"Nocturne" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognise the confidential stoop of his shoulders when he discusses la haute politique" said the dandy diplomatist. "But what a sacrilege upon a night like this! What a nocturne in blue and silver might be suggested by that moon rising above the desert. There is a movement in one of Mendelssohn's songs which seems to embody it all,—a sense of vastness, of repetition, the cry ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... its influence one need only compare the easy mastery of the arabesque displayed in the simplest piano piece of to-day with the awkward and gargoyle-like figuration of Beethoven and his predecessors. We may justly attribute this to Liszt rather than to Chopin, whose nocturne embellishments are but first cousins to those of the ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... But for two hours the man who was no longer manikin and the girl who in real life was only a frail little bookkeeper played to David: a brilliant polonaise, a nocturne that was moonlight and shadow set to music, a concerto that only the masters attempt, a few noble old classics. Between them she sang thrice, songs chosen by Jonathan, each a little more taxing than the one before. Not once did she falter and only once, in the last song where ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... the walls of his skull, that he saw—his mundane surroundings did not disturb his visions. And the waves of dolour swept over his consciousness. A mingling of tuberoses, narcissus, attar of roses, and ambergris he detected in the air—as triste as a morbid nocturne of Chopin. This was followed by a blending of heliotrope, moss-rose, and hyacinth, together with dainty touches of geranium. He dreamed of Beethoven's manly music when whiffs of apple-blossom, white rose, cedar, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... in the principal key may claim kinship with the opening of the Polish composer's "Polonaise" in the same key; while a certain strain in the melodious second subject brings to one's mind a Chopin Nocturne, also in F sharp minor; in neither case, however, is there anything amounting to plagiarism. The exposition section is not repeated. The development is clever, though, perhaps, somewhat formal. Again here, the ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of Faith, and the lesson of Romance. How grave you are! Don't be so serious. What have you or I to do with the superstitions of our age? No: we have given up our belief in the soul. Play me something. Play me a nocturne, Dorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept your youth. You must have some secret. I am only ten years older than you are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are really ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... morn when six months had swift glided away, Again at the instrument seated, Miranda a nocturne had just ceased to play, When old Thomas ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... of its own weakness to an exasperated sense of volatile colour and evanescent light. It is hardly possible to doubt that this is so when we look on these canvases, where, in all the stages of her repose, the night dozes and dreams upon our river—a creole in Nocturne 34, upon whose trembling eyelids the lustral moon is shining; a quadroon in Nocturne 17, who turns herself out of the light anhungered and set upon some feast of dark slumber. And for the sake of these gem-like pictures, whose ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... let you, spite of all endeavor, Mar some nocturne by a single note; Is there immortality of discord In your ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... enlivened the scene. One of these (Gauche Brothers, of Dallas) was of rare excellence, rendering "Bonnie Blue Flag," "Dixie," and an exquisite nocturne, "The Soldier's Dream" (composed for this occasion by the leader of this band), with so much expression and skill as to elicit great applause. The speaker's stand was beautifully ornamented. Hanging on either side of the rostrum was a Confederate battle-flag. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... poverty of color language tempts to a borrowing from the richer terminology of music. Musical terms, such as "pitch, key, note, tone, chord, modulation, nocturne, and symphony," are frequently used in the description of color, serving by association to convey certain ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... beautifully dressed doll which came once a month [139] from Paris to Soho to teach an expectant world of fashion how to dress itself? Old Paris! For young lovers at their windows; for every one fortunate enough to have seen it: "Qu'il est joli ce paysage du Paris nocturne d'il y a cent ans!" We think we shall best do justice to an unusually pretty book by taking one of M. Filon's stories (not because we are quite sure it is the cleverest of them) with a view to the more definite illustration ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... moment Liszt said: "No, no, it is not quite that." Hatzfeldt got up. Liszt seated himself at the piano, played two or three bits of songs, or waltzes, then, always talking to Hatzfeldt, let his fingers wander over the keys and by degrees broke into a nocturne and a wild Hungarian march. It was very curious; his fingers looked as if they were made of yellow ivory, so thin and long, and of course there wasn't any strength or execution in his playing—it was the touch of an old man, but a master—quite unlike ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... converging vistas, malls of trees, "civic centres," of what use to tell him that there may be a beauty as well of non-conformity, when the magic veil of twilight wraps the city round, and twinkling lamps climb unbelievable heights and all the town is a mighty nocturne in blue and gold? We would not be thought to say that New York is always beautiful, or that a great deal of it is not much of the time ugly beyond hope. But there is not a street of it from end to end but has some point of pictorial charm, whence one may see ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... not so sure. The lovely "nocturne" of the evening plain had passed into a Vision or Masque of Force that captured the mind. High above the gulf rose the towers of the great works, transformed by the surging fog and darkness into some piled and castled fortress; a fortress of ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
