"Minuet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would rise at this, and make a gigantic curtsey, such a one as had begun the minuet at Ranelagh fifty years ago; and, the introduction ended, Mrs. Smith would retire, after having seen the portraits of the princes, his late Majesty's snuff-box, and a piece of music which he used to play, noted by himself—Mrs. Smith, I say, would drive ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... l'eloquence du billet and studying his favorite Horace. It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a minuet or syllabub, poor Antoinette was unrivalled; and Charles, on the tight-rope, was so graceful and so gentil, that Madame Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... high up at one end facing a raised platform, where his father and mother, looking extremely hot and uncomfortable, were seated on gorgeous chairs. A stately measure was being performed, which might have been a gavotte or minuet or pavane for anything he could say; all he knew was that the figures were ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... I forget," said old Lady Storms, "seeing the pretty thing look after him when he bowed and left her after they had danced a minuet together. Her look set me to watching her, and she gazed on him through every dance with her large heaven-blue eyes, and when at last she saw him turn and come towards her again her breast went up and down and her breath fluttered, and she turned from white to red and from red to white with ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the rabbit's foot, the puff, the pencil, and the other appurtenances of her aunt's toilet-box. And when the fragile thing, so soon to be swallowed up by the earth in its great earthquake, had been propped by pillows, she began to paint her wrinkled face as if going to dance a minuet with death. First the black rings about the languid eyes were whitened, then the earthen cheeks were rouged, and finally the livid lips and nostrils were pencilled with the rosy ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... measure herself, began to show her paces. First she passed one bulky vessel, then another: she lay closer to the wind than any of her fellows, glided more quickly through the water, turned in her stays like Lady Betty in a minuet; and, ere we had reached Kyle Akin, the fleet in the middle of which we had started were toiling far behind us, all save one vessel, a stately brig; and just as we were going to pass her too, she cast anchor, to await the change of the tide, which runs from the west during flood at Kyle Akin, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... waters, cows lowing, the cattlemarket, cocks, hens don't crow, snakes hissss. There's music everywhere. Ruttledge's door: ee creaking. No, that's noise. Minuet of Don Giovanni he's playing now. Court dresses of all descriptions in castle chambers dancing. Misery. Peasants outside. Green starving faces eating dockleaves. Nice that is. Look: look, look, look, look, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivaled; and Charles, on the tightrope, was so graceful and so gentil that Madame Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. Oh, curst spite, that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the fever of the public pulse," replied Carley. "The graceful waltz, like the stately minuet, flourished back in the days when people ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... ballroom waltz is in the slow tempo, while "In the Good Old Summertime" is more rapid, adapted for fast movements and waltz clogs. "Valse Coppelia," played one in a bar, is the type for dainty Ballet work. The stately Minuet ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... vocalism[obs3]; chaunt, chant; psalm, psalmody; hymn; song &c. (poem) 597; canticle, canzonet[obs3], cantata, bravura, lay, ballad, ditty, carol, pastoral, recitative, recitativo[obs3], solfeggio[obs3]. Lydian measures; slow music, slow movement; adagio &c. adv.; minuet; siren strains, soft music, lullaby; dump; dirge &c. (lament) 839; pibroch[obs3]; martial music, march; dance music; waltz &c. (dance) 840. solo, duet, duo, trio; quartet, quartett[obs3]; septett[obs3]; part song, descant, glee, madrigal, catch, round, chorus, chorale; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... provinces. She had forced the Castilian pride to yield her the precedence. She had summoned Italian princes to prostrate themselves at her footstool. Her authority was supreme in all matters of good breeding, from a duel to a minuet. She determined how a gentleman's coat must be cut, how long his peruke must be, whether his heels must be high or low, and whether the lace on his hat must be broad or narrow. In literature she gave law to the world. The fame of her great writers filled Europe. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... his minuet of horror. He wheeled about and faced the freckled man. He elaborately ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... leading no whither, since for a forward step there was a corresponding backward motion to complete the chasse, and all in that gracious circle which flatters the actor and the onlooker with a pleasurable sense of progress; but the suspense as to the issue of this minuet was all on the side of Spain, and Venice had patience to spare for these pretty time-filling paces which presented such semblance of careless ease to the watching embassies. England, with an understanding quickened by her own experience, took a ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... dancing lessons, and although very far from exhibiting the stately grace with which Ernest could perform the minuet or other courtly dances then in fashion, Harry came in time to perform his part fairly. Two hours were spent in the evening in the salon. This part of the day Harry at first found the most tedious; but as soon as he began to speak fluently the marquis addressed ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... audience whom Mrs. Jordan is delighting with her favourite part of Priscilla Tomboy in The Romp. You may assist at the concerts of Signer Venanzio Rauzzini and Monsieur La Motte; you may take part in a long minuet or country dance at the Upper or Lower Assembly Rooms, which Bunbury will caricature; you may even lose a few pieces at the green tables; and, should you return home late enough, may watch a couple ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... sharply for a moment to look round, Mr. Gaskell took no notice of the sound; and my brother, ashamed to betray any foolish interest or excitement, continued the Gagliarda, with its repeat. At its conclusion Mr. Gaskell stopped before proceeding to the minuet, and turning the stool on which he was sitting round towards the room, observed, "How very strange, Johnnie,"—for these young men were on terms of sufficient intimacy to address each other in a familiar style,—"How very strange! I thought I heard some one sit down in that chair ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... unformed intellect. The boy was almost a dwarf in size. When sixteen he grew ahead,[202] and was so feeble that he could scarcely drag himself upstairs. Attempts to teach him dancing failed from the extreme weakness of his knees.[203] He showed a taste for music, and could scrape a minuet on the fiddle at six years of age. He read all such books as came in his way. His parents objected to light literature, and he was crammed with such solid works as Rapin, Burnet's Theory of the Earth, and Cave's Lives of the Apostles. Various accidents, however, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... of two persons dancing a minuet, that "they looked as if they were hired to do it, and ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... tarantella of the Neapolitans, the bolero and fandango of the Spaniards, the mazurka and cracovienna of Poland, the cosack of Russia, the redowa of Bohemia, the quadrille and cotillion of France, the waltz, polka and gallopade of Germany, the reel and sword dance of Scotland, the minuet and hornpipe of England, the jig of Ireland, and the last to capture ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... Ann!" he cried, bounding up the steps, two at a time, quite as his grandfather had done on that day so many, many years ago, "how lovely you look! I'd like to dance a minuet with you." Then he gave her his arm and escorted her down the stairs. Supper was announced immediately and Jeff marched in with his aged cousin, much to the chagrin of Mildred, who had planned otherwise ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... had scarcely recovered this shock (for it was a great one to him) when he heard Abel on the Viol da Gamba. The Violin was hung on the willow; Abel's Viol da Gamba was purchased, and the house resounded with melodious thirds and fifths from 'morn to dewy eve!' Many an Adagio and many a Minuet were begun, but none completed; this was wonderful, as it was Abel's own instrument, and, therefore, ought to have produced Abel's ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... in this way with you for two weeks, but every day with some slight change. After a short time, I would combine with this practice the study of two or three pieces, suitably arranged for the piano; for example, Mozart's minuet in E flat, arranged by Schulhoff, and his drinking-song, or similar pieces. We will, at present, have nothing to do with Beethoven. You are, perhaps, afraid that all this might be tedious; but I have never been considered tedious ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... policy, the spirited girl waited till Colonel Clifford came on the green, and then made Walter as perfect a courtesy as ever graced a minuet at the court of ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... came back to the lovers, a reflected gleam from those fair autumn days illumined their thoughts. Mendelssohn's Minuet called up before them a vision of the villa by the sea, of rooms filled with the perfume of the terraced garden, of cypresses lifting their dark heads into the soft sky, of flaming sails upon ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... was no flatterer. He once told a member of the royal family, who asked him how he liked his playing on the violoncello? "Vy, sir, your highness plays like a prince." When the same prince had prevailed on him to hear a minuet of his own composition, which he played himself on the violoncello, Handel heard him out very quietly; but when the prince told him, that he would call in his band to play it to him, that he might hear the full effect of his composition, Handel could contain himself no longer, and ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... grow an inch taller, assumed a more stately demeanor, and took two steps backward and one step forward, as if he were dancing a minuet, and then came as much gravity and expression into the face of the General as the General could contrive to infuse into ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Goesler in the cloak-room. "After all, we are surely the most awkward people in the world," she said. "You know Lord Fawn, who was talking to Miss Effingham just now. You should have heard him trying to pay me a compliment before dinner. It was like a donkey walking a minuet, and yet they say he is a clever man and can make speeches." Could it be possible that Madame Max Goesler's ears were so sharp that she had heard the things which Lord Fawn had ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... day were in the saddle immediately after an early breakfast. They took the forest way. In many directions were tolerably smooth rides cut, and along them they had good gallops, to the great delight of Florimel after the restraints of Rotten Row, where riding had seemed like dancing a minuet with a waltz in her heart. Malcolm, so far as human companionship went, found it dull, for Lady Clementina's groom regarded him with the contempt of superior age, the most contemptible contempt of all, seeing years are not the wisdom they ought to bring, and the first ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... on, quizzing the Chamberlain. "See that you give me fair warning, and I'll practise the accustomed and essential reel. Upon my soul, I haven't danced since Lady Mary left, unless you call it so that foolish minuet. You should have seen her Grace at St. James's last month. Gad! she footed it like an angel; there's not a better dancer in London town. See that your wife's a dancer, whoever she may be, Sim; let her dance and sing and play the harpsichord or the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... ceremonies, knowing how fond Mr. Pickle was of every opportunity to display himself, came up, and told him, that there was a fine young creature at the other end of the room, who seemed to have a great inclination to dance a minuet, but wanted a partner, the gentleman who attended her being ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... contest was like that between two village cocks from neighboring farms endeavoring to overcrow each other. To us, in this age of purer and more masculine taste, the whole scene takes the ludicrous air of old and young fops dancing a minuet with each other, practising the most elaborate grimaces, sinkings and risings the most awful, bows the most overshadowing, until plain walking, running, or the motions of natural dancing, are thought too insipid for endurance. In this instance the taste had perhaps really been borrowed from ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a blue lute string. Shall I not also have a new gown? The gauzes are very sweet and genteel, and I think Mrs. Jay will not forget to ask me to her dance next week. Mr. Jefferson is sure to be there, and I wish to walk a minuet ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... the ball which is always given at the time of the races, Peregrine was struck with admiration at the beauty of a young lady, who seemed to be of his own age. He begged she would do him the honour to walk a minuet with him, and she frankly complied with his request. If he was charmed with her appearance, he was quite ravished with her discourse, which was sensible, spirited, and gay. Her mother, who was present, thanked him for his civility, and he received a compliment ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... with mirth than a minuet with melancholy," laughed the girl; "and yet it would take a great deal to make me miserable if I were with you, and you loved me, my dear aunt. Still, I own I like to be rich, so as to have everything I want, and give everybody what they want; and, aunt Sarah, you know ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... able, in case of any untoward accident, to make good his retreat home. He shakes hands with nature with a pair of fashionable gloves on, and leads "his Vashti" forth to public view with a look of consciousness and attention to etiquette, as a fine gentleman hands a lady out to dance a minuet. He is delicate to fastidiousness, and glad to get back, after a romantic adventure with crazy Kate, a party of gypsies or a little child on a common, to the drawing room and the ladies again, to the sofa and the tea-kettle—No, I beg his pardon, not to the singing, well-scoured tea-kettle, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... acquired decorum: society's irrepressible original and its powerfully resisting second nature. All the rogues of the fine sphere ran about with it, male and female; and there was the narrative that suggestively skipped, and that which trod the minuet measure, dropping a curtsey to ravenous curiosity; the apology surrendering its defensible cause in supplications to benevolence; and the benevolence damnatory in a too eloquent urgency; followed by the devout objection ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... enlargement consists in associating two different—though somewhat related—Song-Forms. The practice was so common in certain of the older dances, particularly in the minuet, that this design is also known as ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... turned into tableaux-vivants, or even acted. There was "Pattikin's House;" I am sure we had the greatest fun with those pictures, we being so many girls: and "The man all tattered and torn that married the maiden all forlorn;" that was on p. 652 of the volume for 1876: "The Minuet," in January, 1877: "Hagar in the Desert," in June, 1877; my aunty did that, and it was lovely: the little girl in "The Owl That Stared," in November, 1876; and "Leap-Year," in the same number. All these we had at our own home, but there ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... returns his tenderness, as it is extremely natural a young person so educated and brought up would return that of a criminal, who has made an impression on her heart by shooting her servants, rifling her trunks, and forcing her to dance a minuet with him on a deserted heath under ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the child's new-fangled humming-top, which is advertised to dance sixty seconds, be said to dance a minuet? ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... the early men was Bunbury, whom "quality"-loving Mr. Walpole calls "the second Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original (!);" but whose prints to "Tristram Shandy," are nevertheless completely forgotten, while, if he be remembered at all, it is by the plate of "The Long Minuet," and the vulgar "Directions to Bad Horsemen." With the first years of the century, however, appears the great master of modern humorists, whose long life ended only a few years since, "the veteran George Cruikshank"—as his admirers were wont to ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... it lightly, holding each other's hands, he in a bob wig with a sword by his side, she in high-heeled red shoes and a cap decked with flowers and ribbons. She smiled and ogled, as if about to dance a minuet. I almost laughed as I saw them, they appeared so vivid and real. Then Captain Longfleet came upon the scene as I fancied him, dressed in a cocked-hat and feathers, a long sword buckled to his side, high boots, a red coat, and a ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... unawares they flitted off, Busying themselves about the flowerage That stood from our a stiff brocade in which, The meteor of a splendid season, she, Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago, Stept thro' the stately minuet of those days: But Edith's eager fancy hurried with him Snatch'd thro' the perilous passes of his life: Till Leolin ever watchful of her eye Hated him with a momentary hate. Wife-hunting, as the rumor ran, was he: I know not, for he spoke not, only shower'd ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... Regiment, asked me to walk a minuet," observed Cecile, tossing her head. "I'm sure I don't know what to ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... talk ended at last, the gentlemen returned to the ladies. He found himself standing in a doorway beside an elderly man of the most polished hearing and graceful manners, who was watching a minuet. ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... take an early dinner, and talk business. Before he left he saw his child more than once; indeed, Bartley paraded her accomplishments. She played the piano to Hope; she rode her little Shetland pony for Hope; she danced a minuet with singular grace for so young a girl; she conversed with her governess in French, or something very like it, and she worked a little sewing-machine, all to please the strange gentleman; and whatever she was asked to do she did with a winning smile, and without a particle of false modesty, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... slipping from her. The air was close and heavy with strange smells. She felt as though she were swaying like a pendulum. The old, familiar objects grew grotesquely large and hazy; the deep shadows in the corners multiplied, and began to dance a solemn minuet, advancing, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... of two more Gentlemen to-night. A Doctor Harrington—a handsome man, I think—and an elderly Gentleman, Captain Grigg; the most laughable creature I ever saw. They tell me I shall be highly diverted at the minuet he dances; and we intend to ...
— Journal of a Young Lady of Virginia, 1782 • Lucinda Lee Orr
... parliamentary preamble to them: there is an air of affected modesty, and ostentatious trifling in them: he seems fond of coqueting with the House of Commons, and is perpetually calling the Speaker out to dance a minuet with him, before he begins. There is also something like an attempt to stimulate the superficial dulness of his hearers by exciting their surprise, by running into extravagance: and he sometimes demeans himself by condescending ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the introduction of quadrilles and country dances or contredanses, the inaptitude of nine-tenths of mankind for dancing was still more eminently demonstrated in the murders of the minuet. For (as Morall, the dancing-master of Marie Antoinette, used passionately to exclaim)—que de choses dans un minuet! What worlds of modest dignity—of alternate amenity and scorn! The minuet has all the tender coquetry of the bolero, divested of its licentious fervour. With the minuet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Caroline was not going to live long after the marriage of her brother was "greatly exaggerated"—she lived to be ninety-eight, a century lacking two years! Her mind was bright to the last—when ninety she sang at a concert given for the benefit of an old ladies' home. At ninety-six she danced a minuet with the King of Prussia, and requested that worthy not to introduce her as "the woman astronomer, because, you know, I was only the assistant of my brother!" William Herschel died in his eighty-fourth year, with his fame at full, honored, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... happiness he felt on thus being suddenly restored to the presence of kinswomen in the moment of his deepest bereavement. Juliana calmed. Paquita diminished her angle of aversion, and then Sir Chim, advancing quite close to the division, began what appeared to be a recollection of a minuet. He executed marvellous gestures with a precision and aplomb which were quite enchanting, and when at last he broke out into a quick movement with loud smacking stamps, the ladies were completely carried away, and gave him all attention. Friendship was established, refreshments were ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... knew his toes to be tender.) But, really, at my time of life and at Jarber's, it is too much of a good thing. There is an orchestra still standing in the open air at the Wells, before which, in the presence of a throng of fine company, I have walked a minuet with Jarber. But, there is a house still standing, in which I have worn a pinafore, and had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread to the tooth and the door-handle, and toddling away from the door. And how should I look now, at my years, in a pinafore, ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... 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
... and, at last, you danced it like an angel. And, shall I tell you, you carry yourself very gracefully?—well, that is partly owing to the minuet. But a more learned professor will now take you in hand. He will be here ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. The Pensionary de Witt, who ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... apartment, we found a select few, surrounded by a crowd of spectators, busily performing a minuet, with all the congees and flourishes which belonged to that courtly dance; and my companion, infected by the contagion of example, was soon, as I had anticipated, waving his chapeau bras, and gracefully bowing before one of the prettiest girls in the room. I had neither skill nor spirits to qualify ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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
... favorites will the king throw his handkerchief? With which of the two will he converse most? Will he feel at ease as he treads the minuet under the eyes of the devotee? Or will he venture to recognize HER in presence of ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... ambassador no more; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene; where in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall with the ruddy nymph ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... a minuet. I led out one lady after another, and precisely those who were the most disagreeable could not bring themselves to leave off. Charlotte and her partner began an English country dance, and you must imagine my delight when it was their turn ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... Harlequin waves Columbine into the bedroom, sweeps the clothes together into a neat pile and stands waiting by the door. There enters Lord Eglantine, the Beau. A trifle pale, disordered, calm. He has been gambling all night. To the rhythm of a minuet Harlequin takes his cloak, hat, and cane, takes off his coat and gets him into a gorgeous dressing-gown, and so into his chair. And there he sits looking for all the world like the bundle of clothes come ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... abundant spirits of wine.' The new Louis with his Court is rolling towards Choisy, through the summer afternoon: the royal tears still flow; but a word mispronounced by Monseigneur d'Artois sets them all laughing, and they weep no more. Light mortals, how ye walk your light life-minuet, over bottomless abysses, divided from ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... A minuet was already in progress on the floor, and for a few moments Kate watched the stately, graceful dance, while Darrell, having adjusted her wrap lightly about her, seated himself beside her and silently watched her face with ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... be admired by all the gentlemen of the road in succeeding ages. This was the rant which took up the poor fellow's head, and induced him to bear 250 pound weight upon his breast for upwards of seven minutes, and was much the same kind of bravery as that which induced the French lacquey to dance a minuet immediately before he danced his last upon the wheel, an action which made so much noise in France as engaged the Duke de Rochefoucauld to compare it with ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... schottische, waltz, etc., there are many who strongly object, but, danced in private homes and in most cases under the eye of the young girl's mother, there can be found nothing dangerously objectionable in this favorite amusement. The minuet is a stately, beautiful old dance that is sometimes introduced, enabling both old and young to join in its slow and ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... the Styx! Make way for stately '76, Who comes with mincing, minuet pace, Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face— An antiquated kerchief on: White-capped, like Martha Washington; Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod, To give no Nineteenth Century nod; Nay, but a courtesy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... to burrow in her carved oak treasure chest and beg for stories of the articles it contained, many fascinating tales of those two school years, a pretty colour coming to her cheeks as she told of the dances learned together, pas-de-deux and minuet, from old 'Doctor' Shaffer, who was at the time second violin of the Boston Theatre, as well as authority in the correct methods of bowing and courtesying for gentlewomen. Your grandmother married first, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... over the walls and ditches the sawmills danced with the logs they were to saw. There a girl sat sleeping. Could it be Femke? The linen danced about her to the music of the wind, the shirts making graceful bows and extending their sleeves. Nightcaps, dickeys and drawers danced the minuet; stockings, skirts, collars, handkerchiefs waltzed thicker and thicker around the sleeping girl. Her curls began to flutter—a smile, a sigh, and she sprang to her feet. A whirlwind caught ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... at her picture by Sully in a turban and short waist; may have wondered to hear how in such disguise she too was fatal to many hearts, and set men by the ears, and was a toast at suppers in days when the waltz was coming in and the solemn grace of the minuet lingered in men's manners. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... cherry orchard; we are all to pick cherries for to-night's feast. By the way, will you be my partner in the minuet? You dance it ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... ransom. Stay! You must not give him too much, or he will know it is not you—viper! Run quick, and breath a word about me, if you dare; one whisper only, and my Spahis shall cut your throat from ear to ear. Off! Or you shall have a bullet to quicken your steps; misers dance well when pistols play the minuet!" ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... deservedly popular little works in the modern repertory is the Paderewski "Minuet," Op. 14, No. 1. Modern minuets are echoes of the classical period. Compositions of this kind are to be found in the sonatas and symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and even further back in the suites of Bach. Accordingly the Paderewski "Minuet," ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... if you want your ninety pistoles, you must patch up this marriage! [He goes out. The three FIDDLERS, left alone, continue their minuet, as ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... suppose that it matters little whether the most universally popular of the serious authors of a generation—and Macaulay was nothing less than this—affects style coupe or style soutenu. The critic of style is not the dancing-master, declaiming on the deep ineffable things that lie in a minuet. He is not the virtuoso of supines and gerundives. The morality of style goes deeper 'than dull fools suppose.' When Comte took pains to prevent any sentence from exceeding two lines of his manuscript or five of print; to restrict every paragraph to seven sentences; to exclude ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... here," he said solemnly. "When we arranged about these rooms, there were certain properties that went with them—the lady next door who plays Paderewski's 'Minuet' six hours a day, and K. here, and Reginald. If you must take something to the woods, why ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Helena) went back to their jobs. The victory was duly celebrated with dinners, garden parties and balls at which the new and very shocking "waltz" was danced to the great scandal of the ladies and gentlemen who remembered the minuet of ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... an old mansion in Whitehall Garden where belles and beaux had danced the stately minuet. It became a dynamo of energy whose wires radiated everywhere. "More Munitions" was the creed that flew ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... periwig-makers, snuff-box-wrights, milliners, &c., which really took up but little time; and I am come out quite new, with everything but youth. The journey recovered me with magic expedition. My strength, if mine could ever be called strength, is returned; and the gout going off in a minuet step. I will say nothing of my spirits, which are indecently juvenile, and not less improper for my age than for the country where I am; which, if you will give me leave to say it, has a thought too much ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... late a visit. "I should indeed," answered he, "have made some apology for disturbing you at this hour, had not my finding you in company assured me I do not break in upon your repose." Bellarmine rose from his chair, traversed the room in a minuet step, and hummed an opera tune, while Horatio, advancing to Leonora, asked her in a whisper if that gentleman was not a relation of hers; to which she answered with a smile, or rather sneer, "No, he is no relation of mine yet;" adding, "she could not guess the meaning of his question." Horatio told ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... experience of three weeks Comte returned to neediness and contentment. He was not altogether without the young man's appetite for pleasure; yet when he was only nineteen we find him wondering, amid the gaieties of the carnival of 1817, how a gavotte or a minuet could make people forget that thirty thousand human beings around them had barely a morsel to eat. Hardship in youth has many drawbacks, but it has the immense advantage over academic ease of making the student's interest in men real, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... performed in pantomime and the bride and groom received the congratulations of their friends. The groom bowed low over the bride's hand and led her to the center of the hall. The other couples formed in line behind them and a stately minuet was danced. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... bandeaux, and other artificial head-gear paraphernalia, in bandboxes to boarding schools, and so on—a desire naturally sprung up within me, being now in my twenty-first year, and worth a guinea a week of wages, to look about for what old kind Seignor Fiddle-stringo, the minuet-master, used to recommend under the title of a cara sposa—open shop—and act head frizzle in an establishment ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... flourished in the last century under Bernini, and especially at its further cultivation in France. This school represented commonplace nature instead of antique beauty, and the manners of a French minuet instead of antique simplicity and grace. It became bankrupt when, under Winckelmann's direction, a return was made to the antique school. Another example is supplied in the painting belonging to the first quarter of this century. Art was regarded merely as a means and instrument ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... of men and women, and of life itself, since the greatest thing in it seemed to be this hateful, miscalled love that preceded sorrow and shame and death. Was love always loathsome to look upon? Not in pictures or on the stage, where it was represented as a kind of minuet in which the man makes graceful advances to a woman who smiles as she draws ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... day, however, Mr. Garfinkel fell afoul of Mr. Yoder because of the way he danced with Kedzie. It was a rough dance prettily entitled "Walking the Dog." Mr. Yoder, who did a minuet in satin breeches to his own satisfaction, pleased neither himself nor Mr. Garfinkel in the more modern ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... coats of many colors, broidered vests, knee breeches and silken hose, brilliant buckles at knee and on slippers, their long hair worn ringleted and curled, or tied in queues. In stately measure the graceful minuet would open the ball. Then the gayer strains of the old Virginia reel would cause even the dignified dame or sober squire to relax; and in laughter and merry-making the hours would speed, till the gradual paling of the stars ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... friend, Professor Morales and his family. They were expecting us and as our coche drew up at the curb, the door flew open and el profesor flew out, seized Cousin Ada's hand, held it high, and led her into the house, minuet fashion. The senora, a mountainous lady with a rather striking mustache and the bosom of her black gown sprinkled with a snow fall of powder which couldn't find even standing room on her face, conducted Cousin Dudley in the ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... things to the piano, a funeral-faced duck that could tell funny stories, and a bunch of six or eight likely-lookin' ladies and gents who'd laid themselves out to prance through what they called a minuet. Lastly there ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... uncommon to precede it by the Salute, which shows the scheme and various figures, as it were, of the attack and defence in a precise, ceremonious manner, and with the same kind of courtly ritual as that which distinguishes the minuet."—H. A. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... idle, these legs: there was no sitting cross-legged in a chair for St. George: he was not constructed along those lines. Hardly a week had passed before he had them across Spitfire's mate; had ridden to hounds; danced a minuet with Harry and Kate; walked half-way to Kennedy Square and back—they thought he was going to walk all the way and headed him off just in time; and best of all—(and this is worthy of special mention)—had ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... birthday cake with seventeen tiny candles was lighted up. And cake of every kind, and whipped cream and nuts and candies. Then we went back to the parlor and played "proverbs" and "What is my thought like?" and then black Joe came with his fiddle. First they danced the minuet. It was beautiful. And then they had what is called cotillions. I believe that is the new fashionable dance. It takes eight people, but you can have two or three at the same time. They dance in figures. And, oh, it is just delightful! I do ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... of Higgins had an enormous hall to which a large number of high windows gave the impression of a squint. I should think two small Zeppelins could have danced a minuet under its dome. Sarah Brown and the witch put on their cathedral look at once, by mistake, and propping their chins upon their umbrellas gazed ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... an expression so beautiful, so marvelously true and singing, it made me smile inwardly. My spirits rose because of his lavish approval, which did me good. After the first movement, I asked his permission to play a solo, and chose the Minuet, from the Humoresken." ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Dance Rhythms. 1. Waltz; 2. Minuet; 3. Tarantella. By Erskine Allon.—We have before alluded to these sketches, of which Mr. Allon has composed such excellent examples. We prefer No. 1 of the present series, but do not consider these to be equal ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... her magazine to the winds and caught his available left hand. "Oh, Lewie, you wretch! how glad we are to see you again." Meantime the dogs performed a solemn minuet around her ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... and silks, with gold buckles. Remarkably upright and somewhat pompous in his gait, and abominating the free-and-easy manners of the modern school, his bow would have graced the court of Versailles, and his step was a subdued minuet. Equipped with somewhat more than his wonted care, the rev. junior bursar of Oriel was introduced into Mrs Phillips's little drawing-room, accompanying, and strongly contrasting with, three gentlemen in scarlet and gold. Hurriedly did ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Helen when her vigilant chaperon was momentarily absorbed in a suggestion that private theatricals and the rehearsal of a minuet would relieve the general tedium while the ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... night, and I did not leave my canoness, who was a delightful woman and danced admirably. With my lady I only danced one minuet. Towards the end of the ball the general, to finish up with a piece of awkwardness, asked me if I was going soon. I replied that I did not think of leaving Cologne till after the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... antiquity, including Caesar and Hannibal and Pope Joan, may have been very glad, at my time of life or Alain's, to follow his example. 'Tis a misfortune common to all; and really,' said I, bowing to myself before the mirror like one who should dance the minuet, 'when the result is so successful as this, who would do ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saw. Instead of the ample proportions and regular system of European encampments, with the glitter and finish of their appointments; instead of feather-trimmed hats and violet-colored facings, with marching and countermarching in the precision and grace of a minuet, he saw a small army of eleven thousand men, poorly clad, with nothing that could by the utmost courtesy be called a uniform, and woefully lacking in ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... his dolls very secret and did not show them to anybody. But she heard of them from a churchman of the name of Fulgence, who haunted the castle, and swore he had seen those little creatures step out of their glass prisons and dance a minuet. And she had every reason to believe it. It is possible to doubt of what one sees, but you cannot doubt the word of an honest man, especially when he belongs to the Church. There is another misfortune with such secret practices, they are extremely costly and it is hard to imagine, as Cadette Saint-Avit ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... that can be pressed into service, providing suitable care is taken to avoid unpleasant side effects on the state of the processor: while the special-purpose register is being used to hold an intermediate value, a delicate minuet is required in which the previous value of the register is saved and then restored just before the official function (and value) of the special-purpose register ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... where the road begins to mount through pine woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her former minuet. Another application had the same effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over from head to foot; the poor brute's knees were trembling and her breathing was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... difficulties. Something of our contemporary impatience with fixed stanzaic forms is due perhaps to the failure to recognize that the greater poets succeed in making over every kind of poetic pattern in the act of employing it, just as a Chopin minuet differs from a Liszt minuet, although both composers are using the same fundamental form of dance music. We must allow for the infinite variety of creative intention, technique and result. The true defence of rhyme and stanza against the arguments of extreme advocates ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... to be thus receiv'd, rewards the Soldier's Toils; and, faith, we have maul'd the fancy French-men, near Twenty Thousand we left fast asleep, taught the remaining few a new Minuet-step, and sent 'em home to ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... but short was his Wing; He took but three leaps, and was soon out of sight, Then chirp'd his own praises the rest of the night. With step so majestic the Snail did advance, And promised the Gazers a Minuet to dance; But they all laughed so loud that he pulled in his head, And went in his own little chamber to bed. Then as Evening gave way to the shadows of Night, Their Watchman, the Glowworm, came out ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... before daylight arrived, and after that were treated to an unusually elaborate grooming. Finn had an exciting sense of impending change and adventure, and even Tara seemed moved to a stately kind of restlessness which kept her pacing the den as though performing a minuet, instead of sitting or lying at her ease. Tara seemed to be a good deal moved and excited when two bright nickel chains, with queer little tin medals attached to them, were produced, and fitted on two new ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... laced, would become you wonderfully well?—and a grey hat with a blue feather—and a pretty nag to ride on—and all the soldiers to present arms as you pass, and say, "There goes the Captain's lady"? What do you think of a side-box at Lincoln's Inn playhouse, or of standing up to a minuet with ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her; but his face did not flinch, and she was greatly relieved to think she had missed making the mistake of omitting a friend with so eligible a backing. Millard was invited, rather to his own surprise, and taken into preliminary councils as a matter of course. When the introductory minuet had been danced, and the ball was at its height, Philip Gouverneur, with a smile of innocence, led his friend straight to Miss Vandeleur, who proudly wore the very dress in which, according to a rather shaky tradition, her great-great aunt had ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... the elderly ally of the nobleman, "you could not drag the young ladies from cotillion or minuet. And the men would stay till the dawn ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... was! It began like a minuet and ended something like the haymakers. Griselda had not the least idea what the figures or steps were, but it did not matter. If she did not know, her shoes or something about her did; for she got on famously. The music was lovely—"so the mandarins can't be deaf, though they are dumb," ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... the place for three weeks and then resigned. He went back to the garret and sweet liberty—having had his taste of luxury, but miserable in it all—wondering how a gavotte or a minuet could make a man forget that he was living in a city where thirty thousand human beings were constantly only one meal beyond the sniff ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... lived close by. We were merry enough before the evening was out. Bella Barnes played the piano middling, and Maddie could sing first-rate, and all of them could dance. The last thing I recollect was Starlight showing Maddie what he called a minuet step, and Jonathan and the old woman sitting on the ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... The high mountains still wore their invisibility masks, but the lower mountains, not too proud to show themselves to motoring mortals, grouped as graciously together as if they were lovely ladies and gay knights, turned to stone just when they had assembled to tread a minuet. And the fair Glaslyn flowed past their feet with a swing and sweep, as though the crystal flood kept time to dance music which our ears were not ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... which the perfect sweetness, proceeding from the lips, was full of compensation; she had auburn hair of a hue that could be qualified as nothing less than gorgeous, and she seemed to move through life with a stately grace, as she would have walked through an old-fashioned minuet. Gentlemen connected with the navy have the advantage of seeing many types of women; they are able to compare the ladies of New York with those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with those of the Cape of Good Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... set forth the exposition of the opening movement, leading to a free development, with various episodes, and an assured return to the original statement. The prevailing character being thus defined, the story readily unfolds, aided by related keys, in a slow movement and perhaps a minuet or scherzo, and gains its denouement in a stirring finale, written in the original key. Each movement has its own subjects, its individual development, with harmony of plan and idea for a ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... up a quick-tripping minuet. The regiments advanced on curving lines. They interwove their ranks, making rainbows of colour; they rayed out in broadening bands of colour from Corona's footstool. Through a dozen of these evolutions she sat, and took all the homage imperially. It was not given to her, but to the idea ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... exhibited a notable historical work; early associated with Rossetti and Holman Hunt, he remained for over 20 years under their influence; to this period belong "The Carpenter's Shop," 1851, "Autumn Leaves," 1856, and "The Minuet," 1866; "The Gambler's Wife" marks the transition from Pre-Raphaelitism; his chief subsequent work, in which technical interest predominates, was portraiture, including Gladstone and Beaconsfield; he was a profuse illustrator, and wrought ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... conducted Mrs. Penniman to what he spoke of as the banqueting hall. He made almost a minuet of their progress. Under one arm he carried his bird to place it on the table, where later during the meal he would convulse the Wilbur twin by affecting to feed it bits of bread. Winona still hungered for details of the day's tragedy, but Dave must ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... those Spirits, which formerly raised his Fancy, and fired his Imagination. The same Folly hinders a Man from submitting his Behaviour to his Age, and makes Clodius, who was a celebrated Dancer at five and twenty, still love to hobble in a Minuet, tho he is past Threescore. It is this, in a Word, which fills the Town with elderly ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... The Minuet's cold and modish grace, Delirium of the Carmagnole, Fair France has known. How will she pace This frantic dance, and to what goal? Beginning in triumphant sport, She's tremulous now, with terror cold. The whirl so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... say the truth, I believe she used to drink away her Senses; and that is the best Excuse for her. Ah! how often hath she cast a jealous Eye on some Heifer! and cried out, Why should that vixen please my Love? Behold, says she, how the Slut dances a Minuet on the Grass before him: Let me die, but she is silly enough to think her Airs become her in my Love's Eyes. At length she resolved to punish her Rivals. One Heifer she ordered barbarously to be yoked to the Plough; another she condemned to be sacrificed, ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... herself was straight and elegant, and inclined to the ironical, when, as Jane Dudley, the belle of the country-side, she fired the fancy of young Julius Webb, an officer in the cavalry of the United States. He danced a minuet with her at a ball in Washington, was heard to swear an oath by her eyes at punch before the supper was over; and proceeded the following week to spur his courtship upon old William as daringly as he had ever spurred his horse ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... is afraid that he will have to back up against a fence sometime to hide his patches from you," laughed Roxanne in such merriment that anybody with any sense of pleasant humor would have joined her at the thought of the Idol and me dancing a minuet to keep out of each ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Armstrong' (his old nurse's favourite); how cheerfully he would put the front of his wig behind, or contribute in any other way to the general amusement; and to what accompaniment of uncontrolled laughter he once 'danced a minuet with Mrs. Seguin.'" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... works, you can still have Variations for two oboes and one English horn, on the theme from "Don Giovanni," "La ci darem la mano," and a Gratulation Minuet for a full orchestra. I should be glad, likewise, to have your opinion about the full edition of ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... Miss Mirvan danced a minuet; but I had not the courage to follow her example. In our walks I saw Lord Orville. He was quite alone, but did not observe us. Yet, as he seemed of no party, I thought it was not impossible that he might join us; and though I did ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... passed away from thee, my native State! Forever have they gone, and the times when over waxed floors thy sons and daughters gracefully performed the minuet. The stately bow, the graceful curtsey are seen no more; there is hospitality yet lingering in thy halls, but fashion is making its way there too. The day when there was a tie between master and slave,—is that ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... used to have in the good old times! Now there was your grandma, Mistress Velvetpaw, and there was your grandpa, Master Sniffwhisker,—how grave and dignified they were! Many a night have I seen them dancing upon the carpet below me, but always the stately minuet and never that crazy frisking which you are executing now, to my surprise—yes, ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field |
