"Dance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scattered in groups under the trees, the rest of the day was spent in singing, smoking, and drinking, or pretending to drink, punch; for the negroes who supplied it in pails usually contrived to take two or more glasses to every one glass that was drank by those for whom it was provided. The dance around the Liberty Tree, "Each hand in comrade's hand," closed the regular ceremonies of the day; but generally the greater part of the succeeding night was spent ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... of eating in San Francisco you think of bright lights and dancing. In addition to the hotels, you may dance at innumerable cafes. Influences of Old Spain dowered San Francisco with an infatuation for the fiesta. The city has always been dance-minded. Art Hickman, virtuoso of jazz orchestration, was called to New York to have the Follies on The ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... ship,* or as making part of a flock of black men, parked on the soil of the West Indies; but for individuals there are degrees of suffering and privation. (* "If the slaves are whipped," said one of the witnesses before the Parliamentary Committee of 1789, "to make them dance on the deck of a slave ship—if they are forced to sing in chorus; 'Messe, messe, mackerida,' [how gaily we live among the whites], this only proves the care we take of the health of those men." This delicate attention reminds me of the description of an auto-da-fe ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... which impressed the unlearned "tenderfoot" with a lively sense of the profundity of their inventor's acquirements. When not entertaining a circle of admiring auditors from San Francisco or the East he could commonly be found pursuing the comparatively obscure industry of sweeping out the various dance houses and purifying ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... sat about the fires where the venison was roasting, and talked openly of pearls. They had a cask of wine out from the ship, and some of their men made great laughter trying to dance with the young men of Cofachique. But one of the tame Indians that Ayllon had brought from Hispaniola with him, went privately to his master. 'I know this dance,' he said; 'it is a dance of death.' But Ayllon dared do nothing except have a small cannon ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... miserable, invertebrate worm. Move an inch and I'll murder you, and come and dance on your grave every Wednesday and ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... until eleven was the liveliest hour of the night. Even the restaurants and soup-kitchens were crowded then. He strolled slowly down the street until he came to a little crowd gathered about the bear equestrienne. The big canvas dance-hall a few doors away had lured from her most of her admirers by this time, and Aldous found no difficulty in reaching the inner circle. He looked first for the half-breed. Failing to find him, he looked at the woman, who stood only ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... wrong about this. But I can at least certify that Lucilla was in such mad high spirits when she told me the news out in the garden, on a lovely autumn morning, that she actually danced for joy—and, more improper still, she made me, at my discreet time of life, dance too. She took me round the waist, and we waltzed on the grass—Mrs. Finch standing by in the condemned blue merino jacket (with the baby in one hand and the novel in the other), and warning us both that if we lost half an hour out of our day, in whirling each other round the lawn, we ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... effects subsided, and the graves of its 25,000,000 victims were hardly closed, when it was followed by an epidemic of the dance of St. John, or St. Vitus, which like a demoniacal plague appeared in Germany in 1347, and spread over the whole empire and throughout the neighboring countries. The dance was characterized by wild leaping, furious screaming, and foaming at the mouth, which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... accept the challenge. It rose, according to custom, on its hind legs, and immediately began that slow, but deadly war-dance with which the race is wont to preface an attack, while its upper lip curled in apparent ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... on its table and went and stood a few minutes at a window looking out. The back of her neck, Dowie realised, was now as slenderly round and velvet white as it had been when she had dressed her hair on the night of the Duchess' dance. Dowie did not know that its loveliness had been poor George's temporary undoing; she only thought of it as a sign of the wonderful change. It had been waxen pallid and ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that was very taking, and a pleasant voice when she allowed it to be heard. Lady Latimer found time to smile at her once or twice, and to give her a kind, encouraging word, and when the guests began to disperse she was told that she must stay for a little dance there was to be in the evening amongst the young people in the house. She stayed, and danced every dance with as joyous a vivacity as if it had been Christmas in the long parlor at Brook and Harry Musgrave her partner; ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... of a happy, healthy negro is not only blacker and more oily than an unhappy, unhealthy one, but emits the strongest odor when the body is warmed by exercise and the soul is filled with the most pleasurable emotions. In the dance called patting juber, the odor emitted from the men, intoxicated with pleasure, is often so powerful as to throw the negro women into paroxysms of unconsciousness, vulgo hysterics. On another point of much importance there is no practical ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... you, my dear," answered the major, reassuringly. "It is only a token of some jollification among our Indian friends: a war dance, or a scalp dance, or the advent among them of a new lot of wretched captives, or something of that kind. I remember Truman mentioning, more than a week ago, that another war party had gone out. I do wish though that the Senecas would take it into their heads to move their village ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... salute you; you are welcome. Grant us fodder for our cattle and milk in abundance.' These and other addresses to the moon they repeat over and over, accompanying them with dancing and clapping of hands. At the end of the dance they sing 'Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!' many times over, with a variation of notes; which being accompanied with clapping of hands makes a very odd and a very merry entertainment to a stranger." [201] In reality they hold a primitive watch-night service; their welcome of the new ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... Up then! sing loud, and dance and play, "Better still I'd do!" you say. Delirium's nigh—if you must pine, Take first some wine; And sometimes, too, take your tabac ...
— Monsieur de Pourceaugnac • Moliere
... He compared the unbelieving and dissatisfied generation to fickle children at play, disagreeing among themselves. Some wanted to enact the pageantry of a mock wedding, and though they piped the rest would not dance; then they changed to a funeral procession and essayed the part of mourners, but the others would not weep as the rules of the game required. Ever critical, ever skeptical, by nature fault-finders and defamers, hard of hearing and of heart, they grumbled. John the Baptist had ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the rule, "vedere e non toccare." It go in force while I am present, not so in my absence. Those that made proverbs, their names ought to be immortal. Here for one, "When the cat is gone, the rats dance." How much true is in the Say. Every visitor like the place profane or ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... well. The final dance with waving towels was all that there is of charming, Mademoiselle said; and Eliza was so much amused that, as she said, she got quite a nasty stitch ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... see you, Mrs. Gould. I've just come down. Usual luck. Missed everything, of course. This show is just over, and I hear there has been a great dance at Don Juste Lopez's last night. Is ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... platform and delivered with awkward modesty the following speech: 'Gentlemen and Fellow-Citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal-improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful. If not, it will be ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and he ran up to the music-room whistling 'O dear, what can the matter be?' I can't help laughing even when I don't understand his teasing jokes, he says things in such a funny way, while his eyes just dance." ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... erect, to meet the onset in which they would have been torn badly if Jesus had not hopped hastily forward and menaced him with his crutches. Even then the puppies, unmindful of the danger, continued to dance round the cat. You little fools, he will have your eyes, Jesus cried, and he caught them up in his arms, but unable to manage them and his crutches together, he dropped the crutches and started to get back to his seat ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... and three red, the symbolic colors of the theological virtues. Eight children of five or six years old, representing the seven sacraments, and holding the seven ribbons that hung from the cross, performed with great skill a species of contra-dance. The sacrament of baptism was represented by a child wearing the white robe of a catechumen; ordination, by another child as a priest; confirmation, by a little bishop; extreme unction, by a pilgrim with ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... and fro fantastically all together. As the light steadied they would return to the pretence of being green things till a puff of the warm night wind among the flares set the whole line off again in a crazy dance of dwergs, their shadows capering on the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... angels hearken, and Anaitis, the leader of the starry host, calls even the Messiah in heaven out to the dance." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... If a thousande soules may dance on a mannes nayle.—This is a different form of the common saying that a thousand angels can stand on the point of the needle. "One querying another, whether a thousand angels might stand on the point of a needle, another replied, 'That was a needles ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... army moved uneasily, and they remembered that he was present. He hoped they wouldn't mind if he went to look up his partner for the next dance, and they assured him that they wouldn't, and he believed them and was backing away when Popova arrived to suggest the lateness of the hour and intimate his willingness to return to ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... I dance better than any girl in Miss Anderson's school, grandmamma. I heard her tell Mrs Levitt ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... developing character. Carmichael's face and hands were red and chapped from winter winds; the leather of wrist-bands, belt, and boots was all worn shiny and thin; little streaks of dust fell from him as he breathed heavily. He no longer looked the dashing cowboy, ready for a dance or lark or fight. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... unappreciated at home, had introduced him. He began to take private lessons in dancing and singing, and as he possessed a certain natural grace, invisible when he was out of humor, but always appearing when he wanted to please, and a certain facility of imitation as well, he was soon able to dance excellently, and sing with more or less dullness a few songs of the sort fashionable at the time. But he took so little delight in music or singing for its own sake that in any allusion to his sister's practicing he would call it ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... leadership of Gilbert Gerrish, the assembled guests with the vigor and enthusiasm of youth caught the prevailing spirit of merriment, and gave themselves up to the fascinating movement of musical measures. Lost in the charm of the mazy dance, the merrymakers noted not the flight of time. The last number on the program came ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... not even laugh at that. They just looked as if they understood that you missed girls at camp. Mrs. Ladd came over to him and put her hand on his arm and said, "That's splendid. We'll all go up to the ballroom and dance." And they did. And Buzz, who had learned to dance at places like Kearney's saloon, and at the mill shindigs, glided expertly about with Joyce Ladd of Madison Avenue, and found himself seated in a great cushioned window-seat, talking ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Father like a boy with a new toy. "Come out in the wash-house and see my prisoner," he laughed, and could hardly contain himself for the fun of it all. I came, and there stood the bicycle, and Father danced a war dance about it. Later the boy came and owned up and insisted on paying something, but in all kindliness Father would not of course take any of the boy's hard-earned money. He simply explained the situation to him and I am sure the boy never ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... it. The blue pinafored girls, stitching gold thread in the workroom at Hilbert's, cultivated little reserve, and when they had occasion to enter the office they sometimes told her of young men encountered (say) at a dance, of ardent protestations of love, faithful ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... These fiends with most hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dancing with most excellent ill-varietie, oft falling into their infernal passions, and solemnly again to sing and dance; having spent nearly an hour in this Mascarado, as they entered, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... palm-leaves, and so were the walls, while the floors were made of bamboo cut in strips and placed nearly an inch apart, being covered with a thick, beautifully woven mat. They appeared strong, but very springy, so much so, that when Adair began to dance a polka on one of them, he very nearly bounded up to the roof. The village was surrounded and interspersed with cocoa-nut and other palm-trees, and with bananas, whose dark-green foliage gave effect to lighter tints of the forest. The thick jungle pressed hard on every ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... with candles in brass chandeliers, and a dance is in full movement to the strains of a string-band. A signal is given, shortly after the clock has struck eleven, by MR. ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... off wonderfully. Tony started his selection too high, and was obliged to stop and begin over again. And the two Silversteins, from the children's ward, who were to dance a Highland fling together, had a violent quarrel at the last moment and had to be scratched. But everything else went well. The ambulance driver gave a bass solo, and kept a bar or two ahead of the accompaniment, dodging chords as he did wagons on the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... all the way through, And it burns with a light warm and steady; Only if it is Fred that she has in her head, It is burning for no one but Freddie. But the Black Eye will veer and stake kingdoms to spear Whatever it likes on the track, And as a love-lance to its lord in the dance There is never ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... interesting man among them. . . . Having talked to their hearts' content, they sent for the Military Commandant and the committee of the club, and instructed them at all costs to make arrangements for a dance. ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... owing to constitution, I own; and that this is the laughing-time of my life. For what a woe must that be, which for an hour together can mortify a man six or seven and twenty, in high blood and spirits, of a naturally gay disposition, who can sing, dance, and scribble, and take and give delight in them all?—But then my grief, as my joy, is sharper-pointed than most other men's; and, like what Dolly Welby once told me, describing the parturient throes, if there ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... Sir Henry Bowyer died of the violent exercise he underwent while practising dancing.[228] Henri III. fell into a tearful passion and called the Grand Prieur a liar, a poltroon, and a villain, at a ball, because the Grand Prieur was heard to mutter "Unless you dance better, I would you had your money again that your dancing has cost you." [229] James I. was particularly anxious to have his "Babies" excel in complicated boundings. His copy of Nuove Inventioni di Balli[230] may be seen in the British Museum, with large plates illustrating how ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... sing and dance, have their puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds, bagpipes, etc., play at ball, and barley-breaks, and what sports and recreations they like best. BURTON'S ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... others. I should be thankful, I suppose, that the peace soon to be so rudely shattered was prolonged for those few moments. I recalled afterward, but dimly, as though a gulf of ages yawned between, that I had been quite interested in six pages of prattle about the Patterson dance. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... waddled on; not lovingly, for very often they grumbled and growled, and seemed to be making far from pleasant remarks to each other. They kept on all fours, it must be understood. Bears only stand on their hind legs when they have learned to dance, or are going to eat a man, or at all events are standing at bay. On reaching the end of the lake we found that a considerable portion of the day had been spent, but still we had some distance to go before we could reach the spot proposed for our camping-ground. ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... great favourite among the crew, and ran no slight chance of being spoilt. I could dance a hornpipe with any man on board; and as for singing a rollicking sea-song, there were few who could match me. I soon learned to hand reef, steer, and heave the lead, as well as any man on board. My mother was proud of me, and so was my father; and they had ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... rings round them in pencil, they seem so vast that you get the impression that, after stowing away all your trunks, you will have room left over to do a bit of entertaining—possibly an informal dance or something. When you go on board you find that the place has shrunk to the dimensions of an undersized cupboard in which it would be impossible to swing a cat. And then, about the second day out, it suddenly expands again. For one ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... on flowing. Semyon pressed the sides of the wound together so as to close it, but the blood did not diminish. Evidently he had cut his arm very deep. His head commenced to swim, black spots began to dance before his eyes, and then it became dark. There was a ringing in his ears. He could not see the train or hear the noise. Only one thought possessed him. "I shall not be able to keep standing up. I shall fall and drop the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... whom is e'en that one, Who wandering but a while agone Stumbled upon our harvest-home That August when you might not come. Betwixt the stubble and the grass Great mirth indeed he brought to pass. But liefer were I to have seen Your nimble feet tread down the green In threesome dance to pipe and fife. ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... sat in an ancient chair, and wiped her cheeks, and looked at her; and even Lizzie's eyes must dance to the freshness and joy of her beauty. As for me, you might call me mad; for I ran out and flung my best hat on the barn, and kissed mother Fry, till she made at me ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... in mazy ring I join the dance, and sportive play; And oft beneath thy window sing, When first the ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... each royal child that is born, and this is increased from year to year as the child becomes more and more indispensable to his country. Look at Prince Arthur. At first he only got the usual birth-bounty; but now that he has got so that he can dance, there is simply no telling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mantlepiece, with mystery in their faces and curious limbs, uniting the hearth with fable and with tales told in the wood. Years after the men that carved them were all dust the shadows of these creatures would come out and dance in the room, on wintry nights when all the lamps were gone and flames stole out and flickered above ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... you've a tongue, and I a ship, Likewise some roomy kegs; And you might lead the birds a dance Upon their ugly legs; And, when you've got them out of sight, I'll ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... keeper: I must be cautious; but I will discover where the comte and the lady are secured. Then I will leave you with the jailer; the crisis cannot be delayed another day. Wait till you hear them coming, then shout Vive Tallien! run about, dance around like a crazy man—hasten the jailer to release Madame, and do you manage to rescue the comte—then be off instantly; don't come here again; strike into the country while the confusion prevails. Come; let us go this minute." And I did go. I found Maurice's ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... her upon the third step of the altar, and the Lord gave unto her grace, and she dance with her feet, and all the house of ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... sing an' dance fer years, ye've got t' romp an' play, An' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 'em each day; Even the roses 'round the porch must blossom year by year Afore they 'come a part o' ye, suggestin' someone dear Who ...
— Making the House a Home • Edgar A. Guest
... "I were liever not to chance it. I thought I heard thee deny Fina this last week to go to the dance ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... the rose that the world hears singing, Soft in the soft night, loud in the day, Songs for the fire-flies to dance as they hear; If that be the song of the nightingale, springing Forth in the form of a rose in May, What do they say of the way ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... worship at Dorothy Harper's shrine. Perhaps Bas Rowlett who "had things hung up" had at last come to his senses and meant, belatedly, to lay his heart at her feet. If he did, she would lead him a merry dance of doing penance—but she would nowise ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... a metal mirror; they constructed a string of beautiful jewels; they performed divination with the shoulder-blade of a stag; they took a plant of Sakaki and hung on its branches the strings of jewels, the mirror, and offerings of peace. Then they caused the rituals to be recited, and a dance to be danced, and all the assembled deities laughed aloud. The Sun Goddess heard these sounds of merriment and was amazed. She softly opened the door and looked out, and asked the meaning of all this tumult. They told her it was because they had found another goddess more illustrious than she. At ...
— Japan • David Murray
... in you, dear. And if you are not art, what is? I wish to put a little more nature into you, and get you away from this cold clay and marble into the sunshine, to dance and laugh as the others do. I want a flesh-and-blood girl, not a sweet statue in a grey pinafore, who forgets everything but her work.' As he spoke, two dusty hands came round his neck, and Bess said earnestly, punctuating her words with ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Hartley, "you're a genius." He peered through the spray down to leeward, where the pilot's boat danced a death dance alongside, heel and toe to the Puncher's statelier swing. "Yes; there are three men bailing, and you're a genius. But no! The answer's no! The engines'll keep on turning, maybe and perhaps, until we make the shelter o' yon reef. There's no knowing ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... when she breaks her lute's deep slumbers, And as at morning's touch up-darting, The notes, beneath her fingers starting, Dance o'er the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... officer," her voice trembling slightly, yet sounding clearly distinct. "He—he was merely accompanying me home from a dance." ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... Laura's card for the dance that night, while Greg attended to Belle's. Many were the cadets who glared at Dick and Greg for not having inscribed their names on the dance cards of these two very "spoony ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... regard, and spoke to it: "Thou art to be my Rome." The harmony Of that note to the nebulous heights supreme, And to the bounds of the created world, Rolled like the voice of myriad organ-stops, And sank, and ceased. The heavenly orbs resumed Their daily dance and their unending journey; A mighty rush of plumes disturbed the rest Of the vast silence; here and there like stars About the sky, flashed the immortal eyes Of ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... tambourine-beating and shouting and hand-clapping of the afternoon is repeated, and every now and then the procession stops to allow one or two of the women to face the bridegroom and favor him with an exhibition of their skill in the execution of the hip-dance. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... bestow their gifts upon the princess. The youngest ordained that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; the next, that she should have the temper of an angel; the third, that she should do everything with wonderful grace; the fourth, that she should dance to perfection; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that she should play every kind of music ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... my old wife liv'd, upon This day, she was both pantler, butler, cook; Both dame and servant: welcom'd all, serv'd all: Would sing her song, and dance her turn: now here At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle: On his shoulder, and his: her face o' fire With labour; and the thing she took to quench it She would to each one sip. You are retir d, As if you were a feasted one, and not The hostess of the meeting. Pray you, bid These unknown ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... been in a large tent; and, as the night was warm, the bottom of the tent cover had been lifted to let the breeze blow through. This had given an opportunity for the crowd outside to look within and watch the ceremony and the dramatic dance. To the right of the door, in two circles around the drum, sat the choir of men and women, all in their gala dress. Each member of the society, wrapped in his robe, with measured steps entered the tent, and silently took his seat on the ground against the wall. The ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... once and gay, Turned by time and tempest gray—] Where the merry minahs crowd Unbrageous haunts, and chirrup loud— And shrilly talk the parrots green 'Midst the thick leaves dimly seen— And through the quivering foliage play, Light as buds, the squirrels gay, Quickly as the noontide beams Dance upon the rippled streams— Where the pariah[113] howls with fear, If the white man passeth near— Where the beast that mocks our race With taper finger, solemn face, In the cool shade sits at ease Calm and grave as Socrates— Where the sluggish buffaloe Wallows in mud—and ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... with the lightness of a sun-beam, had evaded a stroke of the great flail and touched for an instant the shoulder of its wielder. Had he put a pound more force into the thrust—A groan crept down the Danish line when the bright blade rose, as lightly as it had fallen, and continued its butterfly dance. It consoled them a little, however, that no cheer went up from the English,—only a low buzz that was half of anger, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... a beauteous nymph decays, We say she's past her dancing days; So poets lose their feet by time, And can no longer dance in rhyme. Your annual bard had rather chose To celebrate your birth in prose; Yet merry folks who want by chance A pair to make a country dance, Call the old housekeeper, and get her To fill a place, for want of better; While Sheridan is off the hooks, And friend Delany at his books, That Stella ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... grotesquely and shabbily bedecked, had rushed out of the low dance-houses in the Guildhall Ward, and were roaring out staves of songs as they crossed the square. But on catching sight of a second troop of mummers running about the water-side, the first party stopped to wait for the others to come up, rejoicing, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... you are. Dolly, don't throttle my angel child. Stands up for his family, don't he, the dear? Mr. Tatham, how can you be so bigoted and stubborn, when our dear little Toto—— But you always were the most obstinate man. Do you remember once, when I wanted to take you to Lady Dogberry's dance—wasn't it Lady Dogberry's?—well, it was Lady Somebody's—and you said you were not asked, and I said, what did it matter: but to make you go, and Nell was with me—we might as well have tried ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... enacted, and knew full well how the man was to be treated. The carouse continued till it was time to clear the room for the ball. Several of the guests had to be borne off, and their heads bathed in cold water to make them fit companions for the ladies in the dance. Meantime, Jonas Quelch was carried back to the room he had left, where Crean plied him with a further supply of whisky under the excuse of keeping up ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... and, with the kettle, proceed to walk half across the room—there to perform certain manual operations requiring skill and presence of mind, before a large and crowded assembly—was horror to the mind of the poor Jib; and he would nearly as soon have acceded to a desire to dance a hornpipe, if such had been suggested as the wish of the company. However, there was nothing for it; and summoning up all his nerve—knitting his brows —clenching his teeth, like one prepared to "do or die," he seized the hissing cauldron, and strode ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... that they keep together at Play, &c. 1. Of playing at Stool-ball: Of chusing Partners. 2. Of playing at Bowls, the Orders of the Bowling-Green. 3. Of playing at striking a Ball through an Iron Ring. 4. Of Dancing, that they should not dance presently after Dinner: Of playing at ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... frankly own, that could you send your young ladies to one where girls only are admitted, I should more readily yield my opinion of the matter to those Christians who have advised you to it. But as I learn that it is a promiscuous dance of boys and girls, I must in conscience say that I look upon such a meeting to be as pernicious in its effects upon the minds of young people, as balls and public assemblies on persons of riper years. When you mentioned the subject to me first, I thought it had ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... need not tickle themselves; the others have need of foreign assistance; as they have the less wit they must have the more body; they mount on horseback, because they are not able to stand on their own legs. As in our balls, those mean fellows who teach to dance, not being able to represent the presence and dignity of our noblesse, are fain to put themselves forward with dangerous jumping, and other strange motions and tumblers tricks; and the ladies are less put to it in dance; where there are various coupees, changes, and quick motions of body, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, 'Look here! Here's a game!' Happily, too, the greater part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog, and patting and soothing me, lest I should bite, and saying, 'Lie down, sir!' and calling me Towzer. This was naturally confusing, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... who discovered the cookies and sent a squeal of delight across the meadow. But even then the workers did not pause. Priscilla had to dance out across the mown grass and squeal again and wave both hands, a cooky in one, a cup in the other, and add a shrill little yelp, "Come on! Come on, peoples! You don't know what we've got here," before they straggled over to what Henry called "the ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... me too, sir," said Robert. "We're permitting the Marquis de Montcalm to make the fighting, to choose the fields of battle, and as long as we do that we have to dance to his music. But, sir, that's only my opinion. I would not presume to give it in the presence of ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... them are not to be gained by men. I will give them to thee, but do not ask the question regarding death." Naciketas replied, "All those enjoyments are of to-morrow and they only weaken the senses. All life is short, with thee the dance and song. Man cannot be satisfied with wealth, we could obtain wealth, as long as we did not reach you we live only as long as thou pleasest. The boon which I choose I have said." Yama said, "One thing is good, another is pleasant. Blessed is he who takes the good, but he who chooses the pleasant ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... no doubt," assented the squire, gleefully. "Another week will put him in Philadelphia, and then ye rebels will dance for it. No wonder ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... for gladness if we only do not take the ugly things with us everywhere. There is summer, as it is now, when we rest and play and all the gods come down from Olympus and dance and sing and bask in the light—and then the autumn when the colors are rich and everything prepares for winter and sleeps. But even in the cold and dark we must not be sad, because we know it is only for a time and to give us change, so that we may shout for ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... feeble gnat to dance thus alone in the eye of morning. That one plane should, unaided, drive on at Nissr's huge, rushing bulk, seemed as preposterous as a mosquito trying to lance a rhinoceros. The major directed a ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... pronounce MM. Barbier and Carre's libretto a creditable piece of work. Mignon is a child who was stolen in infancy by a band of gipsies. She travels with them from town to town, dancing in the streets to the delight of the crowd. One day in a German city she refuses to dance, and Jarno the gipsy chief threatens her with his whip. Wilhelm Meister, who happens to be passing, saves her from a beating, and, pitying the half-starved child, buys her from the gipsies. Among the spectators of this scene are Laertes, the ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... with the blue collars laid square back over their broad shoulders, exposing their bronzed and hairy throats, wagging their jaws, and ready at any moment, at the tap of the drum, day or night, to spring to the guns, and make the battery dance a jig as the solid iron food went amid sheets of flame toward a foe. Yes, and ready, too, in the gentle breeze or the howling tempest, to leap at the shrill pipe of the whistle from the busy deck or their snug hammocks, ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... made a positive effort to entertain her guests. Alas! she did so with but moderate success. They had all their own way of going, and would not go her way. She piped to them, but they would not dance. She offered to them good honest household cake, made of currants and flour and eggs and sweetmeat; but they would feed themselves on trashy wafers from the shop of the Barchester pastry-cook, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... ought to be, sir! But, as I was telling you, the scoundrel led the second cutter a pretty dance, Munday following him till from the deck here it seemed that all he had to do was to tell his coxswain to put his boat-hook on board the lugger and bring his prisoners ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... may scratch up the whole garden, and empty it into the duck pond; he may break down fifty trees a day; he may have a mass meeting of the dogs, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and the old gray donkey, in the best flower beds; and end by inviting Farmer Green's bull Sampson to dance a hornpipe through the glass into the conservatory. Nothing now ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... came from the dance, and staggered toward the hut of the captives. They were armed with knives and hatchets. One had an arquebuse, which he fired at the trees as often as the uncertain hands of all of them could load it. He caught sight of the white men sitting in the shadow, and came toward them, his fellows ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... in the chimney, and it had now crumbled into great coals and embers, which lay glowing on the hearth, with a blaze flickering up now and then, and flinging a warm and ruddy light upon the walls. Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead. She undressed the little prince, and bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase. The next thing she did was to rake back the red embers, and make a hollow place among them, just where the backlog had been. At last, while the baby was crowing, ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that she had come up to Paris for a month, as she did every year, and that she was staying at her father's, the Marquis de Tassar. She had come to this party much against her inclination, as she disliked going out. She did not dance; and thus I talked to her till the ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... the sound of music wanting, to augment the poetry of the scene. The whole band would be assembled on the poop, regaling the officers, and incidentally ourselves, with their fine old airs. To these, some of us would occasionally dance in the top, which was almost as large as an ordinary sized parlour. When the instrumental melody of the band was not to be had, our nightingales mustered their voices, and gave ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... cold floor, his head hanging, drained of energy, of all that feeling of power and well-being he had had when they had begun their dance across the symbols. About him those designs still glowed dully. When he looked at them too intently his head ached. He could almost understand, but the struggle was so exhausting he winced at ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... only remarkable for their orthodox belief in ghosts and witches. An old gentleman, who died there some years ago, lamented till his death a sight he had lost when a boy, only for the want of five pounds—a man having undertaken for that sum to make all the witches in the parish dance on the knoll together; and though he grew up a penurious man, (and lived a bachelor till fifty), he never ceased to lament that such an opportunity of seeing these weird-sisters collected together, never occurred again. He used to say he had seen a witch "swam on Polstead Ponds," and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... nothing with him.' Oh, I assure you, it would have made you laugh—her pretence of gravity! I said nothing—not I; what is the use of making serious promises over trifles? But when I went out I encountered the gentleman with the agates and pebbles. 'Friend,' said I, 'a word with you. Skip, dance, be off with you to the steps of some other hotel; your presence is not agreeable here.' 'Who are you?' said he, naturally. 'No matter,' said I; 'but do you wish to be presented with two dozen of the school-master's sweetmeats?' 'Who are you?' ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... early life by the Scottish historians is highly captivating, and seems rather the description of a hero of romance than of a character in real history. He was well learnt, we are told, "to fight with the sword, to joust, to tourney, to wrestle, to sing and dance; he was an expert mediciner, right crafty in playing both of lute and harp, and sundry other instruments of music, and was expert ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... morals of both sexes are lax in the extreme; assassination is a common offence; they rank about as low in the social scale as any people of Christendom," says McCulloch. "Their songs are licentious: the national dance or the toffa is so lascivious that every stranger who sees it must deplore the corruption of the people, and regret to find such exhibitions permitted, not only in the country, but in the heart of towns, and even on the stage," says Malte-Brun. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... worry, old pillar of monogamy; it's highly proper. It seems to be settled now, isn't it—though of course Zilla keeps rooting for a nice expensive vacation in New York and Atlantic City, with the bright lights and the bootlegged cocktails and a bunch of lounge-lizards to dance with—but the Babbitts and the Rieslings are sure-enough going to Lake Sunasquam, aren't we? Why couldn't you and I make some excuse—say business in New York—and get up to Maine four or five days before they do, and just loaf by ourselves ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... watched it there was a cessation of the dance, followed by the rapid sweep of a powerful hand over the strings of a guitar. Then a group of officers stepped together, and a great wave of melodious song, solemn and triumphant, thrilled the night. It was the national hymn. Antonia and Isabel knew it. Every word beat upon their hearts. The power ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Si-Fan?" Detective-sergeant Fletcher had asked that morning. None of us could answer him; none of us knew. With a haze seeming to dance between my eyes and the active life in the lobby before me, I realized that the Si-Fan—that unseen, sinister power— had reached out and plucked my friend from the very midst of this noisy life about me, into its own mysterious, ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... solitude on the mountain tops to bewail the fact that she will die childless. Motherhood among the Jewish women was considered the highest honor and glory ever vouchsafed to mortals. So she was permitted for a brief period to enjoy her freedom, accompanied by young Jewish maidens who had hoped to dance at ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... all, ask ourselves, looking at the world around us, what it is that the history of the world signifies. When we read history, what does the history tell us? It seems to be a moving panorama of people and events, but it is really only a dance of shadows; the people are shadows, not realities, the kings and statesmen, the ministers and armies; and the events the battles and revolutions, the rises and falls of states are the most shadowlike dance of all. Even if the ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... frivolous forms of entertainment, Miss Woodhull did condescend to a Hallowe'en Masquerade each year, and two nights after Beverly's John Gilpin performance the girls were preparing for the dance ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... them made his way on deck, and began to sing, and dance, and halloo like a madman. One of his shipmates, named Wilkins, remonstrated against such unruly conduct, and received in return a blow on the side of the head, which sent him with great force against the gunwale. The peacemaker, indignant at such unexpected and undeserved ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... has been a good crop of corn, an ear is always tied at the top of the medicine pole, of the sun dance, in thanks to the Great Spirit for his goodness to them in sending ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... their words of greeting to friends on the street below. The September sun was warm and mellow, and as it found its way through the thick foliage it also cast fantastic shadows upon the grass that seemed to dance and leap in the very contagion of the young life that abounded on every side. The very air was almost electric and the high hills in the distance that shut in the valley and provided a framework for the handiwork of nature, lent an additional ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... had been lately renewed or built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away, leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a tree ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... mere milliner; they will tell you all, Your Spanish gennet is the best horse; your Spanish Stoup is the best garb; your Spanish beard Is the best cut; your Spanish ruffs are the best Wear; your Spanish pavin the best dance; Your Spanish titillation in a glove The best perfume: and for your Spanish pike, And Spanish blade, let your poor captain speak— Here ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson |
