"Waltz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bentinck's party nor the Dunmores chose to attend, they danced nine couple very pleasantly. Some of the Gentlemen of the 13th had too loyally celebrated the King's Birthday, however, they did dance, and thanks to the Germans, we have some new figures, and two of them amused us very much with a Waltz, which we were very curious to see. [32] Your sisters and two men finished with a Reel, but as we were the only ladies remaining at one o'clock, we were obliged to come away, tho' the Dragoons all indignantly exclaimed that it was not keeping ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz—the clocks began to strike the hour ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... rugs in the great room were rolled up, and the young folks danced to Laura's music, which could inspire unwilling feet. But there were none such that night. Tom and Kate led off in the newest and most fantastic waltz, others followed, and Polly and I were the only spectators. An hour of this, and then we gathered around the hearth to hear Polly read "The Christmas Carol." No one reads like Polly. Her low, soft voice seems never to know fatigue, but runs on like a musical brook. When the ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... the distance. The night was misty and too dark to make out anything on shore. My thoughts went back to the last time, nearly a year before, when I had been on that river. I saw it then, in flood of moonlight as I stepped on the boat deck of the giant liner Rotterdam. The soft strains of a waltz floated up from the music room, adding enchantment to the windmills and low Dutch farmhouses strung out below ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... his favourite waltz as he departed; and Noel turned back to his partner with a grunt ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Elysees consist of extensive wooded walks; and a magnificent road divides them, which serves as the great attractive mall for carriages— especially on Sundays—while, upon the grass, between the trees, on that day, appear knots of male and female citizens enjoying the waltz or quadrille. It is doubtless a most singular, and animated scene: the utmost order and good humour prevailing. The Place Louis Quinze, running at right angles with the Thuileries, and which is intersected in your route to the Rue de la Paix, is certainly a most magnificent front elevation; ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... enormous Smith, who had sat like a clumsy statue for so many hours, came flying and turning cart-wheels down the lawn and shouting, "Acquitted! acquitted!" Echoing the cry, Michael scampered across the lawn to Rosamund and wildly swung her into a few steps of what was supposed to be a waltz. But the company knew Innocent and Michael by this time, and their extravagances were gaily taken for granted; it was far more extraordinary that Arthur Inglewood walked straight up to Diana and kissed her as if it had been ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... 'politics are, for the moment, suspended in public regard, by the new and all-absorbing pursuit—the Polka—a dance recently imported from Bohemia, and which embraces in its qualities the intimacy of the waltz, with the vivacity of the Irish jig. You may conceive how completely is 'the Polka' the rage, from the fact that the lady of a celebrated ex-minister, desiring to figure in it at a soiree dansante, monopolised the professor, par excellence, of that specialite for three hours, on Wednesday ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... dancing days were over. My wife and I went to balls, to be sure, but not to dance. We left that to the younger generation, for the reason that my wife did not care to jeopardize her attire or her complexion. She was also conscious of the fact that the variety of waltz popular thirty years ago was an oddity, and that a middle-aged woman who went hopping and twirling about a ballroom must be callous to the amusement ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... engaged for the second country dance, but promised me the third, and assured me, with the most agreeable freedom, that she was very fond of waltzing. "It is the custom here," she said, "for the previous partners to waltz together; but my partner is an indifferent waltzer, and will feel delighted if I save him the trouble. Your partner is not allowed to waltz, and, indeed, is equally incapable: but I observed during the country dance that you waltz well; so, if you will waltz with me, I beg you ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... boy," drawled Jack. "This—er, what shall I call him?—stopped me to tell me he was going to rub the marks off me, at the same time wittily making a pun on my name. I was just telling him to hurry, or I'd miss the next waltz." ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... dance it is, it holds no hint of sorrow, Almost like a waltz it is, to set the pulse a-thrill; Not a hint of tears in it—and oh, the night is coming— Coming like a purple shroud across the purple hill! Sad the little farmhouse is, the doors swing on their hinges, All the windows look like wounds, pitiful ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... and the tinkling music there now came Daniel's protest, Rupert's persuasions, and Miriam's laughter: then these all died away and the waltz called out plaintively ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... "He can no more waltz than fly! And he thinks himself irresistible! He says his dress is from a portrait of his ancestor, Sir Somebody; and Flora declares his only ancestor must have been the Fat Boy! And he thought I was a Turkish Sultana! Wasn't ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on the top of her, kicking at her, rolling over her, and crushing the very life out of her. It was at this juncture that John Niel arrived upon the scene. The moment the ostrich saw him it gave up its attacks upon the lady on the ground and began to waltz towards him with the pompous sort of step that these birds sometimes assume before they give battle. Now Captain Niel was unaccustomed to the pleasant ways of ostriches, and so was his horse, which showed a strong inclination to bolt; as, indeed, under other circumstances, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... varied by skating at the rink and assemblies in the town-hall, where we meet a medley of ball goers and givers, each indulging his or her favourite style of dancing—from the old fashioned "three-step" waltz preferred by the elders, to the breathless "German," the simple deux temps, and the graceful "Boston" dance, peculiar as yet to Americans and Canadians. The band was composed of trained musicians who had belonged to various regiments, and, on receiving their discharge, remained in Canada. ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... door and kicked the lodger out. Leastways, he would 'ave kicked 'im, but the chap was too quick for 'im. And then 'e came back, and, putting his arm round Peter's waist, danced a waltz round the room with 'im, while pore old Sam got on to his bed to be out of the way. They danced for nearly 'arf-an-hour, and then they undressed and sat on Peter's bed and talked. They talked in whispers at fust, but at last Sam 'eard ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... horses were being put in, the host's daughter, a pretty girl enough, came into the room and made me waltz with her; it chanced to be a Sunday. All at once her father came in, and the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... away from them somehow, and we passed under the tapestry curtains while one of the two Hungarian bands Mrs. Ess Kay had hired played a waltz which made me long ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... greeting his dear one received. After a little the father retired, leaving his daughter to the care of the many handsome gallants who danced attendance upon her. The reception did not close until the small hours of the morning. Each waltz became more voluptuous; intoxicated by sensuality, the dancers became more bold, and lust was aroused in every breast. How many sins that reception occasioned, I do not know; this, at least, is sure, that this girl who entered that dancing-hall three months before, as pure as an angel, was that ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... arms free from his neck—they were cheek to cheek—Thorold was snarling out a torrent of blasphemy with gasping breath—he wrenched himself free still—and then, their two hands outstretched and clasped together as though in some grim devil's waltz, they reeled toward the bed at the far end of the room, and smashed into a chair. And, as they lost their balance, Jimmie Dale, gathering all his strength for the one supreme effort, hurled the other from him. There was a crash that shook the floor, as ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... tropic sunrise he collected rents, or with glad vagueness consented instantly to their postponement. "I've come about the rent again," he said beamingly to one delinquent tenant of his father's best client; and turned and walked away, humming a waltz-song, while the man was still coughing as ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Alvina nodding to her with a quick smile from the side gangway under the stage, she almost burst into tears. It was too much for her, all at once. And Alvina looked almost indecently excited. As she slipped across in front of the audience, to the piano, to play the seductive "Dream Waltz!" she looked almost fussy, like her father. James, needless to say, flittered and hurried hither and thither around the audience and the stage, like a wagtail on the brink of ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... say to us for staying away?" said Lily, recovering herself. "And I ought to be making the people dance, you know. Come along, and do make yourself nice. Do waltz with Mary Eames;—pray, do. If you don't, I won't speak to ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... "This waltz," said Peder, when the dancers had begun again, "does not seem to go easily. There is something amiss. I think it is in the music that the fault lies. My boy's clarionet goes well enough; no fear of Oddo's being out. Pray, sir, who plays the violin ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... laughing hysterically; she could no longer dance nor stand. The rival gentleman looked about him for another partner. One girl jumped up, then, hesitating, sat down again. The music passed smoothly into a waltz, and Hetty and her bad boy kept the floor, regardless of shouts and protests warning the trespasser that his time was up and ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... of one another, one acting gentleman, the other lady; three or four more pairs of girls immediately joined them, and they began a waltz. They held themselves very upright; and with an air of grave dignity which was quite impressive, glided slowly about, making their steps with the utmost precision, bearing themselves with sufficient decorum for a court ball. After a while the men began to itch for a turn, and two of them, taking ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... So much so that in the last of the series a soured sportsman on one of the benches near the roof began in satirical mood to whistle the "Merry Widow Waltz." It was here that the red-jerseyed thinker for the first and last time came out of his meditative trance. He leaned over the ropes, and spoke, without heat, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... oscillates, to the tune of an ancient waltz. All the arms, extended and raised, agitate themselves in the air, rise or fall with pretty, cadenced motions following the oscillations of bodies. The rope soled sandals make this dance silent and infinitely light; one hears only ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... prevalent here and in all parts of Germany that if you wish to denote one of the male sex, smoker would be quite a synonymous word. Such is the passion for this enjoyment that even at the balls the young men, the moment they have finished the waltz, quit the hands of their partners and rush into another room in order to smoke; nor would the beauty of Venus nor the wit of Minerva be powerful enough to restrain the young German from giving way to his darling practise. Smoking tobacco ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... she had a passion for housekeeping, gardening, flowers, canaries, and pretty trinkets. Her rooms and garden, it is true, were small and poorly fitted-up, yet everything in them was so neat and methodical, and bore such a general air of that gentle gaiety which one hears expressed in a waltz or polka, that the word "toy" by which guests often expressed their praise of it all exactly suited her surroundings. She herself was a "toy"—being petite, slender, fresh-coloured, small, and pretty-handed, and invariably gay and well-dressed. The only fault in her was that a slight over-prominence ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Dash comes up and throws a coquettish look at Guy through the opening in the curtains. He nods a temporary good-bye to his companion and goes off to claim the next waltz which Miss Dash has promised him, and, oh Guy! naughty boy! if he is not saying over the identical pretty nothings to Miss Bella, that are yet filling the heart of Miss Mountainhead. with a ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... Bororos—purely vocal—had three different rhythms: one not unlike a slow waltz, most plaintive and melancholy; the second was rather of a loud warlike character, vivacious, with ululations and modulations. The third and most common was a sad melody, not too quick nor too slow, with temporary ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... He embraced old Herold, shook hands with Andreas Doederlein, and tried to waltz with Wurzelmann. He was not drunk; he was ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... simple enjoyment of the hour. They were mostly middle-aged married folk, but some were old enough to have sons and daughters among the young people who went and came in a long, wandering promenade of the piazzas, or wove themselves through the waltz past the open windows of the great parlor; the music seemed one with the light that streamed far out on the lawn flanking the piazzas. Every one was well-dressed and comfortable and at peace, and I felt that our hotel was in some sort a microcosm ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... forlasi. Wake veki. Wake of ship sxippostsigno. Waking time (reveille) vekigxo. Walk marsxi, promeni. Walk (path) aleo. Walking stick bastono. Wall muro. Wallet sako, tornistro. Wallow ruligxi, ensxlimigxi. Walnut juglando. Walrus rosmaro. Waltz valso. Wan pala, palega. Wand vergo, vergego. Wander erari, vagi. Wander (be delirious) deliri. Wanderer nomadulo, vagisto. Wandering nomada, eraranta. Wane ekfinigxi. Wanness paleco. Want seneco, mizerego. Want (need, require) bezoni. Wanton malica. War milito—ado. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... to know anything about Cyril, listen to his playing. For instance: if, after dinner, you hear a dreamy waltz or a sleepy nocturne, you may know that all is well. But if on your ears there falls anything like a dirge, or the wail of a lost spirit gone mad, better look to your soup and see if it hasn't been scorched, or taste of your pudding and see if you didn't put in ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... ball-room, where she saw Elsie whirling through a waltz, looking as happy and unconscious as if she had not just crushed a warm, loving human ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... death. The only daughter of Loehlein & Co. with her eighty! That were quite a different capital for our business; and cash down today! This mesalliance is unpardonable. But what can one do? One must [A waltz is heard without] dance off one's vexation. May I have the honor, madam [to SOPHY] ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... a queer way of showing your gladness," commented the other drily, shrugging her shapely shoulders. "Why, I can hardly keep still. La-la-la-la! La-la-la-la! La-la-la!" She hummed the air of a Viennese waltz song, meanwhile whirling gracefully about with extended arms, her dress floating ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... party went off into the garden. A mutual unspoken desire made Vansittart and Virginia steal off together to a secluded spot. Twilight was creeping on—the last glow of a rosy sunset was fading away; the strains of a delicious waltz were borne towards them. Vansittart felt his passion mastering him. He made a herculean effort over himself. He would speak. He would tell her the truth. After that she would forget him. They were sitting ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... chance offering, it were well to twitch from its socket, and see what would follow. Perhaps nothing will follow; next to nothing? A world, all waltzing in mad war, is not to be stopped by acting on any pivot; your waltzing world will find new pivots, or do without any, and perhaps only waltz the more madly ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the parish could not come until later, so meanwhile they had to content themselves with the old one, a houseman, who went by the name of Gray-Knut. He knew four dances; as follows: two spring dances, a halling, and an old dance, called the Napoleon waltz; but gradually he had been compelled to transform the halling into a schottishe by altering the accent, and in the same manner a spring dance had to become a polka-mazurka. He now struck up and the dancing began. Oyvind did not dare join in at once, for there were too many grown folks ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... are given with great ceremony two or three times a year. They last about an hour, during which I sit at the piano in the library playing cheerful tunes, and the babies dance passionately round the pillar. They refuse to waltz together, which is perhaps a good thing, for if they did there would always be one left over to be a wallflower and gnash her teeth; and when they want to dance squares they are forced by the stubbornness of numbers to dance triangles. At the appointed hour they knock at the door, and ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... team and a score of willing hands obeyed the injunction amid laughing encouragement from the young women whose feet already were tapping the floor in anticipation of the Virginia Reel, Two Sisters, Hull's Victory, or even the waltz, "lately imported from the Rhine." A battered Cremona ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... their bow to the representative of royalty? Unfortunately Quebec had then no Court Journal, so that following generations will have but faint ideas of all the witchery, the stunning head-dresses, the decolletees, high-waisted robes of their stately grandmothers, whirled round in the giddy waltz by whiskered, epauletted cavaliers, or else courtesying in the demure menuet ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... seem a festive ark, anchored among the hulks of houses, her frail cables of lanterns looping her to her moorings. A side door of the theatre opened suddenly and a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst of music issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the side door closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of the music. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supple movement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had been the cause of all his day's unrest and of his impatient movement ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... not eighteen; and at such a time one has strange dreams and fancies of small waists, and pretty faces, smiling cunningly. My mind had sometimes reverted to former scenes, when I had a mother and a sister. I had sighed for a partner to dance or waltz with on the green, while our old servant was playing on his violin some antiquated en ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the world let him know how I feel. I did tell him that I was not the wife he ought to have, but he would not believe me, and father was anxious, and so I married him, meaning to do the best I could. It was splendid at Saratoga, only Guy danced so ridiculously and would not let me waltz with those young men. As if I cared a straw for them or any other ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... Charmian was the heart and soul of the masquerade, and she pushed its claims to the disadvantage of the exhibition. Some of the young ladies who thought that art should have the first place, went about saying that she was for the dance because she could waltz and mask better than she could draw, and would rather exhibit herself than her work, but it was a shame that she should make Miss Saunders work for her the way she did, because Miss Saunders, though she ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... the advent of Burning Daylight the whole place became suddenly brighter and cheerier. The barkeepers were active. Voices were raised. Somebody laughed. And when the fiddler, peering into the front room, remarked to the pianist, "It's Burning Daylight," the waltz-time perceptibly quickened, and the dancers, catching the contagion, began to whirl about as if they really enjoyed it. It was known to them of old time that nothing languished when Burning Daylight ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... hunt for her. Ethically, it works out beautifully, for each partner to the hymeneal bargain is fat and full of content, happiness fairly oozing out of every oily pore. And is not happiness the goal of human endeavour, whether a man seeks it amid the electric lights, subtle perfumes, and dreamy waltz-music of a New York ballroom, or finds it seated with his community wives on a hummock ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... my life!" Yvon would cry. "You are exquisite this morning! Your eyes are like stars on the sea. Come, then, angelic Rock, Rocher des Anges, and waltz with your Ste. Valerie!" And he would take Abby by the waist, and try to waltz with her, till she reached for the broomstick. I have told you, Melody, that Abby was the homeliest woman the Lord ever made. Not that I ever noticed it, for the kindness in her ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... moored Behemoth to a tree. I then took my rifle, and sent a ball through the center of her head, and she was numbered with the dead." There is nothing in "Waterton's Wanderings," or in the "Adventures of Baron Munchausen" more startling than this "Waltz with a Hippopotamus!" ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... like Si'mese twins, 'N' as a team I hold we're bosker— The blighter on the street that grins Has got to deal with Edwin-Oscar. At balls we two-step, waltz, 'n' swing, 'N' proppin' walls no one has seen us. When at the bar I never ring The double on ole Ned. For both One hand must serve, 'n', on me oath, It's fair ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... crater-form against the stars. At sleepy intervals the surf flung its foam across the sands to the grass, and far out could be seen the black specks of swimmers under the moon. The voices of the singers, singing a waltz, died away; and in the silence, from somewhere under the trees, arose the laugh of a woman that was a love-cry. It startled Percival Ford, and it reminded him of Dr. Kennedy's phrase. Down by the outrigger canoes, where they lay hauled out on ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... to the entrance of the green-house, idly watching the dancers as they waltz round the spacious room, we once more see Helen and Gladys in close companionship. What a pretty ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... up again, and played a waltz—a dance new to our country, but older than the Heptarchy. Jansen, with his pipe in his mouth, took one of the women by the waist, and steered round the room about as leisurely as a capstan heaving up. Dick Short also took another made four turns, reeled up against a Dutchman who ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... their opera-hats on the chairs the ladies had left, and they all advanced, talking, to join the dancers. I followed them with my eyes through the crowd. Each abandoned herself with charming grace to her partner's arm, turning her head a little to one side, her hair floating on the waves of the waltz. Perhaps there was exaggerated ease and a trace of childish awkwardness in their manner. In ten minutes they came back to their places, out of breath, but with bright eyes. They took up their fans again, and while fanning themselves went on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... procession started. Little girls lingered as long as possible by each inviting seat. Boys scurried past the chairs facing in the opposite direction, or slid around the treacherous ends lest they be caught. Still the waltz strains swung onward until they seemed eternal to the anxious players. Then a false note, another, a pause, and a wild scramble for safety. Bashful maidens sat on trousered knees and scrambled up after still vacant places. Other players squabbled for the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... to go. A waltz was being played, and Dan passed them, dancing with Bertha Petterick. They glided over the floor together with the gentle voluptuous swing, dreamy eyes, and smiling lips of two perfect dancers, conscious ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... dashed off into a spirited waltz, skipping a good many notes, and finally ending with a tremendous crash. Fond as Mr. Stuart was of music, he did not call for a repetition from her, but turning to Mary asked if she ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... these two rhythmic species underlies the movement to which he is listening. It is fairly certain to be one or the other continuously. Of duple measure, the march and polka are familiar examples; of triple measure, the waltz and mazurka. The "regularity" of the former rhythm imparts a certain stability and squareness to the entire piece, while triple rhythm is more graceful and ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... music in the ball-room, on went the shuffling of feet, the swish of garments, the gay talk and laughter of the young people; and on and on talked Mr. Stevens and Mr. Turner, until one familiar strain of music penetrated into Sam's inner consciousness; the Home Sweet Home waltz! ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... Moorish kiosk. Number nine went up on the board. It was a waltz tune. The pale girls, the old widow lady, the three Jews lodging in the same boarding-house, the dandy, the major, the horse- dealer, and the gentleman of independent means, all wore the same blurred, drugged expression, and through the chinks in the planks at their feet they could ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... in these boarding-house sprees, some wag turned on the music-box in the corridor and the duet from La Mascotte together with the waltz from La Diva rose in confusion upon the air; the Superman and Celia danced a couple of waltzes and the party wound up with everybody singing a habanera, until they wearied and each owl flew ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... of the "trot," And letting the waltz go to pot, In the glorious Jazz Most undoubtedly has Discovered the pick of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... tone in the voice, a kindly light in the eye, which made Philammon promise to obey. He glanced one look back through the gateway as he fled, and just saw a wild whirl of Goths and girls, spinning madly round the court in the world-old Teutonic waltz; while, high above their heads, in the uplifted arms of the mighty Amal, was tossing the beautiful figure of Pelagia, tearing the garland from her floating hair to pelt the dancers with its roses. And that might be his sister! He hid his face and fled, and the gate shut out the ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... this, Jed Briscoe was always at his best. He was one of the few men in the valley who knew how to waltz well, and music and rhythm always brought out in him a gay charm women liked. His lithe grace, his assurance, his ease of manner and speech, always differentiated ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... going; but the moment it splits at the top and forms a V, I know I've got to scratch to starboard in a hurry, or I'll bang this boat's brains out against a rock; and then the moment one of the prongs of the V swings behind the other, I've got to waltz to larboard again, or I'll have a misunderstanding with a snag that would snatch the keelson out of this steamboat as neatly as if it were a sliver in your hand. If that hill didn't change its shape on bad nights ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sincerely hoped he would not permit himself to be exhibited in that manner. Madge was resolved upon this triumph, and called loudly to Edith to come and take her place at the instrument, and play the liveliest waltz in the universe for ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... League, quite sufficiently like the ghost of yesterday to have justified squeals had they met her alone. When the ceremony of introduction was over, the guests dispersed about the lawn, Miss Perry struck up a waltz on the piano, and the fun began. Dancing on the grass, in the growing darkness, with the Chinese lanterns sending out a soft but uncertain radiance overhead, was a new experience to most of the school. It was difficult not to step on to the flower-beds, or to brush against the bushes. Trailing ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... regular; it provided only for crescendos. There was nothing of the seductive, nothing of the waltz-fever in it. It was in no way cheap; it did not flatter slothful ears. It had no languishing motifs; it was all substance and exterior. The melody was concealed like a hard kernel in a thick shell; and not merely concealed: ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... a waltz. They are absolutely fixed and predetermined (though the poet may invent new patterns if he chooses). But he uses them only as forms on which he arranges his words and phrases. For the rhythm of language is extremely soft and malleable: by skilful ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... cannot hope to buy, Their phantoms round me waltz and wheel, They pass before the dreaming eye, Ere Sleep the dreaming eye can seal. A kind of literary reel They dance; how fair the bindings shine! Prose cannot tell them what I feel,— The Books that never can ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... inimitably gay and dramatic laughing chorus and waltz of the first scene to the divine melody in which the heroine expresses her unshaken faith in Heaven, immediately before her lover's triumph closes the piece, the whole opera is a series of exquisite conceptions, hardly one of which does not ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... as Pink, but the origin of the name was shrouded in mystery. As "Pink" he had learned to waltz at the dancing class, at a time when he was more attentive to the step than to the music that accompanied it. As Pink Denslow he had played on a scrub team at Harvard, and got two broken ribs for his trouble, and as Pink he now paid intermittent visits to the Denslow Bank, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... either to cure or kill the enemy. Outside, a mocking bird, perched provokingly near her window, kept the night ringing with music. Resolutely she closed her ears to his song. But presently, through the faint fragrance of oleanders, other sounds began to penetrate,—the strains of the waltz to which they had danced only the night before. The little art teacher turned wearily over and ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... Miss Tox (D. & S.) was the harpsichord, and her favourite piece was the 'Bird Waltz,' while the 'Copenhagen Waltz' was also in her repertoire. Two notes of the instrument were dumb from disuse, but their silence did not impoverish the rendering. Caddy Jellyby found it necessary to know something of the piano, in order that she might instruct the 'apprentices' ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... not dancing," says the tall, gaunt man, who has now come up to her. "So much I have seen. Too warm? Eh? You show reason, I think. And yet, if I might dare to hope that you would give me this waltz——" ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... and play a waltz—at first slowly, and afterwards quicker. The first Yager dances with the girl, the Sutler-woman with the recruit. The girl springs away, and the Yager, pursuing her, seizes hold of a Capuchin ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... if you will go, old fellow, do make yourself comfortable at the Lion and call for anything you fancy. I'm dancing this waltz." ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... said Lolo, with a very derisive laugh: "why, Moufflou can do anything! He can walk on two legs ever so long; make ready, present, and fire; die; waltz; beg, of course; shut a door; make a wheelbarrow of himself; there is nothing he will not do. Would you like to see ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the Corso, showing him how to throw confetti; and that he and Lady F. had given a dance at the Embassy for her coming-out, when Connie, at seventeen, and His Excellency—still the handsomest man in the room, despite years and gout—had danced the first waltz together, and a subsequent minuet; which—though Connie did not say so—had been the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lilt of the waltz rippled to us, And through us the exquisite thrill of the air: Like the scent of bruised bloom was her breath, and its dew was Not honier-sweet than her warm kisses were. We stood there enchanted.—And O the delight of The sight of the stars ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... every floor that night shall tell How quick thou daubest and how well. Shine as thou mayst in French vermilion, Thou'rt best beneath a French cotillion; And still comest off, whate'er thy faults, With flying colors in a Waltz. Nor needest thou mourn the transient date To thy best works assigned by fate. While some chef-d'oeuvres live to weary one, Thine boast a short life and a merry one; Their hour of glory past and gone With ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... it was a waltz for, while the new steps were unknown, Maria could waltz—that was a ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... with fancy waist-belts, and rings in their ears. A procession of black-garbed monks wends slowly along; they have come from the silence of the Armenian convent over there at the horizon. Some wandering minstrels shoot their gondola into the mouth of the canal, and strike up a gay waltz, while they watch the shaded balconies above. Here is a Lascar ashore from the big steamer that is to start for Alexandria on the morrow. A company of soldiers, with blue coats, canvas trousers, and white gaiters, half march and half trot along to the ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... that was singing in the air about him—a simple, plaintive strain wandering at will over a surface of steady rhythmic movement underneath, always creeping upward through mysteries of sweetness, always sinking again in cadences of semi-tones. With only a moment's pause, there came the Seventh Waltz—a rich, bold confusion which yet was not confused. Theron's ears dwelt with eager delight upon the chasing medley of swift, tinkling sounds, but it left ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... waltz figure in the mazurka, I waltzed with her for a long time, and breathing fast and smiling, she would say, 'Encore'; and I went on waltzing and waltzing, as though ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... fair and fashionable whom Madam Raynor had gathered into her splendid rooms. Tired at length with the gay scene around her, she had strolled off alone into the conservatory, and leaning against a pillar watched from a distance the giddy whirl of the waltz—the waving of feathers, the flashing of jewels, and the flitting of airy forms through those magnificent apartments. A few moments before she left the crowd, she had observed a stranger of very dashing air attentively regarding her, and then joining ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... dancing began when the singing was over: A Dotterel first open'd the ball with the Plover; Baron Stork in a waltz was allow'd to excel, With his beautiful partner, the fair Demoiselle;[12] And a newly-fledged Gosling, so fair and genteel, A minuet swam with the spruce Mr. Teal. A London-bred Sparrow—a pert forward Cit! Danced ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... air. On the walk before me were two beautiful children, a boy of six and a little girl of four. They were merry and happy as the birds were, and with an arm of each around the waist of the other, they went hopping and skipping up and down the walks, stopping now and then to waltz, to swing round and round, and then darting away again with their hop and skip, too full of hilarity, too instinct with vitality, to be for a moment still. The flush of health was on their cheeks, and the warm light of affection ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... ladies. And then one day, or rather one night, there came a great sorrow,—a sorrow which robbed these terrestrial Paradises of half their brightness and more than half their joy. One evening he told her that he did not like her to waltz. "Why?" she innocently asked. They were in the brougham, going home, and she had been supremely happy at Mrs. Montacute Jones's house. Lord George said that he could hardly explain the reason. He made ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... and forth, while the others whooped them on. One of the dancers gave out presently; but the other seemed still unimpaired in wind and limb. He darted into an adjoining room and came back in a minute dragging a half-frightened, half-pleased little Belgian scullery maid and whirled her about to waltz music until she dropped for want of breath to carry her another turn; after which he did a solo—Teutonic version—of a darky breakdown, stopping only to join in the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Ribera, famous works which in this unexpected illumination suddenly showed forth, triumphant with youth regained, as if awakened to the immortal life of genius. And, as their Majesties would not arrive before midnight, the ball had just been opened, and flights of soft-hued gowns were whirling in a waltz past all the pompous throng, the glittering jewels and decorations, the gold-broidered uniforms and the pearl-broidered robes, whilst silk and satin and velvet spread and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... convince, if I should seem to deny that the mistaken practice of these hymn-book compilers was based on the solid ground of secular common-sense. If anything is true of rhythm it is this, that the common mind likes common rhythms, such as the march or waltz, whereas elaboration of rhythm appeals to a trained mind or artistic faculty. I should say that the popularity of common rhythms is due to the shortness of human life, and that if men were to live to be 300 years old ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... the end of the second parlor, were playing a waltz; and the two friends stopped at the door to look at them. A score of couples were whirling-the men with a serious expression, and the women with a fixed smile on their lips. They displayed a good deal of shoulder, like their mothers; and the bodices of some ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... don't like to refuse him one." Alexander smiled in return, and told her to enjoy herself. As she floated around on Will's arm she took advantage of every turn to watch the adored Alexander. She thought he looked lonely, and she wished she could decently end her waltz and get back to him. For a moment, in a reverse step, she lost sight of him, and when she saw him again a tall young fellow was talking to him. Alexander seemed ill at ease and perturbed. In fact, he quite failed ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... that a vague preoccupation clouded the serenity of her brow. I could see her dancing-partners surprised at her frequent absence of mind; she still followed the whirl, but she no longer led it. Under pretext of fatigue, she would leave suddenly and abruptly her partner's arm, in the midst of a waltz, to go and sit in some corner with a pensive and even a pouting look. If there happened to be a vacant seat next to mine, she threw herself into it, and began from behind her fan some whimsical and disjointed ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... Sabina rather stately in her exaltation; Dorothy quiet and demure; while Katherine, despite her mother's supplications, would not be kept quiet, but swung her graceful gown this way and that, practising the slide of a waltz, and quoting W. R. Gilbert, as was her custom. She glided over the floor ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... fingers wander into a waltz and raised her eyebrows. "Do I look so much like Alice that you can ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... but did not engage him; perhaps his demands were too high. The castrato whom they did engage was Carestini, who, though less celebrated, was at any rate a singularly artistic singer. Durastanti came back, and, in place of Montagnana, Handel contented himself with Waltz, a German, who is often described as having been Handel's cook. Burney, at any rate, recorded that he was said to have filled this office, but Burney remembered him chiefly as a popular comic singer. He had sung Polyphemus in Arne's pirated performance ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... allemande, or German dance), a name for two kinds of dance, one a German national dance, in 2-4 time, the other somewhat resembling a waltz. The movement in a suite following the prelude, and preceding the courante (q.v.), with which it is contrasted in rhythm, is also called an allemande, but has no connexion with the dance. The name, however, is given to pieces of music based on the dance movement, examples of which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was the good of going to school and coming back with Claribel's songs and Blumenthal's Deux Anges lying on the top of your box,—with a social education, moreover, so advanced that the dancing—mistress had invariably made you waltz alone round the room for the edification and instruction of the assembled company,—if all you had to do at home was to dust and wash up, and die with envy of girls with reprobate fathers? As she pondered the question, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... more ironic and disdainful laughter, breathed a rarer air than had beat and moved and sounded and breathed in music. It made drunken with pleasant sound, with full rich harmonies, with exuberant dance and waltz movements. It seemed to adumbrate the arrival of a new sort of men, men of saner, sounder, more athletic souls and more robust and cool intelligences, a generation that was vitally satisfied, was less torn and belabored by the inexpressible longings of the romantic world, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... a merry span Of years uncounted when convulsion ran Right through the veins of me, to make me blest, And yet accurst, in that revolving quest Known as a waltz,—if waltz indeed it were And not a fluttering dream of gauze and vair And languorous eyes? I scarce can muse thereon Without a pang too ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... and cattle ranches made all permissible works of fiction tame. She had given the French dancing master, who was teaching them a polite version of a Spanish waltz, an exposition of the real thing, as practised by the Mexican cow-punchers on her guardian's ranch. It was a performance that left him sympathetically breathless. The English riding master, who came weekly in the spring and autumn, to teach the girls a correct trot, had received a lesson in bareback ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Moore wouldn't let you into his dining-room with your shoes off, even though you brought a letter of credit from the Creator. Jim loves you dearly, but business is business. There's a place down here, however, run by a man who doesn't trot with the sanctified set, where you can waltz up to the feed trough in the same suit you wore when you preached the Sermon on the Mount, and that without giving the ultra-fashionables a ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring for ever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded and which grew, touch by touch, into vagueness at which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not why;—from these paintings (vivid as their ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... only love to tease her now and then. I go to the races, play cards, waltz, talk slang, and read novels. But when I do bow down to her I bow away down. Why, at Montrose, I actually talk ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... evening we had a tete-a-tete which culminated in the utter surprise. It was the occasion of our hebdomadal dancing-party at Porticobello House, and I had solicited her to become a copartner with this unassuming self in the maziness of a waltz; but, not being the carpet-knight, and consequently treading the measure with too great frequency upon the toes of my fair auxiliary, she suggested ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... she stretches her limbs, She golfs, she punts, she rows, she swims - She plays, she sings, she dances, too, From ten or eleven till all is blue! At ball or drum, till small hours come (Chaperon's fan conceals her yawning), She'll waltz away like a teetotum, And never go home till daylight's dawning. Lawn tennis may share her favours fair - Her eyes a-dance and her cheeks a-glowing - Down comes her hair, but what does she care? It's all her own and it's worth the showing! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... luncheon the members of Gunroom and Wardroom made their way on deck to bask in the sun and smoke contemplative post-prandial pipes in the lee of the after superstructure. Forward, in amidships, the band was playing a slow waltz and fifty or so couples from among the ship's company were solemnly revolving to the music with expressions of melancholy enjoyment peculiar to ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... And, too, it seemed only natural that the moment she came into the room ready for the fray, Daisy Furrer should make a rush for the ancient piano, and tinkle out with fair execution the strains of an old waltz. Her efforts broke up any sign of constraint; everybody knew everybody else, so they danced. This was the beginning; ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... sanitarium that was now bringing so many patients to Urbana. A handsome, dare-devil sort of boy was Powlett, who speedily cut out all the local beaux at the parties and picnics which filled the summer of '75. A beautiful dancer was he, and taught Almira to waltz and "glide" in a style never before seen in Urbana, and that other couples first derided, then envied, then vainly strove to imitate. That Urbana censors should go to the widow with invidious comment upon ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... persisted in setting up the appearance of youth as a means of hiding the reality of fifty. Being still a bachelor, and being always ready to make himself agreeable, he was generally popular in the society of women. In the ballroom he was a really welcome addition to the company. The German waltz had then been imported into England little more than three years since. The outcry raised against the dance, by persons ski lled in the discovery of latent impropriety, had not yet lost its influence in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... of a waltz joined the lure of Judith's warm loveliness, whispering, counselling, commanding: "Take her." Marcia gasped and stepped back, startled by the look she saw in the eyes of this man who, having spoken no word since Judith came, put out his arms and took her into them. Judith ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... shut alternately, the effect of successive flashes of light. Then suddenly the bird begins revolving in the air about its perch, like a moth wheeling round and close to the flame of a candle, emitting a series of sharp clicks and making a loud humming with the wings. While performing this aerial waltz the black and white on the quills mix, the wings appearing like a grey mist encircling the body. The fantastic dance over, the bird drops suddenly on to its perch again; and, until moved to another display, remains as stiff and motionless as a ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... sneeze, imparting to the whole operation a delicate nasal twang. If the result is not something approaching to the sound required, you must relinquish all hope of achieving it, as I did. Luckily, my business was to dance, and not to apostrophize the lady; and accordingly, when the waltz struck up, I hastened to claim, in the dumbest show, the honour of her hand. Although my dancing qualifications have rather rusted during the last two or three years, I remembered that the time was not so very far distant when even the fair Mademoiselle E— had graciously pronounced me to be a ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... not make the connection with the cars, increased as the day advanced. At last the monotonous motion of the stage coach, added to the agitated state of my nerves, began to affect me like the rolling of the sea. The trees of the forest seemed to waltz around me in mazy circles. Faster and faster they whirled, till my sight grew dim and I could scarcely distinguish them at all. My senses were winding up. I felt them slipping from me in spite of the strongest effort of my will to hold ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... I can sail a boat; I shoot pretty well; I waltz nicely; I row, swim, and box indifferently; and I play an ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... slapdash from the first bar to the last. She would play the same piece a hundred times without varying the performance by a hair's-breadth. Nor did she affect anything but classical music. She was one of those young ladies who, when asked for a waltz or a polka, freeze the impudent demander by replying that they play no dance music—nothing more frivolous ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... so delicate that climate was more important for him than education. They met first at the rink. And it developed that if you crossed hands with G. G. and skated with him you skated almost as well as he did. He could teach a girl to waltz in five minutes; and he had a radiant laugh that almost moved you to tears when you went to bed at night and got thinking about it. Cynthia had never seen a boy with such a beautiful round head and such beautiful white teeth and such bright red cheeks. She always said that she loved him long ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... of boys back of first," he directed. "If you are not careful, Mr. Merriwell, they'll waltz onto the field and wipe up the earth with you and your team and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... protect their skins from frosty touches. The skaters, in skirts that betrayed trim and slender ankles, spun along like a whirl of the wind, or with hands crossed with a partner, went through graceful rocking evolutions, almost like a waltz. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Fritz, "here comes a great elephant carrying an organ in his trunk. See, he is setting it down; now he is turning the crank and playing a beautiful waltz." ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... favored us at every turn with some new story or legend, repeated in a sing-song, nasal tone, ludicrously contrasting with the extravagance of the tales themselves. Yet he recited all alike with the most immovable gravity. It was a lively waltz of three notes. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
