"Dancer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he met Jane Lampton; whose mother was a Casey—a Montgomery-Casey whose father was of the Lamptons (Lambtons) of Durham, England, and who on her own account was reputed to be the handsomest girl and the wittiest, as well as the best dancer, in all Kentucky. The Montgomeries and the Caseys of Kentucky had been Indian fighters in the Daniel Boone period, and grandmother Casey, who had been Jane Montgomery, had worn moccasins in her girlhood, and once saved her ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... looking up I beheld the walls fretted in great panels into the utmost splendour of sculpture, encircling the stories of the Gods amid a twining and under-weaving of leaves and flowers. It was more like a temple than a dwelling. Siva, as Nataraja the Cosmic Dancer, the Rhythm of the Universe, danced before me, flinging out his arms in the passion of creation. Kama, the Indian Eros, bore his bow strung with honey-sweet black bees that typify the heart's desire. Krishna the Beloved smiled above ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking from the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected Bream painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, if he had been a Russian dancer, would probably have caused the management to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up under ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... pretty to see the Jam-wagon work. He was sprightly as a ballet dancer, as, weaving in and out, he dodged the other's blows. His arms swung at his sides, and he threw his head about in a manner insufferably mocking and tantalising. Then he took to landing light body-blows, that grew more frequent till he seemed to be beating ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... to what he could say, then he began, "Tell me, how was that affair in Warsaw with the dancer Zucchetti? Didn't you have ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... of Swift and Pope. But he flourished during the decline of literature, and had neither the taste nor the elegance of the Augustan writers. He was born 60 A.D., the son of a freedman, and was the contemporary of Martial. He was banished by Domitian on account of a lampoon against a favorite dancer, but under the reign of Nerva he returned to Rome, and the imperial tyranny was the subject of his bitterest denunciation next to the degradation of public morals. His great rival in satire was Horace, who laughed at follies; but Juvenal, more austere, exaggerated and denounced them. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... a scheme for a very up-to-date scene in the last act; have it a supper instead of a dinner, and then have a skirt-dancer introduced, as society people had been having Carmencita. "When Haxard dies, you know," he explained, "it would be tremendously effective to have the woman catch him in her arms, and she would be a splendid piece of color in the picture, with Haxard's head ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... know," she replied, frankly, but with no shade of despondency. "I'll take a look around to-morrow and, then pack my little wares in my basket and peddle them, as you have done. If anybody wants a dancer—here I am! Anybody want funny little songs sung?—here's your girl! I seem to have only samples. I can be adaptable. That's my big asset." They both laughed, but Sylvia soon grew serious. Her short service in reality had ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... one of those Italian semi-racing cars with a body which gave it the naked appearance of a muscular Russian dancer dressed in a skin and a pair of bangles. The night-bird, one of the large army of city gypsies who hang on to life by the skin of their teeth, was sitting on the running board with his arms folded across his shirtless chest, smoking a ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... dancer," remarked her nephew with the grave air of a connoisseur. "I wonder if she ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... I'm going to study dancing at Madame Vashkowska's school—she was with the Russian ballet & really is almost as wonderful a dancer as Isadora Duncan or Pavlova. Perhaps I'll teach all these ducky new dances to children some day. I'm just terribly excited to be here, like the silliest gushiest little girl in the world. And I do hope so much you ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Hooke was one Allard, who, in France, undertook to emulate the Saracen of Constantinople to a certain extent. Allard was a tight-rope dancer who either did or was said to have done short gliding flights—the matter is open to question—and finally stated that he would, at St Germains, fly from the terrace in the king's presence. He made the attempt, but merely fell, as did the Saracen some centuries before, causing himself serious ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... broker that he might marry a charming geisha who had taken his fancy at a tea house. The manner in which the suggestion was received convinced him that he might as well have purposed to marry the devil himself as a professional dancer and singer. Among the train of Mlle. Jasmin's friends is one less young than Mlle. Jasmin, say about eighteen, and already more of a woman; and when Loti says, "Why not her?" M. Kangourou trots her out for inspection and, discreetly sending Loti away, concludes ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... danced, nor played; it was as much as he could do if he smiled. Would to God he had smiled oftener; and yet if he could not laugh, he could love. Ah me! how strait was his embrace. Was the love of that ruddy-faced, light-minded, lying dancer a thousandth part of Saul's? If David had loved Bathsbeba, would he have sought by the basest of deceit to force Uriah to her after she had fallen, so that her son might be taken to be his? And yet if Samuel had been alive, would he have cursed David as he did my lord? ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... Of course I ... well, unless it's a dance or something. I use to be a dancer, ya ...
— High Dragon Bump • Don Thompson
... of The Steadfast Tin Soldier that, after he was melted in the fire, the maid who took away the ashes next morning found him in the shape of a small tin heart; and remembering the spangly little ballet-dancer who fluttered to him like a sylph and was burned up in the fire with him, we feel a fitness in this little fancy which opens vistas upon human truth. Mr. Kipling's fable of "How the Elephant Got His Trunk" ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... stepped out of his own berth as Barry left Little, and the skipper regarded him with a new interest. The ruddy face wore a soft smile, and the big frame passed across the main cabin on feet light as a dancer's. He carried a glass of some mixture in his hand and entered Little's cabin, giving the skipper a deferential nod as he went by. Barry joined the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... wished probably to be introduced to a partner. The instant her voice recalled his scattered senses, "Thank you," he answered; "I so seldom have had opportunities of doing so that I can scarcely call myself a dancer; at present I confess that I feel more amusement in looking on ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... with her other partners, and when they left the clattering supper-room, where plates were being broken and champagne was being drunk by the gallon, sitting on the stairs, he talked to her till voices were heard calling for his services. A dancer had been thrown and had broken his leg. Alice saw something carried towards her, and, rushing towards May, whom she saw in the doorway, she ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... on December 21 to his parents] was formerly a celebrated dancer, and is said to be very niggardly; however, he received me in an extremely polite manner, for perhaps he thinks I shall play for him gratis. He is mistaken there! We entered into a kind of negotiation, but nothing definite was settled. If Mr. Duport offers me too little, I shall give ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... electro-magnetism, that of a madman too much; the brain of an ordinary man has but little, while that of a man of genius is saturated to its due degree. The man constantly in love, the street-porter, the dancer, the large eater, are the ones who disperse the force resulting from their electrical apparatus. ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... plate, a major-domo, two stewards of the household, a butler, confectioner, physician, surgeon a number of pages, among whom was Francisco de Montejo, who was afterwards captain in Yutucan, two armour-bearers, eight grooms, two falconers, five musicians, a stage-dancer, a juggler and puppet-master, a master of the horse, and three Spanish muleteers. A great service of gold and silver plate accompanied the march, and a large drove of swine for the use of the table. Three thousand Mexican warriors attended their own chiefs, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... greatest interest. She was dressed in a corduroy suit, with a broad sombrero against the sun; and as she came up the slope she leapt from rock to rock in a heavy pair of boys' high boots. There was nothing of the singer about her now, nor of the filmy-clad barefooted dancer; the jagged edge of old Pinal would permit of nothing so effeminate. Yet, over the rocks as on the smooth trails, she had a grace that was all her own, for those hillsides had ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... a whirl of flashing silver, and Dan followed her around the wing of the edifice. Graceful as a dancer she leaped for a branch above her head, caught it laughingly, and tossed a great golden globe to him. She loaded his arms with the bright prizes and sent him back to the bench, and when he returned, she piled ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... There was one Titus Latinus, a man of no great note, but a respectable citizen and by no means addicted to superstition. He dreamed that he saw Jupiter face to face, and that the god bade him tell the Senate that "they had sent a bad dancer before his procession, and one who was very displeasing ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... was hideously afraid of death and pain, and he had had monstrous pain—and while he had lain battling with it, upon his bed in the villa on the Mediterranean, he had been able to hear, in the garden outside, the low voices and laughter of the Spanish dancer and the healthy, strong young fool who ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... approach, and rose to take his arm, saying in her clear soft voice, "Come, George, it is time for old folks to be at home." Smiling a good-night to all, she walked down the room, as erect in form and as steady in gait as any dancer there. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... convents are tolerably well off. But, to tell you the truth, I think this lady's father had some education, and his going to that part of the country may be accounted for by what she told me once about her mother. Her mother was a dancer, a ballet-dancer, a very estimable and pious woman, her daughter says, and I have no doubt it is true; but an educated man who makes that sort of marriage, you know, may prefer to live out ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... reason. So much however is true, that those two dancers were extremely eminent in their art, and may be esteemed the founders of that theatrical dancing, or pantomime execution, for which it is not sufficient to be only a good dancer, but there is also required the being a good actor; in both which lights, these two artists were allowed to excel, Pilades in the serious or tragic dance, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... education of young men, these evils were ranked with the measles and hooping cough; it was well that they should be gone through and be done with early in life. She had a kind of hazy idea that an opera-dancer and a gambling club were indispensable in fitting a young aristocrat for his future career; and I doubt whether she would not have agreed to the expediency of inoculating a son of hers with these ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... when they truly begin; Each dancer as airy and bright as a doll; While the music complete, keeps time to their feet, ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... mountains. "While he was abbot here,—still a young man,—a famous Chinese Pilgrim came down through Kashmir to visit the Holy Places in India. The abbot went forward with him to Peshawar, that he might make him welcome. And there came a dancer to Peshawar, named Lilavanti, most beautiful! I dare not tell you her beauty. I ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... father, Pavel Petrovich Korobine, a retired major-general, had been on duty at St. Petersburg during almost the whole of his life. In his early years he had enjoyed the reputation of being an able dancer and driller; but as he was very poor he had to act as aide-de-camp to two or three generals of small renown in succession, one of whom gave him his daughter in marriage, together with a dowry of 25,000 roubles. Having made himself master of all the ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... new tiger in the dancer's eye: 'Ware of him, keepers—then, you bid me go? [A pause. Then I will go. But think not, though I go, My spirit shall not pace the palace still. I am too bound by guilt unto these walls. Still shall ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... for the breakdown. Bob begins a jig on his guitar, the whistler claps and the sable dancer edges his way to the center of the floor in little spasmodic shuffles. He begins with his heel tap, then the toe, then in leaps and whirls. The guitar swelled to a steady roar. The whistler quickens his claps. And Stuart's boyish laughter rang ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... could not endure the loneliness of the ranch nor the inconvenience of living in a two-room log cabin. She was continually worrying over rattlesnakes and diphtheria and pneumonia, and begging Brit to sell out and live in town. She had married him because he was a cowboy, and because he was a nimble dancer and rode gallantly with silver-shanked spurs ajingle on his heels and a snakeskin band around his hat, and because a ranch away out on Quirt Creek had sounded exactly like a story ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... near the distinguished Pole, carrying on a spiritless conversation, and coldly listened to the praises the former liberally bestowed on the German dancer. The rapid movements and strong excitement that were natural to the Polish girls made Lenore wild, and, Anton regretted to see, unfeminine; and his glance wandered away from her to the rough walls, the dusty stove, in which an immense ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... whut I said, Stutter. Ye 're a broight one, ye are. That's the Mexican dancer down at the Gayety at San Juan, no less; and it's dollars to doughnuts, me bye, that that dom Farnham sint her out here to take a peek at us. It wud be loike the slippery cuss, an' I hear the two of thim are ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... uses the living human form, and presents feeling or action, the passions and the deeds of men, in artificially educated movements of the body. The element of beauty it possesses, independently of the beauty of the dancer, is rhythm. Acting or the art of mimicry presents the same subject-matter, no longer under the conditions of fixed rhythm but as an ideal reproduction of reality. The actor is what he represents, and the element of beauty in his art is perfection of realisation. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... for perfect proportion, while Sweyn's well-knit frame, broad shoulders, and muscular arms, made him pre-eminent for manly beauty as well as for strength. As a hunter Sweyn was without rival; as a fisher without rival. All the countryside acknowledged him to be the best wrestler, rider, dancer, singer. Only in speed could he be surpassed, and in that only by his younger brother. All others Sweyn could distance fairly; but Christian could outrun him easily. Ay, he could keep pace with Sweyn's most breathless burst, and laugh and talk the while. ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... taught to move in a coranto or a contre-danse, and that you will have to learn the alphabet of dancing at an age when most women are finished performers. The great Conde, while winning sieges and battles that surpassed the feats of Greeks and Romans, contrived to make himself the finest dancer of his day, and won more admiration in high-bred circles by his graceful movements, which every one could understand and admire, than by prodigies of valour at Dunkirk ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... and as the breeze blew he swayed this way and that, the gathering strain upon his garment behind the neck throwing his limp head forward and giving his shoulders a hunched appearance, quite in the manner of the clog dancer. The German emblem was blazoned upon his blouse and superimposed in shining metal upon the front of his fatigue cap. Even as they paused before him he seemed to bow perfunctorily as if ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... able teacher," said Mr. Payton, modestly. "Don't you want to try it, Nell?" he asked. "It's more fun than you can imagine. I remember that when I first met you there was no better dancer on the floor, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... what they call a specialty dancer in musical comedy," Lydia answered. "Sometimes she had a real part and sometimes she only danced. She was a good hoofer and a good trouper," she added, the Broadway terms falling strangely from those austere lips. "And when ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... skirts were lamentably scanty; and though, with its quiltings, the jacket was stuffed out about the breasts like a Christmas turkey, and of a dry cold day kept the wearer warm enough in that vicinity, yet about the loins it was shorter than ballet-dancer's skirts; so that while my chest was in the temperate zone close adjoining the torrid, my hapless thighs were in Nova Zembla, hardly an icicle's ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... said, 'Le lieu de ceste grande conuocation s'appelle generalement par tout le pays la Lanne de Bouc. Ou ils se mettent a dancer a l'entour d'vne pierre, qui est plantee audit lieu, sur laquelle est assis vn grand homme noir.'[375] At Poictiers in 1574 four witches, one woman and three men, said that they went 'trois fois l'an, a l'assemblee generale, ou plusieurs Sorciers se trouuoy[e]t ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... divinities, earth and nature spirits, demons, ogres and men themselves. Siva, for his part, was God the final dissolver or destroyer, the source of reproductive energy and the inspirer of asceticism. He was thought of in many forms—as a potent ascetic, a butcher wild for blood, a serene dancer—and in his character of regenerator was represented by his symbol, the lingam or phallus. The third aspect, Vishnu, was God in his character of loving protector and preserver. This great Trinity was ultimately supreme but under it were a number of lesser powers. Those that represented the forces ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... on the rascal, stepping back and bowing. "We had no intentions of being personal—meant no young gentleman in partikilar. We always make a point of asking a few questions in general. Here comes mademoiselle, the celebrated tight-rope dancer," etc., etc., and the thousand eyes which had been glued to my scarlet face were diverted ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... you must recollect I am not a good dancer and have no nice suits, and you must recollect my people are not in this neighbourhood and I can't write marriage letters, and to begin with I don't think my people would like me to be married just yet as I am not quite ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... answer; A little talking of outward things: The careless beck is a merry dancer, Keeping sweet time ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... so bad. For one thing, you can pick a name you like. Now, I think mine is real swell. 'What'll we call y'?' says my first manager. Y' see, my own name wouldn't do, specially as I'm a dancer—Hopwell; ain't that fierce? Tottie Hopwell! I never could live that down. So I says to him, 'Well, ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... Gayerson found that he had nothing to say to this elderly French lady, and was glad when Lucille came up, radiant on the arm of her partner. Alphonse presented his friend at once, and here Phillip felt more at his ease, being a better dancer than talker, and asked for the honour of a waltz ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... sometimes play the part of scapegoat by diverting to themselves the evils that threaten others. When a Cingalese is dangerously ill, and the physicians can do nothing, a devil-dancer is called in, who by making offerings to the devils, and dancing in the masks appropriate to them, conjures these demons of disease, one after the other, out of the sick man's body and into his own. Having thus successfully ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... last year, Marquis," cries Todhunter (not unadroitly). "You, yourself, pointed out, in this very room, I recollect, at this very table—that night Coralie and the little Spanish dancer and her mother supped here, and there was a talk about Highgate—you, yourself, pointed out what was likely to happen. I doubted it; for I have dined at the Newcomes', and seen Highgate and her together in society often. But though ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who cut capers on the grass in the Park, little girls in procession, wearing costumes of fairies with gauze wings, students who paraded and blew noisy horns, even horses decorated, and now and then a dog dressed as a dancer or ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... America, and vices that are infamous beyond conception. I presume it will not be denied that there must be an amazing depravation of mind in a nation where a farce is a publication of more consequence than Milton's poem, and where an opera dancer, or an Italian singer, receives a salary equal to that of an ambassador. The facts being known and acknowledged, I presume the consequence will not be denied. Not that the charge is good against every individual; even in the worst times there will be found many exceptions ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... The ballet-dancer covered her face, with a low, despairing cry. The dying mother, with a painful effort, lifted her own skeleton hand and removed those ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... he had escaped from England and was serving with the Austrian army. As to his parentage I can enlighten you in a measure. He was a Eurasian. His father was an aristocratic Chinaman, and his mother a Polish ballet-dancer—that was his parentage; but I would scarcely hesitate to affirm that he came from Hell; and I shall presently show you that ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... O-Kuni, and she was the daughter of one Nakamura Mongoro of Kitzuki, where her descendants still live at the present day. While serving as dancer in the great temple she fell in love with a ronin named Nagoya Sanza—a desperate, handsome vagabond, with no fortune in the world but his sword. And she left the temple secretly, and fled away with her lover toward Kyoto. All this must have happened ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... qualities of directness and impetuosity were also fatal to his efforts at mastering the movements of the dance. In spite of lessons at Paris and private lessons which he afterwards took at Valence, he was never a dancer: his bent was obviously for the exact sciences rather than the arts, for the geometrical rather than the rhythmical: he thought, as he moved, in straight lines, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Fanny Bias, Vestris, Anatole, Paul, Albert, and the other principal dancers, congregated. One of our countrymen, having been introduced by M. de la Rochefoucauld to Mademoiselle Bigottini, the beautiful and graceful dancer, in the course of conversation with this gentleman, asked him in what part of the theatre he was placed; upon which he replied, "Mademoiselle, dans un loge rotie," instead of "grillee." The lady could not understand what he meant, until his ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... willow boughs with which each dancer is supplied, in the Mandan religious ceremonies, the sacrificing and other forms therein observed, certainly render it somewhat analogous to ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... been chosen as the most natural translation of orchaesis, which in this dialogue has reference for the most part to the ballet-dancer (pantomimus) of imperial times. On the other hand, Lycinus, in order to establish the antiquity and the universality of an art that for all practical purposes dates only from the Augustan era, and (despite the Greek artists) is Roman in origin, avails himself of the wider ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir, With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire? Where shading elms along the margin grew, 245 And freshened from the wave the Zephyr flew; And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill, Yet would the village praise my wonderous power, And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 250 Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... the bonny 'rig-an'-fur' stockin' that I knitted mysel' frae the cast on o' the ower-fauld [over-fold] to the bonny white forefit that sets aff the blue sae weel. Walter Skirving could button his knee-breeks withoot bendin' his back—that nane could do but the king's son himsel'; an' sic a dancer as he was afore guid an' godly Maister Cauldsowans took hand o' him at the tent, wi' preachin' a sermon on booin' the knee to Baal. Aye, aye, its a' awa'—an' its mony the year I thocht on it, let alane thocht on wantin' back thae days o' vanity an' ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... fellow Casimir I learned that a certain dancer appearing at one of our Montmartre theatres had written to the Grand Duke craving the honour of his autograph—and enclosing ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... great dancer at any time," he protested; "and to-night my heart would be particularly out of it. I came ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... consider usual in your ill-regulated household. What did the Lord Mayor partake of during the period he was in your company, in your rooms, before going out to chase a lady who was under the impression she was a Russian dancer—round Trafalgar Square, and before proceeding to play bo-peep with one of the lions, placed in that Square to ornament it,—what, I ask, sir, did the Lord Mayor partake ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... in creole vernacular, 'la sopimpa'—the excitement is far greater than it is with the fastest 'trois temps' on record. So great indeed, that after every other 'round' the couples pause and perform a kind of lady's-chain in quadrille groups of six or eight. Each dancer gives his or her favourite version of this remarkable step. Some appear to glide around as if propelled on wheels; while others define the step by hops, backward skips and short turns, now to the right, now the left; but all preserve ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... ballroom floor under the gay and ceaseless patting of their feet. On the other side of the wide level space was a green bower made of freshly cut boughs. This was a retiring room, intended for the use of any fair dancer whose hair might fall into disorder or whose skirt might be torn in the dancing. The baskets were all put out of sight till wanted, hidden beneath the bushes that bordered the open space. But now and then, when the ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... holy terror among the Moslems. Indeed, you might almost call him a Moslem hero in the English service. Of course he got on with them partly because of his own little dose of Eastern blood; he got it from his mother, the dancer from Damascus; ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... that speculation was the dance now being performed in the center of the hall—their fight with the gorp being enacted in a series of bounds and stabbings. He was sure that he could no longer trust his eyes when the claw knife of the victorious dancer-hunter apparently passed completely through the chest of another wearing a grotesque ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... for he frolicked and frisked about from table to chair, and mantelpiece; he would fall from the shelf to the floor, just to show how hard he was; and after thanking the good woman most politely, for the service she had done him, he walked out into the sunshine, on the clothes-line, like a rope dancer, to ...
— Denslow's Humpty Dumpty • William Wallace Denslow
... Filipina Girls playing Basket-ball University Hall, Manila Bakidan In Hostile Country Travel under Difficulties Dangerous Navigation A Negrito Family and their "House" A Typical Negrito Typical Kalingas Settling a Head-hunting Feud Entertaining the Kalingas An Ifugao Family Ifugao Dancers An Ifugao Dancer Ifugao Rice Terraces ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... torrid zone (sweet heart) I have thought well of you ever since I loved ye, as a man wold say, like a young dancer, out of all measure; if it please you yfaith anything I have promised you ile performe it to a haire, ere ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... said Christiana to Mercy, may excuse thee much; but as for me, my fault is so much the greater, for that I saw this dancer before I came out of the doors, and yet did not provide for it where provision might have been had. I am therefore much to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... has given the name Marner, for mariner, and Seaman, but the medieval forms of the rare name Saylor show that it is from Fr. sailleur, a dancer, an artist who also survives as ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... of old Hecla pumped till the tub jigged on her trucks like a fantastic dancer. To right, to left, in whooshing circles, or dwelling for an instant on some particularly obstreperous Vienna man, the great stream played. Some were knocked flat, some fell and were rolled bodily out of the square by the stream, others ran wildly ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... I think of this feature of Western civilization, but I may quote an Englishman without giving offense. Writing in the 'Metropolitan Magazine', Louis Sherwin says: "There is not a doubt that the so-called 'high-brow dancer' has had a lot to do with the bare-legged epidemic that rages upon the comic-opera stage to-day. Nothing could be further removed from musical comedy than the art of such women as Isadora Duncan and Maude Allen. To inform Miss Duncan that she ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... burst like an overcharged gun. Gneisenau come! all men are coming, and Blucher is to stay at home! Well, if they do not appoint me commanding general, I will enlist as a private. For I must participate in the war that is to put an end to Bonaparte's tyranny; and, if I cannot be first dancer, I shall be one of the musicians.—Christian, have the carriage brought ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... princess learnt to dance, and in an incredibly short time she far surpassed her teacher. Never before or since was such a graceful, charming, elegant dancer seen. Everything about her was perfection. Then she dressed herself in finest muslins and silver brocades, with diamonds on her veil, till she shone ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... up the great room, and he saw that, as he had suspected, Dinah was an exquisite dancer. Her whole being was merged in movement. She was as an instrument in the hand of a ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... that she was dancing while I was sick because she felt perfectly safe. A friend of mine says I have a pronounced and distinctly original manner of waltzing, and that he never saw anybody, with one exception, who waltzed as I did, and that was Jumbo. He claimed that either one of us would be a good dancer if he could have the whole ring to himself. He said that he would like to see Jumbo and me waltz together if he were not afraid that I would step on Jumbo and hurt him. You can see what a feeling of jealous hatred it arouses ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... of the space were ranged sixty dancing girls, in ten rows of six in a row, and each dancer stood at an equal distance from her next neighbour on either hand. Each girl was dressed in beautiful silks of the most glowing, or the most delicate shades. Her short embroidered jacket, her tightly folded skirt, were of the brightest and newest, and her hair was decked ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... eclipsed all his exertions by her inimitable imitations of Ronzi Vestris' rushing and arrowy manner. St. Anthony, in despair, but quite delighted, revealed a secret which had been taught him by a Spanish dancer at Milan; but then Miss Fane vanquished him for ever with the pas de Zephyr ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil'd His stately crest, and dimm'd his glittering arms. His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his voice Was choked with rage; at last these words broke way:— "Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance; But on the Oxus-sands, and in the ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... had youth, charm, and pleasing appearance. He was an unusually good singer and an expert dancer. He was equipped to give distinction to the musical play Frohman wanted to present. He had watched the interest of his audiences, and saw that young Brian was a distinct favorite with women as well as men, and his success as star ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Husbands Intriguing with Players: But no, they bear it with a Christian Patience. How is that possible? Why, they Intrigue themselves, either with Roscius the Tragedian, Flagillus, the Comedian, or Bathillus, the Dancer." ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... his slumbers by finding the least fault—even with the disposition of the extremities. But his nightly visitor—the enamoured goddess—is, of all female figures which I have ever seen upon canvass, one of the most affected, meagre, and uninteresting. Diana has been exchanged for an opera dancer. The waist is pinched in, the attitude is full of conceit, and there is a dark shadow about the neck, as if she had been trying some previous experiment with a rope! Endymion could never open his eyes to gaze upon a figure so utterly unworthy of the representation ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... How often have I led thy sportive choir, With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire! Where shading elms along the margin grew, 245 And freshen'd from the wave the Zephyr flew; And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring still, But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill; Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour. 250 Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... a very good dancer, and her heart beat as she unpacked the ball-dress her husband had ordered for her from a fashionable dressmaker in Posen. She could very well have worn her blue silk again if the rats had not been nibbling it! However, this ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... tumult of delight one Ellen capered about the floor on the tips of her little bare toes, while the other, not less happy, stood still for pleasure. The dancer finished by hugging and kissing her with all her heart, declaring she was so glad she didn't know what ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... the Mouse-deer, "but you know I am Chief Dancer of the War-dance, and the Woodpecker came and sounded the war-gong, so I danced. I forgot your children, and ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... presented myself, I can not now remember. A footman announced my name, but this name, which he mumbled, produced no effect on the brilliant assembly. I can only recollect hearing a woman's voice say: "So much the better, here is another dancer." It appears they were short of dancers; but what an ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... you approve of it?" I said, with a faint smile; "if I were in love with a housemaid or a ballet dancer I could understand your objection, but a girl in our own rank, educated, pretty, ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... soubrette. On the second refrain four girls will come out and two boys. The girls will dance with the two men, the boys with the soubrette. So! On the encore, four more girls and two more boys. Third encore, solo-dance for specialty dancer, all on stage beating time by clapping their hands. On repeat, all sing refrain once more, and off-encore, the three principals and specialty dancer dance the dance with entire chorus. It is a great building number, you understand. It is enough to make the ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... on you. A super is an adjunct to the stage. A supe is a fellow that assists the stars and things, carrying chairs and taking up carpets, and sweeping the sand off the stage after a dancer has danced a jig, and he brings beer for the actors, and helps lace up corsets, and anything he can do to add to the effect of the play. Privately, now, I have been acting as a supe for a long time, on the sly, and my folks didn't know anything about it, but since I reformed and decided to be ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... saying, 'Since thou disregardest a woman come to thy mansion at the command of thy father and of her own motion—a woman, besides, who is pierced by the shafts of Kama, therefore, O Partha, thou shalt have to pass thy time among females unregarded, and as a dancer, and destitute of manhood and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... mingling in intricate confusion, then suddenly standing in faultless, unbroken lines, falling again into the same lovely tumult and passing once more into order, and all this with the greatest swiftness. Bright rays of light flashed from their whirling ranks all the time, for each dancer had a mirror fastened between her shoulders, which flashed while she was in motion, and reflected the scene ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... necessity for coming back to Oakley, and to pave the way for my new advent, I sent Nurse Hagar with the false account of my death. A girl had died in the hospital—a poor, heart-broken, homeless, friendless, wronged, little unfortunate,—'Kitty the Dancer' she was called in the days when she was fair to see, and men, bad men, set snares for ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... regulations must be laid down for him, depending on his age and the condition of his arteries, kidneys and heart muscle. It should be remembered that a patient over 40, who has had broken compensation, is always in more dancer of a recurrence of this weakness than one who is younger, as after 40 the blood pressure normally increases in all persons, and this normal increase may be just too much for a compensating heart which is overcoming all of the handicap that it can withstand. Such patients, then, ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... of Nero, who married Agrippina, was as infamous for crimes as he was exalted for rank. But he died when his son Nero was three years of age. He was left to the care of his father's sister, Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina, and was by her neglected. His first tutors were a dancer and a barber. On the return of his mother from exile his education was more in accordance with his rank, as a prince of the blood, though not in the line of succession. He was docile and affectionate as a child, and was intrusted to the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the very mountains that we looked at, you and I? One long wavy line of purple painted on the sunset sky; With the new moon's edge just touching that dark rim, like dancer's foot, Or young Dian's, on the hill-side for ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... as follows: Titus Latinus, a man of ordinary condition, but of a quiet and virtuous character, free from all superstitious fancies, and yet more from vanity and exaggeration, had an apparition in his sleep, as if Jupiter came and bade him tell the senate, that it was with a bad and unacceptable dancer that they had headed his procession. Having beheld the vision, he said, he did not much attend to it at the first appearance; but after he had seen and slighted it a second and third time, he had lost a hopeful son, and was himself struck ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... throat to watch his song come gray-ghost-true before his staring eyes. With scant restraint the crowd along the walls pressed forward, half pleasure-mad, to solve the mystery of the apparition. Abruptly the song stopped! The dancer faltered! Lights blazed! A veritable shriek of applause went roaring to ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, follies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a calculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her dressmaker takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? There are deferential people in a dozen callings whom my Lady Dedlock suspects of nothing but prostration ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... accept her," said the Shah; and then calling the chief eunuch to him, he ordered that I should be educated for a baziger (dancer or singer), that all my clothes, &c., should be made suited to my future profession, and that I should be ready accomplished to appear before him upon his ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... son-in-law, comforted and supported in his task of doing so by an assurance from the lady that if her mother would not give her consent the marriage should go on all the same without it. How delightful to have such a dancer for her lover! thought Clementina. That was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... all part of the superficial smallness of that world where arbitrary form ruled, where to send a wedding invitation printed and not engraved, or to mispronounce the name of a visiting Italian tenor or Russian dancer, would mark the noblest woman in the ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... that the region thus watched over by these effigy-mounds, group answering to group along the river banks, or in the valleys below, was at times lit up by the signal fires at night; or the warning column of smoke by day betokening the presence of dancer. ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... but Corruption's gilding. 'Tis the trick of vice Full oft to pander in a graceful form; But when the finer chords of hearts are set In eyes glued to a dancer's feet, or ears Strain'd to the rapture of a squeaking fiddle, Think you 'tis well? Oh, say, should Englishmen Arrive at this, such price to set on art, Ne'er rivalling the untaught nightingale, That with their ears shut to wild misery, Deaf to starvation's groans, the prayer of want, The giant ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... standing! See!" she said, but could not maintain herself on her toes any longer. "So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry anyone, but will be a dancer. Only don't ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... with you,' Selpdorf said with an air of candour, 'the younger officers of the Guard have little experience. The latest fashion in neckties or the most charming dancer at the Folie absorbs their attention, to the exclusion of more important matters. There is, as you doubtless know, a certain admixture of French blood in the veins of our most noble families,' ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... master, an Opera dancer, named Seuriot. What a fine presence that man had! His lesson, which we all took together, like a little corps de ballet, was a great amusement to us, especially because of the theatrical stories we used to make him tell us. One day he arrived in a great state of excitement, and addressing ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... corybantes. A young Tsigane, of about fifteen years of age, then advanced. He held in his hand a "doutare," strings of which he made to vibrate by a simple movement of the nails. He sung. During the singing of each couplet, of very peculiar rhythm, a dancer took her position by him and remained there immovable, listening to him, but each time that the burden came from the lips of the young singer, she resumed her dance, dinning in his ears with her daire, and deafening him with the clashing of her cymbals. Then, after the ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... how to bring out this point and hide that; they remodel bad figures. They give plumpness and roundness to the thin; they make hips, shoulders—everything, in fact. One doesn't know what to expect, science has made such advances. The eye may be deceived, but the hand of an experienced dancer never! A waltzer with tact knows how to find out the exact ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... Count, who is trying to steal his mistress, "You have taken the trouble to be born, nothing more!" "I was spoken of, for an office," he says again, "but unfortunately I was fitted for it. An accountant was needed, and a dancer got it." And in another place: "I was born to be a courtier; receiving, taking and asking, are the ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... at some dancers in the dining-room at the hotel, and was not wholly a novice, therefore. Linton was an excellent dancer, and was clear in his directions. It may also be said that Luke was a ready learner. So it happened at the end of the hour that the pupil had been initiated not only in the ordinary changes of the quadrille, but also in one contra dance, ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... overtake the little band of platinum-hunters. In spite of all that Tom and Ned could do, the Falcon was whipped about like a feather in the wind. Sometimes she was pointing her nose to the clouds, and again earthward. Again she would be whirling about in the grip of the hurricane, like some fantastic dancer, and again she would roll dangerously. Had she turned turtle it probably would have been the last of her and of ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... (the senior Secretary of the Lord-Lieutenant of Kiusiu) returned to the capital with his family, having completed his official term. His daughter had been a virgin dancer, and was known to Genji. They preferred to travel by water, and slowly sailed up along the beautiful coast. When they arrived at Suma, the distant sound of a kin[109] was heard, mingled with the sea-coast wind, and they were told that Genji was there ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... could not have said, for she was honestly not aware of the truth, but she knew she was divided in halves, with one half pitying the other, one rebuking: and all because of the incongruous comparison of a wild flower to an opera dancer! Absurd indeed. We human creatures are the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... secretly from his house. The Nawab follows, and finds her in a hut on the bank of a flooded river which has stopped her flight; but after a really pathetic interview she returns to her free life—and 'thus ended the romance of Bijli the Dancer.' ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Mr. Walters, as of the eighth century, I do not suppose that the amateur who gave it to a dancer and scratched the hexameter was of a later generation than the jug itself. The vase may have cost him sixpence: he would give his friend a new vase; it is improbable that old jugs were sold at curiosity shops in these days, and given by amateurs ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... stronger flavours of gossip in his talk. 'There's no stir in these valleys. They arrested, somewhere close on Trent yesterday afternoon, a fellow calling himself Beppo, the servant of an Italian woman—a dancer, I fancy. They're on the lookout for her too, I'm told; though what sort of capers she can be cutting in Tyrol, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... comedien or a tragic actor a tragedien? Possibly it is because 'comedian' and 'tragedian' seem to be too exclusively masculine—so that a want is felt for words to indicate a female tragedian and a female comedian. Probably it is for the same reason that a male dancer is not termed a danseur while a female dancer is termed a danseuse. Then there is diseuse, apparently reserved for the lady who recites verse, no name being needed apparently for the gentleman who recites verse—at least, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... eaten up with jealousy. They called him the ragazzaccio, or 'lout of a boy,' when he began to make his mark at Bologna. Agostino presented a strong contrast to his brother, being an accomplished musician, an excellent dancer, a fair poet, fit to converse with noblemen, and possessed of very considerable culture. Lodovico, the eldest of the cousins, acted as mentor and instructor to the others. He pacified their quarrels, when Annibale's jealousy burst out; set ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... the lady whose cause he had espoused, should any insolent slanderer dare to hint there was a smirch on her virtue. Being deaf to all reports, he seemed one of those men expressly framed by heaven to be the consolation of fallen women; such a man as in our times a retired opera-dancer or a superannuated professional beauty would welcome with open arms. He had only one fault—he was married. It is true he neglected his wife, according to the custom of the time, and it is probably also true that his wife cared very little about his infidelities. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and challenge my rivals. If there be a tragic poet who pretends to be a skilful dancer, let him come and contest the matter with me. Is there one? ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... They're not so good. The comedian in question was a very agile dancer and was also good-looking. Other men might not attract ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... happened that when Harry and Maud took the floor, they found Fletcher their vis-a-vis. Perhaps it was this that made Harry more emulous to get through without making any blunders. At any rate, he succeeded, and no one in the set suspected that it was his first appearance in public as a dancer. ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... with a long narrow board and then sits astride of it upon the surface of the water. As the long billows come rolling in, he places his board upon the convex surface of an advancing wave, then, with the poise of a rope-dancer, he places his weight properly upon the plank and is ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... in the room, and the most graceful dancer," were the thoughts that glanced through her mind, as she smiled an assent to his invitation to become his partner. "I shall not ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... to find the stirrup with his toe, Sultan wheeled away from him with a little kick that was as dainty as that of a professional dancer. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Nell in her boy's clothes, mighty pretty. Put Lord! their confidence, and how many men do hover about them as soon as they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their talk! Here was also Haynes, the incomparable dancer of the King's house. Then we abroad to Marrowbone, and there walked in the garden, the first time I ever was there; and a pretty ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... a minuet de la tour with the beautiful Countess of ——, the best dancer of the day in England. Lady Flora is flirting with half a dozen beaux, the more violently in proportion as she observes the animation with which Clarence converses, and the grace with which his partner ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "was intinded f'r th' young an' gay. 'Tis not f'r th' likes iv me, now that age has crept into me bones an' whitened th' head iv me. Divvle take th' rheumatics! An' to think iv me twinty years ago cuttin' capers like a bally dancer, whin th' Desplaines backed up an' th' pee-raires was covered with ice fr'm th' mills to Riverside. Manny's th' time I done th' thrick, Jawn, me an' th' others; but now I break me back broachin' a kag iv beer, an' th' height iv me daily ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... manners, passions, and actions. The most eminent Greek sculptors studied the attitude of the dancers for their art of imitating the passions. In a classical Greek song, Apollo, one of the twelve greater gods, the son of Zeus the chief god, and the god of medicine, music, and poetry, was called The Dancer. In a Greek line Zeus himself is represented as dancing. In Sparta, a province of ancient Greece, the law compelled parents to exercise their children in dancing from the age of five years. They were led by grown men, and sang hymns and songs as they danced. In very early times a Greek chorus, consisting ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... in a strange country." He must go to see all famous executions. He must needs visit the body of a murdered man, defaced "with a broad wound," he says, "that makes my hand now shake to write of it." He learned to dance, and was "like to make a dancer." He learned to sing, and walked about Gray's Inn Fields "humming to myself (which is now my constant practice) the trillo." He learned to play the lute, the flute, the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she, this unknown genius, this master of the terpsichorean art, living in this far away Mexican town? Such talent could not remain in obscurity for long. Another great Spanish dancer was about to burst unheralded upon the world. It only remained for her to dance into ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couple come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known. He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head- gear after the fashion of the ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... should pose forever in the Sieges Allee as an intoxicated hitching-post? What, indeed, have his companions done that they should stand in two rows there, studies in contortion, with a gilded Russian dancer with wings at one end of their line, and a woodeny Roland at the other? But there they are, simpering a paltry patriotism, insipid as history and ridiculous as art. What has become of Lessing, and Winckelmann, and Goethe, and their teachings? Is this the price that a nation must pay for ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... his friends, a helpless idiot in a lunatic asylum, having exhausted all his means. Lord Yarmouth, afterward the Marquis of Hertford, infamous for his debaucheries and extravagance, was another of the prince's companions in folly and drunkenness. So was Lord Fife, who expended L80,000 on a dancer; and a host of others, who had, however, that kind of wit which would "set the table on a roar,"—but all gamblers, drunkards, and sensualists, who gloried in the ruin of those women whom they had made victims of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... an unusually social mood. So of course Roy must submit to being bowled round in the new dog-cart and introduced to special friends, in cantonments and Lahore, including the Deputy Commissioner's wife and good-looking eldest daughter; the best dancer in the station and an extra special friend, he gathered from Lance's best ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... what country folk call a "natural-born dancer," and she quickly learned the new steps she had had no opportunity to practice since going West. All the girls and most of the boys were excellent dancers, too, and Bob was not allowed to beg off. Frances Martin, the last girl one would have named, had ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... hope is reduced to speculate for the meanest stakes. Mme. Vauquer alone can breathe that tainted air without being disheartened by it. Her face is as fresh as a frosty morning in autumn; there are wrinkles about the eyes that vary in their expression from the set smile of a ballet-dancer to the dark, suspicious scowl of a discounter of bills; in short, she is at once the embodiment and interpretation of her lodging-house, as surely as her lodging-house implies the existence of its mistress. You can no more imagine the one ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... played as Terry Sheehan used to play. She played as no music hack at Bernie Gottschalk's had ever played before. The crowd swayed a little to the sound of it. Some kept time with little jerks of the shoulder—the little hitching movement of the dancer whose blood is filled with the fever of syncopation. Even the crowd flowing down State Street must have caught the rhythm of it, for the ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... be a dancer; Or your voice may have a cancer, And as a singer you may be an awful frost. But if you can't do recitations Or other fancy recreations, Don't consider that ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... picturesqueness. The grim thought stands in the ideal world as a ruin stands in a blooming landscape. The thought of death sheds a pathetic charm over everything then. The young man cools himself with a thought of the winding-sheet and the charnel, as the heated dancer cools himself on the balcony with the night-air. The young imagination plays with the idea of death, makes a toy of it, just as a child plays with edge-tools till once it cuts its fingers. The most lugubrious poetry is written by very ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... in other things," said the master. "She's a good dancer and a good amateur actress, and she is controlling herself as she would on a ballroom floor, and remembering the spectators as she would on the stage. She's no rider, but is perfectly selfish and self-possessed, and she will cheat her escort into thinking that ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... exultation, for when the music struck up, and the dancers commenced their intricate movements, she found that her husband blundered so as to throw all into confusion. The reason of this instantly flashed upon her mind, for she knew him to be a correct and graceful dancer. He was too much intoxicated to dance! Her woman's pride caused her to make the effort to guide him through the figures. But it was of no use. The second attempt failed signally by his breaking the figures, and reeling with a ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... ten millions of bulls, at length far away there appeared something terrible. I can only describe its appearance as that of an attenuated mountain on fire. When it drew nearer I perceived that it was more like a ballet-dancer whirling round and round upon her toes, or rather all the ballet-dancers in the world rolled into one and then multiplied a million times in size. No, it was like a mushroom with two stalks, one above and one below, or a huge top with a point on which it spun, a swelling belly ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... her seat, and begged for the favor of a waltz with the Queen of the festival. And she allowed his request. With light and graceful steps he danced through the long saloon, with the sovereign who thought never to have found a more dexterous and excellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, and fine conversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously accorded him a second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, as well as others were not refused him. How ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... most airy and elegant imaginable. It is fond of describing a circle in a succession of bounds, jumping off the ground on four legs, and touching it lightly as it wheels round and round. At other times, it pirouettes upon the two fore feet, springing round at the same time like an opera-dancer; in fact, it would appear as if Taglioni, and all our most celebrated artistes, had taken lessons from the gazelle, so much do their chefs-d'oeuvre resemble its graceful motions. When domesticated, the gazelle loves to feed upon roses, delighting ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... libertines of the court. The prince de Soubise was greatly attached to her, and preferred her in reality, to mademoiselle Guimard, whom he only retained for form's sake, and because he thought it suitable to his dignity to have an opera dancer in his pay; this nobleman (as you will find) had rather singular ideas of the duties attached to his station. Madame de l'Hopital had had a vast number of gallant adventures, which she was very fond of ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... the "Prince Charmant" fit to be mated to a princess so gay and so brilliant as Charlotte of Hohenzollern. His appearance is effeminate, his manner finicky and old-maidish to a degree. He is neither stalwart nor good-looking; he excels neither as a dancer nor as a rider, nor yet as an athlete, and he gives one at first sight the impression of being an artist or a composer, rather than a son of that grand looking old fellow, the reigning Duke ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... fellow with mustaches. But though he was the lighter for the loss of his tail, he was much less agile than his comrades; he was very careful about trying gymnastics and fell very often. He always brought up the rear when the company ascended the balusters, and looked like a tight-rope dancer trying to do without a balancing-pole. Then I understood the usefulness of a tail in the case of rats: it aids them to maintain their equilibrium when scampering along cornices and narrow ledges. They swing it to the right or the ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... stern reproof. Between him and the child there had been the tenderest love, for she was all that was left to him of four. In the old days Mrs. Clancy had been the belle of the soldiers' balls, a fine-looking woman, with indomitable powers as a dancer and conversationalist and an envied reputation for outshining all her rivals in dress and adornment. "She would ruin Clancy, that she would," was the unanimous opinion of the soldiers' wives; but he seemed to minister ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... sprain," affecting the muscles and ligaments about the elbow; the "angler's elbow," affecting the common origin of the extensors and supinators; the "sprinter's sprain," affecting the flexors of the hip; and the "jumper's and dancer's sprain," affecting the muscles of the calf. The patient complains of pain, often sudden in onset, of tenderness on pressure, and of inability to carry out the particular movement by which the sprain was produced. The disability varies in ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... of those superb natural athletes who make history for many colleges. He was big, powerfully built, and moved as easily as a dancer. His features were good enough, but his brown eyes were dull and his jaw heavy rather than strong. Hugh had often heard that Slade dissipated violently, but he did not believe the rumors; he was positive that Slade could not be the athlete he was if ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... dancer whose acquaintance we made at the wedding in Endringen. He went out to the stable, and presently returned with the white horse already saddled. And as he was fastening his valise to the bolster, a fine, large wolf-hound began jumping up at him and licking ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various |
