"Donna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Seville, a man of fifty and husband of donna Julia (twenty-seven years his junior), of whom he was jealous without cause.—Byron, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... that they have no strength left for the battle of life; and though your wife may know how to play on all musical instruments, and rival a prima donna, she is not well educated unless she can boil an Irish potato and broil a mutton-chop, since the diet sometimes decides the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... The great soprano, the prima donna, appeared and delivered herself of a song for which she was famous with astonishing eclat. Then in a little while the stage grew dark, the orchestration lapsed to a murmur, and the tenor and the soprano reentered. He clasped her in his arms and sang a half-dozen bars, then holding her ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... not surprising that Wilfred Ball felt the same glow greatly intensified when he strolled up to the pay-box, twirling his walking-stick, to take his stand near by as the future proprietor of the girl inside. Perhaps the young husband of a great prima donna may feel nearly as sophisticated and proud and "in it" when he strolls carelessly into the dressing-room where the bouquets of admirers overflow upon the floor—but this is scarcely likely, for he would not have the morning freshness still on him of a ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... however, insisted, and soon after the second Iphigenie appeared. The first night the opera did not greatly please; the next night proved a comic tragedy, as the prima donna was intoxicated. After a couple of days' imprisonment she returned and sang well. But the war between the two factions continued till the death of Gluck, and ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... fresh from the heart of the West, of San Pasqual, a sun-baked desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best gambler, the best and worst man of San Pasqual and of lovely Donna. ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... for Greybeards, produced at Drury Lane, 25 November, 1786. It owes much of its business to The Lucky Chance. See the Theatrical History of that comedy (Vol. iii, p. 180). Miss Farren acted Donna Seraphina, second wife of Don Alexis, one of the Greybeards. She also ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... Don Carlos and Donna Juanna, at Toledo, 1539, confirmed the edict of Medina del Campo against the Egyptians, with the addition, that if any Egyptian, after the expiration of the sixty days, should be found wandering about, he should be sent to the galleys for six years, if above the age of twenty ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... enthusiasm for his sea-faring life, he had enough interest in ordinary pursuits to fall in love most romantically. It happened on account of his being so regular at church. Every day he must attend service, and every day to church came Donna Philippa Palestrello, who lived in a convent near by. Across the seats flitted involuntary glances between the cloistered maiden and the handsome brown sailor—with a dimple in his chin, some pictures have him; something besides prayers were read ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... married his second wife, Alexandrine Laurence de Bleschamps, who had married, but who had divorced, a M. Jonberthon. When Lucien had been ambassador in Spain in 1801, charged among other things with obtaining Elba, the Queen, he says, wished Napoleon should marry an Infanta,—Donna Isabella, her youngest daughter, afterwards Queen of Naples, an overture to which Napoleon seems not to have made any answer. As for Lucien, he objected to his brother that the Queen was ugly, and laughed at Napoleon's representations as to her being "propre": but at last he ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... systems, and one after another they failed. Frederick A. Gower was the first of these. He was an adventurous chevalier of business who gave up an agent's contract in return for a right to become a roving propagandist. Later he met a prima donna, fell in love with and married her, forsook telephony for ballooning, and lost his life in attempting to ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... musical fanatico, gave his undivided attention to the stage; and, in the meantime, I amused myself by observing the audience, which consisted, in chief part, of the very elite of the city. Having satisfied myself upon this point, I was about turning my eyes to the prima donna, when they were arrested and riveted by a figure in one of the private boxes ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was never a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna. And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there—Luciano Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest man who had ever been in the city! For a wonder, he wasn't a tenor, only a basso, but they adored him just ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... foot down into it with an emphasis that shook the floor. Devon, fastening his tie before the full-length mirror set in the door leading to their common bath-room, started at the sound, like a high-strung prima donna. This was ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... prima donna, whose career was in Paris, was the most irresistibly lovely vision ever seen in a tea gown. She was past-mistress at the art of making herself decorative, and the writer recalls her as she last saw her in a Doucet model of chiffon, ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... heightened by a stirring accompaniment, and then bursts out into a graphic song ("Finita e pe' frati"), emphasized with the piff-paff of bullets and full of martial fervor. In delightful contrast with the fierce Huguenot song comes the lively and graceful romanza of Urbain ("Nobil donna e tanto onesta"), followed by a delightful septet. The scene now changes, and with it the music. We are in the Queen's gardens at Chenonceaux. Every number, the Queen's solo ("A questa voce sola"), the delicate "Bathers' Chorus," as it ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... expresses a complete declaration of love, an offer of marriage, and, presumably, a hint at the settlement, is, with our more practical visionaries and enthusiasts of the nineteenth century, rather an echo of the stock market than a poetical fancy. We fear that no prima donna looks at her flowers without a thought of how much they have cost, and that the belle estimates her bouquet according to the commercial value of a lily- of-the-valley as compared with that of a Jacqueminot rose, rather than as flowers simply. It is a pity that the overwhelming ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... series were given. At the latter place, Jenny Lind, accompanied by Barnum and his daughter, Mrs. Lyman, visited "The Hermitage," where Barnum himself had years before seen "Old Hickory" Jackson. While there, the prima donna heard, for the first time in her life, wild mocking birds singing in the trees, and great was her ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... tank. It is the clearing-house for the Mojave, for entering or leaving the desert men must pass through San Pasqual. From the main-line tracks a branch railroad now extends north across the desert, through the eastern part of Kern county and up the Owens river valley into Inyo, although at the time Donna Corblay enters into this story the railroad had not been built and a stage line bore the brunt of the desert travel as far north as Keeler—constituting the main outlet from that vast but little known section of California that lies east ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... valuables; but the sick old man had sank into so complete a lethargy by the dreadful event which had passed under his eye, that he was unable to answer them. As rapidity of movement was, however, rendered peremptory to insure the safety of the band, the chief addressed the Donna for the same purpose, in answer to which, she evinced but little reluctance, and bade them to follow her. The robbers at once declared their readiness, and, after passing along the corridor, entered the dining saloon, where ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... who lives in the castle now? The Donna Isabella is alone there, now, the only survivor of the noble race, except—except senor," (he laid a peculiar emphasis on the word,) "except a wilful son, whom she has disowned and driven from her house. He is a handsome lad, and married, here in Alcala, the beauty ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... do. Gaspare is terrible, a regular donna[1] of a boy in spite of all his mischief and fun. You should hear him talk of you. He'd ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... went there, and I saw a painting every one was talking about—by a new artist. It was called 'Bella Donna,' just a woman's head and shoulders. Max, she was like me! But she was horrible, wicked—somehow deformed, though you couldn't see how. You only felt it. And besides being like me, she was like a lynx. There was one in the Zoo in London, with just her ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... steps and sat down on the anchor. At Lashnagar she had always seen ghosts walking on the sea at nightfall. Now they rose out of the swirling water, passed in and out swaying among the lights of the ship. From under her feet in the crew's quarters came the tinkle of a mandoline playing "La Donna ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... trails divided, one going up the Truckey by the Donna lake route and the other up Long Canyon by Honey lake, the latter being considered the ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... avait ete instituteur, mais qui d'une nature mecontente et orgueilleuse, se croyait au-dessus de sa sphere, et faisait sentir a sa pauvre femme, qui l'aimait d'un devouement admirable, toutes les tortures que l'egoisme peut inventer. Elle se donna a peine le necessaire pour procurer a son seigneur et maitre tous les soins que sa superiorite imaginaire pouvait exiger, et pourtant il ne fut jamais content, et un beau jour disparut, sans qu'on put ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... ici grand' mention D'une belle collation Qu'a la Duchesse de Chevreuse Sevigne, de race frondeuse, Donna depuis quatre ou cinq jours, Quand on fut revenue du Cours. On y vit briller aux chandelles Des gorges passablement belles; On y vit nombre de galants; On y mangea des ortolans; On chanta des chansons a boire; On dit ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... de Linne. Journ. d'Hist. nat. I, 1792. pp. 136-144. (L'auteur conclut que tout ce que fit Linnaeus pour la botanique, il le fit aussi pour la zoologie; et ne donna pas moins de preuves de son genie en traitant le regne mineral, quoique dans cette partie de l'histoire naturelle il fut moins heureux en principes et en convenances dans les rapprochements et les determinations, que dans les deux ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... whistling "Donna e Mobile," with certain private variations of his own, until he reached the splendid monument erected to the miserly old Duke of Brunswick, who showered his scraped-up millions upon an alien city, to spite his own fat-witted Brunswickers, and so escaped the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... donna six guinees au Bourreau de Londres, pour lui bien couper la tete; mais le miserable ne merroit par ces guinees, puisqu'il ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.02.09 • Various
... fast as she descended the stairway, bright spots of colour flaming in her cheeks and the diamonds sparkling in her ears. A prima donna might have guessed her feelings as she paused, a little breathless on the wide landing under the windows. She heard a footstep. Hugh came out of the library and stood motionless, looking up at her. But even those who have felt the silence and the stir that prefaces the clamorous applause of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... occhi porta la mia donna Amore; Per che si fa gentil ciocch' ella mira: Ove ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira, E cui saluta fa tremar to core. Sicche bassando 'l viso tutto smuore, Ed ogni suo difetto allor sospira: Fugge dinanzi a lei superbia ed ira. Aiutatenmi, donne, a farle onore. Ogni dolcezza, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... discovery of the body was retold, though more scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His book, Criminals I have Caught, passed from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was quite recent. The door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... peculiarities which were to be observed either in Dons or Undergraduates, in Presidents or Scouts. He could sit down at his piano, and give you - after the manner of Theodore Hook, or John Parry - a burlesque opera; singing high up in his head for the prima donna, and going down to his boots for the basso profondo of the great Lablache. He could also draw corks, saw wood, do a bee in ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Riego, brother to her husband, and her attached sister, Donna Lucie, she removed in March to Malaga, from whence the advance of the French army into the south of Spain obliged them to seek protection at Gibraltar, which, under the advice of General Riego, they left for England on the 4th of July, but, owing to an unfavourable passage, did ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... ventura udi 'Dolce Maria!' Dinanzi a noi chiamar cosi nel pianto Come fa donna che 'n partorir sia."—Purg. ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... transcripts from Mount Athos, and six chests of valuable MSS. which he received in return for ransoming from his captivity at Venice the son of Soliman the Magnificent. Great credit must also be given to Don Ferdinand Columbus for his good work at Seville. The son of the great Admiral and Donna Beatrix Enriquez was one of the most celebrated bibliophiles in Europe. He began making his collections very soon after his father's death. Between 1510 and 1537 he had visited Italy several times, and had travelled besides in England ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... artillerie etait deja moins nourri, et notre infanterie ne fit aucun mouvement. Quand la cavalerie fut rentree, et que l'artillerie anglaise, qui avait cesse de tirer pendant une demi-heure, eut recommence son feu, on donna ordre aux divisions Foy et Bachelu d'avancer droit aux carres qui s'y etaient avances pendant la charge de cavalerie et qui ne s'etaient pas replies. L'attaque fut formee en colonnes par echelons de regiment, Bachelu formant les echelons les plus avances. Je ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the brilliant performer, in short, en famille, the curtain down and her salary stopped for the season—thanks to which she is by so much more the easy genius and the good creature as she is by so much less the advertised prima donna. She received us nowhere more sympathetically, that is with less ceremony or self- consciousness, I seem to recall, than at Montepulciano, for instance—where it was indeed that the recovery of private judgment I just referred to couldn't help taking place. What we were doing, or what ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... her expression. If at Miss Birdseye's, and afterwards in Charles Street, she might have been a rope-dancer, to-day she made a "scene" of the mean little room in Monadnoc Place, such a scene as a prima donna makes of daubed canvas and dusty boards. She addressed Basil Ransom as if she had seen him the other week and his merits were fresh to her, though she let him, while she sat smiling at him, explain in his own rather ceremonious way ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... mothy wings, and are crippled so that we may not fly again, let us beware. This may or may not be my last night on earth. . . . Let us go to the opera. Let us be original in all things. I shall pay a prima donna to sing my requiem from ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... Donna Felipa Munnis Perestrelo Wife of Christopher Columbus. Daughter of the first governor of Porto Santo. Only issue ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... instance, to watch that sunset yonder, whereas some of our worldly friends would be busy dressing to go out to a bad play. We can sit here and listen to that bird singing his vespers, as long as he will sing—and personally I wouldn't exchange him for a prima donna. Far from being poor in excitements, I think we have quite as many as are good for us, and those we have are very ...
— Different Girls • Various
... Laws. Destruction of the two Houses of Parliament. Change of Ministry in France. Congress of Vienna. Donna Maria acknowledged Queen of Portugal. Opening of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Resignation of Earl Grey, succeeded by Lord Melbourne, who is again shortly succeeded by Sir Robert Peel. Irish Coercion Bill. Death ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... never will give it,—never; and though I threaten thee not with disinheritance and such like, yet I do ask something in return for the great affection I have always borne thee; and I make no doubt that thou wilt readily oblige me in such a trifle as giving up a mere Spanish donna. So think of her no more. If thou wantest to make love, there are ladies in plenty whom thou needest not to marry. And for my part, I thought that thou wert all in all with the Lady Hasselton: Heaven bless her ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... some adventure and glory of his own on the high seas. He would wish to show all these grandees, with whom his marriage had brought him acquainted, that you did not need to be born a Perestrello —or Pallastrelli, as the name was in its original Italian form—to make a name in the world. Donna Isabel, moreover, was never tired of talking about Porto Santo and her dead husband, and of all the voyages and sea adventures that had filled his life. She was obviously a good teller of tales, and had all the old history and traditions of Madeira at her fingers' ends; ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... 'Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain over there, Algiers over there. Creeping away to the left here, Nice. Round by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine Ground. City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, Porto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away to—hey! there's no room for Naples;' he had got to the wall by this time; 'but it's all one; it's ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... of dew the booming of artillery and the clattering of small arms dispelled that peace which partook of no harsher discord than the purling of streams and the still, small voices of the forest. Through the groves where the spirit of Donna Marina—the lost love of the marauder—was said to wander, shrieked the round shot, shells and grape. Through tangled shrubberies, bright with flowers and colored berries, pierced the discharge of canister; the air, fragrant at the dawn with orange blossom and starry jessamine, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... continued favourable. One night we went to the opera to hear a celebrated prima donna. When we returned home Miriam and I were sitting in her room, chatting over the events ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... absurdly happy. Her income was uncertain, but that was amusing and thrilling rather than pitiful or tragic. She had two or three "steadies" among singers, who gave her engagements as accompanist at small drawing-room recitals or charitable entertainments. There was a stout prima donna whose arias for dramatic soprano kept her practicing until midnight, and a rich young lady amateur who needed a very friendly and careful accompaniment because she sang flat and always lost her breath before the end of a long phrase. The manner in which Tommy concealed these defects was thoroughly ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... riding without using his hands, he would often dictate to two or three secretaries at once. The masculine love of glory and ambition, expression of a well-working ante-pituitary, was combined with the effeminate echoes of an equally well-evolved post-pituitary. No prima donna was more concerned with the care of her skin, complexion and hair than he. The analogy extends even to superfluous hair which he had removed, not by the modern electrolysis, but by depilation with forceps and main force. The attendants at his bath would ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... less of the lodgings, Princess, than of the company: though, to be sure, the girls are very good-hearted, and Donna Julia, our prima amorosa, makes a most discreet duenna, off the boards. There is Badcock too—il signore Badcocchio: give Badcock a hint, and he will diffuse a most permeating respectability. For the young ladies who dwell at the entrance of the court, over the archway, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... used to seem very much smitten, but so, to be sure, were some of the Alcestes with the young ladies at Valparaiso. How we used to roast Owen about that Spanish Donna, and he was as bad at Sydney about the young lady whose father, we told him, was a convict, though he kept such a swell carriage. He had no peace about his father-in-law, the house-breaker! Don't I remember how you pinched her hand the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... down the noble sala. "Oh, it's a magnificent house!" she murmured; after which I pushed her forward. When we had entered the parlor Miss Tita told me that she should now be able to manage, and at the same moment the little red-haired donna came to meet her mistress. Miss Tita's idea was evidently to get her aunt immediately back to bed. I confess that in spite of this urgency I was guilty of the indiscretion of lingering; it held me there to think that I was nearer the documents I coveted—that they were probably put away ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... Know Whether He's On His Head Or His Heels. He's Always Up In The Air About Something, But You Can't Upset Him! Vaudeville To-night—The Bodongo Brothers, Brilliant Burmese Balancers—Arctic Annie, the Prima Donna of Sealdom, and Tristan LeHuber, The Balloon Man—He Uses An Anchor For A Parachute!" At last indeed the LeHuber family will have arrived sensationally ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... he married her; now she had grown old Critical in their first glance at a prima donna Forgetfulness is like a closing sea He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two Her singing struck a note of grateful remembered delight It rarely astonishes our ears. It illumines our souls Madness that sane men enamoured ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... who had a rough, blustering manner, once got from a witness more than he gave. In a trial of a right of fishery, he asked the witness: "Dost thou love fish?"—"Aye," replied the witness, with a grin, "but I donna like cockle sauce with it." The learned serjeant was not pleased with the roar of laughter which followed ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... on condition of the renewal of their contract for another six weeks in the spring. Ilka was in the meanwhile to take lessons in singing at Hahn's expense, possibly with a view to future distinction as a prima donna of the opera. Her maestro had told her repeatedly that she had naturally a better voice than Nilsson, and that, if she could dry up for ever her fountain of tears, she might become a great artiste. For Ilka had the deplorable habit of crying ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... me, Seth," said Wiry Ben, "y' are a down-right good-hearted chap, panels or no panels; an' ye donna set up your bristles at every bit o' fun, like some o' your ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... of course the ladies know,— I have my doubts. No matter,—here we go! What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. 'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; Prologues in metre are to other pros As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. "The world's a stage,"—as Shakespeare said, one day; The stage a world—was what he meant to say. The outside ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was agreeable. Clotilde and Ermengarde had wits as sparkling as their eyes. There was a manager of the Opera, a great friend of Villebecque, and his wife, a splendid lady, who had been a prima donna of celebrity, and still had a commanding voice for a chamber; a Carlist nobleman who lived upon his traditions, and who, though without a sou, could tell of a festival given by his family, before the revolution, which had cost a million of francs; and a Neapolitan physician, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... donna le jour a la credulite, et l'amour propre interessa bientot le ciel au destin des ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... travel as an opera singer. I have heard both singers and Carlotta was my choice. Adelina was the most advertised, for she was a money-maker and demanded just so much notoriety when she engaged and signed her contracts. Her power was supreme and no one dared to say her nay. Woe be to the poor prima donna who sang better or had more applause or favors than she did. She was the only queen of song as long as her reign lasted. Emma Nevada and Madam Etelka Gersta were her especial victims when they sang the same season with her. I am stating facts which will stand. To be a good singer ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... in Europe in the course of two or three centuries. But because you cannot be Handel and Mozart—is it any reason why you should not learn to sing "God save the Queen" properly, when you have a mind to? Because a girl cannot be prima donna in the Italian Opera, is it any reason that she should not learn to play a jig for her brothers and sisters in good time, or a soft little tune for her tired mother, or that she should not sing to please herself, among the dew, on a May ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... the vanishin' leddy." And with this the policeman strolled off into the fog, his suspicions in nowise removed. He knew many rich young bachelors like Hillard. If it wasn't a chorus lady, it was a prima donna, which was not far in these degenerate days from being the ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... prima donna nodded; the pout on the lips blossomed into a smile, and a look of infinite tenderness transformed the tired, dark little face. "It's up to the creche—that's where I'm going now. The ladies keeps it awful good ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... hopeless! On these terms I had rather gloom with the good poet (whose fault in your eyes was that he knew in what he had believed) than freeze with you and Aquinas on your peak of hyaline. And as I have found you, Donna Beatrice, so in the main have they of whom I pitch my pipe. Here and there a man of them got exercise for his fingers in your web; here and there one, as Pico the young Doctor of yellow hair and nine hundred ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... shook her hair, and walked to the piano with the mien of a prima donna who has the capitals of Europe at her feet, exultant in her youth, her charm, her voice, revelling unconsciously in the vivacity of her blood, and consciously in her power over Harry, which Harry strove in vain to conceal ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... is a monologue at once dramatic and philosophical. Its arguments, like those of Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, are part truth, part sophistry. The poem is prefaced by a motto from Moliere's Don Juan, in which Donna Elvira suggests to her husband, with a bitter irony, the defence he ought to make for himself. Don Juan did not take the hint. Browning has done so. The genesis of the poem and the special form it has assumed are further explained by the ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... and lamentable is the decay of stage beauty since the days of George IV. Think of Sontag! I remember her in Otello and the Donna del Lago in '28. I remember being behind the scenes at the opera (where numbers of us young fellows of fashion used to go), and seeing Sontag let her hair fall down over her shoulders previous to her murder by Donzelli. Young fellows have never ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... is only one quality in humankind that really matters—softening, suffering and despair and turning away wrath, and as Donna knelt by the grave of the man who had possessed that quality to such an extent that he had considered his life cheap as a means of expressing it, she prayed that her infant son might be endowed with the virtues and brains of his father and ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... He had had a long naval career. In 1833 he commanded the Portuguese Fleet for Donna Maria, and won a small engagement against Dom Miguel. He was "not submissive" at Beyrout, where, having command of the land forces, and being told to retire and hand over the command, he advanced and won a victory, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... mortal enemies of the Gaetani, who narrowly escaped the fate prepared for them by Alexander VI and his terrible son. Beautiful Sermoneta and all the great fiefs in the Maremma fell into the maw of the Borgias, and your ancestors either found death at their hands or were driven into exile. Donna Lucretia became mistress of Sermoneta, and eventually her son, Rodrigo of Aragon, inherited ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... because they tend to rate temperament too high and art too low, and to tolerate singers whose voice-production is atrocious, simply because their temperament or personality interests them. Take a case in point: The Croatian prima donna, Milka Ternina, whose art ranges from Tosca to Isolde, sings (in "Tosca") the invocation to the Virgin which precedes the killing of Scarpia, with a wealth of voice combined with a power of dramatic expression that simply is overwhelming; ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... "Donna Maddalena," said Fabiano, "here is a signora who knows Ruffo. I met her at the Mergellina, and she asked me to show ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... July 1506 Pope Julius II gave Donna Lucrezia della Rovere, the daughter of his sister Lucchina, in marriage to the youthful Marcantonio Colonna, who, like his brothers Prospero and Fabrizio, became one of the most famous Captains of his family. He gave to him Frascati ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... got a move on in the last hour and a quarter, haven't they? I mean to say, at five o'clock you found a stranger in your taxi. Five minutes later you were smashed up. Now you're in a prima donna's room at the Opera House, eating a cold collation. Collation ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... face!" said Miss Van Tuyn. "She keeps us waiting, like the great prima donna in a concert, just long enough to give a touch of excitement to her appearance. Dear Lady Sellingworth! She has a wonderful knowledge of just how to do things. That only comes ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Donna Sophia, whom I had for some time instructed in music, who appeared to be more favourably inclined. She was an excellent performer, and passionately fond of the science: and I have always observed, your highness, that between the real amateurs of harmony there is a sympathy, a description ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... He gayly salutes the Governor and General with a graceful sweep of his sombrero. He threads the crowded plaza with adroitness, swaying easily from side to side as he greets sober friend or demure Donna. He smiles kindly on all the tender-eyed senoritas who admire the brave soldier, and in their heart of hearts envy Juanita ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... agility. Already the development of colorature singing had reached a high degree of perfection. Already the singer sought to astonish the hearer by covering an air with a bewildering variety of ornaments. The time was not far off when the opera prima donna was to become the incarnation of the artistic sensuousness which had beguiled Italy with a dream of Grecian resurrection. The way had been well built, for the attention of the fathers of the Roman church had been ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... tenderness and feeling. In rendering something that required simplicity, nature, and pathos, no prima donna could surpass her, for while her voice was not powerful, and had no unusual compass, it was as sweet as that of a thrush ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... troupe went all to pieces. The next night was to be Wagner's benefit. Fifteen minutes before the curtain rose, he found the audience consisted of his landlady, her husband, and one Polish Jew. A free fight broke out behind the scenes; the prima donna's husband smote the second tenor, her lover, and every one joined in; even that small audience was dismissed. In this company die erste Liebhaberin was Wilhelmine Planer, one of twelve children of a poor spindle-maker. When the Magdeburg company went ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... Mother, sir, and tempt me no more! You have asked me what I dare; and I dare this, upon my own ground, and in my own garden, I, Donna Rosa de Soto, to bid you leave this place now and forever, after having insulted me by talking of your love, and tempted me to give up that faith which my husband promised me he would respect ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... nevosi ed alti monti Apollo spande il suo bel lume adorno, Tal' i crin suoi sopra la bianca gonna! Il tempo e'l luogo non ch'io conti, Che dov'e si bel sole e sempre giorno; E Paradiso, ov'e si bella Donna!" ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Oh! ah! We were waiting alongside the ship, with her lower chain-plates not a foot above water, for the donna to be hoisted over the rail, since she would not permit any of her attendants to precede her—though Heaven knows they were anxious enough to do so. By this time, too, after my men had left the deck of the ship, the crew had somehow got hold of a barrel of ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Jaques etant monte sur le trone, il lui donna un regiment d'infanterie en Irlande et le gouvernement de Limeric. Mais ce prince, ayant ete oblige de quitter ses etats le comte Hamilton repassa avec la famille royale en France. C'est-la et pendant le long sejour ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... to show that England had throughout declined giving a guarantee for any political institutions, or interfering in civil dissensions. That being the general rule, was there any peculiarity in the usurpation of Don Miguel, or in the claims of Donna Maria, to impose upon England the necessity of departing from her usual course? He was prepared to contend, in opposition to the inferences that might be drawn from the arguments of the right hon. gentleman, that there ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... arrangements for Pierre's sojourn in Rome. Of the ancient and once vigorous race of the Boccaneras, there now only remained Cardinal Pio Boccanera, the Princess his sister, an old maid who from respect was called "Donna" Serafina, their niece Benedetta—whose mother Ernesta had followed her husband, Count Brandini, to the tomb—and finally their nephew, Prince Dario Boccanera, whose father, Prince Onofrio, was likewise dead, and whose mother, a Montefiori, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... several operas.] or some other Maestro di capella, or rather schiavo d'un primo uomo." [Footnote: Literally, "The slave of a primo uomo," primo uomo being the masculine form corresponding to prima donna, that is, a singer of hero's parts in operatic music. At one time also female parts were sung and acted by men or boys.] Now, thought I, now's the time; so turning to Antonia, I remarked, "Antonia knows nothing of such singing ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... mark! As a compensating device for rotten shooting it is unexcelled. It is a pity to laugh at it as much as we do; for I am convinced it is a conscientious arrow doing its best under natural handicap; like a prima donna with a cleft palate, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... story of this morning visitor by several people in the house, and he had listened to it as one didn't often listen to twice-told tales, for it was amazing to observe how each of the tellers, whether it was tipsy Fra Jeronimo or the triple-chinned landlady, Donna Gloria, or Pepe, the Atheist medical student who kept his skeletons in the washhouse on the roof, accepted it as a quite commonplace episode. The man in the automobile had lost his wife. He minded quite a lot, perhaps because he had gone through a good deal to ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of Sanchobienaya; and that, wherever she was, she would serve and honor him as her lord. Don Quixote, in reply, requested her, for his sake, to do him the favor henceforth to add to her name the title of don, and call herself Donna Tolosa, which she promised to do. The other girl now buckled on his spur, and with her he held nearly the same conference as with the lady of the sword; having inquired her name, she told him it was Molinera, and that ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... happy in representing those shadowy and delicate graces which belong exclusively to woman, and distinguish her from man; but he is generally successful in sketching in woman those qualities which are found in both sexes. In "The Bravo," Donna Violetta, the heroine, a rich and high-born young lady, is not remarkable one way or the other; but Gelsomina, the jailer's daughter, born in an inferior position, reared in a sterner school of discipline and struggle, is a beautiful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and equally anxious to secure English gold and a London reputation. It is strange to observe how universally the musical tribute is paid. A tenor turns up from some Russian provincial town; a basso works himself to London from a theatre in Constantinople; rumours arrive of a peerless prima donna, with a voice which is to outstrip everything ever heard of, who has been dug out, by some travelling amateur, from her native obscurity in a Spanish or Norwegian village; an extraordinary soprano has ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... stood around Donna Veronica as she set the point of her pen to the paper, and two of them watched the characters she traced, with eager, unwinking eyes. The third was a very insignificant personage just then, being but the notary's clerk; but his signature ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... perform for him. He could not be thwarted from his bent, nor cajoled into doing anything that he disliked, whilst his stubborn pride prevented him from yielding to any, whether great or small. When, in 1723, his opera 'Ottone' was about to be produced, he had engaged as prima donna the great Continental singer, Francesca Cuzzoni. The lady does not appear to have possessed the sweetest of tempers, and she showed her independence by not putting in an appearance in England until the rehearsals ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... you were a Donna of old Castile And a Troubadour were I, I'd sing at night beneath your room And weave you dreams in a minstrel's loom With rainbow tears and the roses' bloom And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... of King Charles II. he was the first of his father's servants that he took any notice of, and made him gentleman-usher of his privy chamber: the same place he enjoyed under the deceased King. Upon Charles IId's marriage with Donna Catherina of Portugal, he was created his Majesty's first vice chamberlain, in which honourable station he continued ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... obscures whatever of technical originality there might still have been preserved after the cleaning. The extent of injury European galleries have thus received is incalculable. One instance will suffice as an example of many. Some years gone by, the Titian's Bella Donna of the Pitti was intact. Unluckily it got into the hands of a professional cleaner. A celebrated dealer happened to be standing by when it was rehung. Looking at it, he exclaimed,—"Two weeks ago I would have given the Grand Duke two thousand pounds for that picture on ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... s'approcha du tas de foin. Il vit la chatte, et donna un coup de baonnette dans le foin avec ngligence, et en haussant les paules, comme s'il sentait que sa prcaution tait ridicule. Rien ne remua; et le visage de l'enfant ne trahit pas la plus ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... les pauvres qu'elle aime Ketty donna Son esprit, sa croyance m'eme Satan paya Cette 'ame au d'evoument sublime, En 'ecus d'or, Disons pour ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... and the Barracouta, employed in surveying the coast of Africa, were at Mozambique, in 1823, the officers were introduced to the family of Senor Manuel Pedro d'Almeydra, a native of Portugal, who was a considerable merchant settled on that coast; and it was an opinion agreed in by all, that Donna Sophia d'Almeydra was the most superior woman they had seen since they left England, Captain Owen, the leader of the expedition, expressing to Senor d'Almeydra his detestation of slavery, the Senor replied, 'You will not be long here before you change your ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Riario, whose hereditary possession, Forli, she gallantly defended first against his murderers, and then against Cesare Borgia. Though finally vanquished, she retained the admiration of her countrymen and the title 'prima donna d'Italia.' This heroic vein can be detected in many of the women of the Renaissance, though none found the same opportunity of showing their heroism to the world. In Isabella Gonzaga ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... said the governor. "Now then we will leave you, and you may dress and join us in the next room, where Donna Maude is, like me, very anxious to learn all about the Doctor's adventures and your own. You can tell us and rest ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... supplied the principal stars of the improvised dramatic company, the leader of the orchestra, a young Belgian officer, and the prima donna, an "American girl from Paris," as the Mexican papers had it, being brought in only as necessary adjuncts. Another important female part was taken by Albert Bazaine, who was ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... "What a prima-donna the crow would be," he said, looking at her with mock admiration, "if she only had a voice proportional to her ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... of Avenel' is not quite so good as a real well authenticated ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you all about her, and so can Rose, perhaps. I myself ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... the Donna Luisa, plucking a diamond ring from one of her fingers, and presenting it ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... passionate and brilliant, and that a veil, as it were, was extended over all the rest of the representation, so that a person who had heard only the second act of La Griselda would have asked with surprise, if it was really the wonderful prima donna, the songs of whom were purchased with gold, and the wonderful talent of whom, had enslaved the audiences of the great Italian theatres. The reason was, that, after the second act, the star which shone on La Felina had become eclipsed. Monte-Leone had left his box—the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... try men's souls; but Van Bibber passed the stage-door man with as calmly polite a nod as though the piece had been running a hundred nights, and the manager was thinking up souvenirs for the one hundred and fiftieth, and the prima donna had, as usual, began to hint for a new set of costumes. The stage-door keeper hesitated and was lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the unsuppressed excitement of the place with a pleased sniff at the familiar ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis |
