"Singer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the white light of Broadway. By reason of a little luck and some talent he had come so far, done so much for himself. In his day he had been by turn a novitiate in a Western seminary which trained aspirants for the Catholic priesthood; a singer and entertainer with a perambulating cure-all oil troupe or wagon ("Hamlin's Wizard Oil") traveling throughout Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; both end- and middle-man with one, two or three different minstrel companies of repute; the editor or originator and author of a ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... to make the animals' activities meaningful. For the rest the birds mostly make their appointed noises. But I did enjoy the skylark's song. And once Fenn had put in one song it was inevitable that he would put in another, for which the bluebottle was the "singer". NH ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... singing, though none hear Beside the singer: and there is delight In praising, though the praiser sit alone And see the praised far ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... sympathised with nature. The hoar-frost, which vanishes with the sunrise, stood with them for ephemeral fame. Rank without power was "a fountain without water." The rushing stream reminded the Maori singer, as it did the Mantuan, of the remorseless current of life ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the period of peace which was won for the country by the wisdom and decision of its young king that England listened to the voice of her first great singer. The work of Chaucer marks the final settlement of the English tongue. The close of the great movement towards national unity which had been going on ever since the Conquest was shown in the middle of the fourteenth century by the disuse, even amongst the nobler classes, of the French ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... flashed across Graham's mind the recollection of talk on another subject in that very path. Here he had spoken to Alain in deprecation of any possible alliance with Isaura Cicogna, the destined actress and public; singer. His cheek flushed; his heart smote him. What! had he spoken slightingly of her—of her? What if she became his own wife? What! had he himself failed in the respect which he would demand as her right from the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh—the pure spirit, not released from the pitiful human clay without a fierce struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer—the singer who called to him out of heaven, who summoned his friend to join him, to see what he ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... bound, legally bound, to devote her services to a master for a given time. The impresario of the 'Fenice' had often heard from travellers of that wonderful mezzo-soprano voice which was captivating all Rome, where the beauty and grace of the singer were extolled not less loudly. The great skill of these astute providers for the world's pleasure is evidenced in nothing more remarkably than the instinctive quickness with which they pounce upon the indications ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the most famous singer in the whole world," she murmured. "And I shall have all the money I want. My friend, you have done me a service. I will not forget it." She looked at him and laughed slightly. "But I do not think you have done the world a service. A great many people will not like ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... bare hill-side, in woods and caves of the earth, in cold and hunger, in weariness and dread of death, did David learn to be the poor man's king, the poor man's poet, the singer of those psalms which shall endure as long as the world endures, and be the comfort and the utterance of all sad hearts for evermore. Agony it was, deep and bitter, and for the moment more hopeless than the grave itself, which crushed out of the very depths of his heart that most awful and yet ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... in boy's clothes the first time I heard it. I sometimes think the lower notes in my voice are like Mrs. Eland's. That glorious singer Braham, one of my lights, is fled. He was for a season. He was a rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel, yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him, that you could not tell which predominated; but he is gone, and one Phillips is engaged instead. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... People had gathered together upon the sward fronting their line of shallow caves and one of them, the story-teller and singer, was chanting aloud of the river-horse and the great spoil which was theirs, when there was a hungry roar and the yell or shriek of all, men or women not too stricken by fear to be unable to utter sound, and then the leap into their midst of the cave tiger! Perhaps the story-teller's ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... near the entrance to the south choir aisle, stands a bust of Dr. Franklin, who died in 1833. This monument is by S. Joseph, and near it on the south wall is a tablet, with a medallion bust, in memory of Joseph Maas, the great tenor singer, whose name is not yet forgotten in ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... into a monastery at eighteen years of age, the fact that he was a good singer and a most successful beggar were points of excellence that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... they did not understand the English words, but being natives and instinctively attuned to the most ancient of emotions that throbbed in the low baritone, they listened silently and stared out into the night long after the singer had passed. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... was the original Galatea in Handel's Acis and Galatea, and the contralto arias in the Messiah are said to have been written for her. She played Zarah in Aaron Hill's version of Voltaire's Zaire in 1736, and it was as a tragic actress, not as a singer, that her greatest triumphs were won. From Colley Cibber she learned a sing-song method of declamation. Her mannerisms, however, did not obscure her real genius, and she freed herself from them entirely when she began to act with Garrick, with whom she was associated at Drury ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... and with his elbows on his knees, and head between his hands, strove to still the giddy whirl in his brain. And as his folly and its bitterness found him out, the poor fool rocked himself, and cursed the day when he was born. If any one yet doubt that Mr. Moggridge was an inspired singer, let him turn to that sublime ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... quitted the place, and now, to amuse the Ghent citizens, a couple of little boys came to the cafe and set up a small concert: one played ill on the guitar, but sang, very sweetly, plaintive French ballads; the other was the comic singer; he carried about with him a queer, long, damp-looking, mouldy white hat, with no brim. "Ecoutez," said the waiter to me, "il va faire l'Anglais; c'est tres drole!" The little rogue mounted his immense brimless hat, and, thrusting ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a small interval between them filled up by the musical gurgling of liquor from a bottle, and the gulps of the votary of Bacchus. At length, his patience being exhausted, the caliph ordered Mesrour to knock loudly at the singer's dwelling. Hearing the noise, the fellow opened the jalousie, and came out into the verandah above. Looking down, and perceiving the three interrupters of his mirth, he bawled out—"What rascals are you that disturb an honest man at ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... moments in all this disorder. Among Desgenais's companions were several young men of distinction, a number of artists. We sometimes passed together delightful evenings under pretext of being libertines. One of them was infatuated with a beautiful singer who charmed us with her fresh and melancholy voice. How many times we sat listening while supper was served and waiting! How many times, when the flagons had been emptied, one of us held a volume of Lamartine and read in a voice choked by emotion! ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... of guile, or he that is guilty of foeticide, or he that is ill of consumption, or he that keeps animals, of is destitute of Vedic study, or is a common servant of a village, or lives upon the interest of loans, or he that is a singer, or he that sells all articles, or he that is guilty of arson, or he that is a poisoner or he that is a pimp by profession, or he that sells Soma, or he that is a professor of palmistry, or he that is in the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a few minutes previously she had seen the singer a raging fury, brandishing an axe and driving men before him. She could not understand. And presently the song grew faint among the timber ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... by a gentle song a victory flourisheth afresh, and beside the bowl the singer's voice waxeth brave. Let one mix it now, that sweet proclaimer of the triumphal song, and in silver goblets hand the grapes' potent child, even the goblets which for Chromios his mares erst won, and sent to him from sacred ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... Strabo giving the Greek form of the native name for the diviners, [Greek: ouateis], the Celtic form being probably vatis (Irish, faith).[1018] These may have been also poets, since vatis means both singer and poet; but in all three writers the bards are a fairly distinct class, who sing the deeds of famous men (so Timagenes). Druid and diviner were also closely connected, since the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy, and ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... but we were so moved by the marvellous purity of the pathetic voice that tears stood in our eyes. As for the singer, tears rolled down his face. It was one of those rare and perfect pleasures that are never forgotten. A few years later Villaret made his debut as first tenor at the Opera in Paris with great success. He was very generous with tickets to his ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... replied Choulette, "was destroyed while he lived. Yet he died happy, because in him was joy with humility. He was, in fact, God's sweet singer. And it is right that another poor poet should take his task and teach the world true religion and true joy. I shall be that poet, Madame, if I can despoil myself of reason and of conceit. For all moral beauty is achieved ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... you said to your son, M. Alexandre Dumas, "I seem to see myself set on a pedestal which trembles as if it were founded on the sands." These sands, your uncounted volumes, are all of gold, and make a foundation more solid than the rock. As well might the singer of Odysseus, or the authors of the "Arabian Nights," or the first inventors of the stories of Boccaccio, believe that their works were perishable (their names, indeed, have perished), as the creator of "Les Trois Mousquetaires" alarm himself with the ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... a singer; sweet and pure and clear Are the notes he warbles from his covert near; Softly, oh! how softly, at the sunset's glow Does he chant his ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... take me to the Maennerchor, which meets every Wednesday night for practice. Quickly we came to a hall, one end of which was occupied by a minute stage with appurtenances, and a piano; and in the middle thereof a long table, at which each singer sat down as he came in. Presently, seventeen Germans were seated at the singing-table, long-necked bottles of Rhine-wine were opened and tasted, great pipes and cigars were all afire; the leader, Herr Thielepape, — an old man with long, white beard ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... flowed, so did compliments; and I did the affable celebrity life-sized. It made a great send-off for the young adventurer. As the boat drew off, he was standing at the head of the gangway, supported by three handsome ladies - one of them a real full-blown beauty, Madame Green, the singer - and looking very engaging himself, between smiles and tears. Not that he ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Capella was "The Driver," because it seemed to rise earlier than the other stars and so apparently watched over them, or still more practically as "The Singer" who rode before the procession cheering on the camels, which last were represented ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... of any other the better," said the great man, drily. "I haven't said a word about the melody itself, which is quite out of the ordinary compass, and makes demands upon the singer's vocalisation which are not likely to make a demand for the song. What you have to remember, my dear sir, if you wish to achieve success, is that music, if it is to sell, must appeal to the average amateur young person. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... was already on the platform; he began to tune the guitar, and six women sat down around him in a row, beginning to clap hands in time to the music; Tarugo rose from her seat and started a side dance, and was soon wiggling her hips convulsively; the singer commenced to gargarize softly; at intervals he would be silent and then nothing would be heard save the snapping of Tarugo's fingers and the clatter of her ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... flute-players, quacks, vagrants, mimics, blackguards; all this set is sorrowful and dejected on account of the death of the singer Tigellius; for he was liberal [toward them]. On the other hand, this man, dreading to be called a spendthrift, will not give a poor friend wherewithal to keep off cold and pinching hunger. If you ask him why he wickedly consumes the noble estate of his grandfather and father in tasteless ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... dwarf, seating himself upon a piano-stool, and screwing himself up until he was near the ceiling and on a level with the singer's ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... scientific, though most of it I have heard from the lips of street-boy, Bank-holiday youth, coster, cheap clerk, counter-jumper, bar-lounger, cheap excursionist, smoking-concert devotee, tenth-rate suburban singer, music hall 'pro' or ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... beauty, the so-called Orpheus relief (Fig. 136). This is known to us in three copies, unless indeed the Naples example be the original. The story here set forth is one of the most touching in Greek mythology. Orpheus, the Thracian singer, has descended into Hades in quest of his dead wife, Eurydice, and has so charmed by his music the stern Persephone that she has suffered him to lead back his wife to the upper air, provided only he will not look upon her on the way. But love has overcome him. He has ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... such lines were driven from their class, their homes, and their country. They were despised and hated, like all who protest against oppression and remind the smug world of uncomfortable things. But they were great poets. One of them was our sweetest singer, the other was, when he wrote, the most conspicuous figure in Europe, and the most shattering force. Even England, which cares so little for her greatest inheritance of passionate intellect, cannot yet forget them. But others who sang the same terrible theme she has long ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... of ten, in my position would have succumbed as a child. Instead of that, I have a wife, I own a villa in the Kahlenberg Mountains, I support three children of my step-brother and an older sister of my wife, who was a singer and lost her voice. I am absolutely independent. I remain on the stage because I want to bring my wealth up to a certain point. If the Roland were to sink to-day, I could go down with perfect equanimity. I have done my work. I have invested my money at a high rate of interest. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... it had all the effervescence and glitter of the entire country even then. I shall never forget the excitement when on September 1st, 1850, Jenny Lind landed from the steamer "Atlantic." Not merely because of her reputation as a singer, but because of her fame for generosity and kindness were the people aroused to welcome her. The first $10,000 she earned in America she devoted to charity, and in all the cities of America she poured forth her benefactions. Castle Garden was ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Vrihannala, be thou a singer or a dancer, hold thou (for the present), without loss of time, the reins of my excellent steeds, mounting upon ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... song divine, With a sword in every line, And this shall be thy reward." And he loosened the belt at his waist, And in front of the singer placed ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... or Singer, maintained by us in all the luxury of extravagance; and in the back ground a maimed soldier and sailor, who were asking alms, and thrown down by the insolence of the opera singer's chairman; yet the sailor lost his arm with the gallant Captain Pierson, and the soldier left his leg ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... Brave singer of the coming time, Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, Good-bye! Good-bye!—Our hearts and hands, Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, Cry, God be with him, till he stands His feet ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... enjoyment, but that either legitimate intercourse or masturbation, to which many were addicted, was apt to be followed by a marasmus ending in galloping consumption. Mondat personally knew the opera-singer Velutti, who died in London; Velutti was, when a child, castrated by his parents, having both testicles removed, being intended by his father, who had himself performed the operation, for the choir of the Papal ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... irrepressibly in his heart, and he turns aside from his task with a new glow of fulfillment and contentment. At harvest time in our country I hear, or I imagine I hear, a sort of chorus rising over all the hills, and I meet no man who is not, deep down within him, a singer! So song follows work: so art grows out ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... two beloved friends, the sweet-voiced singer, Chibiabos, and Kwasind, strongest of all men. Even the birds could not sing so sweetly or the brooks murmur so gently as Chibiabos, and all the hearts of men were softened by the pathos of his music. But dear as he was to Hiawatha, no less dear ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... account in framing their estimates of the Divine character, how is it, we ask, that they have arrived at and clung to the belief in the benevolence of God at all? If the proof to the contrary was so overpowering, why, as a matter of fact, has it not overpowered them? Why should an unknown Hebrew singer have given expression to this extraordinary sentiment, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him"—and why has that sentiment been re-echoed by millions of men and women acquainted with grief and affliction? The early Christians did not exactly live lives of ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... in sun and showers, The minstrel and the heather, The deathless singer and the flowers He ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... age still ripens for her needs The flower, the man. Behold her slow still finger Points where He comes, beneath whose feet the weeds Bloom out immortal flowers, the immortal Singer! Forward, not backward all the ages press; New stars arise, of whose bright occultation No glory of the dying past could guess: Still grows the unfinished ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... a charming singer. We sang two or three songs. Our juvenile hearers seemed delighted. I then knelt down and prayed. By this time the hall was crowded with grown men, and I begged them not to crowd out my little friends. I then spoke an hour ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... slid down on the word wick-ud made a queer thrilly feeling run down the boy's back, and all of a sudden the day grew wonderfully interesting, and this old seaport town one of the nicest places he had ever been in. The singer stopped at the steps and Georgina, disconcerted at finding the boy at such close range when she expected to see him far above her, got no further in her introduction to ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Moody. "Where do you live! Are you married? What business are you in?" at once inquired the Evangelist; "I want you." "What for?" "To help me in my work in Chicago." "I cannot leave my business," replied the now astonished singer. "You must," said Moody. "I have been looking for you for the last eight years." And thus was Mr. Sankey "called" to be the companion and helper of the great Evangelist. They have been laboring together, for about ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... take her triumph casually, but she was thrilled, thrilled with the supreme pride of a woman in her best clothes—in and out of her best clothes, and liberally illuminated with jewelry. She was now something like a great singer singing the highest note of her master-aria in her best role—herself at once the perfect ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... artists arouse certain sensations in their auditors. Moreover, subsequent hearings will reveal the fact that this sensation is aroused always in the same place, and in the same manner. The beauty of the voice may be temporarily affected in the case of a singer, or an instrument of less aesthetic tone-quality be used by the instrumentalist, but the result is ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... Southern poets heads his article on one of the most gifted of our children of song, "Henry Timrod, the Unfortunate Singer." ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... her neighbor's back garden just then she would have seen what the singer did. A little brown bird was vainly pecking away at a crust lying under a tree. Then the singer came, with soft, quick steps, and broke the crust into crumbs. The sunlit hour ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... too much for the calm and practical Judith. "But you've been simply crazy to be here, Miss Pat," she cried reprovingly. "You've toiled and moiled on chickens and sculpture and candy and boarders and everything just to be able at last to be a real singer. I don't see what there is to be a cry-baby ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... dear Ellen," said Mrs. Montgomery, when she had finished and holding the little singer to her breast "I have always found it so. God is faithful. I have seen abundant cause to thank him for all the evils he has made me suffer heretofore, and I do not doubt it will be the same with this last and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he retired altogether from public life, and privately married Miss Anastasia Robinson, his first wife having died many years before. Miss Robinson was a singer of the highest repute, of the most amiable character, and kindest disposition. There was no reason why the match should not have been publicly acknowledged, as the lady was held in universal esteem; ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... of the grakle a moment ago," resumed the professor. "Do you know that the redwing is equally as useful, and besides he is a delightful singer? ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... works, I set out in the summer on my first journey as a musician. My sister Clara, who was married to the singer Wolfram, had an engagement at the theatre at Magdeburg, whither, in characteristic fashion, I set forth upon ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the years 1759-60, appears the name, "Ludwig van Beethoven, Bassist." We know little of him, and it is but a very probable conjecture that he was a native of Maestricht, in Holland. That he was more than an ordinary singer is proved by the position he held in the Chapel, and by the applause which he received for his performances as primo basso in certain of Mosigny's operas. He was, moreover, a good musician; for he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... included by the late S. W. Singer, Esq., in his series of "Early English Poets;" but that gentleman, besides striking out certain passages, which he, somewhat unaccountably and inconsistently, regarded as indelicate, omitted a good deal of preliminary matter in the form of commendatory ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... a great banjoist, a charming song-singer, and a leader of the negroes around about. Lately he was gaining some reputation as a ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... Singer long dead and sweeter-lipped than I, In whose proud line the soul-dark phrases burn, Would you could praise their passionate symmetry, Who loved the colder shapes, the Attic urn. But your far song, my faint one, what are they, ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... of universal spiritual agitation, are little else, we are told, than a list of cases of ecclesiastical discipline instituted against chaplains, canons, and even higher dignitaries, for having attended the Huguenot services. At Rouen, the chief singer of Notre Dame acknowledged before the united chapter that he had often been present at the "assemblies"—nay, more—"that he had never heard anything there which was ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... long legs—to his great discomfort. The freckles of his early days were merged into the warm uniform tint of his tanned complexion. His brown hair still curled; his shirt-collar fell away from his throat, round and full and white—the singer's throat—as he threw his head backward and cast his large roving eyes searchingly along the sky, as if ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Vancouver and taken the Canadian Pacific on their way to England. Mrs. Hale knew Saxon's mother or, rather, her poems; and produced, not only "The Story of the Files," but a ponderous scrapbook which contained many of her mother's poems which Saxon had never seen. A sweet singer, Mrs. Hale said; but so many had sung in the days of gold and been forgotten. There had been no army of magazines then, and the poems had perished ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... girls as well as my boys will astonish the world some day. In fact, Anne has already proved her mettle. Nora hopes to become a great singer, Jessica a pianiste ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Abe, easing himself comfortably into a chair, his guest being seated, and resting his palms on his knees as he gazed at her out of his pale blue eyes. "He's a lot of comfort—Jerry. An' he useter be a great singer. Kinder gittin' old, now, like ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... arguments they used I do not know, but Selina suddenly changed in her manner towards me. Out of pique—you may think this weak of me, Cuthbert, but I was a fool in those days—I became engaged to a girl who was a singer. Her name was Emilia Saul, and I believe she was of Jewish extraction. I liked her in a way, and she had a wonderful power over me. I ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... his life he believed himself a poet and in the creative sense of the word he was assuredly justified, but he meant it in the singing sense as well, and there his claim can only be admitted with serious qualifications. But whether he was a singer or not the hopes founded on this book were extravagant; he expected to make not only reputation by it, but a large amount of money, and money is not often made in England ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the Italian music in preference to any other, and he constantly and publicly expressed this liking, without considering how much he might thereby wound the French artistes in their ambition and love of fame. He therefore appointed an Italian to be first singer at the opera. It is true this was Maestro Paesiello, whose operas were then making their way through Europe, and everywhere meeting with approbation. Bonaparte also was extremely fond of them, and at every opportunity he manifested to the maestro his ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... waltzed on the bare floor, grouped themselves in mock-dramatic postures, then, overcome by the strange magnetism of the singer, fell into motionless attitudes, listening intently. How well I remember that picture, although I have almost forgotten the names ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... without good cause therefore so many general councils condemn it, so many fathers abhor it, so many grave men speak against it; "Use not the company of a woman," saith Siracides, 8. 4. "that is a singer, or a dancer; neither hear, lest thou be taken in her craftiness." In circo non tam cernitur quam discitur libido. [5151]Haedus holds, lust in theatres is not seen, but learned. Gregory Nazianzen that eloquent divine, ([5152]as he ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... under the stern of the launch. In it, lazily wielding the polished paddle, sat young Mrs. Haltren, bareheaded, barearmed, singing as sweetly as the little cardinal, who paused in sheer surprise at the loveliness of song and singer. Like a homing pigeon the canoe circled to take its bearings once, then glided away ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... "Kr-r-r-r-r-ree-be! Kr-r-r-r-r-ree-be!" In the outset, and I think I heard the very first attempt, it resembled the initial efforts of cage-birds, when spring tunes their throats. The notes seemed hard to get out; they were weak, uncertain, fluttering, as if the singer were practicing something quite new. But as the days went by they grew strong and assured, and at last were a joyous and loud morning greeting. I don't know why I should be so surprised to hear a kingbird sing; for I believe that one of the ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... extremely beautiful, though it was absurd to compare her to Catalani as a singer; but she was the favourite of the Duke of Sussex, which made her many friends. During my visit, chocolate and tea-cakes were served to our party, when Lady Harrington related a curious anecdote about those cakes. She said her friend Madame ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... they carry on their many and heavy labours. The women sing far more frequently than the men. Music is to them an instinctive means of expression; they do not learn it, it belongs to them, like dancing belongs to the natural child. And these folk songs, where the words are often improvised by the singer, seem to give utterance to natural out-door things—a symbol of the people's life, of its action, its work, very strong in its appeal, which blends so strangely joy with sadness. A special quality that often surprised me in these songs ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... "Reminiscences" of the celebrated singer and composer, Michael Kelly, the following interesting anecdotes are given: "I had the pleasure to be introduced to my worthy countryman, the Rev. Father O'Leary, the well-known Roman Catholic priest; he was a man of infinite wit, of ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... sensations in singing; but they are unintelligible as long as the causes of those sensations are unknown, and everybody has a different idea of them. Many singers try their whole lives long to produce them and never succeed. This happens because science understands too little of singing, the singer too little of science. I mean that the physiological explanations of the highly complicated processes of singing are not plainly enough put for the singer, who has to concern himself chiefly with his sensations in singing and guide himself by them. Scientific men are not at all agreed as ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... circle," to which belonged J. Herman Merivale, Hodgson, Henry Drury, Denman (afterwards Lord Chief Justice), Charles Pepys (afterwards Lord Chancellor), Launcelot Shadwell (afterwards Vice-Chancellor), Walford (afterwards Solicitor to the Customs), and Paley, a son of the archdeacon. A good singer, an amusing companion, and a clever, impulsive, eccentric creature, he was nicknamed by his friends "Don Hyperbolo" for his humorous extravagances. Some of his letters, together with a sketch of his life, are given in the 'Life of the Rev. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... swallow the trousers, I permitted the stitch in time, and having nothing in my pockets for reward, I danced a jig. I cannot dance a step or sing a note correctly, but in this archipelago I had won inter-island fame as a dancer of strange and amusing measures, and a singer of the queer ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... Jock, who believed her husband the cleverest man in Algonquin, could say he was a singer, and it was with a terribly discordant wail that he lifted his voice in the melancholy words of the hymn ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... bedroom, with which Madame Birotteau's compared like that of a chorus-singer's on a fourth floor with the appartement of a prima-donna. The ceiling was of violet-colored satin, heightened in its effect by folds of white satin; a rug of ermine lay at the bedside, and contrasted with the purple tones of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... war of mankind rage, What if His vivifying eye, O monks, should pass your corner by? For still the Lord is Lord of might; In deeds, in deeds, He takes delight; The plough, the spear, the laden barks, The field, the founded city, marks; He marks the smiler of the streets, The singer upon garden seats; He sees the climber in the rocks; To Him, the shepherd folds his flocks; For those He loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven's top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning Caryatides. Those He approves that ply the trade, That ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... said. "Here you went last week and led me to think that there was the making of a great singer in you, and now you are singing—do you know how badly you ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of means, was prominent as one of the pioneers in organizing the volunteer army of Great Britain. He was musical, playing the cornet and having an unusual tenor voice. His mother (Agnes Handforth)—also musical and a gifted singer—was a daughter of the Rector of Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire,—a highly ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... the mother was opposed to this plan—she did not care to make a human butcher of her boy. He paused some time at Lyons, on his return from school, and afterward he traveled over Italy. He here met a young man who was an excellent singer, and became quite intimate with him, so much so, that he often slept upon his shoulder. When the two friends had arrived at Rome, Lamartine was called down to the breakfast-room one morning, to behold—not his male companion, but a young ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... Gertrude. "But I can't tell yet. She seems to me like a singer singing an air. You can't tell till the song ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... generally a night when a leader of fashion such as Mrs. Worldly, Mrs. Gilding, or Mrs. Toplofty, is giving a ball; and most of the holders of the parterre boxes are in ball dresses, with an unusual display of jewels. Or a house will be particularly "brilliant" if a very great singer is appearing in a new role, or if a personage be present, as when Marshal Joffre went ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... crept up slowly and gathered about to listen. They did not resume dancing to this new strain. Perhaps they wanted to learn it first. Bo sang on and on. The listening audience never moved. Then Horatio played very softly, and the singer lowered his voice until it became like a far off echo. When Bo sang like this he often closed his eyes. ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... busied with this world and their own lusts, that the sweetest and pleasantest offers in the gospel sound not so sweet unto them as the clink of their money, or the sound of oil and wine in a cup. Any musician would affect them more than the sweet singer of Israel, the anointed of the God of Jacob. Always(458) these souls that have mourned and danced according to Christ's motions, and whose hearts have exulted within them at the message and word of reconciliation,—blessed ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... a pile of music-books, while the fair singers who came to try the critic's piano filled his room with melody. All the time Madame Theophile would evince great pleasure. She was, however, made nervous by certain notes, and at the high la she would tap the singer's mouth with her paw. This was very amusing, and my visitors delighted in making the experiment. It never failed; the dilettante in fun was not to ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... a greedy ear to the notes of the mocking-bird, and advances with precaution towards the place where, hidden under the foliage, the bird of the solitudes utters its sweet song. Vain hope! he advances, and the singer flies, his voice still as distant and himself as invisible as ever! Thus man often hears in the distance voices which sing to him of happiness; seduced by their charm he rushes toward them; but they fly at his approach; and his whole life is passed in pursuing, without ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... circumstances. The poor Daughter of Joy, carrying her smiles and finery quite unregarded through the crowd, makes a figure which it is impossible to recall without a wounding pity. She is the type of the unsuccessful artist. The actor, the dancer, and the singer must appear like her in person, and drain publicly the cup of failure. But though the rest of us escape this crowning bitterness of the pillory, we all court in essence the same humiliation. We all profess to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... retired little place, Bemerton would not be of much interest were it not for its associations with the "singer of surpassing sweetness," the author of The Temple. George Herbert became rector here in 1630 and died two years later, aged 42. He lies within the altar rails of the church and the tablet above is simply inscribed G.H., 1633. The lines ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... one of which he filled in every now and then, and scribbled a hasty letter to the same address. He was a sharp-faced middle-aged man of business; Joseph Ashmead, operatic and theatrical agent—at his wits' end; a female singer at the Homburg Opera had fallen really ill; he was commissioned to replace her, and had only thirty hours to do it in. So he was hunting a singer. What the lady was hunting can never be known, unless she ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... clatters out its noisy warning that "the lecture" is about to begin. From the concert hall, where men sit drinking beer in clouds of smoke, comes the thin voice of a short-skirted singer, warbling, "Do they think of me at home?" The young fellow who sits near the door, abstractedly making figures in the wet track of the "schooners," buries something there with a sudden restless turn, and calls for another beer. Out ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... thicket my heart's bird! The screams and hootings rose again: They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred Their noisy plumage; small but plain The lonely hidden singer made A well of grief within the glade. "Whist, silly fool, be off," they shout, "Or we'll come pluck your ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... There, as Norman and Roy could see, he had received a more than ordinary education, part of which, as the boys afterwards learned, was devoted to music. They also learned later that although not a great singer he ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... hung over the wily singer, and beat the measure as she sang. He pressed closer, and whispered praises in her ear. The courtiers broke in applause, the ladies whispered, and looked wise. The witching dame, not satisfied to ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... and, glancing to one side of the way, beheld the singer sitting beneath the hedge. He was a small, merry-eyed man and, while he sang, he was busily setting out certain edibles upon the grass at his feet; now glancing from this very small man to the very large pack that lay beside ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... have specially wanted to be quiet," he said—and then he glanced at her childish little face, and he hesitated. "It seems so rude of me," he added. He was the soul of courtesy, although he was an amateur tenor singer. ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... still in great part an open space, where boys were playing, and a tumbler was attracting many spectators; while the ballad-singer of yesterday had again a large audience, who laughed loudly at every coarse jest broken ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Madame Babette. 'Why, the Norman grazier sings like Boupre,' naming a favourite singer at the ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... forward, and with polite indifference bowed in reply to the applause. Signora Buonatti was forgotten! The people were amazed at the nonchalant manner of the young favorite, who actually received a burst of enthusiasm, such as rarely had greeted any singer, with such coolness-who and what was this slender, youthful being, that was neither awed by their sternness, nor delighted at ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... dormouse, one tiny penetrating note dominated all. He knew that the singer of that note was four-footed. Have you ever heard a cricket's serenade? It was something like that. Have you ever heard a tree-creeper talking to itself? It was something like that also. He looked down and saw, as he expected, a round fur ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... his manure-fork as soon as Cully had moved on again, and dodging behind the fence, followed him toward the post-office, hoping to hit the singer ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of a singer, but his voice was good and he sang as though he meant it. Outfield sat unresponsive until the verse was nearly done; then he moved restlessly and waited for the chorus, and when it came joined in with the rest; and the strains of Hilltonians ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Sanskrit. They tell stories of the night and of the frontier, stratagems newly invented and astonishing deceptions of Spanish carbineers. Itchoua, the chief, listens more than he talks; one hears only at long intervals his profound voice of a church singer vibrate. Arrochkoa, the most elegant of all, is in striking contrast with his comrades of the mountain. (His name was Jean Detcharry, but he was known only by his surname, which the elders of his family transmitted from father to son for centuries.) A smuggler ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... coach, and so for Hinchinbroke. My Lady Jemimah and Mr. Thomas Crew in the coach with him. Hence to Whitehall about noon, where I met with Mr. Madge, who took me along with him and Captain Cooke (the famous singer) and other masters of music to dinner at an ordinary about Charing Cross where we dined, all paying their club. Hence to the Privy Seal, where there has been but little work these two days. In ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... difficulties do not interfere with our enjoyment of the two poems; if there were two Homers, we may be grateful to Nature for bestowing her favours so liberally upon us; if Homer never existed at all, but is a mere nickname for a class of singer, the literary fraud that has been perpetrated is no more serious than that which has assigned Apocalyptic visions of different ages to Daniel. Perhaps the Homeric poems are the growth of many generations, like the English parish churches; they resemble them as being ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... Jose," cried the Penitentiary, with a frank laugh, approaching the two young people and bowing to them, "are you giving lessons in horticulture? Insere nunc Meliboee piros; pone ordine vites, as the great singer of the labors of the field said. 'Graft the pear-tree, dear Meliboeus, trim the vines.' And how are we now, Senor ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... rattling his armor said, without heed of the singer, "She is dead," for when she came among the heather the joyous spirit of the mountain met her and blew upon her hair and eyes. He kissed her worn cheek that he had known so fair, and the soft rain of his sorrow fell to see the pity of her brow. She passed all stiff and ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson
... suspicion on the legitimacy of all her children; and when it began to be widely hinted that Padre Rafael, were he so disposed, might point to a humble cottage in the sunlit hills of Granada where lay a tiny Infanta, greatly resembling the famous singer and favorite of the Queen, Marfori, Marquis de Loja, Isabella's alarm was sufficient to arouse the Vatican to action. With the removal of Padre Rafael, and the bestowal of the "Golden Rose of Faith and Virtue" upon the Queen ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... on music, but before he had listened to the first verse of Rolling Home he knew Captain Matt Peasley for the singer and suspected his daughter of faking the accompaniment. He listened at the head of the stairs and presently was treated to a rendition of a lilting little Swedish ballad, followed by one or two selections from the Grand Banks and the doleful song of the Ferocious Whale and the Five Brave ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... her fostering care, was however destined to eclipse her, alike by her personal charms and her varied accomplishments. If one could believe all that is said in her praise by Hooft, Huyghens, Barlaeus, Brederoo, Vondel and Cats, she must indeed have been a very marvel of perfect womanhood. As a singer she was regarded as being without a rival; and her skill in painting, carving, etching on glass and tapestry work was much praised by her numerous admirers. Her poetical works, including her translation into Dutch verse of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, have almost all unfortunately ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... by a soft voice, outside of the enclosure, chanting his name-song. Who could have learned his name? The court had risen. "Yes," he said, "the singer is true. I am Lono, and she whom I hear is my wife. The gods ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... singer in upper Hindustan, who lived about 600 years ago. Tan-Sen and Ba,ora are still held in the highest reverence by singers and musical performers. In the original, there is a play on the words to tan and ba,ora which scarcely needs ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... so little to tell," replied Sir John. "Violet Oliver comes of a family which is known, though it is not rich. She studied music with a view to making her living as a singer. For she has a very sweet voice, though its want of power forbade grand opera. Her studies were interrupted by the appearance of a cavalry captain, who made love to her. She liked it, whereas she did not like studying music. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... Bomba travels to the Giant Cataract, still searching out his parentage. Among the Pilati Indians he finds some white captives, and an aged opera singer who is the first to give Bomba real ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... onward and upward to new truth and light. Her works are the mirror of this progress. In reviewing them, the first point that strikes us is the precocity, or rather the spontaneity, of her poetic gift. She was a born singer; poetry was her natural language, and to write was less effort than to speak, for she was a shy, sensitive child, with strange reserves and reticences, not easily putting herself "en rapport" with those around her. Books were her world from her ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... in Ferrara as they are in Florence; everything is of the Middle Ages. Lucretia did not meet Bojardo, the famous author of the Orlando Inamorato, at the court of his friend Ercole, but the blind singer of the Mambriano, Francesco Cieco, probably was still living. We have seen how Ariosto, who was soon to eclipse all his predecessors, ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... aptly, to seek, before she died, to make the king acquainted with her love and her intent, and accordingly she prayed him bring her Minuccio d'Arezzo. Now this Minuccio was in those days held a very quaint and subtle singer and player and was gladly seen of the king; and Bernardo concluded that Lisa had a mind to hear him sing and play awhile. Accordingly, he sent to tell him, and Minuccio, who was a man of a debonair humour, incontinent came to her and having somedele comforted ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and abilities. "And in the human world," he continues, "it is the same; without the modest reserve of the woman that must, in most cases, be overcome by lovable qualities, the sexual relationship would with difficulty find a singer who would extol in love the highest movements of the human soul." (Groos, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... rocking-chair, and Betty in the window-seat; they were deep in thought of girlish problems, and, as usual, taking nearly opposite sides. They had been discussing their plans for the future. Mary Beck had confessed that she wished to learn to be a splendid singer and sing in a great church or even in public concerts. She knew that she could, if she were only well taught; but there was nobody to give her lessons in Tideshead, and her mother would not hear of her going ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... O heavenly singer, Thy song so clear and free? Who hears or sees or heeds thee, Who ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... blue one with blue rain. From each bottle she poured a little water upon the yucca root and proceeded to wash Yolkai Estsan and all her finery. That done, Yolkai Estsan was directed to run toward the rising sun for a short distance and return. Many of the young people followed, a chosen singer chanting eight songs during their absence. The ceremony finished, the assemblage returned to their homes, each of the selected singers taking one of the blankets from the seat in return ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... songs sung in the Arctic, the singer at my side—these songs of nature, songs of hope, home, heart. They seem a part of my life. I heard them as the cry of a lone bird in the vast silence ...
— Out of the North • Howard V. Sutherland
... though, indeed, they were willing to accept the fact that he was of their acquaintance, but desired at the same time to emphasize the fact that he was outside the freemasonry of their class—a freak, whom they acknowledged on sufferance, as they might have done a wonderful lion-tamer, or a music-hall singer, or a steeplejack. He knew very well that there was not one of them who accepted his qualifications, notwithstanding the approval of their womankind, and the knowledge ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was any encouragement for native talent, he'd have been at the opera. He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described, when he hears the ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... Walter Baxter. He isn't a half bad sort, although he's pretty hot-tempered. He had a room directly opposite Ned Lowe, who plays the mandolin and is quite a singer. About sixty of the old scholars are coming back, and then there will be quite a bunch of new fellows—not less than twenty, I've ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... was particularly embarrassed by Consuelo's flight. He had led all Venice to believe this wonderful new singer favoured his addresses. Some, indeed, maintained for a time that, jealous of his treasure, the count had hidden her in one of his country houses. But when they heard Porpora say, with a blunt openness which could never deceive, that he had advised his pupil to go to Germany and wait for him, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... body. I have heard finer voices by the dozen, but I have not often heard a finer style or one more magnetic and enthralling. The little woman sang as if the song possessed her, and it is not often that a singer finds such an audience. When the first amazement was over I looked about me and saw that everybody had risen and turned towards the singer as if by a common impulse. The song was recognized at the first bar, and it was listened to with an enthusiasm which had something very like worship in it. Before ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Cloud, Ode to a Skylark, Ode to the West Wind, Stanzas written in Dejection, and others. —Shelley has been called "the poet's poet," because his style is so thoroughly transfused by pure imagination. He has also been called "the master-singer of our modern race and age; for his thoughts, his words, and his deeds all sang together." He is probably the greatest lyric poet of ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... of the Norman host, rode a man of renown, the minstrel Taillefer. A gigantic man he was, singer, juggler, and champion combined. As he rode fearlessly forward he chanted in a loud voice the ancient "Song of Roland," flinging his sword in the air with one hand as he sang, and catching it as it fell with the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris |
