"Dancer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I ever heard or read or knew ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of Knocker.—Jumping up and down the surface of the door like a rope dancer, occasionally diverging into a zig-zag, the key-hole partaking of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Count and his guests mounted the horses, which were led forth in front of the house by high-booted, long pink-shirted, wide-trousered peasants, looking as unlike English grooms as a polar bear does to an opera-dancer. Cousin Giles was not a bad horseman for a sailor, and the lads were delighted with the steeds provided for them; but Mr Evergreen had great doubts whether he should risk his neck on the back of an animal with which he was unacquainted. The Count, however, assured ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... exist in a certain social order of our civilization unburdened by great doubts and deep glooms he must not shiver when his wife tinkles her champagne glass against another. He must learn to appreciate the sinuous beauties of the cabaret dancer, and must train himself to take no offence when he sees shimmering wines tilted down white throats. He must train himself to many things, just as he trains himself to classical music and grand opera. To do these things he must forget, as much as he can, ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... one wench betweene us two is nothing. I know a hundred Leverets[240], things that will Bound like a dancer on the rope and kiss thee Into thy naturall complexion: A sinner that shall ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... but in other countries. He had appointed no heir to his immense dominions; but to the question of his friends, "Who should inherit them?" he replied, "The most worthy." After many disturbances, his generals recognized as Kings the weak-minded Aridaeus—a son of Philip by Philinna, the dancer—and Alexander's posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander AEgus, while they shared the provinces among themselves, assuming the title of satraps. Perdiccas, to whom Alexander had, on his death-bed, delivered his ring, became ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... that I must claim a liberty of going to a Court play according to my oath. So home to supper, and at supper comes Pembleton, and afterwards we all up to dancing till late, and so broke up and to bed, and they say that I am like to make a dancer. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... convinced that he had won her. He clasped her, conscious of her smooth warmth, and solemnly he circled in a heavy version of the one-step. He bumped into only one or two people. "Gosh, I'm not doing so bad; hittin' 'em up like a regular stage dancer!" he gloated; and she answered busily, "Yes—yes—I told you I could teach anybody—DON'T TAKE SUCH ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... until worn out. Ten or fifteen dancers form a ring and, accompanied by drumming, yelling, and rattling, dance until the first exhausted one goes through the pantomime of being shot with the bow and arrow, skinned, and cut up; but the dance does not lag, for another masked dancer takes the place of the fallen one. The dance continues day and night, without cessation, sometimes for two or three weeks, or until a herd of buffaloes appears in sight; then the warriors change the dance for ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... cats—that's it—ha, ha, ha!" echoed Mr. Titmouse; who, getting up out of his chair, could not resist capering to and fro, sticking his hands on his hips, in something of the attitude of a hornpipe dancer, whistling and humming by turns, and indulging in various other ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... touch which gives a mood, a scene, with scarce an obvious detail of either mood or scene. We may not understand the purport of the song, we understand the feeling that prompted the song, as, having done with reading 'Kubla Khan,' there remains in our mind, not the pictured vision of palace or dancer, but a personal participation in Coleridge's heightened fancy, a setting-on of ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... becoming quite hard to please," her face turned partially away, her look meditative, "and—and dictatorial; but I will try. You are intelligent, a splendid dancer, fairly good-looking, rather bright at times, and, no doubt, would prove venturesome if not held strictly to your proper place. Take it all in all, you are even interesting, and—I admit—I ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... already taken the brace and bit from the bag and started to bore through the wall into room 511, selecting a spot behind a picture of a Spanish dancer—a spot directly back of her snapping black eyes. He finished quickly and inserted the detectascope so that the lens fitted as an eye in the picture. The eye piece was in Room 511. Then he started to brush up the pieces ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the dancer, "envoys from King Antiochus. But—goose that I am!—then they would not be received here, but in the royal harbour at the Lochias. See if I don't prove to be right! Divine honours are to be paid to some newly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first till he make this like a private apartment for me," went on the little dancer, "and when I come here he do everything for me. I have luxury, yes, jewels and dresses and a fine new car. Then, by and by, I grow tired. It was always the same and he was at the palace, much. And he would not let me make acquaintance. We quarrel, ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... She played as Terry Sheehan used to play. She played as no music hack at Bernie Gottschalk's had ever played before. The crowd swayed a little to the sound of it. Some kept time with little jerks of the shoulder—the little hitching movement of the dancer whose blood is filled with the fever of syncopation. Even the crowd flowing down State Street must have caught the rhythm of it, ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... of men; I name my passage the Highway of Instant Death; I splinter world-old forests with my laugh, And whirl the ancient snows of Hecla sheer into Orion's eyes. I dance on the deep under the big Indian stars, And wrap the water spout about my sinuous hips As a dancer winds her girdle. The ocean's horrid crew, The octopus, the serpent, and the shark, with the heart of a coward, Plunge downward when they hear my feet above on the sea-floor, And hide in their slimy coverts. Brave men pray upon the straining decks Till comes my mood to end them, and I strew ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... the son of a court agent at Vienna, and his father was a very good friend of Balnokhazy; his mother had once been ballet-dancer at the Vienna opera—a ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Pole, carrying on a spiritless conversation, and coldly listened to the praises the former liberally bestowed on the German dancer. The rapid movements and strong excitement that were natural to the Polish girls made Lenore wild, and, Anton regretted to see, unfeminine; and his glance wandered away from her to the rough walls, the dusty stove, in which an immense fagot was burning, and the ceiling, from which long ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... to look no further than this Empire State for examples. This Empire State, with its magnificent resources and proudly developing energies, should be the last to unite in adjudging its judicial officers to the labors of galley slaves, and to then pay them by the year less than a ballet-dancer receives by the month in all its principal cities. Two thousand five hundred dollars per year is the astounding sum which this same Empire State pays to its highest judicial officers. If we reverse the saying of Walpole, and read "every ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... endless topics of conversation. Some things Harmony was spared, much of the talk being in dialect. But a great deal of it she understood, and she learned much that was not spoken. They talked freely of the women, their clothes, and they talked a great deal about a newcomer, an American dancer, for whom Monia was making an elaborate outfit. The American's name was Lillian Le Grande. She was dancing at one of ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Harry was essentially a lady's man. He was tall, and an extremely handsome fellow, a thorough-going sportsman, an excellent polo player, a perfect dancer, and a splendid rider to hounds. Little wonder was it that he was about to make a very fine match, for only a month before his death he confided to me in secret the fact—a fact known to me alone—that he was engaged to pretty little ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... lot of times, please; you are a beautiful dancer, and I like best to dance with the people ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... in gowns of vivid richness, danced the contradanza, the most graceful dance I have ever seen; and since those Californian days I have lived in almost every capital of Europe. The music is so monotonous and sweet, the figures so melting and harmonious, that to both spectator and dancer comes a dreaming languid contentment, as were the senses swimming on the brink of sleep. Chonita and Valencia were famous rivals in its rendering, always the sala-stars to those not dancing. Valencia was the perfection of grace, but it was the grace ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... man to drop in was Pobson. He is a Grand Knight Imperial (or something similar) of the Primrose League, and makes speeches between the ventriloquist and the step-dancer at their meetings. He has signed the Covenant, and reads every column Mr. GARVIN writes. In fact, I attribute it entirely to Mr. GARVIN'S effect on the nerves that his handicap has been increased from plus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... fantastic warblings and flourishes, these preposterous runs, these never-ending shakes, but delusive artifices of style, which people admire in the same way that they admire the foolhardy agility of a rope-dancer? Do you imagine that such things can make any deep impression upon us and stir the heart? The 'harmonic shake' which you spoilt I cannot tolerate; I always feel anxious and pained when she attempts it. And then this scaling up into the region of the third ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... with a staff in his hand, and having crossed his legs (like a tailor upon his board), let go the rope, and, with his hands extended, swung to the motion of the ship, maintaining his balance with the ease and composure of a rope-dancer. This done, he dislodged the hat with his staff; and to prove how easy it was to perform the feat, he thrice repeated it to the great delight of all on board. "Faith of my father!" exclaimed the general, "I see ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... a lily, made no reply, so completely was she stupefied by contending feelings. And yet in the presence of the man she had this instant begun to hate vehemently, she forced the kind of smile which a ballet-dancer puts on for the public. Nay, she could even laugh; she had the strength to conceal her rage, which presently subsided, for she was determined to make use of this fat simpleton ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... frisked about from table to chair, and mantelpiece; he would fall from the shelf to the floor, just to show how hard he was; and after thanking the good woman most politely, for the service she had done him, he walked out into the sunshine, on the clothes-line, like a rope dancer, to see ...
— Denslow's Humpty Dumpty • William Wallace Denslow
... not call a comic actor a comedien or a tragic actor a tragedien? Possibly it is because 'comedian' and 'tragedian' seem to be too exclusively masculine—so that a want is felt for words to indicate a female tragedian and a female comedian. Probably it is for the same reason that a male dancer is not termed a danseur while a female dancer is termed a danseuse. Then there is diseuse, apparently reserved for the lady who recites verse, no name being needed apparently for the gentleman who recites verse—at least, I am reasonably certain that I have never seen diseur applied ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... like a fairy. She was a stage dancer; there's where ye got yer nimble toes, but she died when ye wasn't a year old, an' yer father married that other woman who wa'n't nobody at all. Yer own ma was called 'Ma'm'selle Nannette' on the play-bills, ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... if that's what you mean. You saw that, even when he had just come off a train journey. He's a beautiful dancer. I'm so glad he asked me for a couple of dances at the L.G.'s ball. I'll see he doesn't forget them. I'll keep him up to his word, though Bertie won't like it. He's fearfully jealous of me, but I ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... "California Pet" was performing to enthusiastic audiences in the interior. Her specialty lay in the personation of youthful masculine character; as a gamin of the street she was irresistible, as a negro-dancer she carried the honest miner's heart by storm. A saucy, pretty brunette, she had preserved a wonderful moral reputation even under the Jove-like advances of showers of gold that greeted her appearance on the stage at Sierra Flat. A prominent and delighted member ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... ones. The pretext was well chosen, inasmuch as the tyrant added to his other vices and absurdities the pose of being an extravagant stickler for etiquette. We happen to know, nevertheless, that the name of a young dancer, a prime favourite at Court, cropped up persistently at the time in connection with this malodorous but otherwise ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... tribe to compete for the honors. A maiden must prevent a youth from confronting her; the youth, while attempting to gain his position, must beware lest the maiden present her back to him. Fast and furiously they whirled and dodged, and a shout went up from the bystanders as each unfortunate dancer was compelled to retire. Finally there were only three contestants left; Papita, Piang, and Sicto. Gracefully the little slave girl eluded the boys; slyly she circumvented their attacks. Her little bare feet twinkled daintily about on the sand; her brass ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... that he will disparage this charming girl in my eyes by telling me that she is a bad dancer, he is wrong. Of great importance it is to have a wife who dances well! She does not dance in her own house, nor with her husband from the wardrobe to the cradle, but at others' houses, and with other men. Besides, a young girl who ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... When he writes of love in "The Red-haired Man's Wife" and "The Rebel" he is not sure that that old intoxication of self-surrender is not a wrong to the soul and a disloyalty to the highest in us. His "Dancer" revolts from the applauding crowd. The wind cries out against the inference that the beauty of nature points inevitably to an equal beauty of spirit within. His enemies revolt against their hate; his old man against his ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... my lord, yes;—he at Philippi kept His sword e'en like a dancer; while I struck The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I That the mad Brutus ended; he alone Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had In the brave squares of ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... present generation to learn that the well-known circus man Jacob Showles was once a fire-eater, and that Del Fugo, well-known in his day as a dancer in the music halls, began as a fire-resister, and did his dance on hot iron plates. But the reader has two keener surprises in store for him before I close the long history of the heat-resisters. The first ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... the Deep Blue Waves!' and Mac Gordon singing his everlasting German songs in their native language, and Charlie Dickman singing a new sentimental one called 'Ain't There at Least One Gentleman Here?' about a fair young lady dancer being insulted in a gilded cafe in some large city; and one and all voted it was a jolly evening and said how about coming back to-morrow night, but Hetty said no, it was her one evening for study and she couldn't be bothered ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... What a superb dancer, and how democratic! The man she is dancing with is at the head of one of the labor organizations that is championing woman's suffrage. Come, Jack, let us have a whirl, as of old, and I will then bring your ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... its application. The citizen of the world finds no armory like that which the institutions, the taste, and the genius of the French nation afford him, whether he aspire to be a courtier or a chemist, a soldier or a savant, a dancer or a doctor; and yet, for complete equipment, he must temper each weapon he there acquires, or it will break ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in vain; his eyes only were reading, his thoughts were elsewhere; they were in the market-place which was in frolic with the dancer. ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... begged for the favor of a waltz with the Queen of the festival. And she allowed his request. With light and graceful steps he danced through the long saloon, with the sovereign who thought never to have found a more dexterous and excellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, and fine conversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously accorded him a second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, as well as others were not refused him. How all regarded the happy dancer, how many envied him the high favor; how ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... farmer, very near about my own age, and altogether a most prepossessing and intelligent young man. I first met wi' him at my youngest sister's goodman's kirn,[F] and I must say, a better or a more gracefu' dancer I never saw upon a floor. He had neither the jumping o' a mountebank, nor the sliding o' a play-actor, but there was an ease in his carriage which I never saw equalled. I was particularly struck wi' him, and especially his dancing; and it so happened that he was no less struck wi' me. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... an end without either his vigilance or the impatience of the maitre d'hotel being rewarded. Writhing with serpentine grace to the edge of the illuminated area, the dancer leaped back into darkness and the folds of a wrap held by a maid, in which garment she was seen, bowing and laughing, when the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... before him. Panshin quickly learnt the secret of getting on in the world; he knew how to yield with genuine respect to its decrees; he knew how to take up trifles with half ironical seriousness, and to appear to regard everything serious as trifling; he was a capital dancer; and dressed in the English style. In a short time he gained the reputation of being one of the smartest and most ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... reservation. Trust to Time, the healer, to bring change and forgetfulness. Or, break your promise to that dead man, and tell her—as he would have had you tell her, remember!—as he would have had you tell her!—that when he asked her hand in marriage, he was the wedded husband of the dancer, Lessie Lavigne!" ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... has a notorious liaison with a dancer at the Opera; she has married lovelessly. They have met again, and, in sentimental mood, he has recalled that sojourn, has begun to make a kind of tentative love to her, probably unimpaired in beauty, certainly more intellectually interesting, for the whole monologue proves that she can no longer ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... been some great public disaster. She and Mr. Harry Higgins—an exceptionally clever and devoted friend of mine—having revived the opera, Bohemian society became her hobby; but a tenor in the country or a dancer on the lawn are not really wanted; and, although she spent endless time at Covent Garden and achieved considerable success, restlessness devoured her. While receiving the adoration of a small but influential circle, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... be complete without one?—and Colonel Washington walked a minuet with a certain Mistress Patience Burd, with a grace which excited the admiration of every swain in the room, and the envy of not a few,—myself among the number, for I was ever but a clumsy dancer, and on this occasion no doubt greatly vexed my pretty partner. But every night must end, as this one did at last. Colonel Washington was much better next morning, for his illness had been more of the mind than ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... 'I've asked Dr. Dancer to call in to-night,' said Aunt Annie casually, while Henry was assuming his toasted crimson carpet slippers. Mrs. Knight was brewing ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... amidst rapturous applause. The dancer had left the stage, floating away into some sort of wonderfully-contrived nebulous background. Within a few moments, the principal comedian of the day was telling stories. Sir ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to this day by Romans with ice cream. From house to house they go; the priest blesses each dwelling, sprinkling water about with the laurel, and then burning the branch on the hearth and giving some of the rolls to the children. And all the time the dancer slowly dances and chants the strange words made up of some Hebrew, a little Chaldean and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the first allusion that had been made in Primrose Court to Maida's lameness. Her face shadowed a little. "No, I'm afraid I couldn't," she said regretfully. "But—oh—think what a lovely dancer Rosie ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... upon the students, while the unseemly rents in his coat at once compensated to the wits for what there might be of gaudy or gay in his outward man. We were received with equal courtesy and ceremony by the president; and were just seated, when a ballet-dancer of Drury-lane entered. As he was a Frenchman, it became a question of national politeness: and Dicky chestered him to his dexter! and, as was befitting, condescended to address him. "I am proud, sir," said Suett, with the formality of Black Rod himself, "to do the honours of my country ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... him, and only by a shake of the head and a sad smile replied to the light badinage of the dancers as they passed the window. But now and then his eyes lighted up, and he sighed deeply as a certain dancer, prettier than the rest, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... her rival in artificial accomplishments, she at least attracts more admirers by her youth and beauty; by the exquisite symmetry of her form, and the natural grace and elegance of her movements. The one of these is certainly the first dancer, and the other is perhaps the most ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... ten millions of bulls, at length far away there appeared something terrible. I can only describe its appearance as that of an attenuated mountain on fire. When it drew nearer I perceived that it was more like a ballet-dancer whirling round and round upon her toes, or rather all the ballet-dancers in the world rolled into one and then multiplied a million times in size. No, it was like a mushroom with two stalks, one above and one ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... women (much better gowned than Eleanor) and a dozen men applauded from the drawing-room; a strange-looking youth with a shock of auburn hair drew from a violin sounds which it required no knowledge of technique to feel extraordinarily poignant and moving. All but the dancer were smoking, and Molly sat on the floor (in copper-coloured chiffon, too!) her hands clasped about her knees, a cigarette in an amber holder between her ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... with his teeth. The Giantess, who ate raw pigeons, or any other fowl that was most convenient. The wonderful Almanzor (that was Robeccal,) a descendant of the Moors of Spain, crushed glass with his teeth and swallowed swords. Then there was Caillette, the rope-dancer, who charmed the world with her voice, as well as with her aerial lightness. And lastly, in letters of the same length as those which Gudel used for himself, ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... uniform was red and blue and very splendid. He carried his musket across his shoulder as a marching soldier should, kept his eyes straight to the front, and stood very firmly upon his one foot. In the fire he lost the tinsel and the color from his uniform, and when the Dancer joined him he melted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... was horrified to see one of the dancers leap into the air, uttering a mighty shriek. While still clear of the ground the dancer's body turned, then he dove head first into the bed of hot coals. He ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... foot of the staircase he ran into the arms of a dapper French doctor, young, yet experienced, a man of science, a man of pleasure, an anatomist, a dancer, a philosopher, and a dandy—who put both hands on his shoulders, and looked in his face with so comical an expression of congratulation, sympathy, pity, and amusement, that Mr. Bruce's fears vanished on the instant, and he ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... divine Lais!" exclaimed Blondet, who had followed the lady upstairs and brought Nathan, Vernou and Claude Vignon with him. "Stop to supper, there is a dear, or I will crush thee, butterfly as thou art. There will be no professional jealousies, as you are a dancer; and as to beauty, you have all of you too much sense to ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... his unquestionable art-abilities, that he was courtly in manner, an accomplished fencer and dancer, with a graceful figure and a handsome face; that he possessed an exquisitely modulated voice; and large, lustrous expressive eyes—the light in which seemed to ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the drink flowed to your heart's content. As I was the only one in the troupe that knew how to figure—for I've had an education," interposed Don Alonso, "and my father was a soldier—they named me director. In one of the towns I reinforced the company with a ballerina and a strong man. The dancer's name was Rosita Montanes; she's the one I thought of when you mentioned the Rosita you were looking for. This Montanes was Spanish and had married the strong man, an Italian whose real name was Napoleon Pitti. The couple had with them as secretary a Galician,—very ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... the sermon. It would not be fair to the reader to give an abstract of that. When a man who has been bred to free thought and free speech suddenly finds himself stepping about, like a dancer amidst his eggs, among the old addled majority-votes which he must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for men and angels. Submission to intellectual precedent and authority does very well for those who have been bred to it; we know that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hampered with fewer restraining influences than most men, for he was alone in the world, without kith or kin, and might be fairly allowed to please himself, and pleasing himself in this case meant leading to the altar, or rather to the Registry Office, Miss Bella Blackall, music-hall singer and step dancer. ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... these panels show the positions at the ends of dances in such a way that on each panel there is a dancer in the proper position at the end of the dance; this is to teach the women, so that if they forget the position in which they have to remain when the dance is done, they may look at one of the panels where is the end of that dance. ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... It was somewhat of a Cyrano de Bergerac affair; one of the principals, concealed behind the "leading man," using his own arms for gestures, sang his representative love for the senorita in the Spanish dancer's costume. The castanet dance was repeatedly encored, especially by those familiar with the program, who desired that we appreciate it to its full extent. The actors in this dance were dressed as Spanish buccaneers are ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... possession of my people and me, and lodged us in the guard-room with them. It was then about sunset, and not a single soul of my friends and acquaintances or relations came to see me. I then began to think seriously what was to be done. A griot [Footnote: Ballad singer and dancer.] woman was the only person who came to comfort me in ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... instruments before their victims, others, like the mermaid of the fable, admiring themselves in mirrors and waving a seductive comb. There is also yet another violin player, with his back towards you, playing to a dancer who is posturing head downwards on his hands, like the daughter of Herodias upon ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... a great dancer, you know, and light as a feather in stepping. Oh, fudge! You don't know. At least you didn't until I told you. I have given away Ronny's secret. She made us promise not to tell it right after the beauty contest. I don't care. I am glad you know ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... of her wooden fingers, the woman of the south was a poor needlewoman, but was a fine dancer. The woman of the north was very expert in needlework, but her wooden legs made her a poor dancer. Each of these women gave these traits to her daughters, so that to the present time the same difference is noted between the women of the north and those of the south, "thus ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... frequently renders the child obstinate or passionate. An infant should never be interrupted in its operations; whilst it wishes to use its hands, we should not be impatient to make it walk; or when it is pacing, with all the attention to its centre of gravity that is exerted by a rope-dancer, suddenly arrest its progress, and insist upon its pronouncing the scanty vocabulary which we have compelled it to learn. When children are busily trying experiments upon objects within their reach, we should not, by way of saving them trouble, break the course of their ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... dome yet hung the incense-cloud, And still its perfume lingered all around; And, trodden by the light-foot, fervent crowd, Thick lay the summer flowers upon the ground, And now from far-off halls uprose the sound Of Lydian music, and the dancer's cry, As though some door ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... make a list and divide up. Archie Holmes is such a delightful dancer, and Allie is so full of fun, and so many of us were ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... hours, with silent gravity. Most frequently the dancers themselves are the musicians. Feeble sounds, drawn from a series of reeds of different lengths, form a slow and plaintive accompaniment. The first dancer, to mark the time, bends both knees in a kind of cadence. Sometimes they all make a pause in their places, and execute little oscillatory movements, bending the body from one side to the other. The reeds ranged in a line, and fastened ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... touched him. It made him resolute to show her that he did not dislike to dance with her—she, the most beautiful girl in the room, the best dancer—she, Leam, that name which meant a love-poem ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... music hall one evening, sipping his absinth and admiring the art of a certain famous Russian dancer, when he caught a passing glimpse of a pair of evil black eyes upon him. The man turned and was lost in the crowd at the exit before Tarzan could catch a good look at him, but he was confident that ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... enough, that nature which creates us, mocks at us, and kills us, without deepening the shadows that surround us. But where is the man who has lived who will deny woman's power over us, if he has ever taken leave of a beautiful dancer with trembling hands. If he has ever felt that indefinable enervating magnetism which, in the midst of the dance, under the influence of the sound of music, and the warmth that makes all else seem cold, that comes from a young woman, that electrifies her and leaps ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... dance?" he repeated. " Can't ye dance? Mebbe ye air too good-like Sherd. Well, Easter kin, Hyar, Mart, come 'n' dance with the gal. She air the best dancer in ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... were attendant on the Queen as children ever since she left Scotland for France. They were Mary Livingstone (mentioned as 'Lady Livinston' in one version of the ballad),* who married 'John Sempill, called the Dancer,' who, says Laing, 'acquired the ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... patriotism, which he never ceased to regret, was a fair-haired, rather good-looking young man, who had qualified himself for American diplomacy by leading the German at the Newport Casino for three successive seasons, and even in London was well known as an excellent dancer. Gardenias and the peerage were his only weaknesses. Otherwise he was extremely sensible. Miss Virginia E. Otis was a little girl of fifteen, lithe and lovely as a fawn, and with a fine freedom in her large blue eyes. She was a wonderful Amazon, and had ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... were sure to rattle. After the hobby-horse came the May-pole, not the tall pole so called and which was already planted in the green, but a stout staff elevated some six feet above the head of the bearer, with a coronal of flowers atop, and four long garlands hanging down, each held by a morris-dancer. Then came the May Queen's gentleman usher, a fantastic personage in habiliments of blue guarded with white, and holding a long willow wand in his hand. After the usher came the main troop of morris-dancers—the men attired in a graceful costume, which set off their light ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... looks as though he would dance well. Would you believe it, Audrey, that when I was a youngster I was considered a good dancer, too? It is rather droll to remember ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... went along, one of those that had charge of us demanded of me who I was? I answered, I was a dancer. He put the same question to the prince, who replied, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... now engaged in a minuet de la tour with the beautiful Countess of ——, the best dancer of the day in England. Lady Flora is flirting with half a dozen beaux, the more violently in proportion as she observes the animation with which Clarence converses, and the grace with which his partner moves; and, having thus left our two ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... maxims of Penelope, there hovered in his mind a disquieting thought of an eventual accounting for his actions before a dimly imagined group of women with inquisitive eyes. This Lyaeus, he thought to himself, was too free and easy. Then there came suddenly to his mind the dancer standing tense as a caryatid before the footlights, her face in shadow, her shawl flaming yellow; the strong modulations of her torso seemed burned in his flesh. He drew a deep breath. His body tightened like ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... convert her and have her and her numerous votaries for their own. As the reverend brother thundered out his denunciations of the ungodly goddess he cast his eyes often in the direction of the leading dancer, and from her they would wander to the small fiddler who sat beside the tall hat in a back pew. But somehow neither Lily nor Apollo seemed in the least conscious of any personal appeal in his glance, and when ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... fool. He, too, must have seen the discreet shade of the visitor. When the morning dawned, neither he nor the royal dancer from the Marquesas was to be found. Some time in that night, from the windward beach, ill-manned and desperate, the royal sailing canoe must have set forth tumultuously upon its ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... can you live in stays set with nails and maintain the grace of a dancer? It must be because of your child. I could not do it, I'm sure—not even for my child if I had one. You are wiser than most of us fools who have choked our lives in the mud of New York. To men, dear, you are a cold Alp. Snow bound and near to heaven, ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... had grown up amidst the liberal culture of Henry's court a bold horsewoman, a good shot, a graceful dancer, a skilled ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... was the dance now being performed in the center of the hall—their fight with the gorp being enacted in a series of bounds and stabbings. He was sure that he could no longer trust his eyes when the claw knife of the victorious dancer-hunter apparently passed completely through the chest of another wearing a ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... in my midst. I mutiny and defy you!" A peal of laughter rewarded the instinctive glance with which he sought to judge how far he was justified in taking her seriously. "Not only that, but you're neglecting me. I want to dance, and you haven't asked me in fully half an hour; and you're a heavenly dancer—and so am I!" She thrust back her end of their wall table and rose. "If you ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... Duke," the most unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the principal favourite. It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young Jewess, it makes her ashamed of the young Jew. The young Jew marries an opera dancer, or if the dancer will not have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the Honourable Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry; or if such a person does ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... she often went back—had been a scene, for our young woman, of supreme brilliancy; a party given at a "gallery" hired by a hostess who fished with big nets. A Spanish dancer, understood to be at that moment the delight of the town, an American reciter, the joy of a kindred people, an Hungarian fiddler, the wonder of the world at large—in the name of these and other attractions the company in which, by a rare privilege, Kate found herself had been ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... is not the only course," said Leon. "Be a sculptor, be a dancer, be a poet or a novelist; follow your heart, in short, and do some thorough work before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spin! when they truly begin; Each dancer as airy and bright as a doll; While the music complete, keeps time to their feet, With its fiddle-dee-diddle ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... on the pleasures of vagrancy, and declares that the red pennon waving on the top of the principal booth sends an answering thrill of restlessness through his own frame. He then passes to a glowing eulogium on the charms of the dark-skinned rope-dancer, Fifine, who forms part of the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... procession had accompanied them to the shore of the lake, some one called out, "Now let us choose a queen and crown her, and carry her back to the May-pole where she shall decide who is the best dancer." ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... Greece, as in those of Rome, there were ball-players, and mountebanks, and we may remember an occasion on which Terence complained that a rope-dancer had enticed away his audience. In Sparta there were men who represented the tricks of thieves and impostors in dances, and whose entertainments, though poor, were superior to that of mere mountebanks. The mimes were a ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... slim, supple, figure. He saw the glowing eyes shining out from her dusky face, and the coils of brown hair, not very securely fastened under her turban hat. As she put out her foot to enter the cab, he could even catch a glimpse of the amber draperies concealed by her cloak. A dancer! A public dancer! His eyes swept over her again, taking in every detail of her simple but rich toilette, and he shivered slightly. Then he answered her, "It is of no consequence, thank you. I ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the clearest gauze, and a little narrow blue ribbon over her shoulders, that looked like a scarf; and in the middle of this ribbon was a shining tinsel rose as big as her whole face. The little lady stretched out both her arms, for she was a dancer; and then she lifted one leg so high that the Tin Soldier could not see it at all, and thought that, like himself, she had ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... roses came red. Cp. Burton, Anat. Mel. III. ii. 3: "Constantine (Agricult. xi. 18) makes Cupid himself to be a great dancer: by the same token that he was capering among the gods, he flung down a bowl of nectar, which, distilling upon the white rose, ever since made ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name— "Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer! Now, Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Dunder and Blixen! To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall! Now, dash away! Dash away! Dash away! All!" As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount ...
— Dear Santa Claus • Various
... beneath the black waters; heard the stifled cry from his palsied lips, saw the slow dawning agony of death in his distorted features. Some one was playing a mandolin down in the second class. He heard the feet of a dancer upon the deck, the little murmur of applause. Well, after all, this was life. It was a rebuke of fate to his own illogical and useless vapourings. Men died every second whilst women danced, and no one who knew life had any care save for the measure ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... laid over as the wind took them. They gave her nearly three knots an hour, and what better could men ask? But if she had been forlorn before, this new purchase made her horrible to see. Imagine a respectable charwoman in the tights of a ballet-dancer rolling drunk along the streets, and you will come to some faint notion of the appearance of that nine-hundred-ton, well-decked, once schooner-rigged cargo-boat as she staggered under her new help, shouting and raving across ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... he hadn't heard him. "That actress is a jolly little woman," said he. "I've seen her at the Frivolity—a ripping fine singer and dancer she is. But those ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... wrong—a beautiful hat in itself, one which would have wholly become Hortense; but for poor Kitty it didn't do at all. Yes, she was a well folded English umbrella, only the umbrella had for its handle the head of a bulldog or the leg of a ballet-dancer. And these were the Replacers whom Beverly's clear-sighted eyes saw swarming round the temple of his civilization, pushing down the aisles, climbing over the backs of the benches, walking over each other's bodies, and seizing those front ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... been contriving a marriage for the old fool. Of which another word soon: if we have time. Time cannot be spent on those dim small objects: but there are two Marriages of a high order, of purport somewhat Historical; there is Barberina the Dancer, throwing a flash through the Operatic and some other provinces: let us restrict ourselves to these, and the like of these, and be brief ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... If you ask me, Where is it? 200 I can but make answer, ''Tis past my disclosing;' Not to choice is it granted By sure paths to visit The still pool enclosing Its blithe little dancer; But in some day, the rarest Of many Septembers, When the pulses of air rest, And all things lie dreaming 210 In drowsy haze steaming From the wood's glowing embers, Then, sometimes, unheeding, And asking not whither, By a sweet inward leading ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... thou a singer or a dancer, hold thou (for the present), without loss of time, the reins of my excellent steeds, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... decorations that made the corporate home of Dink and the Tennessee Shad a place to visit and admire was, as has been related, a smashing poster of a ballet dancer in the costume of an amazon parader. Up to now Dink had shared the just pride of the Tennessee Shad in this rakish exhibit that somehow gave the possessor the reputation of having an acquaintance with stage entrances. But on the second morning when his faithful glance turned to the protecting ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... thrust before his eyes gaudy, tawdry caricature and grimace; and, worse still, perhaps wholly vulgar obscenities. Were he in his boyhood given a present in the pictorial line, it would be of an Opera-dancer or a race-course, or an abomination of London low life. What "slang" is to the ear, so would it be to the eye; and such is in nine cases out of ten the first education of those aspirants in art, who, ere they have unlearned ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... cows, drove into Edmonton with the kid—she hadn't anyone to leave it with you see; she did her shopping, turned up at Poplar Lake Fair in the afternoon, and got someone to hold Harry while she won the ladies' race there, giving a handicap to the field! She's the finest dancer in the country round and has ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... juggler completely bewitched Lucien; he dragged him into a life which a man cannot lead and respect himself, and, unluckily for Lucien, love shed its magic over the path. The admiration that is given too readily is a sign of want of judgment; a poet ought not to be paid in the same coin as a dancer on the tight-rope. We all felt hurt when intrigue and literary rascality were preferred to the courage and honor of those who counseled Lucien rather to face the battle than to filch success, to spring down into the arena rather than become a ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... accustomed and essential reel. Upon my soul, I haven't danced since Lady Mary left, unless you call it so that foolish minuet. You should have seen her Grace at St. James's last month. Gad! she footed it like an angel; there's not a better dancer in London town. See that your wife's a dancer, whoever she may be, Sim; let her dance and sing and play the harpsichord or the clarsach—they are charms that will last longer than her good looks, and will not weary you so soon as that intellect that's so much in fashion nowadays, when every ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... all before in the days when, under his father's guidance, he had seen everything—the juggler, the acrobat, the step-dancer, the comic singer, the tableaus, and the living picture. He felt tired and ashamed, yet, he could not bring himself to go away. As the evening advanced he thought: "How foolish! What madness it was to think of such a thing!" He was easier after that, and began to listen ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... game. Sometimes, when he was alone the thing happened to him that had now happened. His body became like a tree or a plant. Life ran through it unobstructed. He had dreamed of being a singer but at such a moment he wanted also to be a dancer. That would have been sweetest of all things—to sway like the tops of young trees when a wind blew, to give himself as grey weeds in a sunburned field gave themself to the influence of passing shadows, changing color constantly, becoming every moment something new, to live in life and ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... will they possess. I want you to realize that in the progress of the dance there is a certain total quantity of spin at any moment in progress; this spin is partly made up of the rotation by which each dancer revolves round his partner, and partly of the circular orbit about the room which each couple endeavours to describe. If there are too many couples on the floor for the general enjoyment of the dance, then both the orbit and the angular velocity ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... a story of a ballet dancer who objected to the high pitch in which the orchestra played, and insisted that the music be transposed to a lower key. Cradle songs are fashioned on ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... throng of "artistes" on that far-off March day there came a bright little fellow of ten or eleven years, a rope-dancer and a favorite with the crowd. Light and agile, he trips along the slender rope that stretches high above the arena. Right before the magistrate's box the boy poises in mid air, and even the thoughtful young director of the games looks up at the graceful motions of the boy. Hark! a warning shout ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... Daini (the senior Secretary of the Lord-Lieutenant of Kiusiu) returned to the capital with his family, having completed his official term. His daughter had been a virgin dancer, and was known to Genji. They preferred to travel by water, and slowly sailed up along the beautiful coast. When they arrived at Suma, the distant sound of a kin[109] was heard, mingled with the sea-coast wind, and ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... wine-whipped animations pass and pass— Beauty breaks sudden blossoms all around In happy riot of rhythm, colour, and pose. The radiant hands, the swift, delighted limbs Move as in pools of dream the dancer swims, Holding our bruted sense ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Gneisenau come! all men are coming, and Blucher is to stay at home! Well, if they do not appoint me commanding general, I will enlist as a private. For I must participate in the war that is to put an end to Bonaparte's tyranny; and, if I cannot be first dancer, I shall be one of the musicians.—Christian, have the carriage brought to ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... Dance, my dancer, early and late, Would I had like you seven or eight; Two uncles like you, blithe and gay, To stand at my back in the ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... on the Rand did not lessen the gaming or the late hours, the theatrical entertainments and social functions at which Al'mah or another sang at a fabulous fee; or from which a dancer took away a pocketful of gold—partly fee. Only a few of all the group, great and small, kept a quiet pace and cherished their nerves against possible crisis or disaster; and these were consumed by inward anxiety, because all the others looked to them for a lead, for policy, for the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... O waiters for the answer? And what is prayer, O seekers of the cause? Prayer is the weary soul of Herod's dancer, Dancing before blind kings ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... many artful representations of the evils he had suffered on board on account of his being a Catholic, that the clergy, and, in fact, all Monterey, interfered. Roche soon became a valuable acquisition to the community; he was an indefatigable dancer, and a good fiddler. Besides, he had already accustomed himself to the Mexican manners and language, and in a horse or buffalo hunt none were more successful. He would tell long stories to the old women about the wonders of Erin, the miracles of St. Patrick, and about the stone at Blarney. In fact, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... beads take their place. The women wear short skirts made of vegetable fibres plaited, which must take days or weeks to construct. These are black or red in colour and are suspended from the waist, but as the fibre is somewhat stiff, they project all round like the dress of a ballet dancer. These are peculiar to the Ubangi and are rarely worn by other tribes. The men wear only loin cloths and often carry a large straight knife suspended by a leather ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman |
