"Choir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figure before the altar-steps. It was usual enough for one of their number, or even a stranger staying in the monastery, to humiliate himself in that manner as a public penance. The Prior only gave a little start, as if an electric shock passed through his frame, when, on taking his seat in the choir, his eye fell upon that motionless form. But he did not leave his place until the last prayer had been said, the last psalm chanted. Then he rose and walked deliberately to the place where Dino lay, and laid his ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... autocrat of the War Office and the frail crowned descendant of kings fronted each other across the open grave, and the coffin sank between them and was gone. From the choir there came the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale; The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And rails or cries, and falls into a cough, And then the whole choir hold their hips ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... between the middle planks; the ordinary question was with four wedges, the extraordinary with eight. At the third wedge Lachaussee said he was ready to speak; so the question was stopped, and he was carried into the choir of the chapel stretched on a mattress, where, in a weak voice—for he could hardly speak—he begged for half an hour to recover himself. We give a verbatim extract from the report of the question and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... experienced in that affecting moment. The astonishing contrast between his former and his actual situation at the same spot, the elegant taste with which it was adorned for the present occasion, and the innocent appearance of the white-robed choir who met him with the gratulatory song, have made such an impression on his remembrance as, he assures them, will never ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... commencement, and the service was most impressive throughout. The preacher was the Rev. A. Herbert Gray, one time Chaplain of the Battalion, and the service included the anthem, "What are these?" sung by the choir. ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... considered too long and too intricate; and, on being reproved, he had made them too short; and once, during the sermon, he had gone forth and spent these stolen moments in a wine-cellar. The final charge asks by what authority he has latterly allowed a strange maiden to appear, and to make music in the choir. This "strange maiden," who made music with Bach in the solitude of the empty church, was none other than his cousin, Maria Barbara. A year later (1707) he married her, and took her to Muehlhausen, where he had found a less troublesome ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... be received in the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church." "Is it your will?" "Yes, I will and desire it." Henry then knelt and made profession of his faith, kissed the prelate's ring, received his blessing and was led to the choir, where he knelt before the high altar and repeated his profession of faith on the holy Gospels amid cries ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... in the field at work while he can yet see stars catches their first matin hymns. In the longest June days the robin strikes up about half- past three o'clock, and is quickly followed by the song sparrow, the oriole, the catbird, the wren, the wood thrush, and all the rest of the tuneful choir. Along the Potomac I have heard the Virginia cardinal whistle so loudly and persistently in the tree- tops above, that sleeping after four o'clock was out of the question. Just before the sun is up, there is a marked lull, during which, I imagine, the birds are at breakfast. While ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... leam Domhnullach neo-chosdail O nach coltach e ri cach. 'N uair bhios iadsan ag iarraidh fortain Bidh esan 'n a phrop aig fear cais Ma bha do mhathair 'n a mnaoi choir Cha do ghleidh i 'n leabaidh phosda glan, Cha 'n 'eil cuid agad do Chloinn Domhnuill, 'S Rothach no Rosach am fear. 'N uair a bhuail thu aig an uinneig Cha b' ann a bhuinnigeadh cliu, Dh' iarraidh na druaip bha 's a' bhotul, Mallachd fir ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... for it was not, properly speaking, a crypt at all, but an undercroft beneath the eastern altars. "To reach these altars," says Eadmer, "a certain crypt, which the Romans call a confessionary, had to be ascended by means of several steps from the choir of the singers. Thus the Norman archbishop, in planning a larger cathedral, constructed a crypt under the choir of his new building, and the steps one ascends to-day are there as the direct outcome of the structural methods of rude ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... cousin, Edward became a popular, though not a canonised, saint. From the offerings made at his tomb the monks of Gloucester were in time supplied with the funds that enabled them to recast their romanesque choir in the newer "perpendicular" fashion of architecture, and embellish their church with all the rich additions which contrast so strangely with the grim impressiveness of the stately Norman nave. There was only one impediment to the people's worship ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... common forms of monasticism appears in his choice of the ordinary secular priest's cassock for their dress, and in his emancipation of the members from devotional exercises and attendance in the choir. The aversion he felt for ascetic discipline is evinced in a letter he addressed to Francis Borgia in 1548. It is better, he writes, to strengthen your stomach and other faculties, than to impair the body and enfeeble the intellect by fasting. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... to the gloom, and soon it did not seem so somber as it was outside. Instead the light from the stained-glass windows made the mists and shadows luminous. A nave, the lofty pillars dividing it from the side aisles, the choir and the altar emerged slowly into view. From the walls pictures of the Madonna and the saints, unstained and untouched, looked down upon him. One of the candles near the altar had been lighted, and it burned ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... people and friends came from far and near, till the building was filled; and in the pervading atmosphere of tender respect and sympathy, the warm-hearted words spoken from the pulpit seemed like the utterance of the common feeling. The choir sang, with much expression, one of my father's favorite hymns,-"When, as returns this solemn day;" and the prayer, from Dr. Eddy, the pastor of the church, was a true uplifting of hearts to the Father of all. The fervent and touching discourse which followed, by Rev. Robert Collyer, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... it was always my custom to remove my hat—just as any one would do on entering a church. There that day, as I stood gazing at the glorious sunbeams as they filtered through the great chancel window, I listened to the enchanting music of the feathered choir high overhead, that seemed to be singing to the accompaniment of one of Nature's most powerful organs—the roaring river—that thundered aloud, as, with all its force, it wildly rolled huge boulders down its rocky bed. Then, lowering my eyes, I discovered the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... interested in natural history, was sitting on the porch one June evening with his best girl, who was interested in music. The rhythmic shrilling of the insects pulsed on the air, and from the village church down the street came the sounds of choir practise. The young man gave his attention to the former, the girl to the latter; and presently she ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... cold sweat, feeling his strength altogether fail, and too soon fancying himself in safety, had sunk, half fainting, into a chair. At the voice of Gabriel, he rose with difficulty, and, with a trembling step, endeavored to reach the choir, separated from the rest of the church ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... show what our relations were. He was a young fellow of good family, to whom I had taken a liking. He was a lazy dog, and as out of place in business as a cat in a choir. I had been keeping him going for four years at that time, by giving him tips on stocks and protecting him against loss. This purely out of good nature and liking; for I hadn't the remotest idea he could ever be of use to me beyond ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... promise she had made to her English patron. But she found herself compelled to beg that some other specimen, chosen from among the wonderful wealth of early Christian art that remains at Ravenna, might be substituted for that in the choir of St. Apollinare. She made the attempt to return to the scaffolding by the side of the window, but she found that her strength was unequal to the task. She could not bear to look on the prospect from ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the West is notoriously uncertain. Of course you cannot eat your cake and have it: but Mrs Penhaligon arrived just in time to stop a fight between 'Bert and Matthey Matthew's ugly boy, who sang in the Church choir, and hoped ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... ceremony of presentation the company marched to Church, where the Colours were consecrated by prayers, read by the Rev. Mr. Bargus, vicar of Barkway, and the Prebendary of Carlisle preached a powerful sermon. The local choir of fiddles and clarionets, &c., was not equal to so great an occasion, and a choir of singers from Cambridge attended, and chanted the Psalms and sang the Coronation Anthem. A cold colation given by the Rev. Captain followed, ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Domingo de Salazar, first bishop of these islands, up to the present year of fifteen hundred and ninety-nine, evident nor apparent that there have been given from the royal exchequer to the said church any bells, images, ornaments, chalices, candelabra, missals, or choir-books for the service thereof; nor has there been paid over for that purpose any coins of gold, as appears by the said books and papers to which I refer. In certification whereof, and that this may be apparent, I have, on the petition of the dean and chapter, sede vacante, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... the portrait of the grey-headed senator in the choir of the church; he had even prayed to it sometimes.... The bald-headed nobleman was there too, whom the peasants called 'the cursed man', and the knight in armour who was lying on his tomb beside the altar of the Holy Martyr Apollonius. Then he remembered the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... the early service, she was inattentive to the ministrations of religion. Her father seemed a puppet at its prayers, the choir a row of surpliced dolls, the organ an empty voice. Only at the end, when silence fell on the kneeling worshippers, did she wake with a start of contrition to the knowledge of her impiety, and blush between her little hands at her concentration upon the suspected sorrow ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the world to Russia. He was the first of a series of preachers. He was listened to and applauded, but he said nothing new. After him followed the preachers: Gogol, Tolstoi, Goncharov, Tchehov, Turgeniev, Dostojevsky, and many others, like a choir, in which three voices are still the strongest and most expressive: Gogol, Tolstoi, Dostojevsky. What ...
— The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916) - Sermons On Subjects Suggested By The War, Third Series • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... into the choir loft and then into the belfry itself. There they came to sheer hand to hand struggle. Kennedy tripped on a loose board and would have fallen backwards, if he had not been able to recover himself just in time. The crook, desperate, leaped for the ladder ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... room two small boys took their places, one on each side of him, and were waiting until he had finished speaking. Then one took his felt hat and placed it carefully on the bed, and the other brought forward a chair. They did this with the same gravity and respect that a choir boy waits upon a priest. When Garofoli was seated another little boy brought him a pipe stuffed with tobacco, and a fourth offered him ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... the German church in Neudorf; but there was no choir there, and no pew near the altar. They would have had to sit in the body of the church among the rustics: that was out of the question. So the baron set up a chapel in the castle, and sent every now and then for a minister. Anton seldom made ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... while Jesus Christ holds her hand in the mystical presence of Hope and Chastity. In the fourth and last of these places is a St Francis in glory, clothed in the white tunic of a deacon, in triumph and surrounded by a multitude of angels who form a choir about him and hold a banner on which are a cross and seven stars, while over all is the Holy Spirit. In each of these angles are some Latin words explanatory of the subject. Besides these four angles the paintings on the ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... happened in Episcopal Church Sunday. Big crowd. Choir had sung jolly tune and preacher come from behind scenes. Everything quiet. Suddenly fellow comes down aisle. Late. Everybody looks. Disappointment. It is a stranger. Jones and ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... and saints and heavenly choir Preceded by the General Sire, Met in the air and gazed below On Rama with that wondrous bow. Nymph, minstrel, angel, all were there, Snake-God, and spirit of the air, Giant, and bard, and gryphon, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... alike were of a manifest Byzantine or Romanesque tendency. No better illustration of this is possible than to recall the fact that, when the builders of the fifteenth century undertook to complete that astoundingly impressive choir at Beauvais, they sought to rival in size and magnificence its namesake at Rome, which, under the care of the Pontiff himself, was then being projected. Thus it was that this thoroughly Gothic structure of the north was to stand forth as the indicator of local influences, as contrasted with ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... below the tower, the foundations of an apsidal east ending of a church were found; now as it is well known that this is a Norman form for the east end, it must not be supposed that this apse was built in the time of Eadgar, but it very probably occupied the same position as the choir of his church. Other foundations were then looked for and found. And as a result of this investigation, it appears that the nave of Eadgar's church extended as far to the west as the fourth bay of the present nave, that its crossing ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... Rothin Wood. "He never tried to make me religious," she went on. "He didn't care what I felt. I sat in the choir, and I took a Sunday-school class, and I visited the villagers, but I, myself—what happened to me—he didn't care. He never took any trouble about the church, he just gabbled the prayers and preached the same old sermons. People in the village said it was a scandal and that he ought ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... and so cordial an "Amen," Followed from either choir, as plainly spoke Desire of their dead bodies; yet perchance Not for themselves, but for their kindred dear, Mothers and sires, and those whom best they lov'd, Ere ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... had heard me many times said: "Why do you do better at Ocean Grove than anywhere else I hear you?" My answer was: "Because of conditions. The great auditorium seats ten thousand, the atmosphere is invigorated by salt sea breezes; a choir of five hundred sing the audience into a receptive mood and the speaker is borne from climax to climax on wings ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... blackbird telling His love-tale to his mate; And the merry skylark swelling The choir at 'heaven's gate.' The cuckoo away in the thicket Is giving his two old notes; And the pet doves hung by the wicket Are talking with ruffled throats. The honey-bee hums as he lingers Where shadows on clover heads fall; ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... silent friendship which had long been weaving itself over the tops of the mountains that separated them. How could she know that Claudio had sung for her, and that it had been the measure of his success to see her head droop or lift as he sang of sorrow and pain or of joy and triumph? The choir had their post over the door; and, besides, she never glanced up even in going out. Therefore she gazed down into his uplifted face with a sweet and sorrowful tranquillity, her soul pure and candid to its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... flowers massed all over the chancel, and wondered if that was its regular state. The pulpit and the lectern; the altar, which he easily identified; the stained-glass windows with their obviously symbolic pictures; the bronze pipes of the little organ; the unvested choir, whose function he vaguely made out—over all these his intelligent eye swept, curiously; and lastly it went out of the open window and lost itself in the quiet sunny ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... as I am able. The rich stream Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen To a prepar'd place in the choir, fell of A distance from her; while her Grace sat down To rest a while, some half an hour or so, In a rich chair of state, opposing freely The beauty of her person to the people,— Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]
... her pose, her daring, her skill; if they danced, as they did nearly every night until poor Merry's fingers ached from drumming the unholy strains of Faust, Strauss, and what not, in the old-fashioned waltzes—he pantingly declared that she made the music seem a celestial choir by her lightness; in long walks in the rose-fields he exhausted a not very laborious store of botanical conceits, to make her cheeks resemble the roses. This assurance, this recklessness, this aplomb, quite bewildered the girl, who posed in Richmond for ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... to advertise for him. If an applicant came with the highest testimonials of character, and especially if one was signed by a parson, I'd tell him to call again next week; and if a young man could prove that he came of a good Christian family, and went to church regularly, and sang in the choir, and taught Sunday-school, I'd tell him that he needn't come again, that the vacancy was filled, for I couldn't trust, him. The man who's been extra religious and honest and hard-working in his young days is most ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... the term. He disdained all cant and clap-trap. He preached Church principles with commanding eloquence, and he practised them with unceasing devotion. His church was always open, yet his schools were never neglected; there was a perfect choir, a staff of disciplined curates, young and ascetic, while sacred sisters, some of patrician blood, fearless and prepared for martyrdom, were gliding about all the back slums of his ferocious neighbourhood. How came the ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... seemed to the boys to be pulpits—one behind and above the other. The highest was for the minister; the next below was for what in America would be called the leader of the choir; though in Scotland, Mr. George said he believed he was called the precentor. There was no choir of singers, as with us, but when the minister gave out a hymn the precentor rose and commenced the singing, and when ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... streamed through the windows of the nave, while the choir was in half gloom, and as each shaft of light illuminated the flower-covered bier as it slowly travelled on, one thought of the bright succession of his works between the darkness before and the darkness after. I am glad to say that the Royal Society was represented ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... the "ten thousand times ten thousand and thousand of thousands" shall sing, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and blessing." O that my poor voice may join that celestial choir!—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... their wounded. During the spring and summer the front facade had been undergoing repairs and was covered with heavy wooden scaffolding similar to that which has for several years disfigured St. Sulpice in Paris. The Cathedral was very famous for its choir-stalls and other wood-carving, of which there was a great quantity, and the roof which covered the vaulting was held up by a forest of great timbers ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... bells are heard. The sun comes out and illuminates the coloured rose window above the church door, which is now opened, disclosing the interior. The organ is heard and the choir ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... araon, gun {183} bheith mur thacharain ar luaidrean a nunn & a nall go sbailpe breigi; achd le gcroidhibh daingne, dosgartha, deagh-fhreumhaighte, druididh re Firinn, Ceart, & Ceannsachd, mar fhuraileas na psalma: Ata clu & tarbha a nsdriocadh don choir; call & masladh a ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... wings may lower; Such flights are far beyond its power; So I will stop the jingle. Sir, I am much obliged to you, And I am much indebted to The Choir and Mr. Pringle. ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... as most of us have seen at the academies and collegiate schools. Some of the graduating class read their "compositions," one of which was a poem,—an echo of the prevailing American echoes, of course, but prettily worded and intelligently read. Then there was a song sung by a choir of the pupils, led by their instructor, who was assisted by the Musician whom we count among The Teacups.—There was something in one of the voices that reminded me of one I had heard before. Where ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... assuredly it is the medium in which these delicate creatures pass their lives that gives them the chiefest share of their magic and their mystery. But this gem from Victor Hugo must suffice for all the tuneful choir: ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... stepping very much to one side, "I wouldn't have got in your way if I'd remembered that it was you who pays the new choir!" ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... rebuild the W. front, notably the three fine E.E. porches now replaced by those of Lord Grimthorpe, but the work was completed by his successor William de Trumpyntone (1214-35), who added the two flanking towers. This abbot erected the rood screen between the nave and choir, added the octagon above the tower after removing the Norman turrets and parapets, and probably built those E.E. bays on each side of the nave which are nearest to the W. front. He also restored portions of the S. transept and S. aisle, and rebuilt St. Cuthbert's Chapel on the spot now ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... the Opera filled the vast structure with rapturous melody; in the other, a large plain wooden building with glaring windows of untinted glass; the priest in vestments of coarse Nottingham lace and yellow damask,—but with spiritual, benignant countenance,—and a choir of untrained voices. A company of men droned out Gregorian chants in painfully nasal tones, using antique books with square headed notes; then the sweet voice of our host's daughter, Evangeline, sounded solo, and her youthful companions ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... it was not merely remembered, as we remember most things, but vividly and often reproduced, together with the various melodies of the birds I had listened to; a greater and principal voice in that choir, yet in no wise lessening their first value, nor ever out ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... charge of a Chinese Sunday-school in the First Congregational Church, Chicago, spoke of her work, her Chinese choir singing "Stand up for Jesus," and later a verse of "Sweet By and By," in both ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... life he has been a creature of impulse, powerfully attracted by things not in business. He left his seat once in a great Buffalo hall to stand at the door that he might judge the effect of a certain decrescendo from a choir. To a group of musical enthusiasts in Chicago he suddenly suggested a trip to the Cincinnati May Festival. Speaking to the boys of Upper Canada College, he drew from his pocket a piece of putty to illustrate the plasticity of character. Standing amid heaps of luggage at the docks in St. John, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... the teacher. But in one way William Bellus had been peculiarly favored. His predecessors had to deal with Perry Thomas, and in spite of his gentle ways and intellectual cast, Perry is active and wiry. He is a blacksmith by trade, and is the leading tenor in the Methodist choir. This makes a combination that for staying powers has few equals. My biggest boy's predecessor had been utterly broken. Even the girls jeered at him until he quit school entirely. But William had ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... heaven—higher than before; and that wherever the tale of their great deeds spread, men accepted, even if they did not copy, those martyrs as ideal specimens of the human race, till they were actually worshipped by succeeding generations, wrongly, it may be, but pardonably, as a choir of lesser deities? ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Mother's and the Sister's part She plays; she leads the choir Of those whose purity of heart Is ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney
... all had made a good tea; if not, there was still about half a can left. Nobody wanted any more; so they had a hymn from the "Sacred Songster," a copy of which volume I purchased in the hall for twopence halfpenny. The tune was a martial one, well sung by a choir of men and women to the accompaniment of a harmonium, and bravely borne part in, you may depend upon it, by the whole assembly, I verily believe, except the babies, and one or two of these put in a note sometimes. The hymn was called, "Oh, we are Volunteers!" and was very Church-militant ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... a work attempts that pen, Which would enrich our vulgar tongue With the high raptures of those men Who, here, with the same spirit sung Wherewith they now assist the choir Of ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... when the Indians from other villages came in canoes to Massett, the usual festive custom of "dancing with painted faces, and naked slaves with their bodies blackened," was dispensed with, and in lieu of it the visitors were received by a choir of a hundred Hydahs, children and adults, chanting the anthem, "How beautiful upon the mountains." "The unanimous opinion of all was that the new and Christian welcome was far superior to the ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... mattered more than any one else to Alvina Houghton, during the first long twenty-five years of the girl's life. The governess was a strong, generous woman, a musician by nature. She had a sweet voice, and sang in the choir of the chapel, and took the first class of girls in the Sunday-School of which James Houghton was Superintendent. She disliked and rather despised James Houghton, saw in him elements of a hypocrite, detested his airy and gracious selfishness, his lack of human feeling, and most of all, his ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... spriessen," etc. "Out of my tear-drops springeth A harvest of beautiful flowers; And my sighing turneth To a choir of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... and wave and fire In awe and breathless silence stood; For One who passed into their choir ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... began, led by the choir of a hundred trained voices which the Bishop Paul had founded in Antioch. Timidly, at first, the music felt its way, as the people joined with a broken and uncertain cadence: the mingling of many little waves not yet gathered into rhythm and harmony. Soon ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... engrossed by "the Duke's Pew," which was enclosed within high walls and thick curtains, and contained a fireplace. The north side of the chancel was equally engrossed by a pew for the Duke's servants. The choir, male and female after their kind, surrounded the organ in a gallery at the West End. The whole Church was pewed throughout, and white-washed, the chancel being enriched with plaster mouldings. On the capital of each pillar was a scutcheon, bearing the arms of some family allied to our ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... of the gallant Ulysses, the first man in America to roll the lapels of his coat, were much more vivid. After Henrietta Lebrune Patch had "joined another choir," as her widower huskily remarked from time to time, father and son lived up at grampa's in Tarrytown, and Ulysses came daily to Anthony's nursery and expelled pleasant, thick-smelling words for sometimes as much as an hour. He was ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... infinite cathedral to its agony; then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ which as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals—gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense—threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and antichoir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter! with thy love which was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult; trumpet and echo—farewell love and farewell ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... into the side aisle next the windows, and they seated themselves in a pew just beyond the projection of the choir gallery. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and, according to the historian John d'Auton, who had probably lived in the society of Jacques Coeur's children, "he remained interred in the church of the Cordeliers in that island, at the centre of the choir." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... not usually, however, the social affairs of the school alone which cause the girl to develop the habit of too many evenings away from home. It is the school party plus the church social, plus the moving pictures, plus the girls' club, plus the theater, plus choir practice, plus the informal evening at her chum's, plus a dozen other dissipations, that in the course of a few years change a quiet, home-loving little schoolgirl into a ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... overhanging the walls, in the grotesques clambering about the towers or perched upon pinnacles, in the dragons prowling under archways or lurking in bosses of foliage, in the apocalyptic beasts carved upon the stalls of the choir, stained into the windows, wrought into the tapestries, illuminated in the letters and borders of psalters and missals, these marvels of creation suggested everywhere morals from the Physiologus, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... story to tell his friends in the clubs of Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, Los Angeles. And whenever he told it, Sudden Selmer would repeat what he called The Skyrider's Dream from the first verse to Mary V's last—even unto Bud's improvisation. He would paint Johnny's bombardment of the choir practice until his audience could almost hear the thud of the rocks when they landed. He would describe the welt on Aleck's head, the exact shade of purple in Curley's face when his boss called him off the fence. He would not smile at all during the recital, ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... with all its joys, Its pomp of early leaves, and thrilling lays, And ceaseless chime of song (that never cloys, Altho' the winds be redolent of praise.) Wakes not in man that stupor of amaze, Bird, beast, and plant, in universal choir, Pay to Almighty in a thousand ways, That sterner reason's votaries would flout, Giving their tardy homage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... disappeared, and when Mrs. March had tried to thank her children, and broken down, while Teddy wiped her eyes on his pinafore, the Professor suddenly began to sing. Then, from above him, voice after voice took up the words, and from tree to tree echoed the music of the unseen choir, as the boys sang with all their hearts the little song that Jo had written, Laurie set to music, and the Professor trained his lads to give with the best effect. This was something altogether new, and it proved a grand success, for Mrs. March couldn't get over her surprise, and insisted ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... that song, are those which sound loudest and grandest here, the tones which travel sweetest and purest to the Imperishable Throne; which mingle in the perfectest harmony with the anthem of the angel-choir! Ask your own heart that question—and then say, may not the obscurest life—even a life like mine—be dignified by a lasting aspiration, and ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... on Ascension-day that King Olaf went to high mass, and the bishop went in procession around the church, and conducted the king; and when they came back to the church the bishop led the king to his seat on the north side of the choir. There Hrorek sat next to the king, and concealed his countenance in his upper cloak. When Olaf had seated himself Hrorek laid his hand on the king's ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... her father practised hard through the dark, wet evenings. She was to sing 'Harps in Heaven,' a song her mother had taught her. He was to accompany the choir, or glee-party, that met together at different places, coming from the villages and hillsides of a wide stretch ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... the deacon the sacred golden sun; and stood up, as choir and organ burst into a peal ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... coming to that holy room Where with the choir of saints forevermore I shall be made thy musique, as I come, I tune the instrument here at the door; And what I must do ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... choir of the same church, St. Giov. and Paolo, is another tomb, that of the Doge Andrea Vendramin. This doge died in 1478, after a short reign of two years, the most disastrous in the annals of Venice. He died of a pestilence which followed ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... much surprised on entering the Sixtine Chapel, for it at first seemed to him small, a sort of rectangular and lofty hall, with a delicate screen of white marble separating the part where guests congregate on the occasion of great ceremonies from the choir where the cardinals sit on simple oaken benches, while the inferior prelates remain standing behind them. On a low platform to the right of the soberly adorned altar is the pontifical throne; while ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Cathedral chimes. It was Sunday. That meant stiff white Eton collars, and texts gabbled between mouthfuls of porridge; and, later, our three small bodies arrayed in short surplices, and the long service in the Cathedral. The Seraph was the very smallest boy in the choir. I think he was only tolerated there through Margery's intervention, because it would have broken his loyal little heart to be separated from Angel and me. He was highly ornamental too, as he collected the choir offertory in a little ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... said Morrell, "it's all right. Kay is going to conduct. He's often done it at choir practices ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... collegiate and cathedral church of St. Peter is the only one worth notice,—a large and lofty building of a mixture of styles, with some tawdry ornaments, but a handsome high altar and well carved oak stalls in the choir. The foundation consists of a dean and twelve canons, with eighteen other inferior clergy. Since 1839 it has ranked as a cathedral, Tempio having been erected into a see united with those of Cività and Ampurias, and the bishop residing here six months of the year. There is a massive old nunnery, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Then he rose, and in slow monotone gave out the opening psalm, during the singing of which his strong but wandering voice could now and again be distinctly heard above the more artistic strains of the choir and congregation rendering its tribute of praise. The Scripture lessons were read in the same subdued but reverent tones, and the prayers were simple and direct in their language, the emotion that throbbed through them being kept under due restraint. The ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... sky that interests you. For both its grace and its glow depend upon the united influence of every cloud within its compass: they all move and burn together in a marvelous harmony; not a cloud of them is out of its appointed place, or fails of its part in the choir: and if you are not able to recollect (which in the case of a complicated sky it is impossible you should) precisely the form and position of all the clouds at a given moment, you cannot draw the sky at all; for the clouds will not fit if you draw one part of them ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... they marched off the boat on the other shore; after that when they walked they hoofed it. And the last time they sang was just before they heard the Italians sing. The first performance by comparison with the second sounded as a tom-tom concert in competition with the celestial choir. Talk about carrying coals to Newcastle; the most absurd performance of the Y was exporting American singers to entertain ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... he spoke, his frame, renewed In eloquence of attitude, Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher; Then swept his kindling glance of fire From startled pew to breathless choir; When suddenly his mantle wide His hands impatient flung aside, And, lo! he met their wondering eyes Complete ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... south aisle supported on rich carved figures of angels with shields; windows full of remnants of beautiful glass; old oak desks and benches carved . . . curious font . . . upper end of south aisle inclosed in two screens of oak . . . exquisitely rich and elegant. This is called the little choir, and belongs to Halstead Hall . . . both aisles have had altars. Base and pillar of churchyard cross remain.†He also mentions a curiously-carved stone in the churchyard in front of the tower, “like a clock face,†with unusual inscription; which the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... outset I may mention it's my sovereign intention To revive the classic memories of Athens at its best, For my company possesses all the necessary dresses, And a course of quiet cramming will supply us with the rest. We've a choir hyporchematic (that is, ballet-operatic) Who respond to the CHOREUTAE of that cultivated age, And our clever chorus-master, all but captious criticaster, Would accept as the CHOREGUS of the early Attic stage. This return to classic ages is considered in their wages, Which are always calculated ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... wine-cellars in Priory Row gives access to the old pavement level of part of the choir and transept. From the fact that a brick vault forms the roof the cellars have often been looked upon as the crypt of the church but this is erroneous; the vault is a later insertion and if any crypt exists ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... the sound of another song, gradually swelling as though sung by men on the march. This time the melody was a piece of the plain-song of the church, familiar enough to me to bring back to my mind the great arches of some cathedral in France and the canons singing in the choir. ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... of the girls by name,' she said, 'but I have heard of Eloise Smith. She sings in the choir, and is a basket-boarder of ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... conservatory was displayed to view, full of rare ferns and subtly perfumed exotics, in the center of which a fountain rose and fell with regular and melodious murmur. Here, later on, a band of stringed instruments and a choir of boys' voices were to be stationed, so that sweet music might be heard and felt without the performers being visible. One, and one only, of the long French windows of the room was left uncurtained, it was simply draped with velvet as one drapes a choice picture, and ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... each other by sight. It is not a school of disciples, for it is thought necessary to take your whole creed at once, ready made, and not learn it by degrees. The worship is too often by the minister and choir, the people being only spectators. Instead of the simple original faith in Jesus as the Christ, the people are taught long and complicated creeds. Instead of a unity of conviction, seeing the same things, there is only a unity of expression, saying the same ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... your book with its characteristic insertion and above all with the little extract from your boy's note about Ted. In what Form is your boy? As you have laid yourself open, I shall tell you that Ted sings in the choir and is captain of his dormitory football team. He was awfully homesick at first, but now he has won his place in his own little world and he is all right. In his last letter to his mother in response to a question about his clothes he answered that they were in good ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... a rival attraction was advertised in the dedication of a new Catholic Church, with "Music by a select choir and orchestra. Admission, $1. Reserved seats, $1.50," Reduced admission fee to the "Grand Dedication Vespers" in the evening. We do not know whether there were opera-glasses on hire, but presume that the comfort of the audience was carefully ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... fair mount, when Greece was young, See round thy giant base a brighter choir; Nor e'er did Delphi, when her priestess sung The Pythian hymn with more than mortal fire, Behold a train more fitting to inspire The song of love than Andalusia's maids, Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire: Ah! ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... wildernesses were,— Not dead, not dead, lost air! Yet in the ages long where lurkest thou, And what soul knows thee now? Wert thou not given to sweeten every wind From that o'erburdened mind That bore thee through the young world, and that tongue By which thou first wert sung? Was not the holy choir the endless dome, And nature all thy home? Did not the warm gale clasp thee to his breast. Lulling thy storms to rest? And is the June air laden with thee now, Passing the summer-bough? And is the dawn-wind on a lonely sea Balmy with thoughts of thee? To rock ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... of a Christmas carol came faintly on his ear. It was one of those tunes which, when the village choir were the only musicians he knew, he had thought, unrivalled; and now, even to his tutored, delicate ear, softened as it was by distance, and endeared by association, it was full of refreshing, soothing harmony. He undrew ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seats were substituted for the heavy pews of Charles II.'s time that encumbered the Round; the pavement was lowered to its original level, thus revealing the bases of the columns; the organ (built by the famous Father Smith in the reign of Charles II.) was removed to its present position in the choir, and the whole interior, by means of these and other extensive changes, was exhibited ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... up his hands to heaven and praying stood: "Son of the white Sea Spirit, high in rule, Storm-lord Palaemon, Oh, be merciful: Or sit ye there the warrior twins of Zeus, Or something loved of Him, from whose great thews Was-born the Nereids' fifty-fluted choir." Another, flushed with folly and the fire Of lawless daring, laughed aloud and swore 'Twas shipwrecked sailors skulking on the shore, Our rule and custom here being known, to slay All strangers. And most thought this was the way To follow, ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... of High Mass the crowd flowed back towards the vestibule of the chapel to witness what was called the procession of the Cordons Bleus. The "Blue Ribbons" were the knights of the Order Du Saint-Esprit in their robes of ceremony, who came to range themselves in the choir according to the date of their creation. The press was so great that the parents were separated from the young people. Claude, however, at the side of Phlipote, realized the ideal of a faithful and jealous guardian. The hallebardes of the Suisses rang on the marble pavement of the gallery. Royalty, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... exclaimed in his rage: "You may build your Cathedral according to this plan, but you shall never finish it!" This prediction seems likely to be verified, for though it was commenced in 1248, and built for 250 years, only the choir and nave and one tower to half its ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... she exclaimed, "she's been more than an hour in there! When the priests set about cleansing her of her sins, the choir-boys have to form in line to pass the buckets of filth and ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... at his ease with Bartley that he left off tormenting the things on his desk, and used his hands in gesticulating. "Look at the churches themselves! No church can do any good till it's on a paying basis. As long as a church is in debt, it can't secure the best talent for the pulpit or the choir, and the members go about feeling discouraged and out of heart. It's just so with a newspaper. I say that a paper does no good till it pays; it has no influence, its motives are always suspected, and you've got to make it pay by hook or by crook, before you can hope to—to—forward any good cause ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... arrived with the key; and entering by the great portal door, I wandered for nearly an hour through the aisles, and lingered in the choir and in the chapel, though there was scarcely light to do more than just to trace the outlines of the masses of columns which rise in severe simplicity, and arch above one's head at a height which, in the dimness ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... chairman raised his hand, and at once I heard three sharp clangs which were the signal for the "Church-Choir" committee. "What has the church-choir to do with the Theatre," thought I, as I saw the obedient host answering to ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... choir screen, the broad-brimmed black hats they held in their hands hanging so low that the draggled feathers swept the pavement, their eyes directed towards the retiring crowd. They were two shabby gentlemen of thirty years or ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... to me, "This miserable measure the wretched souls maintain of those who lived without infamy and without praise. Mingled are they with that caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebels, nor were faithful to God, but were for themselves. The heavens chased them out in order to be not less beautiful, nor doth the depth of Hell receive them, because the damned would have some glory ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... shall be my fragrant shrine; My temple, Lord, that arch of thine, My censor's breath the mountain airs, And silent thoughts my only prayers. My choir shall be the moonlight waves, When murmuring homeward to their caves, Or when the stillness of the sea, E'en more ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... to the local committees, especially the indefatigable Secretary, to the pastors of all the churches, to the choir and leaders of the services of song in the house of the Lord, to the local and metropolitan press for its generous reporting of these meetings to the large congregation outside by its multiform and winged processes, and to the lines of transportation which have made us the recipients of their ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... ancient Psalm Chants. They are given in full score, and in their proper cliffs. In the upper part, however, the treble is substituted for the "cantus" or "medius" cliff: and the whole work is so arranged as to suit the library of the musical student, and to be fit for use in the Choir. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... go in and do my work—I shall only just be able to finish it before bed-time. Father must have gone to the choir practice. I wonder if he has taken Cecil with him, and if that is the reason why he hasn't ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... speeches repeated, but what home could have stood her? She knew better than to get married. If she ever loved anybody, nobody ever knew it, mother used to say, but I always have believed she did. She certainly is one queer person. Mrs. Porter asked her last week to give something to the choir fund and she said she'd do nothing of the kind, and she thought the people ought to be paid for having to listen to squeaks like we had instead of paying them to squeak, and she wouldn't give a cent. She holds on to what she's got like paper ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... scrambling cataracts, until it was in a perfect foam with the exertion. I sat upon a stone, gazing upon this valley, calmed, soothed, charmed with its beauty, and was speculating upon the cause of the ruddy purplish hue which I still noticed in the landscape, as I had the day before, when I heard a choir of half a dozen voices, apparently on the nearest cliff, joining in a Haydn-like hymn of praise. I drew nearer to the spot, and soon satisfied myself that all the sounds proceeded from one man sitting alone on a projecting rock. I listened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... joined the choir, came singing up the stairs and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F. Jerusha wrenched herself from the window and refaced the ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... to use a historic background marks most of Mr. Allen's stories. In 'The Choir Invisible,' a tale of the last century, pioneer Kentucky once more exists. The old clergyman of 'Flute and Violin' lived and died in Lexington, and had been long forgotten when his story "touched the vanishing halo of a hard and saintly life." The old negro preacher, with ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in one of the choir-stalls of San Giorgio Maggiore, somewhat raised above the point where Ashe had been ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cheering and animating as the song of the purple martin, and none so well calculated to drive away melancholy. Though not one of the earliest voices to be heard, the chorus is perceptibly more loud and effective when this bird has united with the choir. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... dark, yet mild and exceptionally dry evening at Christmas- time (according to the testimony of William Dewy of Mellstock, Michael Mail, and others), that the choir of Chalk-Newton—a large parish situate about half-way between the towns of Ivel and Casterbridge, and now a railway station—left their homes just before midnight to repeat their annual harmonies under the windows of the ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... independent spirit, which is, that they never would submit to have the service of the church, tho' they profess the Romish religion, in any language but their own; the women, who have in general fine voices, sing in the choir with a taste and manner that would surprize you, and with a devotion that ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... of the dead are sung, and all the beasts who have hated Renart, and whom he has affronted in his lifetime, assemble in decent mourning and perform the service, with the ceremony of the most well-trained choir. Afterwards they "wake" the corpse through the night a little noisily; but on the morrow the obsequies are resumed "in the best and most orgilous manner," with a series of grave-side speeches which read like a designed satire on ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... heaven, where all is light, Beautiful angels clothed in white, Beautiful strains that never tire, Beautiful harps through all the choir; There shall I join the chorus sweet, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... and the Athenian school preserved a religious silence in front of the proscenium. The noise we made by drawing back the curtain of our box, slamming the door and loudly laughing, drowned for an instant the touching strains of the tragic choir, and centred upon us the angry looks of ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... hugged tight to his breast. The Old Tom looked very historical. Carol looked very shining and pure. He looked like a choir-boy carrying his singing book. He looked as though his voice would be ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... do we trust and serve? We speak of one And bow to many; Athens still would find The shrines of all she worshipped safe within Our tall barbarian temples, and the thrones That crowned Olympus mighty as of old. The god of music rules the Sabbath choir; The lyric muse must leave the sacred nine To help us please the dilettante's ear; Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave The portals of the temple where we knelt And listened while the god of eloquence (Hermes ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... veto!" This struck upon the queen's heart; for it was she who had persuaded the king to put his veto, or prohibition, upon the banishment of the priests. When they were in the chapel, something worse happened. The passage "He bringeth down the mighty from their seat," had to be sung; and when the choir came to it, they sang, or shouted it, three times as loud as any other part of the service. The king's adherents were so angry at this that when the words came "And may the Lord keep the king in safety," the royalists shouted out three times ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... same place and reached it before her. Having already taken order with the chaplain of that which he had a mind to do, he hastily donned one of the latter's gowns, with a great flapped cowl, such as we see priests wear, and drawing the hood a little over his face, seated himself in the choir. The lady, entering the chapel, enquired for the chaplain, who came and hearing from her that she would fain confess, said that he could not hear her, but would send her one of his brethren. Accordingly, going away, he sent her the jealous man, in an ill hour ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... thought of concerning other women last—a something holy and withdrawn, a quality of devotion without which he had no conception of real womanhood. It seemed to be a matter of high courtesy with her not to perceive that the choir-boys sang out of tune or that the sermon was prosy. In the matter of kneeling he had seen only one woman in his life—and she the highest in the land—who did it with this marvelous grace at once dignified and humble. "It takes old England," he said to himself, gloatingly, "to make ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the deepening twilight to the heavenly strains of Palestrina, Pergolese, and Marcello. Sometimes the soloists sing Gounod's "Ava Maria" and Rossini's "Stabat Mater," and, fortunately, drown the squeaky tones of the old organ. A choir of men and boys accompanies them in "The Inflammatus," where the high notes of M.'s tearful voice are almost supernatural. People swarm to the Laterano on Saturday to hear the Vespers, which are especially fine. After the ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... be with you, for in the Dresden score the close of the overture had been only very slightly changed (a little in the violins). Two things I have to ask you: if the second score is with you, send it at once to Dresden, addressed to Choir director W. Fischer; if it does not exist at Weimar, Uhlig having forgotten to send it to you, and if therefore in your score at the theatre the close of the overture has not been changed much (in the instrumentation), and no new bar ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... told their breathless tale Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale; Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed; Told how the shining multitude proclaimed, "Joy, joy to earth! Behold the hallowed morn! In David's city Christ the Lord is born! 'Glory to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... remains, perhaps a part of the crypt, the nave, and the great fortress tower he built on the north side of the church. This church was a very curious piece of Norman building. It was a long aisled church, that was unbroken from end to end, but the choir-proper was shut off from its aisles by walls of stone as at St Albans. There were no transepts or central tower, but two porches, one on the north and the other on the south, and in the angle formed by them with the choir, Gundulph built towers, one a belfry, the other ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... so the sheen Of moving bayonets glittered in the sun. And as we marched there rolled upon the air, Up from the vanguard-corps, a choral chant, Feeble at first and far and far away, But gathering volume as it rolled along And regiment after regiment joined the choir, Until an hundred thousand voices swelled The surging chorus, and the solid hills Shook to the thunder of the mighty song. And ere it died away along the line, The hill-tops caught the chorus—rolled away From peak to peak the pealing thunder-chant, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... accompanied with songs and dances"—both of them being forms of worship used before altars. Among the Romans, too, there were sacred dances: the Salian and Lupercalian being named as of that kind. And even in Christian countries, as at Limoges, in comparatively recent times, the people have danced in the choir in honour of a saint. The incipient separation of these once-united arts from each other and from religion, was early visible in Greece. Probably diverging from dances partly religious, partly warlike, as the Corybantian, came the war-dances proper, of which ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... now with healing steps along the slope Of loved Parnassus, or in gliding motion, O'er the far-sounding deep Euboean ocean— Come! for we perish—come!—our Lord and hope! Leader of the stately choir Of the great stars, whose very breath is light, Who dost with hymns inspire Voices, oh youngest god, that sound by night; Come, with thy Maenad throng, Come with the maidens of thy Naxian isle, Who chant their Lord Bacchus—all the while Maddening, with ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the choir with them. The service was conducted with propriety, and Padre Giulio played on the organ. On the great altar of their church is a tabernacle carved in wood by a Religious. It is a piece of exquisite workmanship. A ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... was a long one and not exhilarating. Through the open door came no sound of organ or choir, but the deep and monotonous drawl of one voice. There had been no ringing of bells. The north countries, with the exception of Russia, require more than the ringing of bells or the waving of flags to warm their hearts. They celebrate their festivities with good meat and wine ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... the ecclesiastics laboured most diligently to multiply books for their own establishments. In every great abbey there was a room called the Scriptorium, where boys and novices were constantly employed in multiplying the service- books of the choir, and the less valuable books for the library; whilst the monks themselves laboured in their cells upon bibles and missals. Equal pains were taken in providing books for those who received a ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... we put up the organ in the loft, it would hide the beautiful rose window. Besides, we wanted congregational singing, and if we hired a choir, and hung it up there under the roof, like a cage of birds, we should not have congregational singing. We therefore left the organ-loft vacant, making no further use of it than to satisfy our Gothic cravings. As for choir,—several ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... preacher's pulpit of oakwood Budded once more anew, as aforetime the rod before Aaron. Wreathed thereon was the Bible with leaves, and the dove, washed with silver, Under its conopy fastened, a necklace had on of wind-flowers. But in front of the choir, round the altarpiece painted by Horberg,[B] Crept a garland gigantic; and bright-curling tresses of angels Peeped, like the sun from a cloud, out of the shadowy leaf-work. Likewise the lustre of brass, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... exercises. I prefer the bass drum to the doctor. It may be equally noisy, but hardly so empty. I saw men attired in fine cloth and women ablaze with jewels kneel on velvet cushions and pray to me. Then the choir sang, ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... was high. Down the long, dark, dismal passage, To the door of her resting-place I went, on a farewell message, I trod with a stealthy pace. There was no one there to see us When she opened her chamber door. "Miserere, mei Deus", Rang faint from the convent choir. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... triumph; the slaves during the Roman Saturnalia dressed in their masters' clothes, sat at meat with them, told them of their faults, and blacked their faces for them. They made their masters wait upon them. In the ages of faith, an ass dressed in sacerdotal robes was gravely conducted to the cathedral choir at a certain season, and mass was said before him, and hymns chanted discordantly. The elder D'Israeli, from whom I am quoting, writes: "On other occasions, they put burnt old shoes to fume in the censers; ran ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... been abandoned for the time, there is none the less a war of words and of sounds still going on. Go into the Holy Sepulchre, when mass is being celebrated, and you can scarcely endure the din. No sooner does the Greek choir begin its shrill chant, than the Latins fly to the assault. They have an organ, and terribly does that organ strain its bellows and labor its pipes to drown the rival singing. You think the Latins will carry the day, when suddenly ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... assure you, there can be no doubt. We have witnesses. There can be no question that there was a procession at Llanfihangel on the Sunday before Easter; the choir and minister went round the church, carrying palm ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... plaintive strains become, Not you, whose bosom is the Muses home; When they from tow'ring Helicon retire, They fan in you the bright immortal fire, But I less happy, cannot raise the song, The fault'ring music dies upon my tongue. The happier Terence* all the choir inspir'd, His soul replenish'd, and his bosom fir'd; But say, ye Muses, why this partial grace, To one alone of Afric's sable race; From age to age transmitting thus his name With the finest glory in the rolls of fame? Thy virtues, ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... altruistic spirit by informing the South Devons daily from a position where the lines ran close together, that they were looking forward to crucifying the next Englishman they caught, which again was an immense success, and was greeted invariably by a specially selected choir chanting the Hymn of Hate. And yet the damage done was not very great from the material point of view. It was the mental jolt, the jar to their spiritual loftiness, that tickled the dear souls up. ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... church, where she had been afraid that she would not find room, she saw that it was almost empty. The bereaved family sat in the choir; here and there was some village authority, a tradesman and the heads of the factories. Very few of the working men and women were present; they had not thought to come and join their prayers to those of ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... the shows were when Jack chose to tumble somersaults, or Maud twisted some cold lace round her head, and said, "Now I am Queen Isabel." Dreary work, in good sooth! yet was it a very Michaelmas show and an Easter Day choir to that ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... also that they had waited long. The consent, notwithstanding the hurry of preparations, it involved, besides the annihilation of her desire to meditate on so solemn a change in her life and savour the congratulations of her friends and have the choir of St. Catherine's rigorously drilled in her favourite anthems was beautifully yielded to the pressure ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... know she used to sing in our choir, so that was a good recommendation for another. She got a fine place in the new church at L——, and that gives her a comfortable salary, though she has something put away. She was always a saving creature and kept her wages carefully. Uncle ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... multitude crying, 'Alleluia'; and suddenly the winds came about him again, and lo! he found himself in bed in the dormitory, and it was midnight, for the bell was ringing to Matins; and he rose and went down with the rest; but when the Brethren left the choir, Brother Ambrose stayed fast in his place, hearing and seeing nothing because of the Vision of God; and at Lauds they found ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless |
