"Dance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... You can, of course, decline; and, at any rate, you can do as you wish. We shall go because they are friends of ours, and it would be a want of respect not to go on such an occasion as a silver wedding. There will be several persons there, and there will be a dinner at about three, and a dance after, in which the younger ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... all adapted to music. A party may dance without music. I have seen it done. But the exercise is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Larry, jumping up at this point, and performing a species of war-dance for a few moments, and then sitting down and demanding another supply of tea. "Didn't I tell ye, Bunco, that the order would soon be up anchor an' away again! It's Wanderin' Will he's been named, an' Wanderin' Will ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... a tea-fight and a dance, and answered its purpose very well up to the time of the first heavy rains; then studies had to be postponed indefinitely, for the floor was a foot under water. A call was made upon the united strength of the township, and the building was lifted bodily ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... then occurred. . . . But suddenly I felt as if a mountain of oppressive lead had fallen from my breast. How easily I could breathe again! All that had just before turned round me in a mad, whirling dance stood still. The sun shone brightly in the large room; a shaft of light, showing dancing dust, fell on Geta. He sank on his knees close to me, with my sword in his breast. My mother made a fruitless effort to shield him. His blood ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he could not think. His faculties were in a whirl—he could by no means command them. He could only wait, inert, while the dance went on. It was an extremely riotous dance. The Duchessa's conversation was reproduced without sequence, without coherence—scattered fragments of it were flashed before him fitfully, in swift disorder. If he ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... late that night—there was a dinner and a dance—and Anthony brought her home. I confess that I felt like a traitor as I heard the murmur of his ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... ill," "No! no!" she replied, "me no sick to-day," "bad dream some nights ago. Saw all Indians outside house, and big black devil's spirit come into them, black spirits come out woods, and fire on their heads, all went into Indians and made them dance war, yell ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... got 'im, Alf?' inquired the discreet Bamber, leaning forward and stepping over the sill. I continued to dance heavily in my corner and to utter breathless snorts and exclamations such as, 'Let go, I tell you!' 'Aha! would you?' and so forth. Bamber took another step forward, craned his neck and called out, 'Shove 'im over this way, Alf, so as ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... divination with the shoulder-blade of a stag; they took a plant of Sakaki and hung on its branches the strings of jewels, the mirror, and offerings of peace. Then they caused the rituals to be recited, and a dance to be danced, and all the assembled deities laughed aloud. The Sun Goddess heard these sounds of merriment and was amazed. She softly opened the door and looked out, and asked the meaning of all this tumult. They told her it was ...
— Japan • David Murray
... the Dawson dance-halls are too much for him. It won't take him long to sell our skins if ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... fearing to offend, whispered this test question in Malay to me, I laughed at the earnest eyes around, and said: "No, not even then. I am only here to teach the royal family. I am not like you. You have nothing to do but to play and sing and dance for your master; but I have to work for my children; and one little one is now on the great ocean, and I am ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... (God help 'em!) 'at wander throo th' streets, An cut sich a dash an a swell,— Who simper an smirk at each chap 'at they meet, Flingin baits to drag victims to Hell. They may laff, they may shaat, they may join in a dance, They may spooart ther fine clooas an seem gay; But ther's sorrow within,—yo may see at a glance,— Poor crayturs! they're ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... fantastic twisting, gliding shapes tossed up in the vaporous mist of the Fall. "But I'll take your word, Sigurd, without making the elves' personal acquaintance! Come along—this place is bad for you—we'll dance with the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... before sounded him, by mentioning the late Reverend Mr. Brown, of Utrecht's, image; that a great and small glass, though equally full, did not hold an equal quantity; which he threw out to refute David Hume's saying[839], that a little miss, going to dance at a ball, in a fine new dress, was as happy as a great oratour, after having made an eloquent and applauded speech. After some thought, Johnson said, 'I come over to the parson.' As an instance of coincidence of thinking, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... were invaded by whole populations. Every company had its campfire, and around each fire something was doing. The cooks in my company, Company L, were song-and-dance artists and contributed most of our entertainment. In another part of the encampment the glee club would be singing—one of its star voices was the "Dentist," drawn from Company L, and we were mighty proud of him. Also, he pulled teeth for the whole army, and, since the extractions ...
— The Road • Jack London
... This is the name of a brisk light dance, and is therefore properly enough used in low language for ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Honey, "it'll blow over in a few days. But now that they can walk, let's offer to teach them how to dance and play tennis and bocci and golf. And I'll tell you what—we'll lay out some gardens for them—make them think they're beautifying the place. We might even teach them how to put up shelves and a few little carpentering ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... people. Immediately, those of each parish formed themselves into wide circles round their respective 'visitors' and priests, and the strange rite began. In the midst the priest stood still. Round and round him the lay 'visitor' moved in a solemn dance, striking his copper bells rhythmically to his steps, while all the circle followed his gyrations, chanting a barbarous invocation, half Latin and half Greek: 'Hail, divinity of this spot! Receive our prayers in fortunate hour!' and many verses more ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... fullest intentions of being miserable. It was already half-past seven, and Irene, dressed for dinner, was seated in the drawing-room. She was wearing her gold-coloured frock—for, having been displayed at a dinner-party, a soiree, and a dance, it was now to be worn at home—and she had adorned the bosom with a cascade of lace, on which James's eyes riveted ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... innumerable and irrefutable facts of animal life which no acuteness of analysis and pure thinking can ever explain. Most of these narrow, bookish men deny to animals capabilities which every country schoolboy knows they possess. It is no exaggeration to say that animals exist which sing, dance, play, speak a language, build homes, go to school and learn, wage warfare, protect their homes and property, marry, make laws, build moral codes, in fact, do everything that is ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... agin," cried Mrs. Tawsey, "which my sister Matilder being weary of 'er spinstering 'ome 'ave made up 'er mind to marry the fust as offers. An' won't she lead 'im a dance ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... an old word for "Moorish." In the Middle Ages this word was used, like "Turk" or "Tartar," to describe almost any Eastern people, and the name came, perhaps, from the fact that in these dances people dressed up, and so looked strange and foreign. The name of a very well-known dance, the polka, really means "Polish woman." Mazurka, the name of another dance, means "woman of Masovia." The old-fashioned slow dance known as the polonaise took its name from Poland, and was really a Polish dance. The well-known Italian dance called the tarantella took ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... versatile talk, a deep voice, two or three accomplishments best adapted to the atmosphere of sentimental women, graceful self-possession, small feet, nice hands, striking attitudes, a subduing smile, magnetic whisper, Machiavellian tact, and French morals. He could sing you into tears, and dance you into love, and talk you into wonder; when he drew, you begged for his portrait by himself, and when he wrote, you solicited ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... said the voice. "The young woman has not received a modern education. She cannot drive a motor, play bridge, insist upon your going to the most fashionable restaurant and ordering eight dollars' worth of worthless imitation food, dance like a fiend, and spend money generally like the manager of an international war. She's been asleep so long that she might be ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... over which the piache had been performing his extraordinary dance when they interrupted him, and which had the appearance of being simply a bundle of ordinary matting. But Stukely's eye happened to have been resting upon it while he spoke, and he ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... dead; It sleeps well, the horned head: We poor lads, 'tis our turn now To hear such tunes as killed the cow. Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme Your friends to death before their time Moping melancholy mad: Come, pipe a tune to dance ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... prancing about in what appeared to be an imitation of an Indian war dance, now and again darting in and delivering a telling blow with the club held firmly in both hands, landing it on whatever part of the animal's anatomy he could most easily reach. The beast was snapping blindly at the weapon which Chunky was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... the university, in imitation of my brother Volodya. He danced a great deal, and Papa also went with his young wife to balls. But at the first one which I attended I was so shy that I declined the invitation of the Princess Kornakova to dance, declaring that I did not dance, though I had come to her evening party with the express intention of dancing a great deal. I remained silently in one ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the great masters have set forth for us. What do these new men worship? Color—color—blobs and blotches of raw, crude color! They think of nothing else, these barbarians. Let drawing, arrangement, construction even, go—they say—and with bloodshot eyes they dance in one wild debauch of life and ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... with the blast of the horn, Praise him with lyre and harp, Praise him with timbrel and dance, Praise him with strings and pipe, Praise him with clanging cymbals, Praise him with clashing cymbals. Let all that breathes praise ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... springs up and paces the room.] Oh! If only I might change places with Oceana! If I could get away to some South Sea island, and be my own mistress and live my own life. [Takes photograph.] Oceana! I'm wild to see you! I want to see you dancing. Your Sunrise Dance... and to your own music! [Begins to hum the ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... architecture had thrown open its bronze doors, and out there surged and rustled a throng of Bacchanalian beings who sported and shouted around a terminal god, which, with smiling, ironic lips, accepted their delirious homage. White nymphs and brown displayed in choric rhythms the dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, and their goat-hoofed mates gave vertiginous pursuit. At first the pagan gayety of the scene fired the fancy of the solitary spectator; but soon his nerves, disordered by ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... why he should be married the night before starting for Boston, the "white hen, turkey, the 'lection cake, and the gay old times the young folks would have playing snap-and-catchem; or if they had a mind, they could dance a bit in the kitchen. She didn't believe in it, to be sure—none of the orthodox did; but as Wilford was a 'Piscopal, and that was a 'Piscopal quirk, it ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... show me, like this!" said the wild rabbit. And he began to whirl round and dance, till the little Rabbit got ...
— The Velveteen Rabbit • Margery Williams
... with a supercilious air. "No! Besides, Markham's head clerk is gettin' too presumptuous. Just guess! He asked me, while I was buyin' something, if I enjoyed the dance last Monday!" ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... she sat Fillmore had all the appearance of a man practising the steps of a new dance, and sheer curiosity as to what he would do next kept Sally watching in silence. First, he moved in a resolute sort of way towards the front door; then, suddenly stopping, scuttled back. This movement he repeated twice, after which he stood in ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... right!" he was continually exclaiming to Jack. "They stop all day now. Have trial in my house. Maybe stay to-night, too. I wish we had a fiddle. We could dance. But we ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... alongside. The tambourine-beating and shouting and hand-clapping of the afternoon is repeated, and every now and then the procession stops to allow one or two of the women to face the bridegroom and favor him with an exhibition of their skill in the execution of the hip-dance. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... "Once in Lyons (N. Y.) when there was great excitement about the 'sin of dancing,' the ministers all preaching and praying against it, Myron Holley quietly said: 'It is as natural for young people to like to dance as for the apple trees to ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... as big as kopeck-pieces passed unnoticed by him. She had been brought up like all the children of favorite lackeys, in ease and comfort in the company of the young ladies. The gentry, to fill up their idle time, had taught her to read, to write, to dance; he had had no hand in her bringing up. Only from time to time casually meeting her at the gate or on the landing of the stairs, he would remember that she was his daughter, and would, so far as he had leisure for it, begin teaching her the prayers ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... days wherein it seems that every mote must feel to the full its sentient life, and its swelling towards development or fulfilment. On a day like the latter, everything and everybody bestirs. The dust motes spin in whirling columns, the gnats dance for their lives their dance of death before the wayfarer. The gardeners and the grave-diggers turn up the earth with energy, making the clods fly like water. The rich play, or work that they may play, as do the poor. Everybody ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... burst from this chrysalis into the whole lower floor of the town hall, newly done over for the purpose. From their shelves here the books looked down benignly on church suppers and sociables, and even an occasional dance. It was the center of village life, the big, low-ceilinged room, its windows curtained with white muslin, its walls bright with fresh paper and colored pictures, like any sitting-room in a village home. The firewood was contributed, a load apiece, by the farmers of the country about, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... gas the boys felt like doing another war dance. But they were "business men" now and had to put on dignity in the face of their employees. In two hours the reaction of the bubbling acid had sent enough hydrogen through the purifier to raise the bag shoulder-high and everything was ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... trouble, in waking a young brave who had evidently succumbed to fatigue (and arrack) while performing the war-dance, as he was still in full war costume. He, however, quickly recovered himself, and arousing forty or fifty of his companions, led us off to see the chief or head-man of the tribe. Preceded by these youths, whose unsteady gait and sleepy faces afforded our Malay guides no small amusement, ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... unpleasant on account of the very dirty condition of the huggers. We would not tell them that we did not like it, so we had to submit to the ceremony as often as they thought fit to perform it, and to put the best face we could on the matter. The dance over, they invited us into a wigwam. It was ten feet in diameter, with a fire on the ground in the centre. Round it were heaps of dry grass, on which apparently they slept; while bunches of grass were hung to the roof, probably to dry. The smoke found its way out of the doorway, and through ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... and his son did not fly. They caught the tails of my coat, and we began to dance from side to side, a loving triplet, myself being foremost to ward off the blow savagely aimed at my "brothers," and cheerfully crying out, "Hold fast to me, my brothers. I will defend you to the last drop of my blood. Come one, ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... we know that later Corot came to live near this Forest of Fontainebleau, it is easy to guess where he painted this picture called the "Dance of the Nymphs." Sometimes this picture is called "Morning," for Corot painted another picture much like this one, and called it, "The Dance of ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter
... high meadows with a diaper of blue and gold. About the same time primroses and auriculas begin to tuft the dripping rocks, while frail white fleur-de-lis, like flakes of snow forgotten by the sun, and golden-balled ranunculuses join with forget-me-nots and cranesbill in a never-ending dance upon the grassy floor. Happy, too, is he who finds the lilies-of-the-valley clustering about the chestnut boles upon the Colma, or in the beechwood by the stream at Macugnaga, mixed with garnet-coloured columbines and fragrant white narcissus, which the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... seven years or so, that is to say—another handsome young man started up and eclipsed the EARL OF SOMERSET. This was GEORGE VILLIERS, the youngest son of a Leicestershire gentleman: who came to Court with all the Paris fashions on him, and could dance as well as the best mountebank that ever was seen. He soon danced himself into the good graces of his Sowship, and danced the other favourite out of favour. Then, it was all at once discovered that the Earl and Countess of Somerset had not deserved ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... over the place like a great wet smoke; and for ever so long he would not move, for he did not like the sun at all, because he, as a mist, was good friends with the moon, and used to let her beams dance all over him. But it was a fine spring morning, and the sun had got up in a good humour, and had no end of business to get through that day. There was all the water on the lowlands to drink up; all the little ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... the guards began to loose random volleys at the roof and brought down hundredweights of splintered stalactite. Within a minute there were a hundred men busy on sweeping up the splinters. In another minute twenty Zakka Khels had begun a sword dance, yelling like the damned. A hundred joined them. In three minutes more the whole arena was a dinning whirlpool, and the river's voice was drowned in shouting and the stamping of ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to finish work to-night and they're going to have a jubilee dance later on," was the answer. "You must come to it, for it will be ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... bright young life was destined to be curtailed. A straight, swift ball from Honion he stopped with his instep, and promptly obeyed two laws which operate in such circumstances: the one compelling him to execute a pleasing dance and rub the injured bone; and the other involving his return to the pavilion (l.b.w.) in favour of ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Dance at the Institute I did not like Burker's manner to my wife at all. It was—well, amorous, and tinged with a shade of proprietorship. I distinctly heard him call her "Dolly," and equally distinctly saw an expressively affectionate look in her eyes as he hugged ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... children who surround that working man who has just emerged from the baker's shop at the corner of the street, with the reeking dish, in which a diminutive joint of mutton simmers above a vast heap of half-browned potatoes. How the young rogues clap their hands, and dance round their father, for very joy at the prospect of the feast: and how anxiously the youngest and chubbiest of the lot, lingers on tiptoe by his side, trying to get a peep into the interior of the dish. They turn up the street, and the chubby- faced ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... with this amazing wonder. All the facts of life—even Clare and his work—faded before this new presence for whose existence he had been responsible. It had been one of the astonishing things about Clare that she had taken the child so quietly. He had seen her thrilled by musical comedy, by a dance at the Palace Music Hall, by the trumpery pathos of a tenth-rate novel—before this marvel she stood, it seemed to ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... however, been largely filled in by the debris brought down by the Zuni River, which here joins the Colorado Chiquito. Ko-thlu-el-lon signifies the "standing place (city) of the Ka[']-ka" (from Kaa contraction of Ka[']-ka, the sacred dance, and thlu-el-lonstanding place). ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... had its effects subsided, and the graves of its 25,000,000 victims were hardly closed, when it was followed by an epidemic of the dance of St. John, or St. Vitus, which like a demoniacal plague appeared in Germany in 1347, and spread over the whole empire and throughout the neighboring countries. The dance was characterized by wild leaping, furious screaming, and foaming ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... have it," said Godolphin, "that he was married to a Mexican during his Texas episode, and this girl was their daughter." Maxwell still smiled, and Godolphin deferred to his wife: "But perhaps Mrs. Maxwell would object to the skirt-dance?" ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... his eyes and laughed. She was dressed all in scarlet, with scarlet shoes, and her hair lay on her shoulders like waves of burnished gold. As Sir Dinar set his arm about her, with a crash the merry music began; and floating out with him into the dance, her scarlet shoes twinkling and her tossed hair shaking spices under his nostrils, she leaned back a little on ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cigarettes, their beards flowing down with a grotesque effect over their dresses of embroidered muslin, their hairy arms emerging from hanging sleeves of silk. A negro boy sat holding a tomtom between his bare knees and beating it with supple hands, and a Jewess performed the stomach dance, waving two handkerchiefs stained red and purple, and singing in a loud and barbarous contralto voice which Domini could hear but very faintly. The card-players stopped their game and watched her, and Domini watched too. For ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... trees, which had concealed the noble pair, permitted a view of them, Eva recognised in the gentleman the Emperor Rudolph, and in his companion Duchess Agnes of Austria, his young daughter-in-law, whom she had not forgotten since the dance at the Town Hall. Behind them came several mailed knights, with the emblems of the deepest mourning on their garments and helmets, and among those nearest to the Emperor Eva perceived—her heart almost stood still—the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have turned you out," they cried. "If you go back to them, you will die. If you remain here, you will die. We shall kill you; but first we shall have a dance and you shall dance with ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... dust. These latter stood on our side, covering the passage of the others, and crossing last, which manly conduct was the best trait I had seen in their character. On reaching the top of the opposite bank they commenced their usual chant and demoniac dance, waving burning branches over their heads, brandishing their spears, and throwing their waddies high in the air, even above the lofty trees, all the time retreating in leaping and singing order. It was evident that our dogs had frightened them; and at the report of the guns the tall fellow fell ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the expectation that nothing will be accomplished. This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards, reconnecting cables, etc. "I can't boot up the machine. We'll have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance." 2. Any arcane sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals that include both an {incantation} or two and physical activity or motion. Compare {magic}, ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... so happy, and the flowers so luminous, it does not seem possible that the bright angels of this day shall pass into dark night, that slowly these wings shall close, and the cuckoo praise himself to sleep, mad midges dance-in the evening; the grass shiver with dew, wind die, and no bird sing . ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... about. This is quite as true of men as it is of women. In such cases the first care should be not to fasten this sense of rush on to anything; the second care should be to go to work to cure it, to relax out of that contraction—just as you would work to cure twitching St. Vitus's dance, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... baggage. bahia bay. bailar to dance. baile m. dance. bajar to lower, descend. bajo low; prep. under. bala ball, bullet. balancear to balance. balbucear to stammer. balcon m. balcony. balde; de —— gratis, for nothing. ballena whale. ballenero whaler. bambolear vr. to totter. banco bank. banda band. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... French Dance tune. Printed in a Frankfort book of the year 1664, and by Playford as ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... have seen them—some summer days in the morning. About this time—yes, it is his noon nap now—the boy vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again." ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... another time. It's a poor business arter all, is electioneering, and when 'the Dancin' Master is abroad,' he's as apt to teach a man to cut capers and get larfed at as anything else. It ain't every one that's soople enough to dance real complete. Politics take a great deal of time, and grind away a man's honesty near about as fast as cleaning a knife with brick dust, 'it takes its steel out.' What does a critter get arter all for it in this ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... will tell you! Perhaps she will let you see! Who knows? She is a woman of resource and unexpectedness— Let her women dance for ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... arms with all they could carry, stole through the dance-hall out to the veranda, which ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... better at leisure to contemplate their strangeness and absurdity, I have begun to commit them to writing, hoping in time to make them ashamed of themselves." The novelty of my position causes me to shamble and shuffle, now to pause painfully, and then to dance like a droll. I go out from the presence of my household, that I may vent myself by private absurdities and exclusive antics, I retire into remote corners, that I may grin fearfully, unseen of Mistress Gamp and my small servant. I am possessed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... in the said regiment—that the little Donald, with his wild-goat propensities, was their only child, and so attached to the hills, that she could not keep him confined to the meadows below! The moment her eye was off him, his great delight was to lead her a dance up the mountain, which, as she never succeeded in catching him, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... attendants, who came flying up on white birds, and sang and danced beneath the cassia tree. A pure clear music floated through the air. Beside the tree stood a mortar made of white marble, in which a jasper rabbit ground up herbs. That was the dark half of the moon. When the dance had ended, the emperor returned to earth again with the sorcerers. And he had the songs which he had heard on the moon written down and sung to the accompaniment of flutes of ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... she asked with a twinkle in her clear hazel eyes. "Going to be married, Fair Rosamond, or is it merely preparation for the dance ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... said, "I'll wheel the baby up to the house and give him to Mrs. Geraghty. Aunt Juliet won't like it if I do. In fact she'll dance about with insatiable fury. But it may be the right thing to do all the same. We ought always to do what's right, Mr. Geraghty, even if other people behave like wild boars; that is to say if we are quite sure that it is right; I think it's nearly sure to be right to give a baby ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... have heard and seen, we entertain little doubt that there are men capable of asking such a question; but we know no way of answering it but by asking in return why an Esquimaux Indian should not compose an overture equal to any of Handel's, or a Dutch boor dance a pas seul as well as Vestris, or a minuet as well ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... perhaps he thought so. Sometimes he helped her turn the fish on the Flake, and afterward walked with her along the beach, as she wended her way homeward. On such occasions there was a happy sound in the song of the sea, and her heart seemed to dance up in sparkles, like the waves kissed by the sunshine. It was the first free, strong emotion she had ever experienced, and it sent a glow through the cold dulness of her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... terror were so great that she stood still and could not move for some minutes. At last she went into the ballroom, but the slippers she wore were to her as iron bands full of coals of fire, in which she was obliged to dance. And so in the red, glowing shoes she continued to dance till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... hymn book doesn't alter that." There was a pause, then suddenly the girl laughed and stretched both arms out to sea. "Oh, well," she said, "I don't often indulge in these jeremiads. Now it's over, and I've at least got the summer ahead of me. I guess we'd better go back. I promised Billy a dance." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... admirer and patroness of Augustus Vestris, the god of dance, as he was styled. Augustus Vestris never lost Her Majesty's favour, though he very often lost his sense of the respect he owed to the public, and showed airs and refused to dance. Once he did so when Her Majesty was at the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... live. Father bought this block and opened the little drug store below. We moved into the rooms upstairs. The business was poor, and I felt that I ought to do something to earn money and help support the family. I could dance; we had this hall, and it was not rented all the time, so I ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... "Cat's Christmas Dance" in the London Illustrated News of December 6, 1890, contains a hundred and fifty cats, with as many varying facial expressions and attitudes. It occupied eleven working days of Mr. Wain's time, but it caught the public fancy ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... "Don't dance! Why, I have danced ever since I was big enough to crawl! What have you been doing all your life, that you don't know ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... he turned a corner and stopped dead. He was facing a man who was coming in the other direction. He stared. The man stared back. Frank automatically stepped aside, but the man did exactly the same thing, at the same time, and they did a little dance there on the sidewalk. Then the man veered around him and moved on up the street. Frank turned and stared after him, then walked slowly in his ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... lumbered at her ministry, where she fed the Carding Machine. She was subdued to the colour of the hemp tow with which she plied it. Elsewhere Sarah Northover flashed the tresses of long lines over her head and seemed to perform a rhythmic dance with her hands, as she tore each strick into three and laid the shining locks on her spread board. Others tended the drawers and rovers, while Sabina Dinnett, Nancy Buckler and Alice Chick, whose high task it was to ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the princes was very decorous and lively. I regretted that we could communicate only through an interpreter. He inquired whether I had ever seen a Natsch (festival dance). On my answering that I had not, he immediately ordered ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... peremptory challenge to get rid of the female jurors, who were too much in favor of enforcing the laws and punishing crime to suit the interests of their clients. After the grand jury had been in session two days, the dance-house keepers, gamblers and demi-monde fled out of the city in dismay, to escape the indictment of women grand jurors! In short I have never, in twenty-five years of constant experience in the courts of the country, seen more faithful, intelligent and resolutely honest ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... not care for each other as they would if they were working on the same farm, and trying to save up for the winter; or if they were going out to the fishing, and very glad to come home again from Caithness to find all the old people very well and the young ones ready for a dance and a dram, and much joy and laughing and telling of stories. It is a very great difference there will be in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... village we burned was Parux, (Meurthe-et-Moselle.) After this the dance began, throughout the villages, one after the other; over the fields and pastures we went on our bicycles up to the ditches at the edge of the road, and there sat down ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... rule was to bring the slaves from the hold twice a day for an airing, about eight o'clock in the morning and four in the afternoon; but this plan was not always followed. On deck they were made to dance by the lash, and they were also forced to sing. Thus were born the sorrow-songs, the last cry of those who saw ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... soothed into a calm. I am short, and not very well made; yet upon sight of a fine woman, I have stretched into proper stature, and killed with a good air and mien. These are the gay phantoms that dance before my waking eyes and compose my day-dreams. I should be the most contented happy man alive, were the chimerical happiness which springs from the paintings of Fancy less fleeting and transitory. But alas! ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... making peace. The chief warriors, who arrange the conditions of the peace and subsequent friendship, first mutually eat and smoke together. They then pledge each other in the sacred drink called Cussena. The Shawnese then wave large fans of eagles' tails, and conclude with a dance. The stranger warriors, who have come to receive the peace, select half a dozen of their most active young men, surmounting their crowns with swan's feathers, and painting their bodies with white clay. They then place their file leader on the consecrated seat of what imports ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... three of whom were marched to the stage. Calhoun was elected, with the result that his ardent brother delegates from Connecticut treated him like a football hero by placing him on their shoulders and performing a snake dance. Marines are no more garrulous than sailor men, for Calhoun's speech of acceptance was just about as long as Humphrey's. While Calhoun was being bombed by flashlight cameras Mr. Smoot of Utah moved that a vote of thanks should be tendered to Colonel Roosevelt ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... first coming along on his crutches, and then when Giant Despair had been slain and Doubting Castle demolished, taking Despondency's daughter Much-afraid by the hand and dancing with her in the road? "True, he could not dance without one crutch in his hand, but I promise you he footed it well. Also the girl was to be commanded, for she answered the musick handsomely." In Bunyan's pictures there is never a superfluous detail. Every stroke tells, and helps to the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... same time I was now in a position to complete the new composition for Tannhauser, of which the great dance scene in the Venusberg was still incomplete. I finished it at three o'clock one morning after staying up all night, just as Minna returned home from a great ball at the Hotel de Ville to which she had been with a friend. I had given her some handsome presents for Christmas, but ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... of doing anything that way. They go, they come, they gallop and dance, and not a word of death. All this is very fine; but withal, when it comes either to themselves, their wives, their children, or friends, surprising them at unawares and unprepared, then, what torment, what ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... still seems to be a collection of formulae of incantation. The sound of the words, the accumulation of rhymes, and the rhythmus of the verse, form, as it were, the hollow music of a dreary witch-dance. He has been abused for using the names of disgusting objects; but he who fancies the kettle of the witches can be made effective with agreeable aromatics, is as wise as those who desire that hell should sincerely and honestly give good advice. These repulsive things, from which the imagination ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... learned at length to watch and wait till the hated task was over. Thereby we learned many strange and wonderful things; but this alone is to the purpose, that I surely recall how for many days she kept reading about the Red-coats, and I peeped down over her shoulder, as we swayed in the dance one afternoon, and saw pictures of these same Red-coats, a great destroying army, fierce and fell, who burn villages, and talk piously, and slay men, women, and children. Them has friend Wood-thrush verily seen, and against them he strove to warn ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... a pretty pink dress that day, and my father was playing some contredanses on his faithful Cremona (I have it yet, that old instrument by the sound of which I first saw the light). My mother left the dance and passed into her own room. As she went out very quietly, the dance continued. At the last chassez all round, my Aunt Lucy went into my mother's room, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... dress to dance these days, Letitia," said Billy, with the greatest innocence of mien and expression, a manner he always uses in speaking to Letitia's rather literal directness and in which he delights greatly. "They undress. You are unclothed enough as ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... thought too much. To go and buy tickets to see Fanny Ellsler dance, and take it for granted that I would lay every thing aside to go, when I had set my heart ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... She looked forward with a thrill at her heart to the mazurka. She fancied that in the mazurka everything must be decided. The fact that he did not during the quadrille ask her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she would dance the mazurka with him as she had done at former balls, and refused five young men, saying she was engaged for the mazurka. The whole ball up to the last quadrille was for Kitty an enchanted vision of delightful colors, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... fought against death; and still how glorious it would have been to die upon the battle-field believing myself the victor!" He held the vial up to the light and shook it; and as the pills bounded up and down, he said, smiling sadly, "Death is merry! It comes eagerly to invite me to the dance. Well, well, my gay cavalier, I am ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... platform has been erected, the scenery being of bamboo, nipa, and wood; there the Tondo comedians will perform wonders and compete with the gods in improbable miracles, there will sing and dance Marianito, Chananay, Balbino, Ratia, Carvajal, Yeyeng, Liceria, etc. The Filipino enjoys the theater and is a deeply interested spectator of dramatic representations, but he listens in silence to the song, he gazes delighted at the dancing and mimicry, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... together with the Biscayan, indulged in a grand frolic by spying upon the women in Isabel's house, who would come out on the balcony and chat, or signal to the neighbours. At times these miserable brothel odalisques were not content with speaking; they would dance and ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... smiling, with his head on one side, like a budding lass that is asked to dance, "I know not that I can match our sweet friend's song; moreover, I do verily think that I have caught a cold and have a certain tickling and huskiness in ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... are represented in every attitude of frolic enjoyment. Some escalade the great arm-chair, and look down from its top as from a domestic Mont Blanc; some climb about the bellows; some scale the shaft of the shovel; while some, forming in magic ring, dance festively on the yet glowing hearth. Tiny troops promenade the writing-table. One perches himself quaintly on the top of the inkstand, and holds colloquy with another who sits cross-legged on a paper-weight, while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Herrick rose from his seat with a sigh at the end of the long, dreary evening. "I'm sorry for her—like the little mermaiden of Hans Andersen, she is ready—now—to dance upon knives for the possession of a soul! Well, she'll win her soul all right, but God grant the winning of ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... many an evening at the Cross-Triangle, at the Reid home, or, perhaps, at some neighborhood party or dance, afforded Kitty opportunities for a fuller understanding of Phil, but resulted only in establishing a closer ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... Marseilles and of the islands, had seen before them. They saw in numbers and in a corporate way what hitherto individuals alone had seen; they saw the sea like a living thing, advancing and retreating in an ordered dance, alive with deep sighs and intakes, and ceaselessly proceeding about a work and a doing which seemed to be the very visible action of an unchanging will still pleased with calculated change. It was the presence of the Roman army upon the shores of ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... partly by affection, had here farms, gardens, and magnificent houses, and not far off plantations of fruit. The owners of these were in the habit of meeting each other in the afternoon, now at the house of one, and now at another, and making themselves merry with music and the dance—living in prosperity united and happy, until, alas! this ruinous war severed them, and left all their houses desolate except two, the proprietors of which were also soon obliged ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... going north? Perhaps you will wait for me and let me take you to the city. Louise is going on to a dance." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... fan the glade; Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade; Your praise the birds shall chant in every grove, And winds shall waft it to the powers above. But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain, The wondering forests soon should dance again; The moving mountains hear the powerful call, And headlong streams ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... war songs are forced and foolish. There is no time for reading, and no one looks at pictures, but the nightingale sings on, and the long-ago spirit of youth looks out through Time's strong bars, and speaks of evenings in old, dim woods at home, and of girlish, splendid drives home from some dance where "he" was, when we watched the dawn break, and saw our mother sleeping in the carriage, and wondered what it would be like not to "thrill" all the time, and to sleep when the nightingale ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... he called "The Crime against Kansas"; and the excuses for the crime he denominated the apology tyrannical, the apology imbecile, the apology absurd, and the apology infamous. "Tyranny, imbecility, absurdity, and infamy," he continued, "all unite to dance, like the weird sisters, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... and her mother in this little apartment, which was only ten steps from the theatre; but he gave the girl, out of love for the choregraphic art, the great Vestris for a master. In 1820 he had the pleasure of seeing Florentine dance her first "pas" in the ballet of a melodrama entitled "The Ruins of Babylon." Florentine was then about sixteen. Shortly after this debut Pere Cardot became an "old screw" in the eyes of his protegee; but as he had the sense to see that a danseuse at the Gaiete ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... dance,' he subsequently observed to Cecilia, out of the heart of some reverie. He had been her admiring partner on the night before the drive from Itchincope into Bevisham, and perhaps thought of her graceful ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... them bow, advance, Swing partners and retreat, As though some slow, old-fashioned dance ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... a masquerade—the dance which followed on the wide, clean floors—not the kind of a masquerade which the church societies gave from time to time to eke out the minister's salary and which, while he had never attended, Young Denny had often heard ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Faith, listen to reason. Not ride in winter!—why it's the very time for riding, if there's snow; and you could drive Jerry, or your mother could, just as well as Crab—he's as quiet as he can be. At the same time," said Mrs. Stoutenburgh with a little dance in her eyes, "if anybody else drives him, he can go ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... The dance was over. From the great house on the hill the guests had all departed and only the musicians remained. As they filed out through the ample doorway, on their way home, the first faint streak of early dawn became visible in the east. One of them, a lank, ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... in her eyes, but her anger was forgotten: she improvised a sort of dance around my room, followed by Drollo dragging his twisted chain, stepping on it with his big feet, and finally winding himself up into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... excited to listen to the advice. He continued to dance around. Bang! went another ball and entered the cabin of the steam yacht. Bang! came the final one and that too disappeared into the interior of the craft Then the Roman candle went out, and Hans breathed a sigh ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... might rest-for the drivers had been grumbling bitterly at the heavy load added to the car over the deep sand—and here there was a level plot, under the shade of a spreading sycamore, which had often before now served as a floor for the choric dance. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... caught, a beautiful slow minuet played, and a bit of "solemn dancing" done. Certainly it was not gay, but it must be owned it was beautiful; it was the dance of kings, the poetry ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... on the deep— Though weary be his eye— Forgets even drowsy sleep, When thou art in the sky! For with thine image on the silvery sea A thousand forms of memory Whirl in a mazy dance; And when he upward looks to thee, In thy far-reaching glance There is a sacred bond of sympathy 'Twixt sea and land; For on his native strand That glance awakens kindred souls To kindred thought, And though the deep between ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... put him also on the trail. He soon overtook them, and killing two without loss to himself, the band dispersed like a flock of quail and left him nothing to follow. He returned to our camp shortly after, and the few friendly Indian scouts he had with him held a grand pow-wow and dance over the scalps of the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan |
