"Duet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a cold in my head, I declare;" and, suiting the action to the word, the tender-hearted old lady began to wipe her eyes, and execute sundry other manoeuvres incidental to the malady she had named. At this moment Freddy returned, laden with music-books. Miss Saville immediately fixed upon a lively duet which would suit their voices, and song followed song, till Mrs. Coleman, waking suddenly in a fright, after a tremendous attempt to break her neck, which was very near proving successful, found out that it was past eleven o'clock, and ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... year's income from her crops on powder and shot for the purpose of making a stand in the contemplated destruction of the new tobacco crops, and thereby plunged herself and her family in a danger which were hard to estimate were it discovered, I heard a shrill duet of girlish laughs and merry tongues before the house. Then, on looking forth, whom should I see but Mary Cavendish and Cicely Hyde, her great gossip, and a young coloured wench, all washing their faces in the May dew, which lay in a great flood as of diamonds and pearls ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... getting accustomed to his new surroundings, let us consider these two monarchs in whose presence he is soon to appear, and upon whose decision hangs some part of the world's destiny. Isabella first; for in that strange duet of government it is her womanly soprano that rings most clearly down the corridors of Time. We discern in her a very busy woman, living a difficult life with much tact and judgment, and exercising to ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... zealously devoted to the concert. The High School Glee Club was to sing, and the mandolin and guitar club was to give two numbers. Nora O'Malley was to sing two songs from a late musical success, and Jessica and Miriam were to play a duet. James Gardiner, who was extremely proficient on the violincello, was down for a solo, while Eleanor was to play twice. The crowning feature of the concert, however, was to be contributed by Anne and Eleanor. Anne was to recite Tennyson's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Coningsby had exhausted badinage; they had examined and criticised all the furniture, had rifled the vases of their prettiest flowers; and Clotilde, who had already sung several times, was proposing a duet to Ermengarde, when a servant entered, and told the ladies that a carriage was in attendance to give them an airing, and after that Lord Monmouth hoped they would return and dine with him; then turning to Coningsby, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... when we'd been about a fortnight on the way, for during the past week the colonel had been letting us go on very easily, I was sentry at the tent. There had been some singing, and Lieutenant Leigh had gone off in the middle of a duet. Then the doctor, the colonel, and a couple of subs were busy over a game at whist, and the black nurse had beckoned Mrs Maine out, I suppose to see something about the two children; when Captain Dyer and Miss Ross walked together just ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... are constantly together can learn to sing in perfect accord. All the practice it needs, after some good elementary instruction, is such as meetings by summer twilight and evening firelight naturally suggest. And as music is a universal language, we cannot but think a fine Italian duet would be as much at home in the log cabin as one of Mrs. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... you would be ashamed of if you knew him; or it may be now from some far-piercing chord of a heavenly orchestra: the moment it comes up into your consciousness, you call it your own way, and glory in it! Two devils amusing themselves with a duet of inspiration, one at each ear, might soon make that lordly me you are so in love with, rejoice in the freedom of willing the opposite each alternate moment; and at length drive you mad at finding that you could ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... looking grease. His horse beyond the fence gave another whinny, which ended in a welcoming neigh. The man did not even look up. He replaced the wheel and spun it round. Then he examined the felloes which had shrunk in the summer heat. An answering neigh, and a final equine duet still failed to draw his attention. Nor, until a voice beyond the fence greeted him, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... speak, or is Middleton?" said Charles at last, in despair. "I will do a solo, or I will keep silence; but really I am unequal to a duet." ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... DUET—COUNT AND KARL. 'Tis a soldier's rigid duty Orders strictly to obey; Let not, then the smile of beauty Lure us from the camp away. In our country's cause united, Gallantly we'll take the field; But, the victory won, delighted Singly ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... the most soft and timid. In his opera a recitative of clear, passionate accent serves to introduce a pretty cavatina; "Prince Igor's" magnificent scene, so original and contained and vigorous, is followed by a cloying duet worthy of a Tchaikowsky opera. The adagio of the B-minor Symphony, lovely as it is, has not quite the solidity and weight of the other movements. The happy, popular and brilliantly original themes and ideas of the first quartet ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... The duet produces a crescendo astounding to them both, for there has never been a noise so wonderful as this in all their experience. Then to Judy a very strange thing happens. She pauses for breath, but the noise goes on. "This is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... with particular recommendations, Mrs. Wix's repast, and it was a charm to hear his easy brilliant French: even his companion's ignorance could measure the perfection of it. The patronne, rubbing her hands and breaking in with high swift notes as into a florid duet, went with him to the street, and while they talked a moment longer Maisie remembered what Mrs. Wix had said about every one's liking him. It came out enough through the morning powder, it came out enough in the heaving bosom, how the landlady liked him. He ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... strange," said Madame de la Houssaye. "The words of your duet are by me, and the music by my friend the Viscomptesse Alix de Morainville. All manner of things have happened in this terrible Revolution; I had for a moment the hope that she had found chance to emigrate and that you had met her. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the lesson, Christopher Fedoritch," he said. "Lisa Mihalovna and I are going to play a duet of Beethoven's sonata." ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... dreadfully when I leave," she said, when the duet was accomplished. "I feel so sure when you play, and you help me. I hope you will come and see me. Lady Mary, my aunt, would be very pleased; don't you think she would?" ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... warring in their dreams, cry "to arms," to the great annoyance of those who are more inclined to sleep in peace. But, I understand, the great disturbers of the room where Mad. de sleeps are two chanoines, whose noses are so sonorous and so untuneable as to produce a sort of duet absolutely incompatible with sleep; and one of the company is often deputed to interrupt the serenade by manual application mais tout en badinant et avec politesse [But all in pleasantry, and with ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Spenser's sonnets. Other love lyrics which should be read are Spenser's Prothalamion, Lodge's Love in My Bosom Like a Bee and Ben Jonson's To Celia. Among pastoral lyrics, read from Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar for August, 1579, Perigo and Willie's duet, beginning:— ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... The duet that then took place between him and the curate must have been heard to be credible, especially as, being so close behind the old man, we could not fail to be aware of all the remarkable shots at long words ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Bound Girl," and "The Peril of a Passenger Train," were well rendered. Lowell's "A Day in June" was given with a pleasant voice and manner that fitted the poem. There was an organ solo, an organ duet, and a sprightly little song by a quartet, "All Among the Barley." Among the best things were part of an address by Channing on "Distinction of Mind and Material Forms," and one by Mitchell on "The First View of the Heavens." ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... (19th November, 1794), "though a keen blowing frost," Burns writes to Thomson, "in my walk before breakfast I finished my duet: whether I have uniformly succeeded, I will not say: but here it is for you, though it ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... did not do badly; on the contrary, the general performance would have been quite creditable to adults. The opening was somewhat dismal; it was announced to consist of a duet for two flutes by Will Palmer and Ned Johnston. The boys had practiced industriously at several airs in order to discover which would be best, and at last they supposed they had fully agreed; but when ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... him, and began to think that he was a priggish fellow after all. But as the burlesque went on, Mademoiselle Lalage charmed away this disagreeable impression. She warbled in an amorous duet, and then sang the pleasures of champagne; tossing her head; waving a gilt goblet; and, without the least appearance of effort, working hard to captivate those who were to be won by bold smiles and arch glances. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... had a good name. He was the best singer in the singing-school, and Mr. Rhythm often called upon him to sing in a duet with Azalia or Daphne. Sometimes he sang a solo so well, that the spectators whispered to one another, that, if Paul went on as he had begun, he would ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... in which Manrico is being tortured, after having been taken prisoner in a combat during the entr'acte. Here a confidant might have comforted her considerably by representing that they couldn't be torturing the poor Troubadour so very seriously so long as he is able to take part in a duet—but unfortunately Leonora seems to have discharged the confidant after the Second Act—an error of judgment on her part, for she is certainly incapable of taking care of herself. A cool-headed, sensible confidant, for instance, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... leave me, I am well. You see, Ellart, I did well to take that medicine; I will dress. Fredersdorf, remain here. Jordan, send me Secretary Eichel. I must dictate a few necessary letters, and then, gentlemen, we will meet in the music room, where I am to play a duet with Quantz. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Cynthia, suddenly; 'let us sing that duet I've been teaching you; it's better than ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with my second pipe, and still lost in admiration of that wonderful book, when Penelope (who had been handing round the tea) came in with her report from the drawing-room. She had left the Bouncers singing a duet—words beginning with a large "O," and music to correspond. She had observed that my lady made mistakes in her game of whist for the first time in our experience of her. She had seen the great traveller asleep ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... and I sat up chatting and enjoying the peaceful loveliness of this old garden. A sleepless mocking bird and a sleepy little thrush gave a concert in the sweet-lime tree; a couple of green frogs in the fountain rendered a bass duet; Kay thought that if we remained very quiet the spirits of some lovers of the 'splendid idle forties' might appear in ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... duet rose and fell in great waves of sound, silencing all other voices. Contrary to Mr. Birdsall's expectations, religious fervor was only increased, and hoping to control it he asked Kern and Sissy to lead in several familiar hymns. The negroes ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... The duet is long, as Margaret had often thought when studying it, but now she was almost startled because it seemed to her so soon that she found herself once more embracing Rigoletto and uttering a very high note at the same time. ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... But a wife—you know all about her—who her father was, who her mother was, what she thinks of you and her opinion of the neighbours over the way. Where, then, is the dream, the au dela? There is none. I say in marriage an au dela is impossible ... the endless duet of the marble and the water, the enervation of burning odours, the baptismal whiteness of women, light, ideal tissues, eyes strangely dark with kohl, names that evoke palm trees and ruins, Spanish moonlight or maybe Persepolis. The monosyllable which epitomises the ennui and the prose of our ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... as the refrain spreads in wider sequences, the choirs of wood and strings are drawn into the song, one group answering the other in a true love duet. ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... pretending; I've seen the handle myself, and the boy told me if he didn't pull it up and down the organ wouldn't play. It must be like a kind of duet, perhaps. I expect he makes all the big booming notes, and the squeaky notes are made by the person in front. I've promised him sixpence out of my new half-crown, if he'll let me play instead of him one day; and he says ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... A duet of questions and exclamations arose from the two ladies, and again some conscious restraint appeared to underlie the paternal calm with ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... evening, after supper and a pipe, we would indulge in duet singing, and when we came to the end of the song we would praise each other and ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... wife sang a charming duet that delighted all, the orchestra played a military caprice, and then the remainder of the evening was spent in a ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... Huguenots, an opera which enchanted me. The action, the music, the stage setting, the interpretation, made an ensemble that was unique, a work of art that defied comparison. Nothing on the stage to my mind, has ever surpassed the duet in the fourth act as created and sung by Nourrit and Mlle. Falcon. Inspired by the musical and dramatic situation, these two artists were completely carried away, and their emotion was as infectious as it was apparent. ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... and took their seats. After a brief silence the rustling noise was renewed as the audience sat down again. Then the pianist hurried up to a grave-looking girl who was tenderly holding a violin, took her hand and led her away behind the screen. A moment later the opening bars of a duet were audible. ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... The duet of the bridegroom and the bride, a marriage-march, With lips of love, and hearts of lovers fill'd to the brim with love, The red-flush'd cheeks and perfumes, the cortege swarming full of friendly faces young and old, To flutes' clear notes and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... discerned, impossible to avert, the murder of a husband by a wife; and in the rear of that, most pitiful of all, the violent death of the seer who sees in vain and may not help. Between Cassandra and the Chorus it is a duet of anguish and fear; in the broken lyric phrases a phantom music wails; till at last, at what seems the breaking-point, the tension is relaxed, and dropping into the calmer iambic recitative, Cassandra tells her message in plainer ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... head. "No, it wouldn't be fair to you. It is never fair for an outsider to intrude upon the happiness of a home. If your duet is ever to be a trio, it must not be with my big blundering voice, which could make only a discord, but a little ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... thirty-ninth year, and chapel master to the Duke of Mantua. He was the first composer to use unprepared chords of the seventh, dominant and diminished, and to emphasize passionate situations with dissonances. He invented the tremolo and the pizzicato, and originated the vocal duet. His keen dramatic sense enabled him to arouse interest through contrasts, conspicuously characteristic passages, and independent orchestral preludes, interludes ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... played some brilliant waltzes, after which, her daughter accompanied her in the small bass of a duet. ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... assembled at 10.30, and Brown put them through their paces. Finally he decided on Joan; she had already achieved popularity by her dancing, the audience would be kind to her. If she saved up her voice for her duet with Strachan and her one little solo at the fall of the curtain, Brown thought she might ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... said the captain shortly; when one man backed, the other pulled, the bows of the gig were run in to the sand; and Jack leaped on board, chattering in duet with the dog's excited fit of barking; after which, as they continued their way, Bruff seemed disposed for a gambol; but Jack was decidedly stand-offish, from the fact that he was comfortably dry, while the dog was ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... answers with a series of "Tum! tum tum! tum!" on a higher but still harmonious key, and in accelerated tempo. This, I fancy, is the lover's serenade, and the soft assenting answer; almost invariably the loud hollow sound is the opening phrase of the duet. "Sole or responsive to each other's note," the birds make the forest resound again during the day, especially in the prime months, and even these notes find varied and pleasing expression. Free and joyous as a rule, occasionally they seem to indicate sadness and gloom. During and after a bush ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... wood fire; till all at once, unasked, as if moved by the rippling stream hard by, Ida began to sing in a low voice the beautiful old melody of "Flow on, thou Shining River," and Hester took up the second part of the duet till about half through, the music sounding wonderfully sweet and solemn out in those primeval groves, when suddenly Hester ceased singing, and sat with lips apart gazing ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... the long sailor were in close companionship for the remainder of the day, which was closed, as the preceding one, in a carouse; but on this occasion there was only a duet performance in honor of the jolly god, and the treat was at Barny's expense. What the nature of their conversation during the period was, I will not dilate on, but keep it as profound a secret as Barny himself did, and content myself ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... questionable manner. Love, in its purest shape, may lead to sinning on the part of persons least interested in the question; for is it not a sin when the folly, or caprice, or selfishness of a third party or fourth makes a trio or quartette of that which nature undoubtedly intended for a duet, and so ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Of course, nothing like this ever really happened, which goes to prove that I was born years too early in the world's history. The more I think of this the more acute is my sympathy with Maud Muller. That girl and I could sigh a duet thinking what might have been. Why, I might have had my college degree while still wearing short trousers. I was something of an adept at milking cows and could soon have eliminated the entire algebra by the method of ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... may turn up here to-night." "Good Lord, man, she's not invited, I hope." "I don't know why not—she goes with the best people. Take a tip from me, Harry. Don't waste any more time with her for Eschenbach may cut you out. He's very fond of Elizabeth, and you'd better cut short that duet over there now; Mrs. Minne is not fond of you." "Nonsense!" said Tannhaeuser, but he lounged over toward the two women and his big frame was noted by all ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... he would say when he was back in his studio. "A pretty part you're playing, Mariano! Acting as a chorus to a love duet, in the company of all these senile imbeciles. A fine aim in ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... scientific musician. The Senorita H—-s played one of Herz's most difficult combinations with great execution, and a pretty girl, who is living in a convent, having been placed there by her novio, to keep her out of harm's way till he is prepared to give her his hand, sang a duet with another young lady, which I accompanied. Both had fine voices, but no notion of what they were singing. My friend the Senora C—— delighted us with some of the innumerable and amusing verses of the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... what'll Mrs. O. do, when O. goes out with the regiment?" Crawley said coming into the room, performing a duet on his head with two huge hair-brushes, and looking out from under his hair with admiration on ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was rumoured amongst the mistresses that Beth was to leave that term, Old Tom put her on to play first piano in the first-class solo, and to lead the treble in the second-class duet at ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... second act Tristan lives through her. She is the will to live; and if she ultimately consents to follow him into the shadowy land, it is for love of him. But of his desire for death she understands nothing; all through the duet it is she who desires to quench this desire with kisses. That was her conception of women's mission, and that was her own life with Owen; it was her love that compelled him to live down his despondencies. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... woman who idolised Haydn the musician, and with Haydn the man conducted a quaint and curious love duet embalmed in many a ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... quickly on her stool and found herself before the young man who was bowing, and taking the hand she held out to him. She had not yet overcome that terror he inspired in her, and was surprised to find him so much at ease. After dinner they talked of music, and Esperance, praising a magnificent duet of Liszt, from the symphony of Orpheus, was overcome when the young man rose, took her hand and ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... a mixed duet on the flute and trombone between Clarence Smith and Lancelot Diffenberger, with a violin obligate on the ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... courtesie. My father whispered to him that music was going forward, which he would not, my father thinks, have found out; and, placing him on the best seat vacant, told his daughters to go on with the duet, while Dr. Johnson, intently rolling towards them one eye—for they say he does not see with the other—made a grave nod, and gave a dignified motion with one hand, in silent approvance of the proceeding.' He was next introduced to Miss ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... least in love with life; I might be, p'raps, if I had a wife To care for me in a wifely way, Or a neighbour or two to say good-day, Or a chum To come And give me the news in a friendly talk, Or share a duet or a meal or a walk. But all alone in the world am I, And I sit in a cave, And try to behave As a good Flamp should, with philosophy. I shan't last long, for the cave is damp, And nothing's so bad ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... hear that he was compelled to repeat the performance unmasked, before Stephen would believe in its authenticity. Fired by the success of their efforts, combs were then produced, and, swathed in paper, turned into wind instruments of wondrous amenability. Surprising effect of a duet upon combs! Again, when towards the end of the week the repertoire gave out, and "What shall we sing next?" to fail of an answer, Pixie revived another old "Knock" accomplishment, which was neither more nor less than impromptu recitatives and choruses. A bass recitative by Pat, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... Agatha. "It is not the least trouble to me. I used to write all Jane's letters for her at school. Suppose I write the letter first, and then we can have the duet. You will ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... had no objection to drop in for afternoon tea when he was met on the sands and had to be consulted about the stole, or to be asked who was worthy of broth, or as time went on to choose soup and practise a duet for the mission concert that was to keep people out of ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... either does not notice the difference, or else he does. If he does not, he continues to flounder heavily along in pursuit of the well-beloved, oblivious of the fact that he is wasting his efforts on an understudy. After an appropriate interval the cold truth is revealed to him in a hysterical duet, and he goes home, glaring defiantly, but feeling an ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... fir under her hurt her through the canvas and one blanket which covered them. She turned, twisting into a position of less discomfort. The creek babbled and splashed; its voice merged with the wilds into a bleak, cheerless duet. ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... that before a marble yard in Race Street there were two large statues of very grim forbidding-looking dogs, of whom it was said that when there was any one about to die in the quarter, these uncanny hounds came down during a nightly storm and howled a death duet. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... they leaned to each other, and the duet of their merriment ran ahead of them down the meager street and ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... duet. After an adagio opening in which flute and piano were at magnificent cross purposes from the beginning, the two instruments plunged into an allegro very long and very fast, which became ultimately a ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a duet of explosions, the motor-bicycles hissing and crunching through the light snow. Barbara, swinging on Ralph's carrier, waved her hand light-heartedly to Mr. Waddington. He hated Barbara; but far more than Barbara he hated Horry, and far more ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... Waschbank Valley, and the 5" have been shifted to cover this advance. We were much amused to-day in reading the first edition of the Ladysmith Lyre (Liar), which perhaps I may be forgiven for quoting, with songs sung by the garrison:—A duet by Sir George White and General Clery, "O that we two were maying"; by Buller's Relief Force, "Over the hills and far away"; by the Intelligence Officer, "I ain't a-going to tell"; by Captain Lambton, "Up I came ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... Consequently he was not a little surprised and greatly pleased to sit and listen to a class of music that he had never before heard rendered in country places; but, as he listened for Adelaide's singing in chorus, duet, and solo, he found himself wondering whether the eye or the voice more clearly revealed ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... place the trip was tiring, too tiring to rehearse in detail. Then a vague feeling of neglect and desolation took possession of me, for I missed the cool-handed efficiency of that ever-dependable "special." I almost surrendered to funk, in fact, when both Poppsy and Pee-Wee started up a steady duet of crying. I sat down and began to sniffle myself, but my sense of humor, thank the Lord, came back and saved the day. There was something so utterly ridiculous in that briny circle, soon augmented and completed by the addition of Dinkie, who apparently felt ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... of this," and both went off into a ridiculous duet of laughter, that sounded harshly on the stilly air ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... I had understood even one word. While the cat, as though it had been wronged, stuck up its tail like a chimney and tried to pretend to itself that nothing out of the way had taken place. Another time I had to sing in an opera a duet with a ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... not particularly glad. I can't stay now to talk it over, however; Hester Stuart wants me to practise a duet ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... excellent-hearted and clever fellow, with a world of agreeable talents, a good tenor in a parlor-duet, a good actor at a charade, a lively, off-hand conversationist, well up in all the current literature of the day, and what is more, in my eyes, a well-read lawyer, just admitted to the bar, and with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... place found the door of Newcombe's heart fast and barred, and assailed it in vain. Miss Billing sat down before it with her piano, and, as the Colonel was a practitioner on the flute, hoped to make all life one harmonious duet with him; but she played her most brilliant sonatas and variations in vain; and, as everybody knows, subsequently carried her grand piano to Lieutenant and Adjutant Hodgkin's house, whose name she now bears. The lovely widow Wilkins, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... carrying the viands to their mouths with the other. At the conclusion of the feast, Willis took a pinch of snuff out of a canister. Their Majesties insisted upon doing so likewise. Willis handed them the canister, and they filled their noses with the treacherous powder. Then followed a duet of sneezing, accompanied with facial contortions. The royal personages thinking, probably, that they were poisoned, leaped into the sea like a couple of frogs, and ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... wish they were, mean old things; when I was going down to play a duet with Jasper! We should have had a good long time before breakfast. Oh, mayn't I go just once, mamsie? Nobody'll see me if I tuck my foot under the piano; and I can sew 'em on afterwards—there'll be plenty of ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... when "Columbia" will be the proper thing to play, and when the crowd demands the newest rag-time. She will feel an atmospheric change as unswervingly as any barometer, and switch in a moment from "Good-bye Girls, Good-bye" to the love duet from Faust. She can play Chopin just as well as she can play Sousa, and she will tactfully strike up "It's Always Fair Weather" when she sees a crowd of young fellows sit down at a table; "There'll ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... donned her best clothes, and lighted our lamps to honor my return. From the balcony she had watched the Triomphante leave the dock, and, in the expectation of our now prompt return, she had made her preparations; then, to while away the time, she was studying a duet on the guitar with Oyouki. Not a question or reproach did she ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... settled, we joined the ladies, and, as it seemed to me, the skipper was again very attentive to Florrie, turning over the pages of her music, joining her in a duet or two, and reeling off small-talk ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... and Roussette, in order to draw some attention towards themselves, sang a duet. They sang indeed admirably and accompanied themselves on the harp. Rosette who was truly good and wished her sister to love her, applauded them rapturously and ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... yesterday's applause, to which Miss Annie had referred. It had amused Mavis to notice the isolated clapping which followed the execution of an item, in the programme by a solitary performer; this came from her friends in the room. The conclusion of a duet would be greeted by two patches of appreciation; whilst a pianoforte concerto, which engaged sixteen hands, merged the eight oases of applause ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... and an expression of pain passed over her countenance. "I dare not talk more to-day," said she; "my physician will not allow it. I would like to hear one of Mendelssohn's songs—that duet, which my young friend used to play years ago. Is it ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... twisting brown bodies and agitated pareus, while from all sides rose cries, shouts, hysterical laughter, and the sound of clapping hands and thumping feet. Here and there dancers fell exhausted, until by elimination the dance resolved itself into a duet, all yielding the turf to Many Daughters, the little, lovely leper, and Kekela Avaua, chief of Paumau. These left the lawn and advanced to the veranda, where so contagious had become the enthusiasm that the governor ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... characters closed with Romeo. Rossi was the divinest of lovers, in spite of his forty years and his stalwart proportions, and the balcony scene was an exquisite love-duet that needed not the aid of music to lend it sweetness. But in the Italian version the play was so cut and garbled that there could be little pleasure in listening to it for any one familiar with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... inspired composers, Orlando di Lasso and Pales-trina. Of the gradual degradation of the operatic art as its forms became more elaborate and fixed; of the arbitrary transfer of absolute musical forms like the aria, duet, finale, etc., into the action of the opera without regard to poetic propriety; of the growing tendency to treat the human voice like any other instrument, merely to show its resources as an organ; of the final utter bondage ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... character-dances are things of joy for ever. The representative of Jack Deedes, Barrister-at-Law and Gifted Author, is LITTLE and good, and the services of Mr. DRAYCOTT as the Lime-Light Comedian are invaluable. WEEDON GROSSMITH and BRANDON THOMAS are better than ever: their duet is immense, but their combat is too short. Why not introduce a Corsican Brothers duel? The music, by Mr. EDWARD JONES, is thoroughly appropriate and very catching. By the way, one of the songs most encored goes with the exquisitely sensible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... just seen him go in. Philip nodded. He was looking forward to the interview this time: it would be an intellectual duet with a man of no great intellect. What was Miss Abbott up to? That was one of the things he was going to discover. While she had it out with Harriet, he would have it out with Gino. He followed the Dogana's relative ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... to betake my solitary self. I was hungry for conversation, society, exchange of ideas. It occurred to me to go and see our friends, the ——s; they were at supper. Afterward we went into the salon: mother and daughter sat down to the piano and sang a duet by Boieldieu. The ivory keys of the old grand piano, which the mother had played on before her marriage, and which has followed and translated into music the varying fortunes of the family, were a little loose and jingling; but the poetry of the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my old friend Frederick William Holls, after a dinner at his house on the Hudson, had given his guests examples of the music written by Frederick the Great, and one piece had especially interested us. It was a duet in which Mr. Holls played one part upon the organ, and his wife another upon the piano; and all of us were greatly impressed by the dignity and beauty of the whole. It had been brought to light and published by the present Emperor, and after the performance some one ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... tyranny of capital. Qui habet aures audiendi audiat! M. Rossi, as a writer on criminal law, decrees against the robberies of competition; M. Blanqui, as examining magistrate, proclaims the guilty parties: it is the counterpart of the duet sung just now by MM. Reybaud and Dunoyer. When the latter cry HOSANNA, the former respond, like the Fathers ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... my body pressed the animal against a sharp corner. It was at this moment that the cat began to utter the most discordant cries to which I ever listened, and as doubtless I was somewhat excited at the time and lost a measure of my self-control, I have no question that we engaged in a duet that must have resounded loudly throughout ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... wiped her eyes, and then threw her arms round the neck of her dearly beloved Wag, who, albeit that he was unused to the melting mood, found his eyes suddenly grow dim, and so they performed a weeping duet together. ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... me additional favour. Miss Eliza was quite in raptures to hear that I could accompany her in a concerto; or take a part in an Italian duet. She vowed and protested again, to her friends, that I was a most accomplished, charming man! She spoke aside, but I was rather remarkably quick of hearing that evening. She proposed a lesson of Kozeluch's immediately. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... ears, as he whirled along to town that afternoon, those two pretty farewells rang continuous changes. When, at evening, he took his seat in the Dover express, they still followed him, now in solos, now in duet, now in restless fugue. On the steamer they rose and fell with the uneasy waves and played in the whistling wind. As he sped towards Paris, past the acacia hedges and poplar avenues, among foreign scenes, amidst the chatter of foreign ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... and the laughing philosophers, find their counterparts in every thinking community. Carlyle did not weep, but he scolded; Emerson did not laugh, but in his gravest moments there was a smile waiting for the cloud to pass from his forehead. The Duet they chanted was a Miserere with a Te Deum for its Antiphon; a De Profundis answered by a Sursum Corda. "The ground of my existence is black as death," says Carlyle. "Come and live with me a year," says Emerson, "and if you ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the audience, for 'twould just break up the whole affair. If you'll put off my reading till just before your last duet with Charlie, I'll be here, unless there's serious trouble. If there is any reason that I can't come, I'll send word at once." And he ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... Claire, clenching her fists as two simultaneous bursts of song, in different keys and varying tempos, proceeded from the dining-room and kitchen. A girl has to be in a sunnier mood than she was to bear up without wincing under the infliction of a duet consisting of the Rock of Ages and Waiting for the Robert E. Lee. Assuredly Claire proposed to hurry. She meant to get her packing done in record time and escape from this place. She went into her bedroom and began to throw things untidily into ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... he said. "Well, then! This waltz, you will understand, is the theme of a musical romance which I have composed. It will be sung once in the first act by the heroine, then in the second act as a duet for heroine and hero. I weave it into the finale of the second act, and we have an echo of it, sung off stage, in the third act. What I play you now is the second-act duet. The verse is longer. So! The ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yet been heard in America, perhaps—I mean the closing strain of a fine solo or duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. The result is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; we get the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... nurse. "Say! What do you think you're doin'?" he demanded. "Singin' a duet with yourself?" Then turning upon the Policeman, "Off your beat, ain't you?" he inquired impudently; when, without waiting for an answer, he swung round upon the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. "Old gent," he began tauntingly, "I can't collect real money for ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... so," came in a duet from Betty and Katharine who were respectively gloating over a string of pearl beads and a pretty hatpin. Alice had found a silver belt-buckle in her parcel, and Charlotte was gazing at a coral necklace with ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... duet came to as singular an end. Giles lost all patience and self-command, and being a creature devoid of fear, and in a rage to boot, he actually dropped upon the giant's neck, seized his hair with one hand, and punched his head ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... that too bad!" exclaimed Uncle Tucker. "That baby oughter be sent back until it has got manners to wait until it's wanted. Didn't neither one of you all get here on anybody's birthday but your own." Uncle Tucker's sally was greeted by a duet of giggles, and the announcement committee hurried on across the ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... ninetieth birthday the hale veteran sent my wife his photograph. She placed his white locks alongside of the photograph which Gladstone gave her, and she calls them her duet of grand old men. The closing years of General Dow's life, like the closing years of Martin Luther, were clouded with anxiety. He saw the great movement which he had championed checked by many difficulties and suffering some disastrous reverses. Some States which ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... should men and women lose their attraction for each other just because they marry and promise loyalty to some one person? They can keep that compact and yet not shut themselves away from other men and other women. They must have friends. Life can't be an eternal duet.... And here you come, using that cant Potterish phrase, "in love," as if love was the sea, or something definite that you must be in or out ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... on what it fell with that hollow sound no eye could see. Now, at intervals, he uttered a cry, a deep bass danger-note, singularly unnerving. Someone answered in a higher key, and they kept this up in a kind of rude, sharply-timed duet, till one by one the whole group of natives was gathered into the swing of it, swept along involuntarily, it would seem, by some magnetic attraction ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... sunk down or gave way to despair or wrath, but, in prize-fighting phraseology, always came up to time with a cheerful countenance, and went in to win as if nothing had happened. When Miggs finished her solo, her mistress struck in again, and the two together performed a duet to the same purpose; the burden being, that Mrs Varden was persecuted perfection, and Mr Varden, as the representative of mankind in that apartment, a creature of vicious and brutal habits, utterly insensible to the blessings he enjoyed. Of so refined a character, indeed, was ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... that likes the tunes Like Lily Dale an' Ragtime Coons; Some likes a solo or duet By Charley Green—B-flat cornet— An' Ernest Brown—th' trombone man. (An' they can play, er no one can); But it's the best when Henry Dunn Lets them there sticks just cut an' run, An' 'Lijah says to let ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... accentless, almost listless dignity of the words surprised and impressed him for a moment; then the reaction came in a faint glow through every vein and a sudden impulse to respond to her with an assurance of devotion a little out of key with the somewhat stately and reserved measure of their duet ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... and began playing. Conrector Paulmann gave a grim look at him; but Registrator Heerbrand laid a music-leaf on the frame, and sang with ravishing grace one of Bandmaster Graun's bravura airs. The student Anselmus accompanied this, and much more; and a fantasy duet, which Veronica and he now fingered, and Conrector Paulmann had himself composed, again brought all into ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Strasburg geese, Gorge themselves so inhumanly obese On rhyming balderdash and rhythmic fudge, That, when cleaned out, their very souls are thick With lyric lard and greasy rhetoric. [To LIND. Your praise, however, I shall not forget; We'll sweep the lyre henceforward in duet. ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... no business to attend to, he would go for a walk on the Mall, whence he commanded the lovely panorama of the Loire valley, and take a draught of fresh air while his wife was performing a sonata in words, or a dialectical duet. ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... counteract the depressing effect of the Snimmy's speech. The next Toast was responded to by the First and Second Gunki; and its subject was, "Sara's Tears—May There Be No Mad and Few Sad." The speech was in the form of a duet, rendered by the Gunki with deep feeling, and accompanied by the Plynck and her Echo with liquid-sounding arpeggios on their lyres, that were most appropriate. The Toast was old-fashioned jelly-cake, with Robinsong wine. Avrillia responded to a thin slice, whose subject was "Nothing"; ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... themselves in gumming together the torn letters of their departed guest struck me as one of the funniest things I could remember. And there was the stupidity of it, because surely a child could have seen that my mother's attack was in answer to my defence. Why should we write a duet each saying the same thing? Well, I'm still very confused about it all, and I don't in the least know what I am going to do—more likely to die on the last plank, than to get into port with my ensign mast-high. ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... of this unique duet had died on the ear, Comical Codman on his distant perch straightened up, and, triumphantly clapping his sides like the boastful bird whose crowing he could so wonderfully imitate, raised his shrill, loud, and long-drawn kuk-kuk-ke-o-ho in a volume of sound that thrilled through ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the two men continued to puff together as if they were playing a duet upon tobacco-pipes, and then Asaph, removing his reed from his lips, remarked, "What you ought to do, Thomas, ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Polly that evening, as they ran into the music-room to play a duet, "we're all right about everything now, as your father says we may invite the girls ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... soprano ("Omnes generationes"), each part overlaying the other as it enters, and closing in canon form in grave and colossal harmony. Its next number is an aria for bass ("Quia fecit mihi magna"), of a simple and joyous character. It is followed by a melodious duet for alto and tenor ("Et misericordia"), with violin and flute accompaniment, setting forth the mercy of God, in contrast with which the powerful and energetic chorus ("Fecit potentiam") which succeeds ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... that ain't the step we took at rehearsal no more'n nuthin'. If you're going to improvise a new cow duet, I wish you wouldn't take the fore-quarters ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... By my honor, the most fortunate idea that in our situation could ever enter mortal brain? Let us change this wearisome duet into sport and merriment, and by the aid of certain gallantries, revenge ourselves ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller |
