"Contralto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of getting newspaper work of some sort through one letter of introduction I have," answered Win, "or into a choir as contralto from the other. If not—oh, well, every one says America's the country ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... retired again) came guffaws, and gurgles, and wails of laughter. The three men in the automobile eyed each other inquiringly. The laughter drew nearer. They could distinguish, amid mirth unmistakably negroid, a beautiful contralto voice demanding. "Did you see 'em skedaddle, Lige? Oh, wasn't it glorious! Riding on their stomachs, their ears, any old way. Holding on with ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... workers was a naked laughing boy, with a fine contralto that rang out so merrily through all the din as to create something of a sensation in the hotel. A young woman, one of the guests, came out upon the balcony to look, and exclaimed: 'That boy's voice is RED'—whereat everybody smiled. Under the circumstances ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Marble of Paros A Study of Hands I Imperia II Lacenaire Variations on the Carnival of Venice: I On the Street II On the Lagoons III Carnival IV Moonlight Symphony in White Major Coquetry in Death Heart's Diamond Spring's First Smile Contralto Eyes of Blue The Toreador's Serenade Nostalgia of the Obelisks: I The Obelisk in Paris II The Obelisk in Luxor Veterans of the Old Guard, December 15 Sea-Gloom To a Rose-Coloured Gown The World's Malicious Ines de las Sierras — To Petra Camara Odelet, After Anacreon Smoke Apollonia The Blind Man ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... know too, and would tell him of it, if by error he had fallen into some cadence which was not exactly right. To the modes of raising the voice, which are usually divided into three—the high or treble, the low or bass, and that which is between the two, the contralto and tenor—many others are added. There are the eager and the soft, the higher and the lower notes, the quicker and the slower. It seems little to us, who know that we can speak or whisper, hammer our words together, or drawl them out. But then ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... a voice of low note, in quality that of a flute at the grave end of its gamut. If she sang, she was a pure contralto unmistakably. ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... with fair complexion and fair hair, and an expression of the most perfect goodness, with very amiable manners. I was surprised by hearing her sing several very difficult Italian songs with great expression and wonderful facility. She has a fine contralto, which has been cultivated; but some Spanish ballads, and little songs of the country, she sang so delightfully, and with so much good-nature and readiness, that had it not been a first visit, I should have begged her to continue during ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Amoureuse," "Jettatura," "Une Nuit de Cléopâtre," etc., and then the very diamonds of the crown, "Les Emaux et Camées," "La Symphonie en Blanc Majeure," in which the adjective blanc and blanche is repeated with miraculous felicity in each stanza. And then Contralto,— ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... Avontown," for female voices, "The Minstrel and the King," for male chorus and soloists, and "Sylvania," a wedding cantata recently published. Another vocal work of great merit is an a capella motet, while among her earlier compositions is the scena for contralto and orchestra, entitled "Eilende Wolken," on a ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... about her touched their glasses while they sang, "For she's a jolly good fellow." Later, when the little supper was almost over, Ethel Elliot, leaning over to lay her hand on Margaret's, began in her rich contralto:— ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... by no means so complete as he expected. He presently was aware of a camp-meeting hymn hummed somewhat ostentatiously by a deep contralto voice, which he at once recognized as Melinda's, and saw that severe virgin proceeding from the kitchen along the ridge until within a few paces of the buckeyes, when she stopped and, with her hand shading her eyes, apparently began to examine the distant ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... daughter of a Covent Garden upholsterer, and sister of Dr Arne (1710-1778) the composer. Mrs Cibber had a beautiful voice and began her career in opera. She was the original Galatea in Handel's Acis and Galatea, and the contralto arias in the Messiah are said to have been written for her. She played Zarah in Aaron Hill's version of Voltaire's Zaire in 1736, and it was as a tragic actress, not as a singer, that her greatest triumphs ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... musician, too,—not profound, but very correct. She would take her turn at the harmonium in church, and, when she was there, you never heard a wrong note in the bass, nor an inappropriate flourish, nor bad time. She could sing, too, but never would, except her part in a psalm. Her voice was a deep contralto, and she chose to be ashamed of this heavenly organ, because a pack of envious girls had giggled, and said ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... I noticed, was in no way intimidated by a title in our midst, but wagered that Lady Allie's voice would be a contralto and suggested that we all try On the Road to Mandalay together. But Lady Allie acknowledged that she had neither a voice nor an ear, and would prefer listening. We couldn't remember the words, however, and the song wasn't much of a success. I think the damper ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... his violin, and the Van Ness boys produced a banjo and a madolin. Everybody seemed to sing at least fairly well, and some of the voices were really fine. Patty's sweet soprano received many compliments, as also did Elise's full, clear contralto. The girls were accustomed to singing together, and Mr. Pauvret proved himself a true musician ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... showing the faintly generous rounding of maturity, was warm in colouring, with dark eyes, well shaded and languorous; her full lips betrayed their beauty in a ready and fascinating laugh; her voice was a rich, warm contralto; and her speech bore just a hint of the soft r-less drawl of ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... of his duty, the boy began to sing in a full, rich contralto voice, which betrayed a tremour, however, that evidently formed no part of the air. His words, so far as they might be ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... time Mrs. Gordon said, "Won't you sing something?" and Mary sat down to the piano and sang to them. Such singing no one there had ever heard before. Her deep contralto voice was powerful, flexible, and obviously well-trained; besides which she had the great natural gift of putting "feeling" into her singing. The children sat spellbound. The station-hands and house-servants, who had been playing ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... emphasis, and for the next five minutes her contralto swelled through the vicarage, rendering inaudible the replies she kept demanding from a half rebellious, half intimidated servant. She was not personally a coarse woman, and her manners did not grossly offend against the ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... Likewise she gathered courage from the fact that even her best girl friend would have found her figure unfamiliar and striking where once it had been merely tall and slender and strong, ordinarily dressed. Then how would Jim Cleve ever recognize her? She remembered her voice that had been called a contralto, low and deep; and how she used to sing the simple songs she knew. She could not disguise that voice. But she need not let Jim hear it. Then there was a return of the idea that he would instinctively recognize ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... no idea how brutally violent you are when you want some little thing you ought not to have. It aches like anything," retorted the other voice, its very complaints uttered in such melodious tones of contralto music that the listener found himself wishing with all his might to know if the face of its owner could by any possibility match the loveliness of her voice. Dark, he fancied she must be, and young, ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... ached splittingly, and the jolting of the car did not serve to ease the pain. The old woman sat in the middle, with a blanket wound round and round her to hold her quiet; which it failed to do. Into Casey's ear rolled the full volume of her rich contralto voice as she monotonously intoned the doom of all mankind—together with every cat, every rat, etc. Mart's fear had proved well-founded. Strangers had excited the woman and it was not until sheer exhaustion silenced her that she ceased for one ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... the room he found also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked girl of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some servants' hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment of ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to make him speak, and did not know how to break through his moody silence. Suddenly she leaned back in the boat and began to sing in a rich contralto voice that moved him. He had never heard her sing before, had never heard any good singing for many years indeed, and he was fond of singing. The song she sang was a Portuguese love-song, very tender and passionate, addressed by a bereaved lover to his dead mistress, ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... carefully adjusting the collar. Then fingering an imaginary watch-chain, she began. Her face grew grave—her neck seemed to thicken. Her voice was a throaty contralto. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... it in for us, Lolita—Rudolf and me." She laughed outright now. Pearl's laughter was ever a disagreeable surprise; low, harsh, unpleasantly vibrant, and in strange dissonance to her soft, contralto voice. "Lay you any odds you say, Lolita, that it's poor old Bob that's got ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... his head at the sound of a girl's voice. Somewhere rearward to the hedge the girl idly sang—an old song of Thomas Heywood's,—in a serene contralto, low-pitched and effortless, but very sweet. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... it had the rich depth and pathos of contralto, and the vibrant clearness of soprano. Now it threaded a tremulous pathway among the pathetic minor notes, while the fingers seemed to drop ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... fan my face, the wings almost brushing, but never quite touching my skin. I could distinguish the difference between the smaller and the larger, the latter having a deeper swish, deeper and longer drawn-out. Their voices were so high and shrill that the singing of the jungle crickets seemed almost contralto in comparison. Finally, I began to feel myself the focus of one or more of these winged weasels. The swishes became more frequent, the returnings almost doubling on their track. Now and then a small body touched the sheet for an instant, and then, with a soft little tap, a vampire alighted ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... tell," said Freda, and there was a shade of sadness in her tone. Her voice was deeper than most women's voices—a rich contralto with something striking and individual about it. I could hear her quite plainly; but Derrick spoke less distinctly—he always had ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... Moore?" broke in a charming contralto voice. "You are the very person I wish to see. I can give you some news for your paper. It is not very important, but I thought you might ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... &c v.; reflexion [Brit.], reflection, reverberation; echo, reecho; zap, zot [Coll.]; buzz (hiss) 409. low note, base note, bass note, flat note, grave note, deep note; bass; basso, basso profondo [It]; baritone, barytone^; contralto. [device to cause resonance] echo chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make a resonating sound] bell, doorbell, buzzer; gong, cymbals (musical instruments) 417. [physical resonance] sympathetic ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... feelings over to the actors with a kind of fatalistic resignation. Accessories of costume and scene meant much more to her than to me. She sat entranced through 'Robin Hood' and hung upon the lips of the contralto who sang, 'Oh, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... a warm, full contralto of exquisite culture. It suggested depths of rich sound behind, from which the singer, if she chose, might draw, until the room and the deck and the sea ached with sweetness. I scarcely dared to look in to see who it was, lest I should find it a dream. I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Tra la la Tosca, published by JOSEPH WILLIAMS of Berners Street. Justice was not done to it on the stage at the Royalty, but there are two morceaux in it which ought to become popular; one being a song entitled "Her Eye," which, were it wedded to serious words, would be highly popular as a contralto song, just as SULLIVAN'S charming "Hush a bye Bacon," in Cox and Box, became "Birds of the Night." Then the Gavotte in this book is as graceful and catching as the Gavotte de Louis Treize, and would be in great request ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... chin, the midget tenor rises, Music in hand, a linnet and a king. The bullfinch bass, that other emperor, Leans back indifferently, and clears his throat As if to say, "This prelude leads to Me!" While, on their own proud thrones, on either hand, The sumptuously bosomed midget queens, Contralto and soprano, jealously eye Each other's plumage. Round me the music throbs With an immortal passion. I grow aware Of an appalling mystery.... We, this throng Of midgets, playing, listening, tense and still, Are sailing on a midget ball of dust We call ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... and stood beside her, looking down in his very gentle and individual way. He smoothed the front of his djelabieh, lifted his rose, smelt it, and said in his low contralto voice: ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... lines. But he hoped to provoke it from these in time, and his own letters grew the more earnest the more ironical hers became. He wrote to her about a book he was reading, and when she said she had not seen it, he sent it her; in one of her letters she casually betrayed that she sang contralto in the choir, and then he sent her some new songs, which he had heard in the theatre, and which he had informed himself from a friend were contralto. He was always tending to an expression of the ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... the chauffeur, of a particularly demure kitten in the presence of two well-bred but definitely intentioned hunting dogs. She was very quiet, and only now and then he caught a word or two from her or the low sound of her attractive contralto laugh. ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... walked to the theatre, where we saw La Sonnambula well put on the stage, and well sung and acted by an Italian opera company. The prima donna, contralto, baritone, and bass were all good, but the scenery was occasionally somewhat deficient. The house, which is highly decorated—perhaps too much so for the ladies' dresses—looked well by night, though if it had been full the effect would have been still better. The box-tiers are not ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... voices rose and fell together, now soft, now triumphant, harmonizing as if they sung together for years. Dare's second was low, pathetic, and it blended at once with Ruth's clear young contralto. Charles wondered that the others should applaud when the duet was finished. Ruth's voice went best ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... should follow Mr. Gwynne's example and stay here with us." He thought of silver chimes and contrasted her voice with Gora Dwight's angry contralto: he always thought of Gora in phrases. "So many Englishmen live ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... with the aid of his guide, in the meantime, had reached the little garden in front of the old house, and the gay tinkle of a harpsichord and the notes of a sweet contralto suddenly ceased as he did so; and he said—smiling in the dark, in a pleasant soliloquy, for he did not mind John Tracy,—old John was not in the way—'She always hears my step—always—little Lily, no matter how she's employed,' and the hall-door opened, and a voice that was gentle, and yet somehow ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... lilies—Lucy's lilies, his Easter decorations. It was by her side the alarmed Curate was made to sit down. It was she who took the foot of the table, and was the gentleman of the house. Her voice was of that class of voice which may be politely called a powerful contralto. Every way she was as alarming a critic as ever was encountered by a Perpetual Curate, or any other young man in trouble. Mr Wentworth said feebly that this was a very unexpected pleasure, as he met ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the summer-house I happened upon a bear asleep and retreated hurriedly. But on going towards the house I heard a well-known voice. "That is Augusta Holmes singing her opera," I said; "she sings all the different parts—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass." At this time we were all talking about her, and I stood by the window listening until suddenly a well-known smell interrupted her. It was Ninon's cat that had misconducted herself. A window was thrown open, but the ventilation did not prove sufficient. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... voice was heard. People still told in whispers the terrible story of the blind lay sister; and Mat, sitting in the chapel years afterwards, was carried over the whole history of her career and his own and that of Ballybay generally as he listened to her rich contralto singing second to the rest. He had always thought that there was something wondrously pathetic, at least in sacred music, in the voice that sings seconds, and the impression was confirmed as he listened to the blind girl's accompaniment to the other voices; low when they were ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... ballet of light, shimmering colors, until suddenly a troop of birds in royal purple had slashed their way down the center of the stage. They brought the same glorified thrill of contrast as this soft but strong contralto voice proceeding from that ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... little Amelia Wheeler had the rudiments of a fairly good contralto. I had begun to wonder if the poor child might not be able at least to sing a little, and so make up for—other things; and now she tries to sing high like Lily Jennings, and I simply cannot prevent it. She has heard Lily play, too, and ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and high spirits, except when asked to do the one thing she could do—sing! Then she became—quite genuinely—a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing. However, the suppliant hostess bore her off, and presently her rich contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion and mystery, and through the open French windows, John could see her standing against the wall near the piano, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed, her creamy throat swelling in the very ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... expected that sooner than now." The colonel gave the subject up. The ways of women were past his finding out. But Mrs. Culpepper had heard Jane Mason sing a duet in church with John Barclay, and the elder woman had heard in the big contralto voice of the girl something not meant for the preacher. And Mrs. Culpepper heard John answer it, so she knew what he did not know, what Jane Mason did not know, and what only Molly Culpepper suspected, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... she said, in her deep contralto, and, as if involuntarily, she held out her hand. ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... much used, and the out-of-the-way town of St. Just was naturally the last place in the land where he would have expected to meet with one. No air was played—only a few chords were lightly touched by fingers which were evidently expert. Presently a female voice was heard to sing in rich contralto tones. The air was extremely simple, and very beautiful—at least, so thought Oliver, as he leaned against a wall and listened to the words. These, also, were simple enough, but sounded both sweet ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... her gown as though it were a Greek peplus, with arm uplifted, and head lowered, was nothing else but Antigone, and she smiled with a smile of eternal sacrifice, carefully modulating the lower notes of her beautiful contralto voice. The heavy father walked about like a fencing-master, with automatic gestures, a funereal dignity,—romanticism in a frock-coat. The juvenile lead gulped and gasped and squeezed out a sob or two. The piece was written in the style of a tragic serial story: abstract phrases, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... evening, in his own house, unless Elinor gave him a little music, of which he was passionately fond; though, like most American gentlemen, of his age, he had no knowledge of the art, and no other guide than a good ear, and good natural taste. Elinor's voice was a full, sweet contralto, which had been cultivated under the best masters in Philadelphia; and, as she never attempted what she could not perform with ease and grace, her music always gave pleasure. One or two of the other ladies followed her, at the piano—Mary Van Horne, and ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the wind tossing the soft kimono in which she was clad and the rain wetting her face. Under the tin roof, the air was filled with the rattling reverberation of the rain. The woman lifted her head and, with the rain beating down upon her, began singing, her fine contralto voice rising above the rattle of the rain on the roof and going on uninterrupted by the crash of the thunder. She sang of a lover riding through the storm to his mistress. One refrain ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... emulation, or because he remembered his part in the music, a blackbird, perched near to his mate, whose nest was in the hawthorns growing out of the tumbled wall, began to sing a joyful lay in a rich round contralto, soft and deep as velvet. 'All nature,' he said, 'is talking or singing. This is talking and singing time. But my heart can speak to no one, and I seek places where no one will come.' And he began to ask if ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... angle of the gateway, so that if the porter chanced to awake he might see but one person. Then placing herself in the full light of the lamp which lit the yard,—"Gate!" cried she, with her finest contralto voice, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... believe in the "Darby and Joan" of the song. They belong to song-land. To accept them I need a piano, a sympathetic contralto voice, a firelight effect, and that sentimental mood in myself, the foundation of which is a good dinner well digested. But there are Darbys and Joans of real flesh and blood to be met with—God bless them, and send more for our ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... she replied in a very throaty contralto that went with her figure and her thousand dollars worth of simple skirt and blouse. "You needn't 'Fix' anything. Just be sure that it's Flying Heels, Moonbeam, and Lady Grace in that order. One, two, three. Do ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... at high tide. What an incomparable mate she would be for any man! The rich contralto of her voice, the slow, graceful turn of the exquisite head, the vividness she brought to all her activities! How easy it was to light in her fine eyes laughter, indignation, the rare smile of understanding! Life with ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... pans scoured and put away in the baskets, the picnickers gathered about the dying bonfires for a "sing-song." This always included all the songs they loved best, the songs Mr. and Mrs. Lee had known in their youth and the songs of the present day. And Aunt Josephine's rich contralto rang ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... home, with a tray on which there was a pitcher of something nice and cold that tasted of orange, and some small doughnuts. Miss Rand sat down on an apple branch, which seat she preferred to a chair, and she sang for them, at Peggy's request, some Scotch songs, in a sweet contralto voice. ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... first few moments, they sat in silent admiration of the beauty around them; then Miss Gladden touched the strings of the guitar, and began singing in a rich contralto, in which Houston joined with a fine baritone, while Rutherford added a clear, sweet tenor. Their voices blended perfectly, and accompanied by the sweet notes of the guitar, the music floated out over the lake, the lingering echoes dying away, in ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... driest of statistical details, what the hour was. I had never before been impressed with any particular interest attaching to the hour of three in the morning, but as I heard it announced in those low, rich, thrilling contralto tones, it appeared fairly to coruscate with previously latent suggestions of romance and poetry, which, if somewhat vague, were very pleasing. Turning out the gas that I might the more easily imagine the bewitching presence which the voice suggested, I went back to bed, and lay awake there ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... criminal unheard!" Remembering that she was so lately from the convent, he ventured this speech in a deep, thrilling voice, only to receive a distinct shock for his pains, for she greeted it with an irrepressible, most unexpected peal of contralto laughter, and his lips parted slightly with the surprise ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... letter, stating in distinct terms that"—and here she alters her voice until it is highly suggestive of Miss Blake's fine contralto—"'he deemed it expedient for both parties that the present engagement existing between them should be annulled.' Those are Aunt Priscilla's words; what he really meant, I suppose, was that he was tired ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... a man's not only in pitch but in timbre; its quality suggests the sex. There is great scope for variety, from the lowest contralto to the highest soprano, as there is in man's from the lowest bass to the highest tenor; a variety so great that voices differ as much as faces and can be instantly recognized; but unless it has the proper sexual quality a voice affects us ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... lie between reality and dreamland, the watcher of the midnight sun gave himself up to the half painful, half delicious sense of being drawn in, absorbed, and lost in infinite imaginings, when the intense stillness around him was broken by the sound of a voice singing, a full, rich contralto, that rang through the air with the clearness of a golden bell. The sweet liquid notes were those of an old Norwegian mountain melody, one of those wildly pathetic folk-songs that seem to hold all the sorrow, wonder, wistfulness, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... in the evening. One of The Teacups, to whom I have slightly referred, is an accomplished pianist, and the two Annexes sing very sweetly together,—the American girl having a clear soprano voice, the English girl a mellow contralto. They had sung several tunes, when the Mistress rang for Avis,—for that is our Delilah's real name. She whispered to the young girl, who blushed and trembled. "Don't be frightened," said the Mistress encouragingly. "I have heard you singing 'Too Young for ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... then in a flood of bitter repentance and prayer, hardly realizing where he was or what was passing around him. The music swelled and eddied; there was a genuine "Kyrie," wherein a single voice, a rich contralto, wailed and implored in a passion of supplication until the whole congregation quivered with the fervor of the music. Maurice felt himself swayed and lifted upon the rising tide of emotion. He lost his anger, he swam in billows of celestial delight; a blessed peace soothed ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... moved to my room, and, although not a good one, contributed largely to the pleasure of the soldiers, also serving for sacred music when needed. Mr. Blandner's lute, my piano, and Mrs. Gamble's soprano voice, joined to that of a Confederate tenor or bass, or my own contralto, made delicious music. Concerts, tableaux, plays, etc., were also given for the benefit of refugees or to raise money to send boxes to the front: at all these I assisted, but had no time for rehearsals, etc. I could only run over and sing my song or songs and then run back to my patients. Some money ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... pleasure of the company, the four parts were so nicely balanced that their voices blended in sweetest harmony. The Doctor and Will and Denison sang bass; Fred and Professor Gray tenor, Mattie alto, and Mrs. Jones soprano. Mattie possessed an exceedingly rich contralto, while Mrs. Jones' soprano was strong, sweet, and clear as a bird's. They all joined in the chorus, and when the hymn was finished, Ah Sing, who stood in the doorway with his white cap and apron on, ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... sudden the girl gave a tiny scream and grabbed the old boy around the neck. 'Oh, father, father!' she says, kind of contralto, 'can this be true? Have you taken money that is not yours? Speak, father!' It made you shiver to hear the tremolo stop she put on ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... husband and two children," Aline Goring murmured, in her soft contralto. "You remember Eugene? At the Springs that summer?" The husband, a tall, smooth-shaven, young man with glasses and the delicate air of the steam-heated American scholar ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... sometime, and her sweet baby ways would plead to him more eloquently than could all her words to right the wrong he had done, and so the days slipped by and the little mother was happy, after the long drawn out days of waiting and misery. She would sing the baby to sleep in her low contralto voice, and feel that it mattered not whether the world smiled or frowned on her, so long as ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... the party and I even beamed approvingly when Uncle Peter tuned up his mezzo contralto voice and began to write a book about the ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank—the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... O'Flynn, and a sweet pair they would have been; but he thought better of it, and she went away as she came. Her aunt was a good old soul, and what did it matter if she was vulgar? We were very sorry to lose her contralto in the choir." Miss Buff's gossip was almost run out. Bessie remembered little Christie to inquire for him. "Little Christie—who is he? I never heard of him. Oh, the wheelwright's son who went away to be an artist! I don't know. The old man ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... yesterday, a ride to Tarrytown), Out of the papers. I watchfully waited, Yearning a coup that would place him on the Musical map. A coup, such as kissing a Marshal Joffre, Aeroplaning over the bay, Diving with Annette Kellerman. Then for three days I quit the city To get a simple contralto into the western papers. Returning I entered my office; the phone jangled. The burly tenor was tearfully sobbing and moaning over the wire; Tremor and emotion choked his throat. This was his ominous message: A taxicab accident almost had killed him two and one half ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... her work surprised. Her own voice was contralto, but it would have taken her a week to learn to sing a second from the notes, and she had ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... glees. Esmeralda and I took contralto; there was practically no treble, for Honor's squeak was drowned fathoms deep; Geoffrey and Mr Carr droned bass, and Stanor Vaughan took tenor, rather out of tune it's true, but no man with that profile could be expected to condescend to bass! We sang 'Come and see the daylight ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... the room. She was wearing a bright red dress with blue stripes. Her face was painted thickly and unskillfully, her brow was hidden under her hair, and there was an unblinking, frightened stare in her eyes. As she came in, she began at once singing some song in a coarse, powerful contralto. After her a fourth appeared, and ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... entirely. Gone were the heavy guttural tones. In their place was a rich, rather throaty contralto. Carnes gave a cry of astonishment and turned his light on ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... said Marsa, in her rich, warm contralto voice, whose very accents were like a caress, "do you know that, among all those who fought for our country, you are the one admiration ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... peeping over the bannisters at him, and the vision's eyes were sparkling with a lucent mischief and a wonderful, half-hushed contralto was demanding of him: ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... he assented, "he was very, very old—too old for such a beautiful young wife." She started. "Not too old, M. Chardon," she said, slightly raising her contralto voice: "What if he was thirty years my senior! He married me to spare me the peril and fatigue of a singer's life; few women can stand them—I least of all. He loved me with a pure, narrow affection. I was his daughter, his staff. You, he often called ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... the slightest demur, joined her friends. Lothair felt agitated, as he could not doubt Theodora was going to sing. And so it was; when Euphrosyne had finished, and the chorus she had inspired had died away, there rose a deep contralto sound, which, though without effort, seemed to Lothair the most thrilling tone he had ever listened to. Deeper and richer, and richer and deeper, it seemed to become, as it wound with exquisite facility through a symphony ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... last, My philandering days are past. Sing you, in your clear contralto, Songs I write ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... pleased—to accede. Selecting from the canterbury some old family ditties, that in years gone by had been played and sung by her mother, Elfride sat down to the pianoforte, and began, ''Twas on the evening of a winter's day,' in a pretty contralto voice. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... and Sarah sang the soprano; Mary, Margaret and Lauretta sang the alto. Mary's voice being a deep contralto, she improvised the third part. The plaintive song, with the sentiment of home surroundings, touched the hearts of all the passengers and turned their thoughts homewards, and many an ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... if you have, I'm sure you've never forgotten the droll way that Mademoiselle Folly stepped out upon a stage in her quaint green frock and made her frightened curtsy. Can you recall her low contralto ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... Phemie," said Clementina in a deep contralto voice, which seemed even deeper from its restraint. "You don't seem to have any sense. Anybody'd think you never had seen a ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... Grazia, his twin brother; Giovanni Baritono, a Soldier of Fortune; Piccolo, an innkeeper; Fra Tonerero Basso, a priest; Signorina Prima Soprano, a bar maid; Signorina Mezzo, also a bar maid, and Signora Contralto, Piccolo's wife, besides villagers, eight topers, musicians, five couples of rustic brides and grooms, and a dancing bear and his keeper. Let us not forget the mythical mouse and the ribbon from which ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... asked, and sang to them for more than an hour. She chose folk-songs and tender melodies—little songs made of tears and laughter, and the simple ballads that never grow old. She had a deep, vibrant contralto voice of splendid range and volume; she sang with rare sympathy, and every ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... expected to hear the general's bass raging, but through the inner door came the strident tones of the lieutenant's modulating contralto. He had expected to see the general towering over the girl's shrinking figure, but as he entered she was bent earnestly in the middle, and the top of her torso inclined toward General Morrison, who had tilted as far back as his swivel ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... "Joscelyn Burnett, the famous contralto, is spending a few days in Kensington on her return from her Maritime concert tour. She is the guest of Mr. and Mrs. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... on our ears the sounds of two voices in altercation outside—one a woman's high contralto. Footsteps came bustling through the outer room and there stood on ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... up the refrain without further hesitation. Marian sang with him. Mrs. Fairfax and the clergyman looked furtively at one another, but forbore to swell the chorus. Miss McQuinch sang a few words in a piercing contralto voice, and then stopped with a gesture of impatience, feeling that she was out of tune. Marian, with only Conolly to keep her in countenance, felt relieved when Marmaduke, thrice encored, entered the room in triumph. Whilst he was being congratulated, Douglas turned to Miss McQuinch, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... followed, leading poor Thurlow's favorite horse. Then the widow and her son, the relatives, friends, and family servants. A fine male quartet sang "Nearer, my God, to Thee," and a soul-stirring contralto, "Asleep in Jesus." Tears stood in the eyes of all, the negroes weeping openly and uncontrollably. As the grave was filled in, the snow began to fall in real earnest, gusts of wind lashing the pines into fury. It was the beginning of a three days' blizzard long ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... which makes up her mind to stay in the kitchen and then loses her mind. A product of modern society who has for her motto "Dimuendo contralto dumdum," which means, "She who cooks and runs away will live to cook ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... lustily, out of his sheer joy in being alive, and was surprised to hear Dorothy's clear soprano, Margaret's pleasing contralto, and Crane's mellow tenor chime in from the adjoining room. Crane threw open the door and Seaton ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... great war, no doubt,—bent above a book held open upon his knee, the shape of which bespoke a Bible; while on the other side a bevy of children were romping with their dogs or playing with sharp knives in the hard ground. A woman over by the gate lifted a sweet contralto voice in an old-time love-song, and had hardly lilted the opening line before others joined her, making the night resound to the tender melody. I saw the soldiers pause in their work to beat time, and marked the dark forms ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Coming in at a quarter to eleven and taking that attitude!" said Mrs. Bradford, in her heavy wheezy contralto. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... over the items. The Concert-Direction of Ernest Weiss was famous for the fare which it put before its patrons, and here was certainly enough variety of talent to please the most critical—a famous tenor, a popular violinist, a contralto much in favour for her singing of tender and sentimental songs, a notable performer on the violincello, a local vocalist whose speciality was the singing of ancient Scottish melodies, and—item of vast interest to a certain section of the audience—a ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... presented him in due form to Miss Sparrow when she arrived. He bowed like a worshipping devotee, and as she moved to her place by the contralto sat down with an exalted expression upon his hat, to the audible amusement of the youthful Sparrows perched on the gallery steps. I glanced at him again during the first soprano solo, and saw him in the same position, his eyes fixed on the singer. Rehearsal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... had dealt more bountifully with Mrs. Abel than with Lady Lottie Passingham. Though Mrs. Abel had no desire to reform the universe, and was conscious of no mission to that end, she possessed a voice which might have produced a revolution. It was a soft contralto, vibrant and rich, and tremulous with tones which the gods would have come from Olympus to hear. She never sang, but her speech was music, rich and rare. In early life, as I have said, she had been on the stage, and ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... was a contralto, with the little hint of roughness that made it warm and richly golden; that made it fall, indeed, upon the ears of the listening Elder like a cathedral chime calling him to forget all and worship—forget all but that he was five and twenty with the hot blood surging and crowding and crying ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the mill, but had sent her to a fairly good school until she was sixteen years of age, since which time she had stayed at home with her mother, and assisted her in the house work. Alice had continued her education, however. She had a natural gift for music and possessed a fine contralto voice. She had quite a local reputation as a pianist and was constantly in demand to sing at concerts. She was more than ordinarily intelligent too, and was a lover of good books. Added to this she attended ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... Often, for hours at a time, she would sit, with Albert's bust in front of her, while the word "Approved" issued at intervals from her lips. The word came forth with a majestic sonority; for her voice now—how changed from the silvery treble of her girlhood—was a contralto, full ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... way into a mansion there. Fog hung about with the policeman on the pavement. The passing motor cars were like shadows. Their stertorous pantings sounded to Mrs. Greyne's ears like the asthma of dying monsters. She sighed again, and murmured in a deep contralto voice: "It must be so." Then she got up, crossed the heavy Persian carpet which had been bought with the proceeds of a short story in her earlier days, and placed her forefinger upon an ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... contralto voice which had been carefully cultivated. Every evening in the twilight, with only the flickering of the wood fire in the room, she would sit at the piano and sing. Lane would close his eyes and let the mellow voice ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... Jubilee Year that the British public were first charmed by the singing of this admirable American contralto. She sang in London, and successive audiences were quick to confirm the judgments of Sir Joseph Barnby and certain other critics who had heard her only in private. Her advance to the front rank of ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... what the Taj was, whether Thebes was in Egypt or India, or what was the difference, if any, between the Golden Gate and the Golden Horn. Mrs. Trent was large, sultry, well-informed and supercilious; had the lustrous eyes of a Spaniard, and spoke in a warm contralto voice. Her figure was magnificent, and she prided herself on having a masculine intellect. Her enemies said that she had a ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... was made for the high soprano of La Luciola, the pink must be sung by Signor Tino, the celebrated baritone, and Signora Ronita, the famous contralto, would secure triumphs as the rose. The subordinate characters were soon filled, and the next morning, when Ticellini breathlessly hurried to Salvani, he was in a position to lay the outline of ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... the rewriting of a "Capitaine Fracasse." To hear the creature talk about it makes my mouth as a brick kiln and my flesh as that of a goose. He was the Adonis, the Apollo, the Don Juan, the Irresistible of the Tournee. Fled truculent bass and haughty tenor before him; from diva to moustachioed contralto in the chorus, all the ladies breathlessly watched for the fall of his handkerchief; he was recognized, in fact, as a devil of a fellow. But in spite of these triumphs, the manipulation of the drum, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... [in 1836, when twenty years of age] to New Orleans, and sang until, owing perhaps to my youth, to change of climate, or to a too great strain upon the upper register of my voice, which, as his wife's voice was a contralto, it was more to Mr. Maeder's interest to use, than the lower one, I found my voice suddenly failing me. In my unhappiness I went to ask counsel and advice of Mr. Caldwell, the manager of the chief New Orleans theatre, He at once said to me, "You ought to be an actress, and not ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... said the girl, seeming to hesitate upon the threshold of the room, and her voice—a pleasant, boyish contralto—was very cold and conveyed ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... to scratch, but Parks said they were hard up for a good contralto; so I had to go in the team. I'm to be third man up in the anthem to-morrow—got ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... you will get nothing more out of me; so you must wait and not be too curious. I'm going off to see what papa is doing." She sprang to her feet, threw her arms round her sister's neck, gave her a final squeeze, and was gone. A chorus from Olivette, sung in her clear contralto, grew fainter and fainter until it ended in the slam ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Demoiselles Denis, the chevalier was not thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... dug the ice-house and piled the coast wall and blasted out trenches for draining would stop and lean on their picks, when her resonant, golden humming, like a drowsy contralto bee, floated out from the verandah vines to them: I have seen their faces clear and their dull eyes focus suddenly on some distant, darling memory, while they dropped back for a precious minute into the past that you ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... was to be varied, as usual upon such occasions, by local talent. Leila MacDonald, who sang contralto in the church choir, and Mrs. Arthur Wells, who sang soprano, and Mrs. Jack Evarts, who played the piano very well, and Miss Sally Anderson, who had taken lessons in elocution, all had their parts, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... shutters were now wide open; an instant later the light went out and the music began again. It was a madrigal this time, airy and changing, and sung by four men, one of whom had a beautiful male contralto, which is a rarity even in Italy. Stradella recognised it instantly, for he had often sung at the Lateran and knew ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... wed two wives—" "Why two?" asked I. "You carry your affected simplicity too far", he cried. "How can there be a completely harmonious union without the combination of the Four in One, viz. the Bass and Tenor of the Man and the Soprano and Contralto of the two Women?" "But supposing," said I, "that a man should prefer one wife or three?" "It is impossible," he said; "it is as inconceivable as that two and one should make five, or that the human eye should see a Straight Line." I would have interrupted him; but he ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... an even, contralto voice, and sang with the charm of temperament; but to the sensitive listener the enchantment of the sea seemed to linger in the tones of this creature who, with the sparkling drops still shining in her dark hair, poured out such strange and ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... because the dead man might be of his own age within a year, but decidedly impressive. He had gone so far as to imagine her an actress, of the sinuous, well-rounded type, who would address him in a deep contralto, and, if and when she fainted, would sink gracefully on to a couch correctly placed ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... against the proposal, on the ground that, if it were adopted, her name would sound just like Butt, which was already that of a contralto ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... had never known himself. It was as if some potent element, undreamed of before, came rushing into the ordered sphere of his world, and shouldered its elements from the rhythm of their going. It was a full contralto, with pathos in the very heart of it, and it seemed to wrap itself round his heart like a serpent of saddest splendor, and press the blood from it up into his eyes. The ladies were too much occupied to hear him announced, or note his entrance, as he stood ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... estimating any impression produced by Cherubino's music, the original character of the page, transplanted from French comedy to Italian opera, Mozart's conception of that character, Mozart's specific quality of emotion and specific style of musical utterance, together with the contralto's interpretation of the character and rendering of the music, according to her intellectual capacity, artistic skill, and timbre of voice, have collaborated with the individuality of the hearer. Some of the constituents of the ever-varying product—a ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Road was reached someone stood waiting to open the door of the cab and welcome the wanderer in the sweetest tones of a sweet contralto voice. She said only a few words, but with true Irish tact chose just the ones which were ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... with a mistress's quiet authority in her boyish contralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive down the road as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near the right bank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by a fall. Bring him up here, unless somebody has found him already, or you happen to ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... think by his real name also," said the elder woman in her deep, smooth contralto voice, and with the display of an admirable set of teeth. "The bills advertising the reward, and stating the fact of the murder, bore my late ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... In the contralto aria "He shall feed His flock," in Handel's Messiah, the unaccented word "shall" falls on the most strongly accented note of the bar. If performed thus, it would give a most aggressive character to the passage, implying ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... 'ere 'Arrygate's short of amusements. There's niggers and bands on the "Stray" (Big lumpy old field in a 'ole, wich if properly managed might pay.) Mysterious Minstrels with masks on, a bleating contralto in black, With a orful tremoler, my pippin!—yus, these are the pick ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... was sufficiently occupied in aiding the helpless blind man beside her, and repeating for his benefit the names of their fellow-guests. As the large party talked at the top of its lungs, Miriam's quiet voice, with its liquid, almost contralto, quality, reached her companion's ears unheard by others. She began with Bishop Endsleigh who was on Miss Jarrott's right. Then came Mrs. Stephen Colfax; after her Mr. Endsleigh Jarrott, who had on his right Mrs. Reginald Pole. Mrs. Pole's ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... words, the dull tread of swift horses, the rising of a silent train of dust, and then the wind wandered in the growing corn. The dust fell, a dog barked down the road and the katydids sang to the liquid contralto of the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... articulated firmly, and in a contralto voice of singular volume and sweetness, sent Karl skipping; but their effect on Mr. Ashmead was more remarkable. He started up from his chair with an exclamation, and bent his eyes eagerly on the melodious speaker. He could only see ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade |
