"Presto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the great frown on your brow would soften into a little one; another look at the dimpled cheeks, and imploring blue eyes, and the little frown would disappear entirely; but when the sweet voice said, "Mamma, shall I put myself in the corner? I ought to go," why, one, two, three, presto!! all the angry feelings would come right out of your heart, and fly away up the chimney! and a very ...
— Baby Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... shut up about me and I'll shut up about myself. I came back because I thought you might be hard up or in trouble or some silly thing like that. Now I see you again—I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied completely. See? I'm going to absquatulate, see? Hey Presto right away." ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... this truly classical and model piece of music may become a stumbling block in attempting to conquer the technical difficulties." Hardly. The technics of this composition do not lie beneath the surface. They are very much in the way of clumsy fingers and heavy wrists. Presto 88 to the half is the metronome indication in all five editions. Klindworth does not comment, but I like his fingering and phrasing best of all. Riemann repeats his trick of breaking a group, detaching a note for emphasis; although he is careful to retain the legato ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... of this?' exclaimed the Soldier. 'This is a pretty kind of tinder-box, if I can get whatever I want like this. Get me money!' he cried to the dog, and hey, presto! he was off and back again, holding a great purse full of money in ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... "Presto! the wonderful giant was changed back into the little tailor. No sooner was this effected than he returned post-haste to Webbington. His wife ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... ars. Se no va el otero a Mahoma vaya Mahoma al otero. Nadar y nadar y ahogar a la orilla llorar duelos agenos Si vos sabes mucho tambien se yo mi salm [o?] Por hazer mi miel comieron mj muxcas Come suol d'Invierno quien sale tarde y pone presto. Lo que con el ojo veo con el dedo lo adeuino Hijo no tenemos y nombre lo ponemos. Por el buena mesa y mal testamento. Era mejor lamiendo que no mordiendo Perro del hortelano Despues d'yo muerto ni vinna ni huerto Perdj mj honor hablando mal y oyendo peor ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... winter quarters. He has nothing to do then, so he amuses himself, and to pass the time he makes acquaintances, which he only intends for the winter, but which the good soul with whom he makes them, looks upon for life. Then, presto! a ring is suddenly conjured on to his finger; he hardly knows himself how it gets there; and very often he would willingly give the finger with it, if he could only ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... pursued by the eager Delphian, for several miles, and becoming very much fatigued, she felt inclined to yield: but wishing to faint in a reputable manner, she lifted up her hands and asked the gods to help her. Her call was heard in a jiffy, and quicker than you could say, "Presto: change!" she was a Laurel-tree, which Phoebus married on the spot. This was the Eve of the Laurel family, so that all these trees you meet in the world at present must be rational beings, since they are the descendants of the beautiful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... desolate Beach; chagrin at coming; and then, presto, upon the jaded vision:—blue, sunny water, white-sailed boat, beautiful nymph. Great heavens, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... for flat fish in an aquarium, you will not easily see them. Now and again one will swim up, with a wavy motion of its body. On settling again, it shuffles and flaps about, works itself into the sand, hiding its edges well under, and then, hey presto! it is gone! If the flat fish are so hard to find in a tank, you may be sure it would be impossible to find them on the sea bed. They are poor swimmers, but ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... girdle, which apprehension converted into a stiletto or dirk, and such is the force of self-preservation, that I was on the point of tripping her up and throwing her on her back. But thrusting the supposed dirk against the wall—presto—open sesame—the wall gave way, and she drew me through a doorway. This was done so quickly it absolutely seemed magic. For an instant I thought of dropping her arm—indeed I should have done so, and retreated back through the door, but she held my arm tight, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... fumbling around on a narrow table where they lay props and costumes for quick changes. Suddenly he dug his fingers into my shoulder, enough to catch my attention at this point, meaning I'd show bruises tomorrow, and yelled at me under his breath, "And you love me, our crows and robes. Presto!" ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... took up a pile of halfpence. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you see these halfpence, and you see this cap. The cap I will place on the table, and taking the halfpence in my left hand, as you see, I will pass them from under the table into the cap. Heigh, presto, fly!" Sure enough, he lifted up the cap, and there were the halfpence. "Now I will pass them back again into my hand— listen." One after the other they were heard dropping into his hand, and when the cap was lifted they were gone. Then he put a ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... virgin is princess of chameleons; and, to confine ourselves to her two most piquant contrasts, by her mother's side she is always more or less childlike; but, let a nice young fellow engage her apart, and, hey presto! she shall be every inch a woman: perhaps at no period of her life are the purely mental characteristics of her sex so supreme in her; thus her type, the rosebud, excels in essence ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... betakes himself to a little booth whose table is strewn with dubious scraps of skin and bones, which have already been fingered and contemptuously thrown aside by fifty dirty Arabs (I speak as an eye-witness); he buys a few handfuls of these horrors for three or four sous, and forthwith—hey, presto!—they are transformed into a "ragout a la bretonne" for the famished traveller. Tunisia is a sheep-rearing country—there are sixty thousand sheep in the controle of Gafsa alone—but you may live there a lifetime before seeing a leg of mutton ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... the Place de la Pucelle, and examine the carving on the houses, and on the Hotel Bourgtheroude, before the great Parisian conjuror waves his wand once more. But, hey presto! down they come, in a street hard by—even whilst we write, a great panel totters to the ground—heraldic shields, with a border of flowers and pomegranates, carved in oak; clusters of grapes and diaper patterns of rich design, emblems of old nobility—all in the dust; a hatchment ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... much travel, my attention was caught by a large spider in the dust at my feet, so large that I stopped to look at it. Its body seemed rough and thick, while its legs were short. I took a stick, and poked it, when, presto change! my spider had a small, round, smooth ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... betrayed a surprising interest in statistics—the populations of cities, crops, politics, and every other form of European what-not—and kept Storri answering questions like a school-boy. Thereafter, Storri was no sooner in the Harley house when, presto! from over the way our pythoness sweeps in. Bess was there before the servant had taken Storri's hat. This disturbing fortune depressed him; he attributed it to ill luck, never once observing that the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... peonies, Angelica sat brooding, her eyes fastened on the stage, Geoffrey behind her chair, brooding by the same token. Presto, he saw a flood of pink rush up her shoulders to her ears. The "principal boy" had just skipped on to the stage. No boy at all (God be witness), but one Mistress Tina Vandeleur, very apt in masquerado, and seeming true boy enough to the guileless. Stout of leg, light-footed, with a ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... mill at such times, and for a period he would work without rest. No better assistant could be found anywhere—until he had satisfied his few creditors and established a small surplus of his own. Then, presto, change!—and on the surface reappeared Bye, the long, slender, blue-eyed, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... mania of the moment. "Of course, he does not intend to leave us here to perish, and he is in the next cabin—but a step; see how easily I can get to him, and I shall be back before you can say 'Presto!'" ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... to the Marchioness on March 11, 1831[8]:—"Ho subito mandate a Venezia e scritto a Titiano, quale e forse il piu eccellente in quell' arte che a nostri tempi si ritrovi, ed e tutto mio, ricercandolo con grande instantia a volerne fare una bella lagrimosa piu che si so puo, e farmela haver presto." The passage is worth quoting as showing the estimation in which Titian was held at a court which had known and still knew the greatest Italian masters ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... he said, 'must remain in hiding behind the tree. You will hear me knock, accost the ruffians and hold them in conversation. The moment you hear me exclaim loudly, "Hey, Presto! Pots and Pans", you will dart out and engage the villains at fisticuffs. The ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... Quae placidum degunt aevum, vitamque serenam!) Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas? Quis pariter coelos omneis convertere? et omneis Ignibus aetheriis terras suffire feraceis? Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore presto? Nubibus ut tenebras faciat, coelique serena Concutiat sonitu? tum fulmina mittat, et ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... point at which the illusion could be detected was the angle where the mirrors joined, and this was masked by the centre post at which the double doors met. To conclude the trick, the doors were again closed, the performer swung the mirrors back into place, and, presto! he was back in the cabinet, smiling genially at ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... a change, "anything for a change," and presto! her wish had been suddenly granted by fate. Rather spitefully granted, it would seem, because to go to a "party" with Lily Leavitt was the very last thing she would have chosen. And spitefully, also, as if to punish her own foolishness ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... never believe him, for he lies as fast as a dog can trot. 'Twas in this very island that Pliny, his brother tell-truth, had seen some elephants dance on the rope with bells, and whip over the tables, presto, begone, while people were at feasts, without so much as touching the toping ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... brandishing the long, keen knife, cried: "Raise him!" seized the deltoid with his left hand and with a swift movement of the right cut through the flesh of the arm and severed the muscle; then, with a deft rearward cut, he disarticulated the joint at a single stroke, and presto! the arm fell on the table, taken off in three motions. The assistant slipped his thumbs over the brachial artery in such manner as to close it. "Let him down!" Bouroche could not restrain a little ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... and presto! the newborn art of telephony is fullgrown. Three million telephones are now scattered abroad in foreign countries, and seven millions are massed here, in the land of ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the violin and the arrangement of the scores. I remember then how they looked at each other, and cast a glance at their auditors who were taking their seats. They said a few words to each other, and the music began. They played Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata.' Do you know the first presto? Do you know ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... the thunder rattling, the lightning engaged in a perpetual skirmish. Earth was shaken like a sieve, buried in snow, bombarded with hail. It rained cats and dogs (if you will pardon my familiarity), and every shower was a waterspout. Why, in Deucalion's time, hey presto, everything was swamped, mankind went under, and just one little ark was saved, stranding on the top of Lycoreus and preserving a remnant of human seed for the ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... if they would have listened to me. The Dutchman is no bigger than I am. I could have dropped on him from one of his trees at Hampton Court, or through a window, via presto, and we would have had him off by the river, given him an interview to beg his uncle's pardon, and despatched him for the benefit of his asthma to the company of the Iron Mask at St. Marguerite; then back again, the King to enjoy his ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Carl von Weber; in the sixth year of his age; Nueremberg, the 10th of September, 1792." We hear of no more sweethearts for eleven long years. When Carl Maria was seventeen, Franz Anton left him in Vienna, where he plunged into dissipation at a tempo presto appassionato. As his son writes, "through carolling, kissing, drinking Vienna, he wandered with a troop of choice spirits, drinking, kissing, carolling." The intoxicating draught of pleasure quaffed in the lively capital fevered the lad's blood, and the ardent ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes |
