"Waltz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Gallery ill-lit; rest of the rooms tolerable. The Queen's manner and bearing perfect. She danced, first with Prince George, then young Esterhazy, then Lord FitzAlan. Before supper, and after dancing, she sat on a sofa somewhat elevated in the drawing-room, looking at the waltzing; she did not waltz herself. Her mother sat on one side of her, and the Princess Augusta on the other; then the Duchesses of Gloucester and Cambridge and the Princess of Cambridge; her household, with their wands, standing all round; her manners exceedingly graceful, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... that flooded her. Formally his kiss had meant only a recognition of the day. Actually it had held for both of them a more personal significance, the swift outreach of youth to youth. But the dance was an escape. She had learned at Winnipeg the waltz of the white race. No other girl at Faraway knew the step. She chose to think that the constable had asked her because this stressed the predominance of her father's blood in her. It was a symbol to all present that the ways of the Anglo-Saxon ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... mothers or some old duennas, and the men on the other. When the music struck up each man asked the lady whom his eyes had already selected to dance with him, and it was not etiquette for her to refuse—no engagements being allowed before the music began. When the dance, which was generally a long waltz, was over, he seated his partner, and then went to a little counter at the end of the room and bought his dulcinea a plate of the candies and sweetmeats provided. Sometimes she accepted them, but most generally pointed to her duenna or chaperon behind, who held up her apron ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... An ordinary waltz; Yet distance gives it dignity. Who knows? Journeying through the woods the master haunted. Under the cyclamen, among the bracken, It may have chanced upon ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... sir, a commonwealth-but then they are all gentlemen-some very distinguished," she continues, shaking her head as if to caution us. Voices in loud conversation are heard in the room to the right, while from out the left float the mellow notes of a waltz, accompanied by the light tripping ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... with in the same class of any other country; and she at once enters into society with the ease and confidence of one who had been accustomed to it all her life. We used to flourish away at the bolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening with ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... emptiness. The motifs are more than familiar. After a funeral march of commonplace character and boisterous movement, where Beethoven seems to be taking lessons from Mendelssohn, there comes a scherzo, or rather a Viennese waltz, where Chabrier gives old Bach a helping hand. The adagietto has a rather sweet sentimentality. The rondo at the end is presented rather like an idea of Franck's, and is the best part of the composition; it is carried ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... been more radiant and more exulting in all her exulting life, drinking in even Mr. Harrison's rapturous compliments and finding nothing exaggerated in them. And in the meantime, Aunt Polly having suggested a waltz to close the festivities, the furniture was rapidly moved to one side, and the hostess herself took her seat at the piano and struck up the "Invitation to the Dance;" Mr. Harrison, who had been at Helen's side since her singing had ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... waltz in and put that other eye up in black clothes!" begged Page ecstatically, as he and Farley worked over ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... some music; it will play three tunes," said the Wizard, lifting the music-box from the bag. It first played "Coming Through the Eye," then "Violets Blue," and next struck up a lively German waltz. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was she losing her head? She could not help humming that waltz, during which Leon once held her in his arms. She was stifled. Oh, the flowers! She must go out, or at least open a window. But she could not rise; her strength had deserted her. Could she die thus? Two iron fingers ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... at the rate of more than sixty miles an hour; while that which swept through Frankfort, Kansas, on May 17, 1896, was fully a half-hour in crossing a half-mile stretch of bottom-land adjoining the Vermillion River, pausing in its dizzy waltz upon a single spot for long ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... from them somehow, and we passed under the tapestry curtains while one of the two Hungarian bands Mrs. Ess Kay had hired played a waltz which made ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... with flowers, gay curtains, flags, and cloths. The floor is shining like silver, and as polished as a mirror. The band strikes up the Blue Danube waltz, and amid the usual bustle, flirtation, scandal, whispering, glancing, dancing, tripping, sipping, and hand-squeezing, the ball goes gaily on till the stewards announce supper. At this—to the wall-flowers—welcome announcement, we adjourn from the heated ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... violinist was that she kept good time, but although it was extremely unlikely that any member of that audience recognized the fact, the boy was a musician by the divine right of gift, a gift bestowed at birth. A wheezy old piano, and yet he drew from it sweet and thrilling notes; a hackneyed, cheap waltz measure, and yet he invested it with the glamour ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... waltz figure in the mazurka, I waltzed with her for a long time, and breathing fast and smiling, she would say, 'Encore'; and I went on waltzing and waltzing, as though unconscious ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... roof making the theatre seem a festive ark, anchored among the hulks of houses, her frail cables of lanterns looping her to her moorings. A side door of the theatre opened suddenly and a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst of music issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the side door closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of the music. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supple movement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had been the cause ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... the company, lolled out his tongue, and whined with an almost human voice. The domestics, secretly incited by the Grand Marshal, exhausted their ingenuity in coaxing him, but in vain. Finally, one of them took a goblet of wine in one hand, and, embracing Mishka with the other, began to waltz. The bear stretched out his paw and clumsily followed the movements, whirling round and round after the enticing goblet. The orchestra struck up, and the spectacle, though not exactly what Prince Alexis wished, was comical enough to divert the ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... pay for this indulgence, having been compelled, by immemorial usage, on entering the room, to drink a bumper of the sparkling juice to the dregs in honour of the bride, to undergo the same ceremony of bride and bridegroom's salutation, and to whirl half a round of a waltz with the former. But I had made up my mind to bear even worse inconveniences than these, should it have been necessary, rather than forego the advantage of judging for myself of the truth or falsehood of the many exaggerated and fanciful descriptions given by travellers of a Russian ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... lay, ballad, ditty, carol, pastoral, recitative, recitativo^, solfeggio^. Lydian measures; slow music, slow movement; adagio &c adv.; minuet; siren strains, soft music, lullaby; dump; dirge &c (lament) 839; pibroch^; martial music, march; dance music; waltz &c (dance) 840. solo, duet, duo, trio; quartet, quartett^; septett^; part song, descant, glee, madrigal, catch, round, chorus, chorale; antiphon^, antiphony; accompaniment, second, bass; score; bourdon^, drone, morceau^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rather one night, there came a great sorrow,—a sorrow which robbed these terrestrial Paradises of half their brightness and more than half their joy. One evening he told her that he did not like her to waltz. "Why?" she innocently asked. They were in the brougham, going home, and she had been supremely happy at Mrs. Montacute Jones's house. Lord George said that he could hardly explain the reason. He made rather a long speech, in which he asked her whether she was ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... to his selection, where he used to sleep at night (fulfilling conditions), and always stopped at the fence to yarn with Kate about dancing. Sandy was a fine dancer himself, very light on his feet and easy to waltz with—so the girls made out. When the dancing subject was exhausted Sandy would drag some hair out of his horse's mane and say, "How's the concertina?" "It's in there," Kate would answer. Then turning round she would call ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... don't care whether I sleep or not. I feel gloriously, exultingly young. I am but twenty. As I have never lived, I have never grown old. Life translates itself into music—a wild "Invitation to the Waltz" by some Archangel Weber. I laugh out loud. Polyphemus, who has been regarding me with his one bantering eye from Carlotta's corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and grotesquely curvets round the room in a series of impish hops. Heigh, old boy? Do the pulsations ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... puris naturalibus, are basking in the sun, or regaling themselves on buns and cocoa. The whole place is vibrant with the intense zest the young feel in life, and with the whole-hearted powers of enjoyment of boyhood. A school-song set to a captivating waltz-lilt record the charms of Ducker. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of the waltz-song in Act I of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, are often phrased as indicated in the brackets, in order to give the singer a chance to take breath, which is ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... graceful as the bird, sprang from her seat and began to waltz about the room, her curls floating in the air, and her cheeks bright as a ripe peach. She looked like a ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... was open a little and the music, a waltz, came in a soft ripple from the drawing room. It was rhythmic and languorous, and Harry's feet would have moved to its tune at any other time, but he was too deeply absorbed in the conjectures and certainties that they were drawing with their ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the direction of the side window there came a burst of instrumental music. With it, singing the words of a waltz from a popular opera, blended a thin, ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... night Martha Josselyn had sat there with the waltz-music in her ears, and her little feet, that had had one merry winter's training before the war, and many a home practice since with the younger ones, quivering to the time beneath her robes, and seen other girls chosen out and led away,—young matrons, ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... horse and gig With promises to pay; And he pawned his horns for a spruce new wig, To redeem as he came away: And he whistled some tune, a waltz or a jig, And drove off ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... at the theatre; at the night-houses, after the play; at Tom Cribb's, examining the silver cup then in the possession of that champion; at the chambers of Bob Logic, who, seated at a cabinet piano, plays a waltz to which Corinthian Tom and Kate are dancing; ambling gallantly in Rotten Row; or examining the poor fellow at Newgate who was having his chains knocked off before hanging: all these scenes remain indelibly engraved upon the mind, and so far we are independent of all the circulating ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Buster found their cornets; Limpy-toes brought his flute, Wiggle his fife, Scamper the alto horn, and Nimble-toes his beloved drum. At a signal from Uncle Squeaky, the little band began to play Silvy's Waltz. ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... acquainted with the figures, makes himself ridiculous, and places his partner in an embarrassing and unenviable position. There is no need for him to know the steps. It is enough if he knows how to walk gracefully through the dance, and to conduct his partner through it like a gentleman. No man can waltz too well; but to perform steps in a quadrille is not only ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... the 'Wopples' Waltz', dedicated to Mr Theodore Wopples by Mr Handel Wopples, and during the performance of this Mr Villiers walked into the theatre. He was a little pale, as was only natural after such an adventure as he had been engaged in, but otherwise seemed all right. He walked up to the first row of ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... heart she remembers the number of each. It was he who was to have been her escort. It was he who made out her card and gave it to her only a day or two before that fatal interview. It was he who was to have had the last waltz—the very last—that he would dance in the old cadet gray; and though new names have been substituted for his in other cases, this waltz she meant to keep. Well knowing that there would be many to beg for it, she has written Willy's name for "Stanley," ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... sufficient to defray the expenses of six years' tuition. He went to Vienna at once and studied the piano with Czerny, besides taking lessons in composition from Salieri and Randhartinger. It was while in that city that his first composition, a variation on a waltz of Diabelli, appeared. In 1823 he went to Paris, hoping to secure admission to the Conservatory; but Cherubini refused it on account of his foreign origin, though Cherubini himself was a foreigner. Nothing ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... nobility on the space just in front of the dais. The rest of the hall is occupied by the other dancers, who later in the evening find their way into the diplomatic set. The dancing in the quadrilles and Lancers is of a rather stately and ceremonious sort. In waltz or galop the English always dance the same step, the deux temps, and the aim of the dancing couple is to go as much like a spinning-top as possible. They make occasional efforts to introduce puzzling novelties like the trois temps, the Boston dip, etc., but, I am glad to say, without any success. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... with the crowd. The orchestra struck up some jubilant ragtime that set the heart dancing and the heels tapping in tune. Brighter than ever seemed the lights; more dazzling the white and gilt of the walls. Some of the girls were balancing lightly to a waltz rhythm. There was a witching grace in their movements, and the Youth watched them intently. He looked down at his feet clad in ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... fill'd with a crowded mass of the worst wounded of the war, brought in from second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburgh. To-night, beautiful women, perfumes, the violin's sweetness, the polka and the waltz; then the amputation, the blue face, the groan, the glassy eye of the dying, the clotted rag, the odor of wounds and blood, and many a mother's son amid strangers, passing away untended there, (for the crowd of the badly hurt was great, and much for nurse ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... too fond of the-ourisin'.' He shuk hands wid me and sez, 'Hit high, hit low, there's no plasin' you, Mulvaney. You've seen me waltzin' through Lungtungpen like a Red Injin widout the warpaint, an' you say I'm too fond av the-ourisin'?'—'Sorr,' sez I, for I loved the bhoy; 'I wud waltz wid you in that condishin through Hell, an' so wud the rest av the men!' Thin I wint downshtrame in the flat an' left him my blessin'. May the Saints carry ut where ut shud go, for he was a fine upstandin' ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... dance taking in all of the girls, which they presented during the course of the evening. The music for it was the "Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz" and the girls impersonated in their dance the Danube River, winding through its green valley. The girls, dressed in light green, were the river itself, while Gladys, in a filmy white dress with water lilies ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... The phonograph was shrieking, "Waltz me around again, Willie." I am sure I love that beautiful song. The taste of the people who attend these cheap theaters is deplorable. [The three sentences should be ironical throughout, or not ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... which redoubled Montriveau's lowering looks. He stood in front of the line of spectators, who were amusing themselves by looking on. Every time that she came past him, his eyes darted down upon her eddying face; he might have been a tiger with the prey in his grasp. The waltz came to an end, Mme de Langeais went back to her place beside the Countess, and Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... College Hornpipe to the London University, had a long interview yesterday with Lord Palmerston to give his lordship lessons in the new waltz step. The master complains that, despite a long political life's practice, the pupil does not turn quick enough. A change was, however, apparent at the last lesson, and his lordship is expected soon to be able to effect a complete ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... resident physician of the sanitarium that was now bringing so many patients to Urbana. A handsome, dare-devil sort of boy was Powlett, who speedily cut out all the local beaux at the parties and picnics which filled the summer of '75. A beautiful dancer was he, and taught Almira to waltz and "glide" in a style never before seen in Urbana, and that other couples first derided, then envied, then vainly strove to imitate. That Urbana censors should go to the widow with invidious comment upon Almira's misbehavior was a matter ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... girls walked about the gymnasium, admiring the decorations. Mabel Ashe was fairly overwhelmed by her admirers. It seemed to Grace as though she attracted more attention than the receiving party itself. It was: "Mabel, dear, dance the first waltz with me;" "Come and drink lemonade with us, Queen Mab," and "Why, you dear Mabel, I might have known the sophomores couldn't get ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... not dancing," says the tall, gaunt man, who has now come up to her. "So much I have seen. Too warm? Eh? You show reason, I think. And yet, if I might dare to hope that you would give me this waltz——" ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... hunt for her. Ethically, it works out beautifully, for each partner to the hymeneal bargain is fat and full of content, happiness fairly oozing out of every oily pore. And is not happiness the goal of human endeavour, whether a man seeks it amid the electric lights, subtle perfumes, and dreamy waltz-music of a New York ballroom, or finds it seated with his community wives on a hummock of ice under ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... afternoon in a mood of tropic sunrise he collected rents, or with glad vagueness consented instantly to their postponement. "I've come about the rent again," he said beamingly to one delinquent tenant of his father's best client; and turned and walked away, humming a waltz-song, while the man was still coughing as a preliminary ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... I have an engagement," panted Judith, looking at her card. "Yes, it's a waltz and dear old Mr. Pete Barnes has put his name down. See!" She held it up for Jeff's inspection. Pete had written, "Set this dance out with your ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... brought someone to take your place, Miss Dexie. Play a waltz for us, Miss Chester," and Guy took ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... to be the only rivalry of nations; Paris was, of course, to lead France; France, of course, to lead the globe;—all was to be beauty, bonhommie, and bonbons! And, under the shade of the triumphant tricolor, all nations were to waltz, make epigrams, and embrace ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... "That's the new waltz. My sister was raving about it. I think it's pretty bad. I expect she danced it with ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... of music now floated towards them from the ball- room,—the strains of a graceful, joyous, half-commanding, half- pleading waltz came rhythmically beating on the air like the measured movement of wings,—and Denzil Murray, beginning to grow restless, walked to and fro, his eyes watching every figure that crossed and re-crossed the ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... now, and I've worn it only three times. It's awfully expensive—but it's the thing now, you know, so one must have it." Her eyes fell on Sally's dress as she spoke. "Sally Lane!" she half-shrieked into Sally's ear, as, at the moment, the orchestra burst into a swinging waltz, "if that isn't the very same embroidered Swiss that you had for my wedding, almost four years ago, when you were a ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... knew nothing of the impending blow. Edith smiled graciously on him; she felt that, like the sun, she could shine on all that night. But as, in his insolence, his attentions grew marked, she soon shook him off by permitting Gus Elliot to claim her for a waltz. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... place, and Sanine's curious gaze was riveted on her white silhouette in the moonlight. Sarudine now came from the lighted drawing-room on to the veranda. Sanine distinctly heard the faint jingling of his-spurs. In the drawing-room Tanaroff was playing an old-fashioned, mournful waltz whose languorous cadences floated on the air. Approaching Lida, Sarudine gently and deftly placed his arm round her waist. Sanine could perceive that both figures became merged into one that swayed ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as the wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I vowed at that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with another than myself, if I ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... or a merry span Of years uncounted when convulsion ran Right through the veins of me, to make me blest, And yet accurst, in that revolving quest Known as a waltz,—if waltz indeed it were And not a fluttering dream of gauze and vair And languorous eyes? I scarce can muse thereon Without a pang too sweet for me ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... and standing with his two hands on the marble rail he looked down into the room below. The music of a waltz was just beginning, and some of the more enthusiastic spirits had already begun dancing, moving in and out among the uniforms and ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... the Moorish kiosk. Number nine went up on the board. It was a waltz tune. The pale girls, the old widow lady, the three Jews lodging in the same boarding-house, the dandy, the major, the horse- dealer, and the gentleman of independent means, all wore the same blurred, drugged expression, and through the chinks in the planks at their ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... eminently a nation of vagabonds. The sun paints English faces with all the colours of his climes. The Englishman is ubiquitous. He shakes with fever and ague in the swampy valley of the Mississippi; he is drowned in the sand pillars as they waltz across the desert on the purple breath of the simoom; he stands on the icy scalp of Mont Blanc; his fly falls in the sullen Norwegian fiords; he invades the solitude of the Cape lion; he rides on his donkey ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... sharp and keen. It swept across the wide common, whirling up the dust, lifting the paper and rags and making them waltz. Ashes fell like rain in the narrow passage where Jerry stood. Then a whooping gust caught a lot of stuff, and forming a miniature cyclone, headed straight for Jerry. Before the poor fellow knew what he was doing, ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... arrives. 'It is a waltz, I think,' Miss Larkins doubtfully observes, when I present myself. 'Do you waltz? ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... that he was—and with the perspiration rolling in streams down his face, went in search of some frozen cranberries to refresh himself after his violent exertion. To this dance, which is called the "Russki" (roo'-ski), succeeded another known as the "Cossack waltz," in which Dodd to my great astonishment promptly joined. I knew I could dance anything he could; so, inviting a lady in red and blue calico to participate, I took my place on the floor. The excitement was perfectly indescribable, when the two Americans began revolving ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... so many hours, came flying and turning cart-wheels down the lawn and shouting, "Acquitted! acquitted!" Echoing the cry, Michael scampered across the lawn to Rosamund and wildly swung her into a few steps of what was supposed to be a waltz. But the company knew Innocent and Michael by this time, and their extravagances were gaily taken for granted; it was far more extraordinary that Arthur Inglewood walked straight up to Diana and kissed her as if it had been his sister's birthday. Even Dr. Pym, though he refrained from ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... on for an hour; and the rivalry between Johnny and the young Spaniard grew in intensity. Certainly Mercedes did nothing to modify it. The scene became more animated and more interesting. A slow, gliding waltz was danced, and several posturing, stamping dances in which the partners advanced and receded toward and from each other, bending and swaying and holding aloft their arms. It was very pretty and graceful and captivating; ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... man at the piano, who always looked half asleep, thundered out the first bars of the latest waltz, and the business began. ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... ye have served my turn to-day, and I shall not forget." They danced to exquisite waltz music, hovering above Faust, and gradually disappeared in ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... tavern for refreshment and Nedda is left alone. There is a little trouble in her mind caused by the fierceness of Canio's voice and looks. Does he suspect? But why yield to such fancies and fears? How beautiful the mid-August sun is! Her hopes and longings find expression in the "Ballatella"—a waltz tune with twitter of birds and rustle of leaves for accompaniment. Pretty birds, where are you going? What is it you say? Mother knew your song and used once to tell it to her babe. How your wings flash through the ether! Heedless of cloud and tempest, on, on, past ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... to me," said Fleda; "not always in such a cheerful mood as to-day, though. It talks to me often of a thousand old-time things, and sighs over them with me, a most sympathizing friend! but to-day he invites me to a waltz Come!" ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... in grand style with congenial grisettes; and, finally, there was a fancy ball at the Waldhorn, or some such place, or several of them, over the river, where peasants and students with maids to match could waltz once round the vast hall for a penny till stopped by a cordon of robust rustics. We thought it great fun with our partners to waltz impetuously and bump with such force against the barrier as to break through, in which case ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... to care for us, and I could not resist torturing my victim to the utmost. Fool that I was! Cousin Latimer came up to me once more. Though annoyed and hurt, he mustered a good-humoured smile as he said, 'For the third and last time, will you dance with me?' 'But you don't waltz half as well as Captain Normanton,' I replied; 'I like him best;' and away I whirled again with the ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... is an organ playing in the street—a waltz, too! I must leave off to listen. They are playing a waltz which I have heard ten thousand times at the balls in London, between 1812 and 1815. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... whirling about on the light fantastic toe with a zest and spirit truly inspiring. Old gentlemen with bald heads seemed to have forgotten their age and infirmities, and whirled the blooming damsels around in the dizzy mazes of the waltz as dexterously as the youngest; and young gentlemen hopped about quite frantic with joy, and altogether bewildered with the beauty of their partners. It was really a pretty sight. Rarely had I seen ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... clerk of the weather be a decent fellow, who will take a bribe, Tilton's the boy to stuff him, and my reward will be a waltz at the ball, and do please let me make sure of it now." Taking out his tablets, "just write your name and the date here; oh, thanks abundantly, and I'm sure, the weather fellow ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... present amongst the ladies, and then danced with all the other women in turn, according to rank. How Fanny trembled, and how her heart began to beat, when she saw him approaching her. Lady Szentirmay had just been carried off by some young cavalier for a waltz, and she was ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... as we had in Terry, and I was sure that he was having all he could do to keep on the crown of the road. At any moment, slowly as we were going, the heavily laden car might become skittish and begin to waltz, a feat which would certainly first surprise and then alarm the ladies, even if it ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... prouder body, sounded a more ironic and disdainful laughter, breathed a rarer air than had beat and moved and sounded and breathed in music. It made drunken with pleasant sound, with full rich harmonies, with exuberant dance and waltz movements. It seemed to adumbrate the arrival of a new sort of men, men of saner, sounder, more athletic souls and more robust and cool intelligences, a generation that was vitally satisfied, was less torn and belabored by the inexpressible longings of the romantic world, a generation ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... won't do at all," said Harry, who had already got her hand within his arm. "A fellow is always entitled to five minutes, and then I am down for the next waltz." ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... delightful science seldom reaching higher than the accompanying of a song so as to set off a tolerable voice, or aid a weak one, and the attracting a circle of beaus round a young lady, while she exhibits the nimbleness of her fingers in the execution of a darling waltz, or touches the hearts of the fond youths with a plaintive melody accompanied with false notes. Thus far, or but little further, does music extend, save in a few scattered instances. Like a plover-call, it is used to allure the fluttering tribe into the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... melodies of Lanner in a rhythm which did not demand more than about one hundred and sixty movements in a minute; but soon came Johann Strauss the father, and the average waltzing rhythm was two hundred and thirty a minute, and finally the king of the waltz, Johann Strauss the younger, and Vienna danced at the rhythm of three hundred movements. But another mental effect is still more significant than the impulse to increase rapidity. The uniformity of the movements, and especially ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... speak of all the frailty and all the mysteries which seem puerile to those who do not respect them? Shall I tell you that when you left me in anger I shut myself up to read your first letters; that there is a favorite waltz that I never played in vain when I felt too keenly the suffering caused by your presence? Ah! wretch that I am! How dearly all these unnumbered tears, all these follies, so sweet to the feeble, are purchased! ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... Golden, of Panama, the waltz and the two-step were solemn affairs. She could make her feet go in a one-two-three triangle with approximate accuracy, if she didn't take any liberties with them. She was relieved to find that Todd danced with a heavy accuracy which kept her from stumbling.... But their performance ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... was loud. A wild waltz melody Flowed rhythmic forth. The nobodies paraded. And thro' my dream went pulsing fast and free: Her ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... opened up with a march: the muffled sounds came up in steady rhythm: they were opening the dance with a polonaise. Tonio Kroeger sat still awhile and listened. But when he heard the march-time change to a waltz, he got up and glided noiselessly out of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... make way for a succession of suitors, who, in low and pleading tones, besought the honor of her hand in the waltz that was about to begin. But to each of these in turn she excused herself, upon the plea that ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Lines with the Lily. They found it very easy to catch Step together and he did an expert Job of Piloting during the Waltz so as not to get her mussed up, and the consequence was that he made ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... bit late with these things," I explained. "The waltz came to England in 1812, but I didn't really master it ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... Phil Turner again at length at a regimental dance. As usual her card was quickly filled, but she reserved a waltz for him, and after a while he came across and asked ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... came to an end, and the smooth earth which constituted the floor of the enclosure was vacated for an instant. Then the musicians began a favorite Mexican waltz, and there was a scurrying of young men and women for places. There was an eager movement along the rows of seats by young fellows who sought partners for the waltz. Custom permitted any man to seek any disengaged woman and invite ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... wings spread for flight, a sphere upheld by four allegorical figures, whose attitude, as if they were twirling their burden, suggests a vague waltz measure, a marvel of equilibrium which perfectly produces the illusion of the earth's revolution; and there are arms raised as a signal, bodies of heroic size, containing an allegory, a symbol that brings death and immortality ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the castle hall and found it full of noble ladies and knights, servants, waiting maids, flower girls, all motionless and yet the flush of life on their cheeks. The dancers seemed about to whirl away in the waltz; the musicians bent over their violins; and a servant was in the act of passing cakes to the guests—yet they all held the same fixed position, and had since that day years ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... brilliant—pink-and-white marquees were dotted here and there on the smooth velvet lawns—bright flags waved from different quarters of the gardens, signals of tennis, archery, and dancing,—and the voluptuous waltz-music of a fine Hungarian band rose up and swayed in the air with the downward floating songs of the birds and the dash of fountains in full play. Girls in pretty light summer costumes made picturesque groups under the stately ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... hour. A sense of duty was apparent in the merest trifle, and her following out of the divine command of obedience to parents, was only equalled by the unbounded affection she felt for them. A wish was once expressed by her mother that she should not waltz, and no solicitation could afterwards tempt her. Her mother also required her to read sermons, and study religion and the Bible regularly; this was readily submitted to, first as a task, but afterwards with much delight; for evidence of which we cannot do better ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... a bar or two of a new waltz, took a puff at his cigarette, winked affably at the idol, put on his coat, and without a second glance at the glass went out whistling ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Lodges, and their connections, came to dinner. We dined in the new State Dining-room and we drank the health of you and all the rest of both families that were absent. After dinner we cleared away the table and danced. Mother looked just as pretty as a picture and I had a lovely waltz with her. Mrs. Lodge and I ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... noticing her. This young girl had not struck his fancy. It was one night at a ball, on seeing her dancing with Prince Panine, that he perceived that she was marvellously engaging. His eyes were attracted by an invincible power and followed her graceful figure whirling through the waltz. He secretly envied the brilliant cavalier who was holding this adorable creature in his arms, who was bending over her bare shoulders, and whose breath lightly touched her hair. He longed madly for Jeanne, and from that moment ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... girl's undulating languor to the door, opened it, then charged suddenly upon Octavia Dean, twirled her round in a wild waltz and bore her away; appearing a moment after on the playground demurely walking with her arm around her companion's waist in an ostentatious confidence at once lofty, exclusive, and exasperating to ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... stage and in other Tyrolese villages, but never have I seen it danced with the abandonment of those young peasants in that little kitchen on the Achensee. They were all beautiful dancers. The young "shipmaster" seized our pretty Rosa around the waist, and they began to waltz. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, they fell apart, with a yell from the boy which curdled the blood in our veins. Rosa continued waltzing alone, with her hands on her hips, while her partner did a series of cart-wheels ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... he, writing his name against each tick. "We'll sit those out. The next waltz, though, we will ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... classification of tap and step dancing, we teach the buck and wing dance, the waltz clog, the straight clog (which is like an English clog or a Lancashier clog), jigs, reels, and the old form of what we call step dancing, which was popular forty years ago in the old "variety" days. They ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... by good girls and tolerated by good mothers does not prove that it is good. Custom blunts the edge of many perceptions. A good thing soiled may be redeemed by good people; but waltz as many as you may, spotless maidens, you will only smut yourselves, and not cleanse the waltz. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... waist-belts, and rings in their ears. A procession of black-garbed monks wends slowly along; they have come from the silence of the Armenian convent over there at the horizon. Some wandering minstrels shoot their gondola into the mouth of the canal, and strike up a gay waltz, while they watch the shaded balconies above. Here is a Lascar ashore from the big steamer that is to start for Alexandria on the morrow. A company of soldiers, with blue coats, canvas trousers, and white gaiters, half march and half trot along to the quick, crackling music of the buglers. ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... person of Skye, Who waltz'd with a Bluebottle fly: They buzz'd a sweet tune, to the light of the moon, And entranced ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... JACK and NED DE RESZKE Romeo and The Friar. Why the waltz alone, which ought to be on every organ besides Miss EAMES'S, but which, strange to say, isn't thoroughly popular, should be enough to make an Opera; but it's like the proportion of one swallow in the composition of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... reminiscences of mining-camps and cattle ranches made all permissible works of fiction tame. She had given the French dancing master, who was teaching them a polite version of a Spanish waltz, an exposition of the real thing, as practised by the Mexican cow-punchers on her guardian's ranch. It was a performance that left him sympathetically breathless. The English riding master, who came weekly in the spring and autumn, to teach the girls a correct trot, ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... the true critic. Let him put his mark of approval on your work, and not all the critical words can bury it or hinder its light. But Time does not pass his opinion till long after one is dead. The first waltz, dearest, if you think you can stand it. You ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... Waltz" was a great favorite and the opening bars were beginning, "Hun" Williams, leader of the orchestra, putting a good swing into it. Renestine and Jaffrey glided with the rhythm of the music and danced until the last strains closed the tuneful composition. Throwing a lace scarf about her ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... The waltz struck up, and off they whirled; Dinah went into it as if she were working for pay, and as Joe held her closely in his arms, her wide hoops expanded till she looked like a topsail schooner ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... if he had not heard and strolled to the door. He opened it, and at once the room was filled with the plaintive alluring strains of waltz-music. He stood and looked back. Dinah met the look, and suddenly she ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... attack! how I longed for some flank movement to draw off her attention! I was weaving futile plans of escape, when suddenly a radiant creature in blue and white gauze, the swirl of whose long skirts I had watched as I listened to Mrs. Dwight, paused in the waltz close beside me, turned, looked me in the face and patted my arm with her fan. "Floyd!" she cried, "Floyd Randolph! don't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Mac's scorn, the simplest comforts became foolish luxuries. "A couple of changes of everything is stacks," he said encouragingly, clearing a space for packing. "There's heaps of soap and water at the station, and things dry here before you can waltz round twice." ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... sailor sings songs with the merriest or most blackguard words to the most dirge-like tunes; but our fishermen sing religious words to the liveliest tunes they can learn. I notice they are fonder of waltz rhythms than of any others. The merchant sailor will drawl the blackguard "I'll go no more a-roving" to an air like a prolonged wail; the fisherman sings "Home, beautiful home" as a lovely waltz. Blair always encouraged the men to sing a great deal, ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... A regimental band of fifty pieces plays "Around the World," by order of Prince Nicholas F, who exerts himself to make things pleasant for us in the garden. The famed beauties of Georgia, Circassia, and Mingrelia, masked and costumed, promenade and waltz with Russian officers, and sometimes join Circassian officers in a charming ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... way, launched forth into the unkindest references to deaf old worldlings keeping in the deafening world; and gouty gluttons limping to their gouty gormandizings; and corseted coquets clasping their corseted cavaliers in the waltz, all for disinterested society's sake; and thousands, bankrupt through lavishness, ruining themselves out of pure love of the sweet company of man—no envies, rivalries, or other unhandsome motive ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... be no farm on this little bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see that there were signs of a cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face under the horn-blower's broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its wearer, log huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity to waltz before the lad's eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation in his own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement. For as he advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a dizziness from long tramping in the woods, and from ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... "A waltz," he repeated, and turned to the cabinet where the rolls were kept. He trod off the old roll and trod on the new, a slave at the mill, uncomplaining and beautifully well bred. "Rum; Tum; Rum-ti-ti; Tum-ti-ti..." The melody wallowed oozily along, like ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... sentimentalism and operatic romance. If Nature wishes primarily to entrap us into sexual union, then all the means of sexual attraction, even the most maudlin or theatrical, are justified at one stroke. The guitar of the troubadour is as practical as the ploughshare of the husbandman. The waltz in the ballroom is as serious as the debate in the parish council. The justification of Anne, as the potential mother of Superman, is really the justification of all the humbugs and sentimentalists whom Shaw ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... he had large feet, and legs slightly bowed. He moved in the cotillon or waltz with a certain elephantine ponderousness and sagacity. Therefore she ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... owed nothing to any salve. Her nose was almost patrician, and her cheeks were tinted with the bloom of exquisite fruit. Her gown was extremely decollete, revealing shoulders and arms of perfect ivory beauty. She was dancing a waltz with a man in elaborate evening dress, who had discarded orthodox sobriety for crude embellishments. The string band in the orchestra was ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the innocent and simple enjoyment of the hour. They were mostly middle-aged married folk, but some were old enough to have sons and daughters among the young people who went and came in a long, wandering promenade of the piazzas, or wove themselves through the waltz past the open windows of the great parlor; the music seemed one with the light that streamed far out on the lawn flanking the piazzas. Every one was well-dressed and comfortable and at peace, and I felt that our hotel was in some sort a ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... he said. And to Mackenzie: "Don't try to throw any tricks on me, bud, but waltz around and ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... in order to win Marie Louise's affection, did more undignified things than he had ever done for any woman. For instance, one day when he was alone with Queen Hortense and the Princess Stephanie, the latter mischievously asked him if he knew how to waltz; and his Majesty replied that he had never been able to go beyond the first lesson, because after two or three turns he became so dizzy that he was compelled to stop. "When I was at l'ecole militaire," added the Emperor, "I tried again and again to overcome dizziness which waltzing ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... prisoners, casting a mournful look on the scene now presented in that apartment where, only two nights before, he had seen the heads of the two young girls and the three young men turning giddily in the waltz. He shuddered as he thought how soon they would fall, struck off by ...
— El Verdugo • Honore de Balzac
... hammocks. These contrivances being hung from the roof swing freely, and the special excitement is to hold on with both hands, and run round so that the hammock twists into a knot and spins when released, with the baby inside it, in a giddy waltz till the coil untwists itself. This looks dangerous, and when the game was first invented we rather demurred. But we are wiser now, and we let them spin. Lulla especially enjoys this madness. It is startling to see the tiny thing whirl like a reckless ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... twisting and dying... Screeching of steam-glutted cauldrons rending... Shock of leviathans prone on each other... Scaled flanks touching, ore entering ore... Steel haunches closing and grappling and swaying In the waltz of the mating locked mammoths of iron, Tasting the turbulent fury of living, Mad with a moment's exuberant living! Crash of devastating hammers despoiling.. Hands inexorable, marring What hands had ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... by our seeing the purser lead out one of the fat ladies, behind whom Dicky had been hid, to attempt a waltz. Never was there a more extraordinary performance. Neither of them had a notion of the dance. They floundered and flolloped, and twisted and turned, and tumbled against all the other couples, till they spread consternation around; ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... to him: "You won't go away again, I hope. We are going to have a little party before long, and you must come, and I want to see you waltz with my cousin. She waltzes beautifully, and I want to see her with a good ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... to get out of Confederate hands that it wants to dance, and it is indulging in a waltz," replied ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... fluttering their fans. The first notes of a Hungarian waltz floated in from the next room. The gentlemen came to claim their partners. At last Andrea was able to offer Elena his arm ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... brought in; the Professor illustrates his patent method of teaching him to stand while being groomed, by tying a rope to his tail, seizing the halter in one hand and the rope in the other, and obliging the horse to perform an involuntary waltz, after which he mounts him and continues his discourse.) Now it occasionally happens To some riders that when they want To go down G. Street, their horse has a sort of idea he'd like to go up E. Street, and he generally does go ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... should be arranged beforehand, and for large balls programmes are printed with a list of the dances. Usually a ball opens with a waltz, followed by a quadrille, and these are succeeded by galops, lancers, polkas, quadrilles and waltzes ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... and sublimity was made to give way to a more temperate and stoical standard. In due time the Rationalists effected their purpose. Secular music was introduced into the sanctuary; an operatic overture generally welcomed the people into church, and a march or a waltz dismissed them. Sacred music was no longer cultivated as an element of devotion. The oratorios and cantata of the theatre and beer-garden were the Sabbath accompaniments of the sermon. The masses consequently began to sing less; and ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the gorgeousness of the immense theater, the glitter of the lights, the brilliancy and variety of the costumes, the enlivening strains of music, the mirth of the browd, and, above all, the the untiring velocity with which the dancers whirl themselves through the mazes of the waltz, polka and mazourka, present an appearance of bewindering gayety not to be described. * * * * On some occasions of special enthusiasm the crowd take up the leader of the orchestra with the most frantic plaudits, and in more than one instance have carried him in triumph ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... humming his favourite waltz as he departed; and Noel turned back to his partner with ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... all settled, ye'd better waltz in and have your whiskey and coffee afore the stage starts. Ye kin comfort yourselves that it ain't stolen or pizoned, even if it is served up to ye by Snapshot Harry's niece!" With another easy gesture she swung the demijohn over her arm, and, offering a tin cup to ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... about that. From the window close at hand came out the excruciating strains of a very lusty instrument, and the record was that of a vulgar "catchy" waltz-tune, taken down from a brass-band. All Riseholme knew what her opinion about gramophones was; to the lover of Beethoven they were like indecent and profane language loudly used in a public place. Only one, so far as was known, had ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... with consummate thoroughness. The character of Richelieu is one that the elder Booth could never act. He tried it once, upon urgent solicitation, but he had not proceeded far before he caught Joseph around the waist, and with that astonished friar in his arms proceeded to dash into a waltz, over which the curtain was dropped. He had no sympathy with the moonlight mistiness and lace-like complexity of that weird and many-fibred nature. It lacked for him the reality of the imagination, the trumpet blare and tempest rush ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... and scattering the last elements of the Protestant Reformation, they blindly and falsely talk of a Reformed France. The people applaud, instead of suppressing these false teachers. The highest dignitaries of the church waltz with quack-prophets, pick pockets and public women. The invisible world of Satan is displayed and the smoke of its torment goes up continually. No provision is made for the general education of the common people and yet the ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... times upon a night like this. Read it, you blazing ass! I'm not insane.—Here, Mamie," I continued, opening the bedroom door, "come out and make it up with me, and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the supper, let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll waltz with you till sunrise." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... certainly not more than four, who had been put to watch a little babe, of not more than a year old (for one of our party had asked), and who was just beginning to run away, the girl teaching him to walk, and who was so animated by the music, that she began to waltz with him, and the two babes whirled round and round, hugging and kissing each other, as if the music had made them mad. There were two fiddles and a bass viol. The fiddlers,—above all, the bass ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... prepares to bound into her ecstasy of motion. Away! The song soars into the air as if it had the wings of a kite. Here swooping, there swooping, wheeling upward, falling suddenly, checked, poised for a moment on quivering wings, and again away. It is waltz-time, and you hear the Hours dancing to it. Then the horns. Their melody overflows into the air richly, like honey of Hybla; it wafts down in lazy gusts, like the scent of the thyme from that hill. So ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... read novels by the Duchess, or knit on a pair of blue woollen wristlets, which she kept wrapped up in a towel and gave to the wardrobe woman to hold when she went on. One night there was a quicker call than usual, owing to Ada Howard's failing to get her usual encore for her waltz song, and Brady hurried them. The wardrobe woman was not in sight, so Agnes handed her novel and her knitting to M'Gee and said: "Will you hold these for me until I come off?" She looked at him ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... lady walked to the edge of the porch, pulled down a spray of the fragrant vine and looked out through it to the blue hills beyond the meadows. She hummed a waltz-song this time, and her eyes were dancing as if she were meditating some further assault on the Doctor's imperturbability. He came back and stood beside her, and was just about to make a tentative remark when Mother Mayberry hurried around the side ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... delicate nasal twang. If the result is not something approaching to the sound required, you must relinquish all hope of achieving it, as I did. Luckily, my business was to dance, and not to apostrophize the lady; and accordingly, when the waltz struck up, I hastened to claim, in the dumbest show, the honour of her hand. Although my dancing qualifications have rather rusted during the last two or three years, I remembered that the time was not so very far distant when even the fair Mademoiselle E— had graciously pronounced me ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... and looking his way, ordered the music to begin. There seemed nothing out of the way in all this to Simon as he tucked his fiddle beneath his chin, and drawing the bow across the strings, commenced playing a waltz. Partners were chosen, and the dancing began. Simon, as usual, went from one tune to another, but these people never tired; all night long the dancing continued; and when Simon, weary and thirsty, paused from habit to reach for the mug of ale which was not at ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... to be asking one another where this new arrival had come from, and to be saying to one another that she would take their lovers from them. Young women who were walking about the hall in pairs, with their arms about one another's waists as if for a waltz, made her lower her eyes as they passed in front of her, and then went on with a contemptuous shrug, turning their heads to look ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... singularly human. Much of the time was spent in trying on gorgeous clothes: gold-laced coats, and embroidered waistcoats, which had been sent by Paris tailors. Some of it was passed in the acquisition of accomplishments, notably in learning to waltz. Every day he sent a letter with flowers to meet the new Empress at every stage of her progress, and every day he received a reply from ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... pleasantly. Some of the Gentlemen of the 13th had too loyally celebrated the King's Birthday, however, they did dance, and thanks to the Germans, we have some new figures, and two of them amused us very much with a Waltz, which we were very curious to see. [32] Your sisters and two men finished with a Reel, but as we were the only ladies remaining at one o'clock, we were obliged to come away, tho' the Dragoons all indignantly exclaimed that it was not keeping the Birthday. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... places with the calm indifference of the more accustomed native of Frankistan. He is willing, however, to commingle with the females of his European neighbors' household, even to embrace them in the mysteries of the mazy polka or waltz; but he hesitates admitting that such are the advantages or benefits of civilization. Indeed, it may be doubted whether his own wife and daughters would suffer such, were they told that they might do so without fear of reproach; for it is mostly to the mothers and wives that the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... by skating at the rink and assemblies in the town-hall, where we meet a medley of ball goers and givers, each indulging his or her favourite style of dancing—from the old fashioned "three-step" waltz preferred by the elders, to the breathless "German," the simple deux temps, and the graceful "Boston" dance, peculiar as yet to Americans and Canadians. The band was composed of trained musicians who had belonged to various regiments, and, on receiving their discharge, remained in Canada. The hall ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... as to those vers de societe in which a profound truth may be found in a comic mask, or the foibles which scolding could not reach may be reflected in the mirror held up in gayety of heart. As well might we deny that a waltz is music, and claim the name of music only for a funeral march or a nocturne, as deny that Shakespeare's description of Queen Mab is as much poetry as the stately words in which Prospero compares the vanishing of his insubstantial ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... spared from the travelers' meal gave a slight air of restoration to these mysterious offerings, and a couple of splendid butterflies, whether attracted by the flowers or the alcoholic perfume, commenced to waltz around the bouquet; but the corollas contained no honey for their diminutive trunks, and after a slight examination ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... Scotch waltz?" asked Wilhelm laughing, and the wine and his youthful blood glowed ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... and cries, and distracted movements of the crowd of Luker Gatherers there, would have skairt him to death. He never would have lived to follow Miss Abraham round from pillow to post through summer and winter seasons — he wouldn't have lived to waltz, or toboggen, or suffer other civilized agonies. No, he would have been a dead patriark. And better off ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... weighs one hundred and ninety-eight. He gave me another somnolent grin, and fell into deeper slumber. I would have made him move about, but I might as well have tried to make Cleopatra's needle waltz around the room with me. Tom's breathing became stertorous, and that, in connection with ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... which?—the shepherd of the dale, contemptuous of gender, except in his own species, has called, and as long as they two coexist will call, the "Yellow Sally." A fly that does not waste the day in giddy dances and the fervid waltz, but undergoes family incidents with decorum and discretion. He or she, as the case may be,—for the natural history of the river bank is a book to come hereafter, and of fifty men who make flies not one knows the name of the ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... touched my vanity—which was great—and more than that; he displayed that sincere appreciation which always arouses an artist to his best effort, and, too, in an unexplainable manner, makes him feel like shedding tears. I showed my gratitude by playing for him a Chopin waltz with all the feeling that was in me. When I had finished, my mother's eyes were glistening with tears; my father stepped across the room, seized me in his arms, and squeezed me to his breast. I am certain that for that moment he was proud to be ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... on the stair, a girl's low laughter, Rustle of silks, shy knuckles tapping the oak, Dinner and mirth upsetting my rooms, and, after, Music, waltz upon waltz, till the June ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... millions of dollars. These young men are not of the kind of whom the metropolitan ass writes as saying "youbetcherlife," and calling everybody "pardner." They are many of them college graduates, who can brand a wild Maverick or furnish the easy gestures for a Strauss waltz. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye |
