"Donna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the walls are alone mentioned as completed in 1590. So that Bordiga and Cusa are again wrong in saying that the frescoes were painted about 1580. It is not good. The walls were probably raised soon after 1580. Donna Mathilde di Savoia, Marchesa di Pianezza, a natural daughter of Carlo Emmanuele I., was among the principal contributors. The graces were "for those who had had bad falls or any accidents whereby they had been rendered speechless, stupid, ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... me, senor, who lives in the castle now? The Donna Isabella is alone there, now, the only survivor of the noble race, except—except senor," (he laid a peculiar emphasis on the word,) "except a wilful son, whom she has disowned and driven from her house. He is a handsome lad, and married, here in ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... booming through the sounds of their habitation, came the dynamite explosions blowing up the city in blocks. When the muffled roar was over, the gathering quiet was pierced by the thin, high notes of gramophones. From the shadow of trees Caruso's voice rose in the swaggering lilt of "La Donna e Mobile," to be answered by Melba's, crystal-sweet, from a machine stored in a crowded cart. There were ragtime melodies, and someone had a record of "Marching Through Georgia" that always drew forth applause. Then, as the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... A prima-donna in the shining past, But now a mother growing old and gray, She thinks of how she held a people fast In thrall, and gleaned ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... 'Dolce Maria!' Dinanzi a noi chiamar cosi nel pianto Come fa donna che 'n partorir ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... a habit of uttering, to what I think tunes, your 'Oh, breathe not,' and others; they are my matins and vespers. I did not intend them to be overheard, but one morning in comes not la Donna, but il Marita, with a very grave face, and said, 'Byron, I must request you not to sing any more, at least of those songs.'—'Why?'—'They make my wife cry, and so melancholy that I wish her to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... prima donna all right," chuckled Bob. "Where now? Oh! To Stone's shoe shop? Well, what do you know about this notice in the paper?" and his ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... this season, while he made a prima donna by a bravissima, introduced a new tie by an evening's wear, gave a cook the cordon with his praise, and rendered a fresh-invented liqueur the rage by his recommendation, Bertie knew very well ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... to Buenos Aires a few days afterward, the cause of the old man's wrath was explained. It appeared that for some months past Madariaga had been the financial guarantor and devoted swain of a German prima donna stranded in South America with an Italian opera company. It was she who had recommended Karl—an unfortunate countryman, who after wandering through many parts of the continent, was now living with her as a sort of gentlemanly singer. Madariaga had joyously expended ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... breast, and upper back dove-coloured. It has none of the aggressive habits of its brethren of the plains. It keeps mainly to dense forests. Jerdon describes its cry as "mellow, subdued, and agreeable." It is the prima donna of the Psittaci. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... her majestic appearance, yet she never spoke of a husband. The old Italian woman, her duenna, always called her Donna Isabella, but she possessed little more knowledge ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... must have talent," he would exclaim, as he looked round at the amusing and motley multitude assembled at his splendid entertainments. And to-day upon his lawn might be observed the first tenor of the opera and a prima-donna who had just arrived, several celebrated members of the English stage of both sexes, artists of great reputation, whose principal works already adorned the well-selected walls of the Cedars, a danseuse or two of celebrity, some ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... call Miss Martha 'Chest Protector' or 'Bella Donna Plaster', which is a very soothing title, meaning 'Beautiful Lady Covering'," she teased. "Suppose, Miss Martha, that we just wait and perhaps follow the old Indian custom of choosing your name through a dream or the first object we see at an appointed time. But I must be ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... in her lap and her heart and mind absorbed in the music? Never had Betty given up her idea that a romance was in the making between their first Camp Fire guardian and Esther's father. And often since their coming to live in her house had she not seen slight but convincing evidences? Why should Donna so often appear with a single white rose pinned to her dress or take to playing the same tunes on the piano that the Professor played on his violin, particularly when she was an exceedingly ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... by Henry T. Finck, the distinguished American musical critic, as being of "that splendid kind of virtuosity which makes one forget the technique." MacDowell received a tremendous ovation such as was accorded only to a popular prima donna at the opera, or to a famous virtuoso of international reputation. The musical critics generally agreed that the fine feeling and the power of the concerto was as responsible for his remarkable success before the critical ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... took it up, and rendered the prima donna quite as effectively, interjecting "The Last Rose of Summer" as an aria in a manner that would have been encored in San Francisco. He responded with a few staccato notes, and the scene ended by their rushing into ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... au moins la trace? Quoi! passs pour jamais? quoi! tout entiers perdus? Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface, Ne ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... etoit tres reprehensible, je remarquoi ces paroles et le lui fis observer; elles ne pouvoient s'appliquer d'ailleurs qu'a deux individus passes au service du parti oppose, que j'etois venu desavouer lui en demandant expulsion. Le President repondant se rendit a ma demande, et me donna l'espoir d'avoir une satisfaction, tant pour l'attentat a la vie des quatre individus de ma Nation, que pour l'attaque ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... season, the play being openly founded on one of the dramatic incidents of her life as a diplomat's wife, a generation ago, in Europe. The old composer of her famous cradle-song shared with the publisher of her "Letters from an Attache's Wife," and the prima-donna she had discovered and educated, a merry little Italian table where her musician son made the proud fourth. A party of old pupils from the convent school where she had spent a year surprised the room with the valedictory verses ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... and feeling his thin bony hand, poured out her pity, he answered, 'I've had rather a jolly time of it of late; Mettie is so delicious, you can't think how her very voice and eyes seemed to do me good. I'm sure that the bella-donna lily, cold hard painted thing, was a mistake; she must have been something much sweeter. What do you think of a honeysuckle? That's bright red and white, and its leaves come out when nothing ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... walking on the sea at nightfall. Now they rose out of the swirling water, passed in and out swaying among the lights of the ship. From under her feet in the crew's quarters came the tinkle of a mandoline playing "La Donna e Mobile." ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... de Monmout donna six guinees au Bourreau de Londres, pour lui bien couper la tete; mais le miserable ne merroit par ces guinees, puisqu'il la ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.02.09 • Various
... A story fresh from the heart of the West, of San Pasqual, a sun-baked desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best gambler, the best and worst man of San Pasqual and of lovely Donna. ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... for butter and cheese, Chopin declined to give it to him; the editor of the "Courier" inserted in his paper a sonnet addressed to Chopin. Pecuniarily the concerts were likewise a success, although the concert-giver was of a different opinion. But then he seems to have had quite prima donna notions about receipts, for he writes very coolly: "From the two concerts I had, after deduction of all expenses, not as much as 5,000 florins (about 125 pounds)." Indeed, he treats this part of the business very cavalierly, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... and Laurence Devon occupied together, Rodney drew on a shoe and stamped his foot down into it with an emphasis that shook the floor. Devon, fastening his tie before the full-length mirror set in the door leading to their common bath-room, started at the sound, like a high-strung prima donna. This was one ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... a show gets stuck and needs a quick study. They call me up and I throw them what they want at an hour's notice. They can always count on me for anything from wardrobe mistress to prima donna. That's how I get mine," she concluded with ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... friends persisted in urging the production of his first, last, and only opera, Beethoven went into a great rage and declared if the subject were ever mentioned again, he would burn the manuscript. At one time friends begged him to hear a new prima donna, Wilhelmina Schroeder, the daughter of a great actress, believing that in her he would find ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... every word to make it mark quite blackly: 'All these Indian things are for pretty, nice Miss Peasmarsh's stall.' She thought of adding, 'There is nothing for Mrs Biddle;' but she saw that this might lead to suspicion, so she wrote hastily: 'From an unknown donna,' and crept back among the boards and trestles to join ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... horse tribe could speak, it would arise and whinny paeans to the name of Oliver, joining in the chorus of farmers. For a moldboard that always scours gives a peace to a farmer like unto that given to a prima donna by a dress that fits ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... captain, who was acquainted with the Donna of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo requested her to smother the King of France with kindness, and demonstrate to him the great advantage of the Castilian imagination over the simple movement of the French. To which the Marchesa ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Donna of old Castile And a Troubadour were I, I'd sing at night beneath your room And weave you dreams in a minstrel's loom With rainbow tears and the roses' bloom And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... was talked of but the concert; for was not Madame Laurin, the great French Canadian prima donna, at the hotel, and was she not going to sing? It was the opportunity of a lifetime—the Marshalls would not have missed it for anything. Stately, handsome old Grandmother Marshall was going, and Uncle Roderick and Aunt Isabella, and of course ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... soft women who have been betrayed are rapid beyond measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she pronounced distinctly and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion is—married or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up—she's nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant she forthwith registered the lady in the botanical note-book of her brain. It would have astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person so accurately hit off at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and lamentable is the decay of stage beauty since the days of George IV. Think of Sontag! I remember her in Otello and the Donna del Lago in '28. I remember being behind the scenes at the opera (where numbers of us young fellows of fashion used to go), and seeing Sontag let her hair fall down over her shoulders previous to her murder by Donzelli. Young fellows have never ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Look at 'em now! Ruyven hunting about Tryon County for a Hessian to knock him in the head; Cecile sitting in rapture with every cornet or ensign who'll notice her; the children yelling for Lafayette and Washington; Dorothy, here, playing at Donna Quixota, and you starting for Stillwater to teach that fool, Gates, how to catch Burgoyne. Set an ass to catch an ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... of people believed that she really was singing in New York for the last time; for when she returned a fortnight later for another "farewell," the sale of seats was so small that the spoiled prima donna refused to sing, and only one performance ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... smile, Helen pointed to the other numbers upon the program which the orchestra would perform, and Randy, with a contented little sigh, leaned back to await the next number, when the Prima Donna, a vision of loveliness, ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... is as follows: The manager is frequently one of the most wealthy and considerable persons of the little town he inhabits. He forms a company consisting of prima donna, tenoro, basso cantante, basso buffo, a second female singer, and a third basso. The libretto, or poem, purchased for sixty or eighty francs from some lucky son of the muses, who is generally a half-starved abbe, the hanger-on ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... London company would call there on its provincial progress, and it chanced one day, looking into a shop window, that Theophil caught sight of a photograph of a woman that startled him with its remarkable resemblance to Jenny. It was the prima donna of a Gaiety burlesque. Such was the strange shape Jenny had for ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... beating fast as she descended the stairway, bright spots of colour flaming in her cheeks and the diamonds sparkling in her ears. A prima donna might have guessed her feelings as she paused, a little breathless on the wide landing under the windows. She heard a footstep. Hugh came out of the library and stood motionless, looking up at her. But even those who have felt the silence and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all, lost nothing of The Princess Pattie except half of the overture—a loss that, as operettas go, might indeed be counted a gain; but the succeeding activities of the prima donna, the ponderous basso and the brace of "comedians" were subject to a series of very sensible impediments and interruptions. Several times—and often at the most inopportune of moments—a swarthy, earnest young man walked across the stage, throwing out big sheets of brown paper right ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... felt the same glow greatly intensified when he strolled up to the pay-box, twirling his walking-stick, to take his stand near by as the future proprietor of the girl inside. Perhaps the young husband of a great prima donna may feel nearly as sophisticated and proud and "in it" when he strolls carelessly into the dressing-room where the bouquets of admirers overflow upon the floor—but this is scarcely likely, for he would not have the morning freshness still on him of a ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... there might still have been preserved after the cleaning. The extent of injury European galleries have thus received is incalculable. One instance will suffice as an example of many. Some years gone by, the Titian's Bella Donna of the Pitti was intact. Unluckily it got into the hands of a professional cleaner. A celebrated dealer happened to be standing by when it was rehung. Looking at it, he exclaimed,—"Two weeks ago I would have given the Grand Duke ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Don Joseph, the king, and faithful friend of Pombal, died, after a reign of twenty-seven years of honour and usefulness. Pombal requested to resign, and the Donna Maria accepted the resignation, and conferred various marks of honour upon him. He now retired to his country-seat, where Wraxall saw him in 1772, and thus describes his appearance. "At this time he had attained his seventy-third year, but age seemed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Looking for him shortly afterward, the man was gone. 'Off to the Opera, if he's not too late for the drop,' a neighbour said, smiling queerly, as though he ought to know; and then Redworth recollected current stories of Raiser's fantastical devotion to the popular prima donna of the angelical voice.—He hurried to the Opera and met the vomit, and heard in the crushroom how divine she had been that night. A fellow member of the House, tolerably intimate with Raiser, informed him, between frightful stomachic roulades of her final aria, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... est tout gryse. He is alle graye. 24 Il donna a chescun sa mesure. He gyueth to euerich his mesure. Pieronne sa filleule Pieryne his doughter Est la pieure garce Is the shrewest ghyrle Que ie sache de cha la mere. That I knowe on this ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton
... to see her a great deal, in Dresden," said Godmother when they had gone on their way, "and she's a dear. We must go and see her as she asked us to, and have her down to see us." Godmother spoke as if a very celebrated prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera were no different from any one else one might happen to know. Mary Alice ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... the dismal Savoyard, who ground away at his organ, and she brought a flicker of admiration into his bronzed and grimy face, for he played for her the same tune over and over, encouraging her with nods and bravas. She was enjoying her triumph quite as much as any prima donna who ever tripped it on ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Oh! ah! We were waiting alongside the ship, with her lower chain-plates not a foot above water, for the donna to be hoisted over the rail, since she would not permit any of her attendants to precede her—though Heaven knows they were anxious enough to do so. By this time, too, after my men had left the deck ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... was "un gigante qualunque"—the raw material for a giant, something that could be faked up into this or that special giant when wanted. Similarly there was a lady having her dress and wig altered, they told me she was "una donna qualunque"—the very words I had seen a few weeks previously written up in Rome to advertise a performance in Italian of A Woman of no Importance. I suspect there must have been somewhere "un guerriero qualunque" so constructed that his head could be ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... almost crying with pity the while, to think what wretched suspense he must be enduring at her silence, till her heart chid her for her cruelty. She felt that she must send him a line—one little line—just a wee line to keep him alive, poor thing; sighing like Donna Clara— ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... become as hot an anarchist as Louise Michel. It is a mystery to me where you find out the Christian names of all the ungainly people in the congregation. The other sopranos would feel complimented to have a prima-donna with a face like a full moon and hands like a blacksmith's foisted upon them! One must have a little regard for appearances," and Isabelle drew her graceful figure up to ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... just as well be a man; and indeed the poems he addressed to men, though they have nothing sensual about them, reveal a finer touch in the emotion of the writer. It is difficult to connect this vaporous incorporeal "donna" of the poems with those brawny colossal adult females of the statues, unless we suppose that Michelangelo remained callous both to the physical attractions and the emotional distinction of ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... fled to Paris, where he died in 1647, and with him the family became extinct in the male line. His daughter Cornelia married Prince Giulio Cesare Colonna di Sciarra in 1728, who added her name to his own. On the death of Prince Enrico Barberini-Colonna the name went to his daughter and heiress Donna Maria and her husband Marquis Luigi Sacchetti, who received the title of prince of Palestrina and permission to bear the name of Barberini. The fine Barberini palace and library in Rome give evidence of their wealth and magnificence. The ruthless way in which they ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... donna nodded; the pout on the lips blossomed into a smile, and a look of infinite tenderness transformed the tired, dark little face. "It's up to the creche—that's where I'm going now. The ladies keeps it ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... good, and so no doubt is cocoa; Tea did for Johnson and the Chinamen: When 'Dulce et desipere in loco' Was written, real Falernian winged the pen. When a rapt audience has encored 'Fra Poco' Or 'Casta Diva,' I have heard that then The Prima Donna, smiling herself out, Recruits her flagging powers ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... stassi, Hor come un rio se'n fugge, Ed hor crud' orsa rugge, Hor canta angelo pio: ma che non fassi! E che non fammi, O sassi, O rivi, o belue, o Dii, questa mia vaga Non so, se ninfa, o magna, Non so, se donna, o Dea, Non ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and that, wherever she was, she would serve and honor him as her lord. Don Quixote, in reply, requested her, for his sake, to do him the favor henceforth to add to her name the title of don, and call herself Donna Tolosa, which she promised to do. The other girl now buckled on his spur, and with her he held nearly the same conference as with the lady of the sword; having inquired her name, she told him it was Molinera, and that she was daughter to an honest miller of Antiquera: he then requested ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... off one of its erratic swoops—right into the mark! As a compensating device for rotten shooting it is unexcelled. It is a pity to laugh at it as much as we do; for I am convinced it is a conscientious arrow doing its best under natural handicap; like a prima donna with a cleft ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... Donna Teresa put in the most matter-of-fact sort of way, staggered me considerably, and confirmed me in the resolution to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Alfred was immediately to become a pupil of the Academy of Painters, and Carlotta of that of dancing; the talents of Michel were to be watched, and to be reported to Sidonia at fitting periods. As for Adele, she was consigned to a lady who had once been a celebrated prima donna, with whom she was to pursue her studies, although still residing under the paternal roof. 'Josephine will repair to Paris at once with her brother,' said Sidonia. 'My family will guard over her. She ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... she had never been in anything before in her life, and no prima donna was ever more excited over her debut than she at the thought of this little recitation; but her pleasure met with a sudden check upon the discovery that a white dress would be necessary. She hadn't a white dress, ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... before, the princess had taken leave of the Berliners at the opera-house, that is, she had shown herself to them for the last time. While the prima donna was singing her most enchanting melodies, the travelling carriage of Ulrica drove to the door. The king wished to spare himself the agony of a formal parting, and had ordered that she should enter her carriage at the close of the opera, and depart, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... never use a hoe on them. More than this, if only the right weeds settled in the garden, I should grow no other flowers. But shepherd's purse! Compared with it, a cabbage is a posy for a bridesmaid, and sprouting broccoli a bouquet for a prima donna. After all, one ought to be allowed to choose the weeds for one's own garden. But then when one chooses them, one no longer calls them weeds. The periwinkle, the primrose and the mallow—we spare them with our tongue as with our hoe. This, perhaps, suggests the only ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... liquid diamond. The birds were improvising a miniature symphony in the birches at the end of the garden; the song-thrush warbled with a sweet melancholy his long-drawn contralto notes; the lark, like a prima donna, hovering conspicuously in mid air, poured forth her joyous soprano solo; and the robin, quite unmindful of the tempo, filled out the pauses with his thoughtless staccato chirp. Augusta, who was herself the early bird of the pastor's ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... with its local orchestra and chorus supporting international stars, and of visiting troupes from New York and Chicago in this auditorium provide two spectacles one on the stage and the other in the assemblage itself. The auditorium seats 10,000 persons. To be present when a prima donna awes this audience into silence by her tones, and then to hear a triumphant roar of approval rend the silence, is an unforgettable adventure ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... she had received from the others in the company such kindness and generosity as only stage folk can show—flowers, candy, dainties, magazines, sent by every one from the prima donna to the call boy. Then the show left town. There came a few letters of kind inquiry, then an occasional post card, signed by half a dozen members of the company. Then these ceased. Josie Fifer, in her cast and splints and bandages and pain, dragged out long hospital ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... would rather sing here in August than April!" exclaimed Lady Turnour, with the air of a spoiled prima donna. And then she shivered and wanted to go down to the car without waiting for the sunset, which, after all, could only be like any other mountain sunset, and she could see plenty of better ones next summer in Switzerland. She felt so chilled, she was quite anxious about herself, and should ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... abundance; monks with scourges pursuing a naked youth streaming with blood; subterranean Jews surrounded by the skeletons of their wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning; Irish hags, Spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, Donna Claras and Donna Isidoras, all opposed to each other in glaring and violent contrast, and all their adventures narrated with the same undeviating display of turgid, vehement, and painfully elaborated ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you must not be too harsh with Eglamore. It is his nature to scheme, and he weaves his plots as inevitably as the spider does her web. Believe me, it is wiser to forget the rascal—as I do—until there ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... to the prima donna in loathing; he had so much to inquire about, and so much to relate: such a desire ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... opera singer. I have heard both singers and Carlotta was my choice. Adelina was the most advertised, for she was a money-maker and demanded just so much notoriety when she engaged and signed her contracts. Her power was supreme and no one dared to say her nay. Woe be to the poor prima donna who sang better or had more applause or favors than she did. She was the only queen of song as long as her reign lasted. Emma Nevada and Madam Etelka Gersta were her especial victims when they sang the same season with her. I am stating facts which will ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... evening, however. A certain Madame Valentini, a former prima donna who had been a famous soprano in the early days of "Pinafore," and who came to Miss Peacock's each year for opera, had arrived during the day, and she and Miss Pritchard being old friends, the evening was devoted to her. Madame Valentini was white-haired ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... feeling, and a fine rich touch on the piano, she possessed a particularly sympathetic voice, the development of which was so premature and remarkable that, under the tuition of Mieksch, her singing master, who was famous at that time, she was apparently ready for the role of a prima donna as early as her sixteenth year, and made her debut at Dresden in Italian opera as 'Cenerentola' in Rossini's opera of that name. Incidentally I may remark that this premature development proved injurious to Clara's voice, and was detrimental to her whole career. As I have said, music ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... neighbourhood of Hispaniola, and resolved to beat up to that island. At Leogane he fell in with a French ship of fifty guns, which her captain ran ashore and blew up. He took several other vessels, and having alarmed Petit-Guavas, bore away for Donna Maria bay, where he understood that Du Casse had sailed for the coast of Carthagena. Benbow resolved to follow the same course; and on the nineteenth of August discovered the enemy's squadron near Saint Martha, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... she knew by heart All Calderon and greater part of Lope, So that if any actor miss'd his part She could have served him for the prompter's copy; For her Feinagle's were an useless art, And he himself obliged to shut up shop—he Could never make a memory so fine as That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the shrine of a Donna, And languish'd for months in her train, But still I was whisper'd by honour, And came to my senses again, When I thought of the vows I had plighted, And the stars that I once used to call As my witnesses—could I have slighted? Her I long to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... tour, having only made four hundred pounds with six concerts. My career as a prima donna is at an end. The public is ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... the discovery of the body was retold, though more scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His book, Criminals I have Caught, passed from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was quite recent. The door ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... unable to change, at pleasure, this theatre of married happiness. The base should be plain and massive and admit of no treacherous interval between it and the floor; and bear in mind always that the Donna Julia of Byron hid Don Juan under her pillow. But it would be ridiculous to treat lightly so delicate ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... donna," she retorted, "can't do always what she likes. If I go to bed too early I cannot sleep. To-night I am excited and nervous. There isn't anything likely to bring trouble ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that I haven't another moment for imagining things. You don't know what splendid adventures I have for a little while after I go to bed in the east gable every night. I always imagine I'm something very brilliant and triumphant and splendid . . . a great prima donna or a Red Cross nurse or a queen. Last night I was a queen. It's really splendid to imagine you are a queen. You have all the fun of it without any of the inconveniences and you can stop being a queen whenever you want to, which you couldn't in real life. But here ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... particular advice how to subside our passions. In his treatise on the Audi filia, or on those words of the Holy Ghost, Psa. xliv, Hear me, daughter, bend thine ear, forget thy house, &c. The occasion upon which he composed this book was as follows: Donna Soncha Carilla, daughter of Don Lewis Fernandez of Cordoba, lord of Guadalcazar, a young lady of great beauty and accomplishments, was called to court to serve in quality of lady of honor to the queen. Her father furnished ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... route ensiemble...." I will translate: "I call myself Carlo Veronese—first barytone of the theatre of La Scala, Milan. The signora is my second wife; she is prima donna assoluta of the grand opera, Naples. The little ragazza is my daughter by my first wife. She is the greatest violinist of her age now living—un' ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... gravely, "I am Donna Dolores Rosario Coral Concha Balthazara Melchiora Gaspara y Todos Santos, the daughter of the noble knight Don Pasquale Bartolomeo Francesco de ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... do when the good days come— When the prima donna's lips are dumb, And the man who reads us his "little things" Has lost his voice like the girl who sings; When stilled is the breath of the cornet-man, And the shrilling chords of the quartette clan; When our neighbours' ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... never a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna. And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there—Luciano Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest man who had ever been in the city! For a wonder, he wasn't a tenor, only a basso, but they ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... question, Donna Violante! Not a man in Seville, not a man in Spain, but would send you gifts if he dared. It is not "Who would?" ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... I'm glad to hear it, darlin'—though I donna how it's to be, but I think you had betther ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... of Dames was occasionally a service of some danger. The long hair-pins which the ladies wore in their capillary towers were, as it appears from the following story, "as sharp as any swords." "Pardon me, good signor Don Quixote," says the duenna Donna Rodriguez to that unrivalled knight, "but as often as I call to mind my unhappy spouse, my eyes are brim-full. With what stateliness did he use to carry my lady behind him on a puissant mule, for in those days coaches and side-saddles were not in fashion, and the ladies rode behind their squires. ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... time Lionel Moore, who was responsible for these strangers being in the theatre, had gone quickly off to his own dressing-room to change his attire, so that when the two ladies reached a certain half-open door where the prima-donna's maid was waiting for her, Lord Rockminster naturally hung back and would have remained without. Miss Burgoyne instantly ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... later the storm had completely died away. It had begun to abate in violence almost immediately after the breaking of the Bella Donna's mast. It was as though, having wreaked its fury and executed all the damage possible short of absolute destruction, it was satisfied. With the same suddenness with which it had arisen it sank away, leaving a sulky, sunless sky brooding ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... will find as yo' may as well leave th' engineer be," Joan would say dryly. "Yo' will na fear him much, an' yo'll tire yo'rsens wi' yo're clatter. I donna see the good o' barkin' so ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... have got a move on in the last hour and a quarter, haven't they? I mean to say, at five o'clock you found a stranger in your taxi. Five minutes later you were smashed up. Now you're in a prima donna's room at the Opera House, eating a cold collation. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... Emperor Charles V., whose portrait he painted, and that of Prince Philip, which gave so much satisfaction to the monarch, that he sent him to Portugal, to paint the portraits of King John III., Catherine of Austria his Queen, and sister to Charles, and that of their daughter, the Princess Donna Maria, then contracted to Philip; he also painted the portrait of Donna Catalina, Charles' younger sister; all of which gave entire satisfaction, and the artist was munificently rewarded, and the honor of knighthood conferred on him. The Emperor next despatched ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... schools and theatres of Venice in the eighteenth century, and introduces us to individuals taken from life and cleverly drawn. We have Comte Zustiniani, the dilettante, a wealthy patron of the fine arts; Porpora, the old master, who looks upon his art as something sacred; Corilla, the prima donna, annoyed at seeing a new star appear; Anzoleto, the tenor, who is jealous because he gets less applause than his friend; and above and beyond all the others Consuelo, good kind ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... Well, of course the ladies know;— I have my doubts. No matter,—here we go! What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. 'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;— Prologues in metre are to other pros As worsted ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... she was bound direct, With wine and oil for cargo, Her crew of men some nine or ten, The captain's name was Jago; A good and gallant bark she was, La Donna ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... merit lies in the superb rendering of rosy flesh, heavy tresses of auburn hair, lovely eyes, and rich garments. Such are his Flora, Venuses, Titian's Daughter—of which there are several examples—Magdalens, etc.; together with many so called portraits, such as his La Donna ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... than herself, and with no fortune but his fiddle-bow. The marriage was most unhappy, and the Maestro Grandoni was suspected of using the fiddle-bow as an instrument of conjugal correction. He had finally run off with a prima donna assoluta, who, it was to be hoped, had given him a taste of the quality implied in her title. He was believed to be living still, but he had shrunk to a small black spot in Madame Grandoni's life, and for ten years she had not mentioned his name. She wore a light flaxen wig, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James |
