ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... spoke I heard a sweet contralto voice in the adjoining room break out into a song from one of the popular revues. It ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... into a career. He was infinitely fond of music and sufficiently familiar with the old masters to understand and enjoy them. He was an artist through and through, possessing a sweet nor yet an uncultivated voice—a blend between a low tenor and a high baritone—I was almost about to write a "contralto," it was so soft and liquid. Its tones in speech retained to the last their charm. Who that heard ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... roaring over a stormy sea, in which the basso of the kalo shureskro (the black captain) pealed like thunder. Just as it died away a second girl took up the melody, very sweetly, but with a little more excitement,—it was like a gleam of moonlight on the still agitated waters, a strange contralto witch-gleam; and then again the chorus and the storm; and then another solo yet sweeter, sadder, and stranger,—the movement continually increasing, until all was fast, and wild, and mad,—a locomotive quickstep, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives us over exterior objects, the chevalier ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... contralto? That solo was beautifully sung," observed the younger man, pausing to read ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... with a strange, deep ring in her rich contralto voice. 'Yis, he belongs to me now—leastways he's my pal ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Rosalie's low sweet voice trilled out merrily in a slightly foreign accent, while the contralto tones vibrated on the ear like the note of ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... October 5, 1906, Mr. Clemens, following a musical recital by his daughter in Norfolk, Conn., addressed her audience on the subject of stage-fright. He thanked the people for making things as easy as possible for his daughter's American debut as a contralto, and then told of his first ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Elinor gave him a little music, of which he was passionately fond; though, like most American gentlemen, of his age, he had no knowledge of the art, and no other guide than a good ear, and good natural taste. Elinor's voice was a full, sweet contralto, which had been cultivated under the best masters in Philadelphia; and, as she never attempted what she could not perform with ease and grace, her music always gave pleasure. One or two of the other ladies followed her, at the piano—Mary Van Horne, and ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... ice-house and piled the coast wall and blasted out trenches for draining would stop and lean on their picks, when her resonant, golden humming, like a drowsy contralto bee, floated out from the verandah vines to them: I have seen their faces clear and their dull eyes focus suddenly on some distant, darling memory, while they dropped back for a precious minute into the past that you think is all bread and cheese and beer, because, forsooth, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... and stared at me in bold, though not unfriendly curiosity, which, undoubtedly, I reciprocated. She was evidently sizing me up. I smiled, and she screwed her full, sensitive mouth into a judicial expression, puckering her forehead; then, in a deep, contralto voice, she spoke. What she said I didn't hear, or rather didn't grasp, in my wonder at the quality and timbre of that great voice, which, issuing from the folds of the checked apron, seemed fairly to fill the big hall below and the stair-well above ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... there appeared only the shabby relations and rather gorgeous friends of the other members of the company. There was the young painter who loved the leading girl of the chorus, there was the wholesale upholsterer who admired the contralto, and a little apart there was the middle-aged great lady who entertained a romantic and expensive passion for the tenor. The tenor was a young Italian, who was something between a third-rate poet and a ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... and then the lady sang it all over again. Jan turned on the electric fan, for it was extremely hot, and the strong contralto voice made her feel even hotter. The whirr of the fan in no way drowned the voice, which now went on to proclaim with much brio that the temple bells were ringing and the month of marriages was drawing near. And then, very slowly and solemnly, ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... "The Minstrel and the King," for male chorus and soloists, and "Sylvania," a wedding cantata recently published. Another vocal work of great merit is an a capella motet, while among her earlier compositions is the scena for contralto and orchestra, entitled "Eilende Wolken," on a text from ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... St. Mark, the moon comes up above the waters of the Adriatic and hangs serenely over the lagoons. No pen can justly describe such a sight—only a Claude Lorraine could paint it. Glancing gondolas on their noiseless track cut the silvery ripples; a sweet contralto voice, with guitar accompaniment, salutes the ear; stately palaces cast long, mysterious shadows upon the water; the Bridge of Sighs arches the canal between the palace and prison close at hand; oddly-rigged craft from the far East float lazily at anchor in the open harbor; the domes ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... wings almost brushing, but never quite touching my skin. I could distinguish the difference between the smaller and the larger, the latter having a deeper swish, deeper and longer drawn-out. Their voices were so high and shrill that the singing of the jungle crickets seemed almost contralto in comparison. Finally, I began to feel myself the focus of one or more of these winged weasels. The swishes became more frequent, the returnings almost doubling on their track. Now and then a small body touched the sheet for an instant, and then, with a soft little tap, a ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... still raced at high tide. What an incomparable mate she would be for any man! The rich contralto of her voice, the slow, graceful turn of the exquisite head, the vividness she brought to all her activities! How easy it was to light in her fine eyes laughter, indignation, the rare smile of understanding! Life with her would be an adventure into the ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... became, instantly, her foremost charm. It was a deep voice; the profoundest contralto with ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... singing when this I had heard, and more, Though tears half-blinded me; yes, I remained going on and on, Just as I used me to chord and to sing at the selfsame time! . . . For it's a contralto—my voice is; they'll hear it again here to- night In the psalmody notes that I love more than world or than ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy |
