"Prima" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... property, but his income was mortgaged for a number of years to pay off the costs of certain Italian escapades which are inconceivable in Paris. He had ruined himself in supporting a theatre at Milan in order to force upon a public a very inferior prima donna, whom he was said to love madly. A fine future was therefore before him, and he did not care to risk it for the paltry distinction of a bit of red ribbon. He was not a brave man, but he was certainly a philosopher; and he had precedents, ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... Eleanor heartily. "Bug's on your shoulder, Bishop! For de Lawd's sake!" she squealed excitedly, in delicious high notes that a prima donna might envy; then caught the fat grasshopper from the black clerical coat, and stood holding it, lips compressed and the joy of adventure dancing in her eyes. The Bishop took out his watch and looked at it, as Eleanor, her soul on the grasshopper, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... that you've been 'expanding your mind.' Buy a second-hand copy of Longfellow's, poems, and tell her that it has been your constant companion in all your wanderings among vicious cannibals, and she'll just decorate your cabin like a prima-donna's boudoir, darn your socks, and make you read ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... from Shakspeare, then drink was ordered by one of the the party. The reading interspersed with critical comments, was again resumed; but the reading soon gave way entire to the comments, which, in a little while, passed from the text of Shakspeare to actors, actresses, prima donnas, and ballet-dancers, the relative merits of which were knowingly discussed for some time. In the midst of this discussion, oysters, in two or three styles, and a smoking dish of terrapin, ordered by a member of the company—which ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... The most beautiful of the Graces,—"blandarum prima sororum," according to Statius, Theb. ii. 286. Cf. Virg. ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... one eye and gazed, with his head on one side, at the unimaginative MacWilliams—"what I'd like to do now," he continued, thoughtfully, "would be to sit in the front row at a comic opera, ON THE AISLE. The prima donna must be very, very beautiful, and sing most of her songs at me, and there must be three comedians, all good, and a chorus entirely composed of girls. I never could see why they have men in the chorus, anyway. No one ever looks ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... that of the day and of the night they make twenty-four hours—twelve of the day, twelve of the night, however long or short the day may be. And these hours are short and long in the day and night according as the day and night increase and diminish. And these hours the Church uses when it says, Prima, Tertia, Sexta, and Nona—first, third, sixth, and ninth; and these are termed hours temporal. The other mode is, that, making of the day and of the night twenty-four hours, the day sometimes has fifteen hours and the night nine; and sometimes the night has sixteen ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... been for years past. But before he reached the door he caught the glance of a little, round, elderly woman at a table close to him, and he stopped. She had a faded, showy bonnet, and she carried her worn clothes with an air. He recognised the companion and friend of a famous prima donna whom he had not ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... is prima facie evidence. I do not speak now of the communication from De Berenger (supposing he is the person) of the letter to the boy. I do not say any thing upon that objection of yours, but that the letter which reached Admiral ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... protection. Her father, she said, had determined to devote her to the stage, and already had taken steps to sell her—she said she used the word advisedly—for so many years to the impresario of the 'Fenice' at Venice, her voice and musical skill being such as to give hope of her becoming a prima donna. She had, she said, frequently sung at private parties at Rome, but only knew within the last few days that she had been, not a guest, but a paid performer. Overwhelmed with the shame and indignity of this false position, she implored her mother's brother to compassionate her. 'If I could ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... other plays he had no such tutor, and then he was sadly to seek in his legal jargon. I understand Mr. Greenwood to disagree on this point. Mr. Castle says, "I think Shakespeare would have had no difficulty in getting aid from several sources. There is therefore no prima facie reason why we should suppose the information was supplied ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... "Prima dedit nautis usum magnetis Amalphis," says Beccadelli of Palermo, but the earliest mention of the "Black ugly stone" in the West is traced to an Englishman. Alexander Neckam, a monk of St. Albans, writing about 1180 on "The Natures Of Things," tells us of it as commonly ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... he went to the great violinist, represented himself as my friend and as warmly commended by me, and the heedless artist, instead of referring to me directly, took him as impresario; the result being that he ere long ran away with the money, and, what was quite as bad, Ole Bull's prima-donna, who was, as I understood, specially dear to him. Ole Bull's playing has been, as I think, much underrated by certain writers of reminiscences. There was in ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... of the Fasciculus Temporum, set forth at Cologne by Nicolaus de Schlettstadt in 1474, altogether distinct from that which is confessedly "omnium prima," and which was issued by Arnoldus Ther Huernen in the same year? If it be, the copy in the Lambeth library, bearing date 1476, and entered in pp. 1, 2. of Dr. Maitland's very valuable and accurate List, must appertain to the third, not the second, impression. To the latter ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... sah; and some is Spanish, sah, and dey is sof' too, and ain't no more gumption dan chilleren, and tink it's ole time come ag'in, and dey's in de ole places like afo' de Mexican wah! and dey don' bin payin' noffin'. But we gets along, sah,—we gets along,—not in de prima facie style, sah! mebbe not in de modden way dut de Kernel don't like; but we keeps ourse'f, sah, and has wine fo' our friends. When yo' come again, sah, yo' 'll find de Widder Glencoe ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... was very feverish, and wondered the draught had not composed me; with a great deal more to the same purpose, which I bore as patiently as I could, till it was my turn to talk; and then I admired her dress and her coiffure, and asked if it was a full house, and whether the prima donna was in voice, etc.: till, at last, I won my way to the inquiry of who were her visitors. "Lord Borodaile," said she, "and the Duke of ——, and Mr. St. George, and Captain Leslie, and Mr. De Retz, and many others." I felt so disappointed, Eleanor, but did not dare ask whether he ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Professor Casimir Wieniawski from sight a moment since the hour of ten, and that "distinguished noble refugee" was now in a maudlin way, murmuring perfunctory endearments in the ear of the ex-prima donna, who tenderly gazed upon him in a proprietary manner. Alan Hawke had judged it well to ply the champagne, and, at the witching hour of midnight, he critically inspected Casimir's condition. "He is probably about tipsy enough now ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... find in the tragedies, may sometimes have corresponded to that description. In other regions it is surely true that to advance in conventional station would often entail a loss in true dignity and happiness. It would seldom benefit a musician to be appointed admiral or a housemaid to become a prima donna. Scientific breeding might conceivably develop much more sharply the various temperaments and faculties needed in the state; and then each caste or order of citizens would not be more commonly dissatisfied with its lot than men or women now are with their sex. One tribe ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... make out a prima facie case against a woman for want of taste in dress, just as you jump at the conclusion that because a woman dresses in such a way as to show she gives her mind to it she is of the right sort. I think it's a relief to see a convention of women devoted to other things ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... thus;—"Il volto di quella Vergine Maria mirava altre volte al Bambino Giesu, ma dall' anno, il giorno, ed hora, che fu creato Pontefice Innocenzo X. al suono di Campane miracolosamente si volto alli Visitanti. Dicono alcuni, che prima ancora staua riuoltata al Popolo, e che accommodata, non accorgendosi del miracolo in detto giorno, poi lo diede a ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... undistinguished figure in plain clothes and spectacles—the one decidedly prosaic appearance in the pomp of war and the glitter of royal state. Victor Emmanuel said good-humouredly that when driving with his great subject, he felt just like the tenor who leads the prima donna forward to ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... says: "In prima institutione naturA| non quseritur miraculum, sed quid natura rerum habeat." And it is certain that both St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Basil held the same view. And they further held that the animating principle of life once implanted ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... is the heroine of an amusing anecdote. She gave her servant, a simple contadina, an order for the opera on a night when she appeared in one of her greatest parts. That evening the great prima donna surpassed herself; she was recalled time and again; the audience were wildly enthusiastic; almost every number was encored. Returning home, she wearily asked her maid how she had enjoyed the play. "Well, the play, ma'am, was fine, but I felt sorry for you," was the reply.—"For me, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... scene with Millie every time. But this article goes on to say, if he rubs his hands together and says, 'Very nice,' and walks off, that means he thinks you will probably make a better bookkeeper or baby dandler than you will a prima donna. Millie used to write that around the opera house in Vienna, when Auchinloss started rubbing his hands together after an audition, everybody used to ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... itself, might prima facie be taken for a line of the Hazaj (iii. C. I), with the third Mafa'ilun shortened by Hafz (see above) into Mafa'i for which Fa'ulun would be substituted. We have seen (p. 247) that and how the foot Mufa'alatun can change into Mafa'ilun, and if in any poem which otherwise would ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... 'Antequam manum de tabula amoveamus, e re fore videtur, si, ipso codice Vaticano inspecto, duos injectos scrupulos eximamus. Cl. Tischendorfius in nuperrima sua editione scribit (Proleg. p. cclxxv), Maium ad Act. xxvii. 14, codici Vaticano tribuisse a prima manu [Greek: euraklydon]; nos vero [Greek: eurakydon]; atque subjungit, "utrumque, ut videtur, male." At, quidquid "videri" possit, certum nobis exploratumque est Vaticanum codicem primo habuisse [Greek: eurakydon], prout expressum ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... that Bruno may have met Sidney first at Milan. But Bruno informs us that he did not become acquainted with him till he came to London: 'Tra' quali e tanto conosciuto, per fama prima quanbo eravamo in Milano et in Francia, e poi per experienza or che siamo ne la sua patria' (Op. It. vol. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Nigra or Melaina of antiquity, so called from its luxuriant pine forests, little of which now remain. Various origins are attributed to the settlement; one of them is commemorated in the inscription on the Porta Marina: "Hic Antenoridae Corcyrae prima Melanae fundamenta locant." The early Greek geographers include it in the territory of Narenta or Liburnia. From Augustus to Heraclius (642 A.D.) it was Roman or Byzantine, and from that date till 998 Narentine. From the victory of Orseolo II. till 1100 it was Venetian, when the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... it done into Latin verse by Mr. Wilbur. Solon, a saying of. Soul, injurious properties of. South, its natural eloquence, facts have a mean spite against. South Carolina, futile attempt to anchor, her pedigrees. Southern men, their imperfect notions of labor, of subscriptions, too high pressure, prima facie noble. Spanish, to walk, what. Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech. Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits engaged in it. Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm. Spring, described. Star, north, subject to indictment, whether. Statesman, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Board school known to me. These nice little folk were certainly in no wise pallid or distraught; and, when they danced on the stage, the performance was a beautiful and delightful romp which suggested no idea of pain. To see the "prima donna" of the company trundling her hoop on a bright morning was as pretty a sight as one would care to see. The little lady was neither forward nor unhealthy, nor anything else that is objectionable—and it was plain that she enjoyed her life. Is it in the least likely that any sane manager ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... namque Proculus Julius sollicita civitate desiderio (163) regis, et infensa Patribus, gravis, ut traditur, quamvis magnae rei auctor, in concionem prodit. 'Romulus, inquit, Quirites, parens urbis hujus, prima hodierna luce coelo repente delapsus, se mihi obvium dedit; quam profusus horrore venerabundusque astitissem, petens precibus, ut contra intueri fas esset; Abi, nuncia, inquit, Romanis, Coelestes ita velle, ut mea Roma caput orbis terrarum sit; proinde rem militarem colant; sciantque, et ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... instruments by means of which that Emancipation was won. I fancy he would have had no difficulty in accepting Dr. Johnson's saying about "the first Whig;" and it grieved and offended him that the "Via prima salutis" should be opened to the Catholic body from the Whig quarter. In spite of his reverence for the Old Religion, I conceive that on the whole he would rather have kept its professors beyond the pale of the Constitution with the Tories, than admit them on the principles of the Whigs. Moreover, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... for a long time had any clear idea what the rejoicing was about, yet the crowd went on shouting and singing choruses, waving hats, and reiterating the "Marseillaise." The carriage of Madame Marie Sasse, the prima donna, who was on her way to a rehearsal at the Grand Opera House, was stopped, and she was requested to sing the "Marseillaise." She stood up on the seat of her carriage and complied at once. "There was profound silence," ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... It has made idealistic thinkers revise their relation to the real world; it has led positivistic thinkers to find a closer connection between the facts on which they based their views; it has made us all open our eyes for new possibilities to arise through the prima facie inexplicable "spontaneous" variations which are the condition of all evolution. This last point is one of peculiar interest. Deeper than speculative philosophy and mechanical science saw in the days of their triumph, we catch sight of new streams, whose sources and laws we have still to discover. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... backgrounds?), is turning away from the angel in sheer loathing and anger, a great lady feeling sick at the sudden intrusion of a cad. In a picture by Angelo Gaddi, she is standing with her hand on her chest, just risen from her chair, like a prima donna going to answer an encore—a gracious, but not too eager recognition of an expected ovation. In one by Cosimo Rossetti she lifts both hands with shocked astonishment as the angel scuddles in; in the lovely one, with blue Alpine peaks and combed-out hair, now given to Verocchio, ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... human right denied, is large. The fact that the ruling class withhold this right is prima facie evidence that they deem it of importance for good or for evil. In either case, therefore, the human being is outraged. It, perchance, may matter but little whether Kansas be governed by a constitution made by her bona fide settlers or by people of another State ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... can be performed for other people. Besides, those who oppose this view are unable to give a satisfactory explanation of all the phenomena of commerce. Of course, the qualification "recognized as useful" is of the utmost importance as a mark to determine what is goods. But a prima donna, or a world-renowned physician, cast naked by shipwreck on the shores of North America, is certainly, better off than a blind beggar, his fellow sufferer. Compare Storch, Handbuch II, 335 ff. and his Considerations sur la Nature du ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... mythology, he proceeds to inquire into the moral effects of the changes in the physical environment back to which if possible the history of antiquity must be traced. Man's defeat in his struggle with the elements made him religious, hinc prima mali labes. "Son premier pas fut un faux pas, sa premire maxime fut une erreur" (p. 4 sq). But it was not his fault nor has time repaired the evil moral effects of that early catastrophe. "Les grandes rvolutions physiques de notre globe sont les vritables poques de l'histoire des ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... know her mother's name, that her father never called her anything but "mother"; she also declared that she did not know her father's name, her mother, always calling him "father," as she and her sister did. Her name was Prima ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... solitude of ancient cities, was replenished; the new foundations of Justinian acquired, perhaps too hastily, the epithets of impregnable and populous; and the auspicious place of his own nativity attracted the grateful reverence of the vainest of princes. Under the name of Justiniana prima, the obscure village of Tauresium became the seat of an archbishop and a praefect, whose jurisdiction extended over seven warlike provinces of Illyricum; [113] and the corrupt appellation of Giustendil still indicates, about twenty miles to the south of Sophia, the residence of a Turkish sanjak. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... voice trolled out some lively roulades. "Don't you think he'll make me his prima donna below? It's nonsense to tell me there's no singing there. And the atmosphere will be favourable to the voice. No damp, you know. You saw the piano—why didn't you ask me to sing before? I can sing Italian. I had a master—who made love to me. I forgave him because of the music-stool—men ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... when he wrote, his music is wonderfully fine. It still retains its vitality, as has been vividly shown in several revivals of his "Orpheus" within recent years, in two of which (in America and in Italy) the American prima donna, Mme. Helene ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... regret, that though so many springs must have cheered the long life of Sir Uvedale Price, (and which he calls the dolce prima vera, gioventu dell'anno, and whose blossoms, flowers, and "profusion of fresh, gay, and beautiful colours and sweets," he so warmly dwelt on in many of his pages,) and though the number of these springs must have nearly equalled those which gilded the days of Lord Kames, of the honourable Horace ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... incredible thing than the actual result itself. As it is I am simply perplexed and bewildered. It is a thing that is without parallel. I have a company such as no one has ever before gathered together on one stage. I have eminent prima donnas who are quite willing to sing second and third parts without caring what I pay them, or whether I pay them or not. I know the musical world. All I can say is that the thing is unexampled, and I can not comprehend it. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... solidity cannot exist without extension and figure, the taking matter to be the name of something really existing under that precision, has no doubt produced those obscure and unintelligible discourses and disputes, which have filled the heads and books of philosophers concerning materia prima; which imperfection or abuse, how far it may concern a great many other general terms I leave to be considered. This, I think, I may at least say, that we should have a great many fewer disputes in the world, if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only; ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... mornin', havin' passed a restless night, I picks up a noospaper and sees in it that 'Next Saturday's steamer is a weritable treasure-ship, takin' out twelve million dollars, and the jewels of a certain prima donna valued at five hundred thousand.' 'Here's my chance,' says I, an' I goes to sea and lies in wait for the steamer. I captures her easy, my crew bein' hungry, an' fightin' according like. We steals the box a-hold-in' the jewels an' the bag containin' ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... to be made by it. Quando (sayes he) oleum cinnamomi &c. suo sali alkali miscetur absque omni aqua, trium mensium artificiosa occultaque circulatione, totum in salem volatilem commutatum est, vere essentiam sui simplicis in nobis exprimit, & usque in prima nostri constitutivasese ingerit. A not unlike Processe he delivers in another place; from whence, if we suppose him to say true, I may argue, that since by the Fire there may be produc'd a substance that is as well Saline and volatile ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... if he can abstract and divert himself into a line of thought as you are able to do, but a woman without a lover is a pathetic thing. There is no real reason for her existence; all her little miracles of expression and posing are for naught. She is a sort of prima donna lost out of the play. There is no one to give her the happy cue to the whole meaning of life. Oh, my Love! I cannot live without a lover. Do not bereave me! I should shrivel up, I am sure,—grow old and sour and sad. I might even become a deaconess with Hull-House propensities. ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... confirmed, for Leon soon vanished and in his place appeared a most attractive and fascinating lady, who very quietly assumed, or rather resumed, the name of Louise d'Armilly. Still another rumor was that the wealth so strangely inherited by the former prima donna was not a legacy at all, but a gift from the mysterious Count of Monte-Cristo, who had thus striven to make amends to the daughter for the misfortunes he had, while pursuing his scheme of wholesale vengeance, so remorselessly heaped upon the ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... nisi ex principiis non potest: ita, procedente jam opere, minima incipiunt esse quae prima sunt."—QUINTILIAN. De Inst. Orat., Lib. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Prima Donna at the opera house that winter; a young, pretty woman, working hard (it was said) to support her mother; and Miriam, going daily to see dear friends at the same hotel, often heard the singing and ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... difficulties with prime donne before, scores of times. Yes; I have had experience." He laughed sardonically. "I thought I knew what to do. Generally a prima donna has either a pet dog or a pet parrot—sopranos go in for dogs, contraltos seem to prefer parrots. I have made a study of these agreeable animals, and I have found that through them their mistresses can be approached when all other ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... e prima mandato la dove, etc. This passage is obscure and may be read to mean "and having first despatched [a messenger] (or sent [word]) whereas," etc. I think, however, that mandato is a copyist's error for mandata, in which case ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... still worse. Pieces of the hair and nails of the lover were boiled in oil stolen from the ever-burning lamps in the church. The most innocuous of their charms was to make a heart of glowing ashes, and then to pierce it while singing: 'Prima che'l fuoco spenghi, Fa ch'a mia porta venghi; Tal ti punga mio amore Quale ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... The pictures "Queen Prima Donna" and "Proxy" are two early nursery scenes of the many du Maurier contributed to Punch. They show the style, the flowing and painter-like stroke of the pen that revealed such a Rossetti-like sense of material beauty in his earlier drawings—a style worthy of the refinement ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... instrument the soul is, and of what divine harmonies and profound emotions it is capable when played upon by any adequate power. To expect to maintain this exaltation with our present nature is like requiring of the athlete that he never relax his muscles, or of the prima donna that she never cease the exquisite trill which is but the momentary proof of what her present organization is capable. And yet it would appear that many, like poor Haldane, are tempted on one hand to entertain ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... brilliant performer, in short, en famille, the curtain down and her salary stopped for the season—thanks to which she is by so much more the easy genius and the good creature as she is by so much less the advertised prima donna. She received us nowhere more sympathetically, that is with less ceremony or self- consciousness, I seem to recall, than at Montepulciano, for instance—where it was indeed that the recovery of private judgment I just referred to couldn't help taking place. What we were doing, or what we ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... one-seventh of the water which flows over the marcite is absorbed by the soil of those meadows or evaporated from their surface, and consequently six-sevenths of the supply remain for use on ground at lower levels.] The meteorological effect of irrigation on a large scale, which would seem prima facie most probable, would be an increase of precipitation in the region watered. [Footnote: On the pluviometric effect of irrigation, see Lombardini, Sulle Inondazioni, etc., p. 72, 74; the same author, Essai Hydrologique ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... girls are takin' hold with us an' lettin' go o' the grand life. They've begun to take hold o' the broom an' the dish-cloth, an' the boys seem to be takin' hold o' them with more vigor an' determination. The boys are concluding that it's cheaper to buy a piano-player than to marry one, that canned prima-donnas are better than the home-grown article, that women are more to ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... have seen that the notion of a semicircle is false when it is isolated in the mind, but true when it is associated with the concept of a sphere, or of some cause determining such a motion. (73:5) But if it be the nature of a thinking being, as seems, prima facie, to be the case, to form true or adequate thoughts, it is plain that inadequate ideas arise in us only because we are parts of a thinking being, whose thoughts - some in their entirety, others in fragments ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... gardens to direction sought from his well-known taste and feeling. As to works of art, his criticism was not that of one versed in the history of the schools, but, always proceeding upon first principles, the 'prima philosophia,' as he called it; and it was, as it appeared to ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... fate of his opera—he could get no answer at all for a long while, and after it was definitely accepted the usual troubles occurred through the whims and caprices of singers. Even his idol and divinity, Schroeder-Devrient, great artist though she was on the stage, played the very prima donna—which is about as bad a thing as can be said of any woman—off the stage so far as Rienzi was concerned. Being a prima donna first and an artist afterwards, she thought nothing of dashing Wagner's ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... una gran pianura, Nell' ombilico a Francia, anzi nel core. Gli passa la riviera entro le mura, E corre, ed esce in altra parte fuore; Ma fa un' isola prima, e v'assicura Della citta una parte, e la migliore: L'altre due (ch' in tre parti e la gran terra) Di fuor la fossa, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... of the map is that on which the discoveries of John Cabot are shown, for this is the only map which shows them. It is true that a map, or a copy of a map, of 1542, by Sebastian Cabot, was discovered of late years, and is now at Paris, and that it indicates the "Prima Vista," the first land seen by Cabot on his voyage of 1497; but it shows the later work of Jacques Cartier and other explorers, and does not show what part was due to Cabot. Juan de la Cosa, however, must have received, through the Spanish ambassador in London, the ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... doge Andrea Dandolo succedette un vecchio, il quale tardi si pose al timone della repubblica, ma sempre prima di quel, che facea d' uopo a lui ed alia patria: egli e Marino Faliero, personaggio a me noto per antica dimestichezza. Falsa era l' opinione intorno a lui, giacche egli si mostro fornito piu di coraggio, che di senno. Non pago della prima dignita, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... of the brilliancy of the scene, or the splendor of the triumph achieved over the legions of prejudice, the cohorts of injustice, and the old national guard of hoary conservatism. If the triumph of a prima donna is something to boast, what was the triumph of these toil-worn women, when not only the members of the Committee, but Senators and Members of the House, crowded around them with congratulations and assurances that their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... cold Labrador current sweeps down by Newfoundland across the track of Atlantic liners, but does not necessarily carry icebergs with it; cold winds blow from Greenland and Labrador and not always from icebergs and ice-fields. So that falls in temperature of sea and air are not prima facie evidence of the close proximity of icebergs. On the other hand, a single iceberg separated by many miles from its fellows might sink a ship, but certainly would not cause a drop in temperature either of the ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... the broken basin. Yorke-Bannerman's name had profoundly moved her. Then I thought of Hilda's face. Murderers, I said to myself, do not beget such daughters as that. Not even accidental murderers, like my poor friend Le Geyt. I saw at once the prima facie evidence was strongly against her. But I had faith in her still. I drew myself up firmly, and stared him back full in the face. "I do not believe it," ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... her face!" said Miss Van Tuyn. "She keeps us waiting, like the great prima donna in a concert, just long enough to give a touch of excitement to her appearance. Dear Lady Sellingworth! She has a wonderful knowledge of just how to do things. That only comes ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... young lady coming to-morrow, a—a sort of an actress—no, a prima donna, you know. A Miss Archer. If you and she should happen to like each other, it would be pleasant for you, now wouldn't it?" asked Quimby eagerly, with a devout hope that such might be, for then should ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... [356] Antinewtonianismi pars prima, in qua Newtoni de coloribus systema ex propriis principiis geometrice evertitur, et nova de coloribus theoria luculentissimis experimentis demonstrantur.... Naples, 1754; pars ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Murdoch, and me, and the third of our party on that tour was Miss Jessie MacLachlan, a bonnie lassie with a glorious voice, the best of our Scottish prima donnas then. We wandered all over the north and the midlands of Scotland on that tour, and it was a grand success. Our audiences were large, and they were generous wi' their applause, too, which Scottish audiences sometimes are not. Your Scot is a canny yin; he'll aye tak' his pleasures ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... "Prima in honore Sancti Michaelis Archangeli." "Secunda in honore Sancti Johannis Evangelisti." "Tertia in honore S. Johannis Baptisti." "Quarta in honore Assumptionis beatae Mariae." "Quinta in honore Sanctae Trinitatis et ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... before as many thinkers and scholars as he deemed desirable, with a view to getting their views upon its argument and doctrine. Descartes soon had a formidable list of objections to reply to. Accordingly, when the work was published at Paris in August 1641, under the title of Meditationes de prima philosophia ubi de Dei existentia et animae immortalitate (though it was in fact not the immortality but the immateriality of the mind, or, as the second edition described it, animae humanae a corpore distinctio, which was maintained), the title went on to describe ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... of my Lord Bute some years ago. Now I consider the present Earl of Bute to be 'Excels famili de Bute spes prima;' and my Lord Mountstuart, as his eldest son, to be 'spes altera.' So in neid xii. l. 168, after having mentioned Pater neas, who was the present spes, the reigning spes, as my German friends would say, the spes prima, the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the evidence set forth in the last chapter, is it not clear that this was a locality in which these semi-Pagan, semi-Christian, rites, might, prima facie, be expected to linger on? It is up here, along the Northern border, that the Roman legionaries were stationed; it is here that we find monuments and memorials of their heathen cults; obviously this was a locality where the demon-hunting activities of the Saint might ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... Cardinal Albani: "On this subject just at present I can give no information; But the Monsignor Venusto I will ask, for he knows always What in Rome is daily happening; Knows what in salons is gossiped, What the senators are doing, What is drunk by Flemish artists, What is sung by Prima Donnas, Even what the puppet-show is Playing on the Square Navona. There is naught the Monsignore Can't unravel and discover." E'en before was served the coffee (At that time this was a novel Beverage and rarely taken, Only on the highest feast-days) Had the Cardinal already Learnt ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... what special quality he demanded; and when his friends persisted in urging the production of his first, last, and only opera, Beethoven went into a great rage and declared if the subject were ever mentioned again, he would burn the manuscript. At one time friends begged him to hear a new prima donna, Wilhelmina Schroeder, the daughter of a great actress, believing that in her he ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... aware, forcibly taken up a thousand young girls in Ireland, and sent them to Jamaica; in 1656, while Sagredo was in London, he ordered all females of disorderly lives to be arrested and shipped for Barbadoes for the like purpose. Twelve hundred were sent in three ships. Ho veduto prima del mio partire piu squadre di soldati andar per Londra cercando donne di allegra vita, imbarcandone 1,200 sopre tre vascelli per tragittarle all' isola, a fine di ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... prima donna now, our little Margarita, a successful artist, a public character. "Margarita Josepha," Madame had christened her, for twenty years ago simple American surnames found no favour with the impressario, and "cette ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... wrong with a public conscience that countenances, even glorifies extravagance, all the while that women slave and children die of underfeeding and neglect. This feeling is intensified when he compares the thousands paid for a single hour of a prima donna's song or a playwright's wit with his own yearly wage laboriously earned. What supreme worth does art possess that it ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... cost of the parties taking them, under a penalty of $1 for each lobster so caught, bought, sold, exposed for sale, or in the possession not so liberated. The possession of mutilated, uncooked lobsters shall be prima facie evidence that they are not of the ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... music-master, ten years younger than herself, and with no fortune but his fiddle-bow. The marriage was most unhappy, and the Maestro Grandoni was suspected of using the fiddle-bow as an instrument of conjugal correction. He had finally run off with a prima donna assoluta, who, it was to be hoped, had given him a taste of the quality implied in her title. He was believed to be living still, but he had shrunk to a small black spot in Madame Grandoni's life, and for ten years ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... representation, I have no doubt it is good, as you say; but I hold, that vice is better shut up in the closet than served out for the amusement of the young. But lest you say I am not a man of feeling, I can tell you I pity the tall woman you call the prima donna; and if she would accept a word of advice from me, I would tell her to so square her example for the future, that she may be prepared for Heaven when Death knocks at the door, since she is a lady of so much beauty that it would be ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... grain had ceased, or bread had risen to more than seven sous the quartern loaf. It was melancholy to see the nobility, the army, and the citizens without their after-dinner amusement; and to see the promenades thronged with the unemployed divinities, from the chorus-singers to the prima donnas. ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... inner body. Adhibhuta: elements., prima, eyes, ears, etc.; Adhidaivata: sun, moon, etc. that control over the bhutas. Adhiloka—one occupying the lokas; Adhivijnana—one occupying the plane of consciousness; Adhiyajna—one conducting the sacrifices residing in the heart ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... fine, we pass it on her balcony.' I don't know whether you have a sweetheart, or whether she has a balcony. But if you are so happy, it's certainly better than trying to find a charm in a third-rate prima donna." ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... at the same moment another door near the orchestra admitted a small white butterfly figure, leading in a tall queenly apparition in black, whom she placed in a chair adjacent to the bejewelled prima donna of the night—a great contrast with her dust-coloured German hair and complexion, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... girl would feel that anything had been missing, but Marna seemed to be basking in the happiness of the hour. The great German prima donna had kissed her with tears in her eyes; the French baritone had spoken his compliments with convincing ardor; dozens had crowded about her with congratulations; and now, at the head of the glittering table in an opulent room, the little descendant of minstrels ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... cells, of course. Haven't I told you I know when I'm beaten. I'm not so blind as not to be able to see that there's at any rate a prima facie case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two's imprisonment as accessory after the fact—I think that's what they call it. Anyhow, I shall be in a position to prove that I am not implicated in the murder of this unfortunate nincompoop.' ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... you know nothing of women." There was a moment's silence. From a distant room, dimly seen through a vista of curved and pillared archways, a woman's voice came pealing out to them, the passionate climax of an Italian love song, the voice of a prima donna of world-wide fame. A storm of applause was echoed through the near rooms, a buzz of appreciative criticism followed. Drexley rose up from the seat where he ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... he accepted his Sovereign's offer. But this I will admit,—that mediocre musicians always get on very well with Royal persons! I have heard a very great Majesty indeed praise a common little American woman's abominable singing, as though she were a prima-donna, and saw him give a jewelled cigar-case to an amateur pianist, whose fingers rattled on the keyboard like bones on a tom-tom. But then the common little American woman invited his Majesty's 'cheres amies' to her house; and the amateur pianist was content to lose money to him at cards! Wheels ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... (Introduction to Professor Hering's lecture), and in his notes to the translation of the Address, which bulks so large in this book, but points out that he was "not committed to this hypothesis, though inclined to accept it on a prima facie view." Later on, as we shall see, he attached more importance ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... form, that might be angels in spirit—that must be, whether for good or evil—whom we never cultivate—whom we suffer to escape our tendance, and leave to the most pitiable ignorance, and the most wretched emergencies of want. The life that is wasted upon dahlias, must, prima facie, be the life of one heartless and insensible, and most probably, brutish ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... ladies none; the fireworks were bad and brief, and the waterworks the most absurd affair I ever beheld; the thing was overdone. To the people who would like to go to Vauxhall in fine weather, second-rate Italian singing and broken down English prima donnas are no inducement, a bad ballet in a booth has no attraction, and an attempt at variety mars the whole affair. Vauxhall is a delightful place to go to in fine weather with a pleasant party; give us space to walk, light up that space, and shelter us from the elements, set ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... cum prima in praelia taurus Terrificos ciet, atque irasci in cornua tentat, Arboris obnixus trunco, ventospue lacessit Ictibus, et sparsa ad ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... golden slippers and her rough homespun, silk. Rich! Famous! She saw the opera ablaze with lights, she heard the roll of applause. She saw the horn of plenty pouring its largess from the fair sky. Rainbow dreams! But Gretchen never became a prima donna. There was something different on ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... rate of fourteen miles an hour. It is certainly a startling thing to be told that I am dead, and that the distant hill out there is living. The burden of proof rests with the man who propounds the theory; the prima facie case is against him. Trees do not read newspapers; hills do not write articles. We must try to fix the author's precise meaning when he speaks of life; perhaps he may intend by it something quite different from that which we understand. And then we must see ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... in the task, and district attorneys and grand juries, throughout the country, were to be admonished to do their duty. If there was a fixity of prices in any commodity or product, or even approximately so, he declared, it would be prima ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... laboribus et patriae malis gravibus oppressus, In mari magno, Die natale revertente, ob. 13 Maii, 1746; aet. 33. Et reliquiae, ventis adversis, terra sacrata interclusae, In undis sepultae. Joannes, ingenio felici martiali imbutus, A prima adolescentia, militiae artibus operam dedit. Fortis, intrepidus, propositi tenax, Mansuetudine generosa, et facilitate morum, militis asperitate lenita. Legioni Scoticae regali, ab ipsomet conscriptae, A Rege Christianiss. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Again the prima-donna appeared on the stage, and again Beulah forgot everything but the witching strains. In the midst of one of the songs she felt her guardian start violently; and the hand which rested on his knee was clinched spasmodically. ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Home she would suck Lemons and complain about Draughts and tell why she didn't like the Other Girls' Voices. She began to act like a Prima Donna, and her Mother was encouraged a Lot. Lutie certainly had the Artistic Temperament bigger ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... Villedo's. While as for Morenita and Diaz, the mere idea of these golden stars waiting on me, the librettist, effacing themselves, rendering themselves subordinate at such a moment, was fantastic. It passed the credible.... A Diaz standing silent and deferential, while an idolized prima donna stepped down from her throne to flatter me in her own temple! All that I had previously achieved of renown ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... it, she had never been in anything before in her life, and no prima donna was ever more excited over her debut than she at the thought of this little recitation; but her pleasure met with a sudden check upon the discovery that a white dress would be necessary. She hadn't a white dress, and she knew it was hopeless to think of getting one in time, still she ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... his house first. But as usual he wouldn't say a thing. That old boy is certainly the mildest mannered hero of the day I ever went up against. The way he does dodge the spot-light!—it's enough to make one of your prima donna politicians die of heart failure. To do a great piece of work, and then be as modest about it as he is—well, Arn, I sure am for that ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... his most Norwegian accent. The bomb exploded. "I'd rather see her"—"in her grave, Mrs. Fridolin"—"Oh, you wicked, sarcastic Louie Bredd. No, not in her grave, but even as Isolde. Yes, I admit that I am converted to Wagnerism. Wagner's music is better for some singers than marriage. Prima donnas have no business to be married. If their husbands are not wholly worthless—and there are few exceptions—they are apt to be ninnies and spongers on their wives' salaries." Then she related the story ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... father imposed upon her, to play the viola da gamba, and sing old music, instead of singing for her own fame upon the stage. But had she a great voice? If she had, he would like to help her. The discovery of a new prima donna would be a fine feather in his cap. Above all, he was also curious to find out if she were the innocent maiden she appeared to be, or if she had had flirtations with the clerks in the neighbourhood, and he found his opportunity to speak to her on this subject in the first ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... reached the foyer she found herself surrounded by men and women whose frank interest was of the same well-bred but artless essence as that afforded a famous actress or prima donna exhibiting herself before the footlights. It was evident that she had a sense of humor, for as she made her way slowly toward the entrance a smile twitched her mouth more than once. Clavering thought that she was on the point of laughing outright. But he fumed. "Damn them! ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... siste gradum. Fuit hic lux prima Columbo; Orbe viro majori heu nimis arcta domus! Unus erat mundus. Duo sunt, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... of the body was retold, though more scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His book, Criminals I have Caught, passed from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was quite recent. The door ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... "Loro possono andare prima classa—PRIMA CLASSA!" said the woman in the corner, in a very high voice, as if talking to deaf people, and pointing to Aaron's luggage, then along the train ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Hence, those who are deficient in voice avoid the English stage. Miss KELLOGG, for example, never attempted English opera, because she knew that people who had heard ROSE HERSEE or CAROLINE RICHINGS would laugh at her claim to be "the greatest living Prima Donna," should she compete with those birds of English song. Wherefore, she wisely confined herself to the Italian stage, sure of pleasing a public that knows nothing of music, but is confident that a lady who enjoys the friendship of Madison avenue must be a great singer. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... that Paul was not in the capital of the Empire until long after that letter was dictated. The first Epistle to Timothy is dated "from Laodicea, which is the chiefest city of Phrygia Pacatiana;" but it is well known that Phrygia was not divided into Phrygia Prima, or Pacatiana, and Phrygia Secunda until the fourth century. [181:4] It is stated at the end of another epistle that it was "written to Titus ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Cretians;" but, as the letter itself demonstrates, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... thought, words and deeds will bear their fruits, his evil ones, theirs. To boast of Lay Chelaship or make a parade of it, is the surest way to reduce the relationship with the Guru to a mere empty name, for it would be prima facie evidence of vanity and unfitness for farther progress. And for years we have been teaching everywhere the maxim "First deserve, then ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... soprano, the prima donna, appeared and delivered herself of a song for which she was famous with astonishing eclat. Then in a little while the stage grew dark, the orchestration lapsed to a murmur, and the tenor and the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... was the first painter, though he may have been the first Roman painter, who made this sort of pictures, and he probably is the only one of whose work any part remains. Brunn and other good authorities believe that the wall-painting of Prima Porta, in Rome, was executed by Ludius. It represents a garden, and covers the four walls of a room. It is of the decorative order of painting, as Pliny well understood, for he speaks of the difference between the work of Ludius and ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... evening—hard for the mind and body—and she had lately lived on poor fare, and wanted the exercise upon which her physical constitution should support itself. At once these troubles were forgotten. Now was to come the duet with the prima donna. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... of three or more closely connected cases, in the practice of one individual, no others existing in the neighborhood, and no other sufficient cause being alleged for the coincidence, is prima facie evidence that he is the vehicle ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... idleness, their recklessness, or their vices. That was always my opinion. They besieged our door from morning till night, and I was obliged to help them, to look after them, to go to their houses; my family was worn out with these offices. But I looked upon beggary as, in all ordinary cases, prima facie evidence that there ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... that Meyerbeer's operas contain such strange scenes as phantom nuns dancing, girls bathing, sunrise, skating, gunpowder explosions, a king playing the flute, and the prima donna leading a goat, dramatic music owes to him new accents of genuine pathos and an addition to its resources of rendering passionate emotions. Through much that is merely showy and meretricious there come frequent bursts of genuine musical power ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... however, the handsome Count Orloff was mistaken. The poetess Corilla therein resembled to a hair the prima-donnas and heroines of the stage of the present day. She attached a great value to diamonds, and knowing that Russia was very rich in gold and diamonds, she always had an especially bewitching smile for Russian grandees. Had Count Orloff come in person to bring the diamonds, she would ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... On the production of Verdi's opera, I Lombardi alla prima Crociata, the Austrian Archbishop of Milan wished the Commissary of Police to prohibit the performance because it treated of sacred subjects. When it was recognised as one of the accelerating causes of the revolution, he drily remarked ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... prima inscrizion ch'agli occhi occorre, Con lungo honor Lucrezia Borgia noma, La cui bellezza ed onesta preporre Debbe all' antiqua la sua patria Roma. I duo che voluto han sopra se torre Tanto eccellente ed onorata soma, Noma lo scritto: Antonio ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... ordinary meaning of the word, but a kind of "recitative" or "declamation." The great French singer, Madame Viardot Garcia, was asked on one occasion in a private circle to sing the part of Isolde. She took the score and sang it a prima vista to Klindworth's accompaniment. On being told that in Germany singers could not be found to undertake the part, alleging that it was too difficult and unmelodious, she naively asked whether German singers were not ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... burden, 'Dormi, o bella, o fingi di dormir,' of which the melody was fully worthy. But the most successful of all the tunes were two with a sad motive. The one repeated incessantly 'Ohime! mia madre mori;' the other was a girl's love lament: 'Perche tradirmi, perche lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri cosi!' Even the children joined in these; and Catina, who took the solo part in the second, was inspired to a great dramatic effort. All these were purely popular songs. The people of Venice, however, are passionate for operas. Therefore we had duets and solos ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... on that song last night," he went on. "There was a time when that wouldn't have been a starter for you, eh? Did you know Stella used to warble like a prima ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... to rate temperament too high and art too low, and to tolerate singers whose voice-production is atrocious, simply because their temperament or personality interests them. Take a case in point: The Croatian prima donna, Milka Ternina, whose art ranges from Tosca to Isolde, sings (in "Tosca") the invocation to the Virgin which precedes the killing of Scarpia, with a wealth of voice combined with a power of dramatic ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... io l'ho veduto in simili circostanze ne ricordero una che risguarda i suoi sentimenti di amicizia. Pochi giorni prima di lasciare Pisa eravamo verso sera insieme seduti nel giardino del Palazzo Lanfranchi. Una dolce malinconia era sparsa sul suo viso. Egli riandava col pensiero gli avvenimenti della sua vita e faceva il confronto colle ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... there was Tenor Robusto, in love with Soprano and fated to be left at the post; Tenor Di Grazia, his twin brother; Giovanni Baritono, a Soldier of Fortune; Piccolo, an innkeeper; Fra Tonerero Basso, a priest; Signorina Prima Soprano, a bar maid; Signorina Mezzo, also a bar maid, and Signora Contralto, Piccolo's wife, besides villagers, eight topers, musicians, five couples of rustic brides and grooms, and a dancing bear and his keeper. Let us not forget the mythical mouse and the ribbon from which The Garters ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... sacred. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man's laughter, which is the end of the other. A pun is prima facie an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious. I speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the subject is deep raving. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... everywhere, was a most unusual person (the whole dialogue is a glorification of the master). For the same reason he makes the following remark, which we can absolutely prove to be false:—the Assumption (he says) "fu la prima opera pubblica, che a olio facesse." Now at least one work of Titian's was, then, already to be seen in a public place—viz. the "St. Mark Enthroned, with Four Saints," in Santo Spirito, afterwards removed to the sacristy of the Salute. In other ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... lines therefore cost 34 francs. A great sum! Engaging under these circumstances a Prima Donna, at the miserable pittance of 40,000 francs, the answer of Mathilde amounts to much less, for every syllable would then cost but 8 sous: but even that is not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... singular, I now lost sight of my 'prima donna.' It would seem natural that a Delilah would, at least, have come with a jeering 'The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.' But no, not till this great tribulation was over did ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... the fears of politicians would insure its continuance. With Idaho and Wyoming admitted, they did not dare prolong the exclusion even of Utah, and so we have the shame of seeing an avowed polygamist with a prima facie right to sit in our Congress as a legislator not merely for Utah, but for the whole Union. At this moment scarcely a politician dares frankly avow unalterable opposition to the admission of ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... prima fin quel che v' offende, Che duo semi del ciel congiunga amore; E di donna infedel l' antico errore L' alta pieta d' un ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... sensation among the masterpieces of the Renaissance. They welcome you with open arms. That is because we know what the creators were thinking about. They are quite personal and familiar; they had as many moods, one suspects, as a fashionable prima donna. They give pleasure. This Faun gives pleasure and something more—a sense of disquieting intimacy. While intruding upon your reserve with his solemn, stark and almost hostile novelty, he ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Jenny Lind, the prima donna of Stockholm, is among the most distinguished of those geniuses who have been invited to welcome the queen to Germany. Her name has been unknown among us, as she is still young, and has not wandered much from the scene of ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Aen. iv. 166, "prima et Tellus et pronuba Iuno Dant signum"; commenting on which Servius wrote, "quidam sane etiam Tellurem praeesse nuptiis tradunt; nam et in auspiciis nuptiarum invocatur: cui etiam virgines, vel cum ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... become a member of or affiliated with any organization, membership in or affiliation with which at the time of naturalization would have precluded such person from naturalization under the provisions of section 313, it shall be considered prima facie evidence that such person was not attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States and was not well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States at the time of naturalization, and, in the absence of countervailing ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... question now arises why the enquiry should be continued any further, and thereupon proceeds to explain that the acknowledged distinction of a higher Brahman devoid of all qualities and a lower Brahman characterised by qualities necessitates an investigation whether certain Vedic texts of prima facie doubtful import set forth the lower Brahman as the object of devout meditation, or the higher Brahman as the object of true knowledge. But that such an investigation is actually carried on in the remaining portion of the first adhyaya, appears neither from ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... heard the applause and he saw the roses going up over the footlights until they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the petals fell and scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down this crimson pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his prima donna by the hand; a dark woman this ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... one of her early stories was published in Gleason's Pictorial, and for this she received five dollars. How welcome was this brain-money! Some months later she sent a story to the Boston Saturday Gazette, entitled The Rival Prima Donnas, and, to her great delight, received ten dollars; and what was almost better still, a request from the editor for another story. Miss Alcott made the Rival Prima Donnas into a drama, and it was accepted by a theatre, and would have been put upon the stage but for some disagreement ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... now,—my desire for money and the means I have taken to obtain it. My sister had the makings of a prima-donna. Her husband, of whose ability I had formed so low an estimate, had trained her with consummate skill and judgment. All she needed was a year with some great maestro in the foreign atmosphere of art. But this meant money—not hundreds but ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... treatise De Senectute, says: He, who sat near him in the first rows, received the greatest pleasure; but still, those, who were at the further end of the theatre, were delighted with him. Turpione Ambivio magis delectatur, qui in prima cavea spectat; delectatur tamen ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... himself to be anew created Viscount Beauchamp. Well, in Vincent's Baronage, a book of great authority, speaking of the Protector's wives, are these remarkable words: "Katherina, filia et una Coh. Gul: Fillol de Fillol's hall in Essex, uxor prima; repudiata, quia Pater ejus post nuptias eam cognovit." The Speaker has since referred me to our journals, where are some notes of a trial in the reign of James the First, between Edward, the second son of Katherine the dutiful, and the Earl of Hertford, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Plancio, ca. xxx.: "Nonne etiam illa testis est oratio quae est a me prima habita in Senatu. * * * Recitetur oratio, quae propter rei magnitudinem ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... table towards him, and in her vehemence clasped his wrist. The girl watched them both with a smile. It reminded her of a scene in an opera she had heard once in a strange language. The prima donna had looked and pleaded ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... asserted to be the commencement of a conspiracy for cheating the English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.[244] The violence of this language is a prima facie reason for doubting the correctness of his assertion, which on examination is found to be grossly exaggerated. Under Richard II the justices were authorized to fix the rate of wages, provided they did not exceed the maximum fixed by Parliament. The Elizabethan ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... about which the Platonists reason. And this gives the impression in him of something flitting and unfixed, of the houseless and complaining spirit, almost clairvoyant through the frail and yielding flesh. He accounts for love at first sight by a previous state of existence—la dove io t'amai prima. ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... opera for the first time in his life, and the effort seemed to have exhausted his social enterprise. So h remained still, with his glass fixed very constantly on Mrs. Campian, and occasionally giving himself up to the scene. The performance did not sustain the first impression. There were rival prima-donnas, and they indulged in competitive screams; the choruses were coarse, and the orchestra much too noisy. But the audience were absorbed or enthusiastic. We may be a musical nation, but our taste would ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... you have not told all,—not so much as the half of it," he said. His voice was low and deep, and resonant as a trumpet. "You, living here in the South, in Britannia Prima, can have no idea of how things are in Maxima Caesariensis, in Flavia Caesariensis, or on the Eastern Shore. One month ago, Constantine, my son, came from Deva. He says that these provinces are no longer Roman, but Saxon, and that for the most part without force or bloodshed. As for me ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... septenis propter quae psallimus horis: Matutina legat Christum qui crimina purgat. Prima replet sputis. Causam dat Tertia mortis. Sexta cruci nectit. Latus ejus Nona bipertit. ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... here in August than April!" exclaimed Lady Turnour, with the air of a spoiled prima donna. And then she shivered and wanted to go down to the car without waiting for the sunset, which, after all, could only be like any other mountain sunset, and she could see plenty of better ones next summer in Switzerland. She felt so chilled, she was quite anxious about herself, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... a funny Irish song, and received marks for style, though her voice was poor in quality; and Elsie Bartlett scored for St. Elgiva's by reaching high B with the utmost clearness and ease. The Intermediates grinned at one another with satisfaction. Even Gladys Woodham, the acknowledged prima donna of St. Githa's, had never soared in public beyond A sharp. They felt that they had beaten the Seniors by half ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... guarda: y estima se tanto que ninguno de sus vassallos le vee la cara sino vna vez enel ano: y si le han de hablar para tratar conel algo, le habla por vna zebratana: y quado de ano a ano se dexa ver, le da muy grandes riquezas. Son gente muy prima, hazen brocados, y sedas texidas de muchas maneras. Tienen en tan poco el oro, q dio este rey por vn pretal de cascaueles, tres barchillas de oro en poluo: porq alli todo quanto oro ay es en poluo. Cargaron estas tres naues quando tornaron tanta cantidad de oro en aquella isla, que ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... Clotilde and Ermengarde had wits as sparkling as their eyes. There was a manager of the Opera, a great friend of Villebecque, and his wife, a splendid lady, who had been a prima donna of celebrity, and still had a commanding voice for a chamber; a Carlist nobleman who lived upon his traditions, and who, though without a sou, could tell of a festival given by his family, before the revolution, which had cost a million of francs; and a Neapolitan physician, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... parts, 1786, 4to.—but unluckily, this latter is printed in the German language. Upon Spanish Typography (a very interesting subject), there is a dissertation by Raymond Diosdado Caballero, entitled "De Prima Typographiae Hispanicae Aetate Specimen," ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the name by which the prima donna had presented the old gentleman who had shared her travelling-carriage to the Marchese Lamberto as her father. And Quinto Lalli was his real name; but he was not really her father. Nor had she any legitimate claim to the name ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... where any planet was; we must, then, suppose it is an exception to Bode's law, or that there was a planet that has completely disappeared. As Cassandra would be within the law if there had been an intermediary planet, we have good prima facie reason for believing that it existed. Cassandra takes, in round numbers, a thousand years to complete its orbit, and from it the sun, though brighter, appears no larger than the earth's evening or morning star. Cassandra ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... perfection suggested is an absurdity. What exists is a vague emotion, the objects of which, if they could emerge from the chaos of a confused imagination, would turn out to be a multitude of differently beautiful determinate things. This emotion of infinite perfection is the materia prima — rudis indigestaque moles — out of which attention, inspiration, and art can bring forth an infinity of particular perfections. Every aesthetic success, whether in contemplation or production, is the birth of one of these possibilities with which the ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... Lord Byron/ Precedute/ da alcune avvertenze critiche/ Sulle stesse/ e da un discorso/ di/ Cesare Cant/ prima edizione napolitana adorna di figure incise/ Napoli/ Francesco Rossi-Romano editore/ Trinit Maggiore, 6/ ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... who's running this?" Barney demanded. Thank Heavens, Old Jimmie was one person he did not have to treat like a prima donna! ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... he was careful, and in his accounts exact; but the making of money and its accumulation were things that to him could safely be delegated to second-class minds. A haughty pride of intellect was his, not unmixed with that peculiar quality of the prima donna which causes her to cut fantastic capers and make everybody kiss her ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... rursum Aeolum sollicitarat; nec ventis modo 5 in nos saeviebat, omnibus armis in nos dimicabat, frigore acerrimo, nive, grandine, pluvia, imbre, nebulis, omnibus denique iniuriis. Hisque nunc singulis nunc universis nos oppugnabat. Prima nocte post diutinam pluviam subitum atque acre obortum gelu viam 10 asperrimam effecerat; accessit nivis vis immodica; deinde grando, tum et pluvia, quae simul atque terram arboremve contigit, protinus in glaciem concreta est. Vidisses passim terram glacie incrustatam, ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... classa—PRIMA CLASSA!" said the woman in the corner, in a very high voice, as if talking to deaf people, and pointing to Aaron's luggage, then along the train to the ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Mondschein eine Jungfrau sehen, die mit so anmuthiger Stimme sang, dass alle, die es hOerten, davon bezaubert wurden." But Brentano's Lorelei does not sing at all, and Loeben's just a little, "Sie singt dir hold zum Ohre," while Heine, like Schreiber, puts his heroine in the prima donna class, and has her work her charms through her singing. And it seems that Heine was following Schreiber when the latter wrote as follows: "Viele, die vorUeberschifften, gingen am Felsenriff ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... that sunset yonder, whereas some of our worldly friends would be busy dressing to go out to a bad play. We can sit here and listen to that bird singing his vespers, as long as he will sing—and personally I wouldn't exchange him for a prima donna. Far from being poor in excitements, I think we have quite as many as are good for us, and those we have are very beautiful ...
— Different Girls • Various
... a great queen of song;" and being inspired with great admiration for our own Australian cantatrice, who was great among the greatest prima-donnas of the world, I began to tell them a little of her fame, and that she had been recently offered 40,000 pounds to sing for ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... most sagacious young lady, and a very pretty prima facie case it is that you make out. I can see no proof that Mr. Kirkwood is not the same person as the M... Ch... of the medical journal,—that is, if I accept your explanation of the difference in the initials ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. |
