"Choir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... love of daring. His mother and brother had always been his primary thought; and his recreations were of the sober-sided sort—the chess club, the institute, the choral society. He was a useful, though not a distinguished, member of the choir of St. Basil's Church, and a punctual and diligent Sunday-school teacher of the least interesting boys. To most of the world of Hurminster he was almost invisible, to the rest utterly insignificant. Even his mother was far less occupied ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beauty and significance of that glorious art and science which may be proved to be based upon laws decreed by the Almighty himself. The one consideration that, in all probability, no single musical sound comes to us alone, but each one is accompanied by its choir of ascending harmonic sequences, is sufficient to afford matter for many ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... so; but if she have either sense or ear, nothing would so predispose her to be cross as the squeaking of Mr. Touchett's penny-whistle choir." ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she used to sing in our choir, so that was a good recommendation for another. She got a fine place in the new church at L——, and that gives her a comfortable salary, though she has something put away. She was always a saving creature and kept her wages carefully. Uncle invested them, and ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... religious town—Tours or Orleans, for example—in the district of the cathedral or the palace, where the great over-hanging trees in the gardens rock themselves to the sound of the bells and the choir. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the need of Temple, when the walls O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls? That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows, Or decomposes but to recompose, Become my universe that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... time prescribed; and, after having walked up and down for five or six minutes, saw the very same person to whom he had spoken in Hyde-Park, enter the Abbey with another man of a creditable appearance. This last, after they had viewed some of the monuments, went into the choir, and the other turning back advanced towards the duke, who, accosting him, asked him if he had anything to say to him," or any commands for him? He replied, "No, my lord. I have not."—"Sure you have," said the duke; but he persisted in his denial. Then the duke, leaving ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... first of a series of preachers. He was listened to and applauded, but he said nothing new. After him followed the preachers: Gogol, Tolstoi, Goncharov, Tchehov, Turgeniev, Dostojevsky, and many others, like a choir, in which three voices are still the strongest and most expressive: Gogol, Tolstoi, Dostojevsky. What ...
— The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916) - Sermons On Subjects Suggested By The War, Third Series • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... most costly stuffs, precious stones, and embroidery cover the altars, vessels, priests, and even the very walls of the sanctuary. Music completes the charm by the most exquisite strains, by the harmony of the choir. These powerful incentives are repeated in a hundred different places; the metropolises, parishes, the numerous religious houses, the simple oratories, sparkle with emulation to captivate all the powers of the religious and devout ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... sufficient. But not the less the blare of the tumultuous organ wrought its own separate creations. And oftentimes in anthems, when the mighty instrument threw its vast columns of sound, fierce yet melodious, over the voices of the choir,—high in arches, when it seemed to rise, surmounting and overriding the strife of the vocal parts, and gathering by strong coercion the total storm into unity,—sometimes I seemed to rise and walk triumphantly upon those clouds which, but a moment before, I had looked up to as mementoes of prostrate ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... latest born and loveliest vision far Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy! Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-regioned star Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky; Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none, Nor altar heaped with flowers; Nor virgin choir to make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours; No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet, From chain-swung censor teeming; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... fidelity of her affection. She had followed my invalid wanderings, to be near me in want and prostration. I could have knelt in the aisle of the dim woods, with God's choir of waters pealing before me, to weep my gratitude. But as the figure of Heraine disappeared above, those other abhorred footfalls rang keenly below. Deep, rapid, and elastic, they were sonorously defined above the clash of the ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Beckfordians' match was the great function of the Beckford cricket season. The Headmaster gave a garden-party. The School band played; the School choir sang; and sisters, cousins, aunts, and parents flocked ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... worth while ... A life like any life ... I went to boarding school; was a governess; sang in a choir; then kept a shooting gallery in a summer garden; and then got mixed up with a certain charlatan and taught myself to shoot with a Winchester ... I traveled with circuses—I represented an American Amazon. I used to shoot splendidly ... Then I found ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the abbey church is Romanesque: a semi-circular choir, with three round chapels and the transepts. The nave and tower are of modern date. The pavement is covered with tumulary stones. Four children of Duke John III. le Roux are buried here, and one of Joan of Navarre and ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... were sung responsively by the choir, but before the end of the tenth century they were put into the mouths of monks or clergy representing the Maries and the angel. By this time the dialogue had been removed to the first services of Easter morning, and had been connected with the ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... either teach or tune the piano with a certain crude and idle skill. He endured a monopoly of what little business the locality provided in this line, and sat superior on the music-stool at all the dances. He had once sung tenor in Bishop Methuen's choir, but, offended by a word of wise and kindly advice, was seen no more in surplice or in church. It will be perceived that Oswald Melvin had all the aggressive independence of Young Australia without the virility which leavens the ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... Richardson lived now; and on that slope and hidden in its forest nook, among the birches and briers, the little schoolhouse where Cynthia had learned to spell; here, where the road made an aisle in the woods, she had met Jethro. The choir of the birds was singing an evening anthem now as then, to the lower notes of Coniston Water, and the moist, hothouse fragrance of the ferns rose ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gospel, they began ringing for the last prayer; Lavretsky moved a little forward—and suddenly caught sight of Lisa. She had com before him, but he had not seen her; she was hidden in a recess between the wall and the choir, and neither moved nor looked round. Lavretsky did not take his eyes off he till the very end of the service; he was saying farewell to her. The people began to disperse, but she still remained; it seemed as though she were waiting for Lavretsky to go out. At last she crossed herself ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... great Bard! Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air, With steadfast eye I viewed thee in the choir Of ever-enduring men. The truly great Have all one age, and from one visible space Shed influence! They, both in power and act, Are permanent, and Time is not with them, Save as it worketh for them, they in it. Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old, ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... was again restored. It was what is generally known as a most impressive service. All that a great spectacle can offer to God it offered. King, queen, princes, princesses, ambassadors, ministers, clergy, admirals, generals, and a vast assembly of citizens filled the choir and nave with colour and life, while the music was of that passionless beauty of which the English cathedral ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... in his surplice, preceded by a choir-boy, who rang a bell to announce the passage of the Host through the parched and quiet country. Some men, working at a distance, took off their large hats and remained motionless until the white vestment had disappeared behind some farm buildings; the women who were ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... minutes afterward he returned with a choir boy bearing a crucifix, and a sacristan who went before them ringing the bell to announce that God was coming to the ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... there will be a choir as good as those people who sang at the town hall, last Thanksgiving, and flowers, lots of them, roses in winter, even," he went on eagerly. "And you can hear a pin drop while I am preaching, only once in a while somebody will sob a little in the pauses, and then ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the enraptured organist who had played there for thirty years, and developed into a great composer. Omitting a mass of other absurdities scattered through the book, I will criticise this crucial point. There are no organs or organists in Russia; there are no pews, or aisles, or galleries for the choir, and there are never any trills or embellishments in the church music. A boy could skate to church in New York more readily than in Moscow, where such a thing was never seen, and where they are not educated ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... to a thousand aisles, A hundred thousand arches ... The loud lamb-choir about me ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... with alacrity, and taking his place in the circle of boys standing with their hands behind their backs, he lifted up a voice worthy of a cathedral choir, whilst varying the monotony of sacred song by secretly snatching at the tail of the terrier as it went snuffing round the legs of the group. And in this feat he proved as much superior to the rest of the boys (who also tried it) as he excelled them ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... a formidable document. Starting with "full choir and organ" which came to a million pounds, and working down through "boys' voices only," and "red carpet" to "policemen for controlling traffic—per policeman, 5s.," it included altogether some two dozen ways of disposing of ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... took Grandison by the hand was a certain Mr. Sedley, a professional man of high standing. Mary Sedley, the daughter of the latter was possessed of a remarkably fine voice, and was one of the ornaments of the church choir, so that the family were naturally interested in the advent of a new organist from England, under whose careful training the music of the church was to be developed and improved. It was decided to place Mary Sedley under the special charge of Mr. Grandison, and he accordingly went twice ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... of flowers massed all over the chancel, and wondered if that was its regular state. The pulpit and the lectern; the altar, which he easily identified; the stained-glass windows with their obviously symbolic pictures; the bronze pipes of the little organ; the unvested choir, whose function he vaguely made out—over all these his intelligent eye swept, curiously; and lastly it went out of the open window and lost itself in the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... theatre by an immense orchestra of various instruments; the more elaborate dinners by flute, harp, concerto of the two, singing, and such coarser and more exciting performances as were to the taste of the host or his company. The greatest houses kept their own choir and orchestra of slaves; the less wealthy hired musicians as they needed them. As for the Romans themselves, certain religious ceremonies called for singing of boys and girls in chorus; and in a purely domestic way the women of the house played on ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... and the tone is improved throughout. Till my boys are ready for a public school I had rather they were among our own people. No, Cherry, I can't do it, I can't give up the delight of him yet; no, I can't, nor lose his little voice out of the choir, and have his ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a stout woman with a wizened face and a traveling bag on her lap. "At early mass to-day the church regent again ripped up the ear of one of the choir boys." ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... pleasure, And I, can I refrain to swell their diapason's measure? With its own clusters loaded, with its rich foliage dress'd, Each bough is hanging down, and each shapely stem depress'd, While nestle there inhabitants, a feather'd tuneful choir, That in the strife of song breathe forth a flame of minstrel fire. O happy tribe of choristers! no interruption mars The concert of your harmony, nor ever harshly jars A string of all your harping, nor of your ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was the Sabbath. I was twenty-one that day. Marjie and I sang in the choir, and most of the solo work fell to us. Dave Mead was our tenor, and Bess Anderson at the organ sang alto. Dave was away that day. His girl sweetheart up on Red Range was in her last illness then, and Dave was at her bedside. Poor Dave! he left Springvale ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... seats whence Milton had heard "the pealing organ blow to the full-voiced choir below," Wordsworth too ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... "I would think better of the Intendant." Her gratitude led her to imagine excuses for him. The few words reported to her by Dame Tremblay she repeated with silently moving lips and tender reiteration. They lingered in her ear like the fugue of a strain of music, sung by a choir of angelic spirits. "Those were his very words, dame?" added she again, repeating them—not for inquiry, but ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... cold fog like the dinner bell of a boarding house, and in that yellow mist, which deepened with every minute, the white flames of the candles lost nearly all their starlike brightness. There seemed to be depression and resentment in the deep voices of the choir rumbling and rolling behind the screen; there seemed to be haste, a desire to get it over, in the nasal voice of the priest praying almost squeakily ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... treated me with harmony so excellent, that I believed myself among a choir of angels; especially when I beheld so ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... were sufficient. But not the less the blare of the tumultuous organ wrought its own separate creations. And often-times in anthems, when the mighty instrument threw its vast columns of sound, fierce, yet melodious, over the voices of the choir—high in arches when it rose, seeming to surmount and over-ride the strife of the vocal parts, and gathering by strong coercion the total storm of music into unity—sometimes I also seemed to rise and to walk triumphantly upon those clouds, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the little green barrel, the capsules, sticky with ceruse, and the piles of shavings lying around the benches. They had doubtless imagined all sorts of ceremonies, the observance of certain rites in bottling the miraculous water, priests in vestments pronouncing blessings, and choir-boys singing hymns of praise in pure crystalline voices. For his part, Pierre, in presence of all this vulgar bottling and packing, ended by thinking of the active power of faith. When one of those bottles reaches some ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... said, laying his hand on his heart, "I really was . . . lying! I am not a student and not a village schoolmaster. All that's mere invention! I used to be in the Russian choir, and I was turned out of it for drunkenness. But what can I do? Believe me, in God's name, I can't get on without lying—when I tell the truth no one will give me anything. With the truth one may die of hunger and freeze without a night's lodging! What you say ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... wuz a great occasion, The choir, led by Sister Morgan, Had called us thar to witness The ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... and as a first step I meditated a retirement to Littlemore. I had built a Church there several years before; and I went there to pass the Lent of 1840, and gave myself up to teaching in the poor schools, and practising the choir. At the same time, I contemplated a monastic house there. I bought ten acres of ground and began planting; but this great design was never carried out. I mention it, because it shows how little I had really the idea then of ever leaving the Anglican Church. ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... Sunday to the church, And sits among his boys; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter's voice, Singing in the village choir, And it ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... This struck upon the queen's heart; for it was she who had persuaded the king to put his veto, or prohibition, upon the banishment of the priests. When they were in the chapel, something worse happened. The passage "He bringeth down the mighty from their seat," had to be sung; and when the choir came to it, they sang, or shouted it, three times as loud as any other part of the service. The king's adherents were so angry at this that when the words came "And may the Lord keep the king in ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... the Temple which reared its massive front and glittering windows out of the darkness of the street, her ear was caught by the faint, muffled sound of some anthem the choir were singing. She drew the hood of her cloak over her face, turned into the shadow of the steps, and, standing so, listened. Why, she hardly knew. Perhaps it was the mere entreaty of the music, for her dulled ear had never grown deaf to it; or ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... great, round centre table of yellow oak whereon should stand a lamp covered with a deep shade of crinkly red tissue paper. On the walls were to hang several pictures—lovely affairs, photographs from life, all properly tinted—of choir boys in robes, with beautiful eyes; pensive young girls in pink gowns, with flowing yellow hair, drooping over golden harps; a coloured reproduction of "Rouget de Lisle, Singing the Marseillaise," and two "pieces" of wood carving, representing a quail and a wild duck, hung by one leg in the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... sheep, O watch in the night, And the glory, the message, the choir; 'Twas shepherds who saw their King in the straw, And returned with ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... of this tormented choir; he is master of its psychology. It may be the decadence, as any art is in decadence which stakes the parts against the whole. The same was said of Beethoven by the followers of Haydn, and the successors of Richard ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... in and do my work—I shall only just be able to finish it before bed-time. Father must have gone to the choir practice. I wonder if he has taken Cecil with him, and if that is the reason why he hasn't ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... not in me!" Were we to range the vast universe to find its rival, we should return, like the dove to its ark, to the stable-door, and the swaddled babe, there to mingle human voices with the heavenly choir—singing, Glory ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... was a small house opposite the village church. I walked over to it after breakfast through the fields and by lovely green lanes as deep as the lanes of Devonshire, with M. Pierre de Witt and one of his kinsmen. The mass was going on in the village church, and the singing of the choir seemed to me at least as fitting an accompaniment to the expression by the sovereign people of their sovereign will through bits of white paper—Mr. Whittier's 'noiseless snowflakes'—as the braying ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Aquitaine, but rather by using the Norman and Angevin styles side by side. In the nave of St. Julian's itself, an Angevin clerestory and vault is set upon an arcade and triforium which may be called Norman. At La Couture the nave has wholly given way to an Angevin rebuilding, while the choir remains Norman, with a touch of earlier days about it. In the third great church of Le Mans, that of Le Pre, the Angevin influence does not come in at all. In the department of military architecture, Sir Francis Palgrave ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... Gregory (Orat. iv. p. 119, 120) compares this supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral honors of Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir of angels.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... acolyte Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight, As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's amen. Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when Too vehement light dilated my ideal, For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again, As now these ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... and musician. Originally living in central India, he seems to have wandered far and wide exercising his office, and reciting or singing his poem—a sacred epic, more thrilling to the ears of India than the wrath of Achilles, or the voyages of Ulysses. We are told that Asvaghosha took a choir of musicians with him, and many were converted to Buddhism through the combined persuasiveness of poetry and preaching. The present life of Buddha, although it labors under the disadvantage of transfusion from Sanscrit into Chinese, and from Chinese into English, is by no means destitute ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... a hundred lofty windows bathed the clustering pillars, the magnificent nave and choir in a soft, roseate glow. To the girls it seemed that all the glory, all the romance, all the pomp and splendid grandeur of ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... for his red hair and innumerable freckles—an Irish boy with the face of a choir-singer, and eyes that must have been taken straight out of the blue vault of Heaven. This lad told about a "free speech fight" in a far Western city, and how the chief of police had led the clubbing, and how they had ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... them. The hymn-book which Dick had found, in his midnight invasion of her chamber, opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the Methodist and Quietist character. Many had noticed, that certain tunes, as sung by the choir, seemed to impress her deeply; and some said, that at such times her whole expression would change, and her stormy look would soften so as to remind them of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... have reason to conclude, from what has been observed by astronomers, that if we were placed in such and such circumstances, and such or such a position and distance both from the earth and sun, we should perceive the former to move among the choir of the planets, and appearing in all respects like one of them; and this, by the established rules of nature which we have no reason to mistrust, is reasonably collected ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... they could almost throw their minds back through the centuries, and imagine they heard the vesper bell tolling from the tower overhead, and the slow footfalls of the monks pacing round the cloister to those carved seats in the choir of which the very ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... may have half as much of the man in you at thirty as he has," returns my uncle mentally measuring me with that stern eye of his. At that information, my heart gave a curious, jubilant thud. Henceforth, I no longer looked upon Mr. Hamilton with the same awe that a choir boy entertains for a bishop. Something of comradeship sprang up between us, and before that year had passed we were as boon companions as man and boy could be. But Hamilton presently spoiled it all by fulfilling my uncle's prediction and finding a wife, a beautiful, fair-haired, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... up their ears behind the depot and eyeing askance the train just beginning to move away. The Markhams were all good-looking, and James was not an exception. The Olney girls called him very handsome, when on Sunday he came to church in his best clothes and led the Methodist choir; but Ethelyn only thought him rough, and coarse, and vulgar, and when he bent down to kiss her she drew ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... "all the choir of heaven and furniture of the Earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... went on calmly: "The tune might just as well have been 'Down by the Old Bull and Bush' then, but it wasn't my fault, because when your hands and arms and feet and eyes and ears are all struggling to keep time with a village choir that varies its pace every few bars, you've got nothing left to release ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... till you'd be willin' to swear it was the heavenly harps of the Celustial Choir; an' she an' Dick used to loaf around in the moonlight makin' melody 'at was worth goin' a good long ways to hear. They sure made a tasty couple, an' all the boys used to like to see 'em together. In fact, the whole Diamond Dot was as match-makey as ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... trying to attend to it. I did attend pretty well, but it was mere attention, till I felt slightly softened at the verse—"Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting." For my young mother was very good, and I always think of her when the choir comes to ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... gambler with dice, that thou fearest the daylight?" At that moment appeared many different hosts of angels, and they called unto Michael: "Ascend, O Michael, the time of song hath come, and if thou art not in heaven to lead the choir, none will sing." And Michael entreated Jacob with supplications to let him go, for he feared the angels of 'Arabot would consume him with fire, if he were not there to start the songs of praise at the proper time. ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... watched his face. "I don't know," he said at last in a doubtful tone. "I am afraid you are taking too much for granted—I don't mean as to my good will, but as to my ability to be of service, for I suppose you mean that I should help in drilling your choir." ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... that the celestial choir Sings songs of jubilee at her release From this dull earth; I heard and am at rest; Who praise His hosts, praise the Eternal Sire. I know she is in Heaven with the blest, 'Midst flow'rs whose glory time can never dim Singing God's praise, and ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Canon Scott, who had accompanied my regiment from Caestre, and who had managed to make his way up from the front in spite of many obstacles, preached a very fine sermon. Eight of my best shots formed the choir. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... sitter—thinking, practicing the new songs he had got for her—character songs in which he trained her as well as he could without music or costume or any of the accessories. He also had an idea for a church scene, with her in a choir boy's costume, singing the most moving of the simple religious songs to organ music. She from time to time urged him to take her on the rounds with him. But he stood firm, giving always the same reason of the custom in the profession. Gradually, perhaps by some ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... church, the choir is chanting a hymn of yours; could you have written this hymn without its vigor in your heart? Oh! no, it must be there." And with trembling he thought: "There is nothing so small as to have no place in the government of God! Should you ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... the rostrum was furnished, the Doctor taking the other. I supposed him to be one of the elders, going to give out the hymns, or to assist in the devotional exercises. At this moment the organ—a fine-toned instrument—struck up, and the choir sang some piece—known, I presume, only to themselves, for no others joined in it. This prelude I have since found is universal in America. In all places of worship provided with an organ, a "voluntary" ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... little to the work of saving and succoring the weak, the helpless, the betrayed, the outcast and the dying, who lie uncared for at the mercy of human fiends, and often so near to the temples of God that their agonized appeals for help are drowned by the organ and choir! ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... Marjorie dropped a little in the rear. "He was thirteen last summer, and papa says he's a real, true musician. He'll bring his own piano with him; but I don't know where he'll find room to put it, for our house is full as can be, now. Then he sings, too,—at least, he used to,—in a boy choir. Haven't you seen his picture, Ned? It's homely, but it looks as if he might not be ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... rushed in particular to Farallone's head; his brain became flooded with it; his feet cavorted upon the moss; his bellowed singing awoke the echoes, and the whole heavenly choir of ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... he said presently; "you have been a comfort to me. Nothing but a choir of angels could ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... officer, last week, shot the leader of a gipsy choir in a St. Petersburg restaurant, not because he sang out of tune but merely because he expressed resentment at the officer's conduct towards his daughter. It is thought that the incident may lead to an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... apartment, monotonous recitals, which the loud refrain, "Heiti-na, Heiti-na," at times interrupted. The poor deaf widow sat with tearful eyes in a corner; her lips moved, but no sound came from them; only, when the leader of the choir broke out with appropriate gesticulations, she chimed in loudly. When at such a signal the other women present began to tear their hair, she did the same, and shouted at the top of her voice like the others, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... wes restless or trifling-kind, during the preachin', Mr. McGillivray would stop his discoorse an' ca' them up to the rail an' reprove them severely. I mind him summoning a grown man from the choir aince, and mak' him own his fault. Hey! He wer a graund priest, an' nae mistak'—wer ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... night in the surrounding hills, they keep up a concert which truly "renders night hideous;" and bullfrogs in countless numbers from adjacent swamps, with an occasional "To-whit, to-whoo!" from the sombre owl, altogether make a native choir anything but conducive to calm repose. And yet, amid such a serenade, with a few boughs for a bed, and the gnarled root of a tree for a pillow, did many of our fathers spend their first nights ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... forty-two. The whole number of men and women engaged in organized work connected with the Church is about one hundred and twenty-six. Some of them are ladies from the other end of London, but most belong to the parish itself; in the choir, for instance, are found a barber, a postman, a caretaker, and one or two small shopkeepers, all living in the parish, When we remember that Ratcliff is not what is called a 'show' parish, that the newspapers ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... he said these words, the long nave of the cathedral, the shadows of its fretted roof, the brown choir with its golden screen, the rows of seated figures, became like some picture cast upon a flimsy and translucent curtain. Once more it seemed to the bishop that he saw God plain. Once more the glorious effulgence poured about him, and the beautiful ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... It was a dark day, and the pulpit, having been moved from the south to the north side of the nave—farther from the windows—the clerk lighted the desk candles before the Vicar began his sermon. I asked Bell how he liked the service, referring to the new choir and music; he hesitated, not wanting, as I was the Vicar's churchwarden, to appear critical, but being too conscientious to disguise his feelings. I could see that he was troubled, and asked what was the matter. Then it came out; it was "them candles!" which he took to ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... asserted, that in Ireland a form of Romanesque was introduced before the Anglo-Saxon Invasion.[10] At any rate, the tower is a combination of Celtic and Norman work. As to Restennet, the present choir is a First Pointed structure. David I. founded there an Augustinian Priory, which Malcolm IV. made a cell of the Abbey of Jedburgh. The tower is the only one of the square towers which has very marked features of a pre-Norman character.[11] The building above the second story is ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... Norman. The chancel was finished, A.D. 1140, by Abbot Martin de Vecti. The great transept and a portion of the central tower were built by Abbot William de Vaudeville, A.D. 1160 to 1175, and the nave by Abbot Benedict 1177-1193. The fitting up of the choir is of woodwork richly carved. The greater number of the monuments, shrines, and chantry chapels, were destroyed by the Parliamentary troops. Two queens lie buried here, Catherine of Aragon and Mary of Scotland, without elegy or epitaph, monument ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... stranger. Her voice had a bead on it which roused a perfectly unreasoning physical excitement—the kind of bead which, in singing, makes all the difference between a church choir and grand opera. The glow they were accustomed to in her eyes, concentrated itself into flashes, and the flush that so often, and so adorably, suffused her face, burnt brighter now in her cheeks and left the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... grasp the situation! You must come down here, and you must bring your hands with you. Tell the bishop and the precentor that you are needed elsewhere. They will let you off. Of course I know that a village choir needs every tenor it can get—and keep; but come. If they insist, leave your voice behind; but do bring your hands and your reading eye. Don't let me go along making my new circle think I'm an utter dub. Tell your ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... choir. The sweet voices of the white-robed boys rising along the vaulted roof of the old church melted the hearts of those who, with excuses for their curiosity to their neighbours, ventured to go and hear them. The vicar had a natural talent, almost a genius, for music. There was a long struggle ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... used to designate those who "served" the Congregation in various ways. Until quite recently a Lovefeast, held annually in Salem, N. C., for members of Church Boards, Sunday-School Teachers, Church Choir, Ushers, etc. was familiarly known as "the Servants' Lovefeast", a direct inheritance from the earlier days. It is now more commonly called "the Workers' Lovefeast", an attempt to unite "Helper" and "Diener" in a ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... Temple Bar to Ludgate by two regiments of the city trained bands. The balconies and windows were hung with carpets and tapestry. On arriving at St. Paul's her majesty was met at the door by the Peers and escorted to the choir of the cathedral by the Duke of Somerset and the lord chamberlain, the sword of state being borne before her by the Duke of Ormond. The spectacle which presented itself inside St. Paul's on this occasion has scarcely ever been equalled. Opposite the altar, on a throne of state, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... for the pity (yes, and the admiration) of a happier time. But I wish that there were some way in which the chorus could enter. I wish that at the end of each chapter of stiff agony or insane terror the choir of humanity could come in with a crash of music and tell both the reader and the author that this is not the whole of human experience. Let them go on recording hard scenes or hideous questions, but let there be ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... Grail.] When all the work was finished, the temple was solemnly consecrated, and as the priests chanted the psalms a sweet perfume filled the air, and the holy vessel was seen to glide down on a beam of light. While it hovered just above the altar the wondering assembly heard the choir of the angels singing the praises of the Most High. The Holy Grail, which had thus come down upon earth, was faithfully guarded by Titurel and his knights, who were fed and sustained by its marvelous power, and whose wounds were healed as soon as they ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... and as other opportunity arises, be sure to visit some old building, be it church or mansion. In this way you will make acquaintance with many a fine specimen of old work which will set your fancy moving. In the one there may be a carved choir-screen or bench ends, in the other a fireplace or table. The first sight of such things in the places and among the surroundings for which they were designed, is always an eventful moment in the training of a carver, because the element of surprise acts like a tonic to the mind ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... Secord. How quiet are the woods! The choir of birds that daily ushers in The rosy dawn with bursts of melody, And swells the joyful train that waits upon The footsteps of the sun, is silent now, Dismissed to greenwood bowers. Save happy cheep Of callow nestling, that closer snugs beneath The soft and ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... armour upon it; and how once, when one of them unwittingly slept there, Achilles woke him, and took him to his tent and entertained him. Patroclus poured the wine and Achilles played the lyre, while Thetis herself is said to have been present with a choir of ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... the church, which stood quite close to the little rectory, he heard the choir singing the Veni Creator, and remembered enough of former visits to church services to know that the sermon was about to begin. Early for dinner, he decided to pass the time listening to what the Bishop might have to say. There were no vacant seats near ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... last there was a great Festival at St. Peter's; the only one I have seen. The Church was decorated with crimson hangings, and the choir fitted up with seats and galleries, and a throne for the Pope. There were perhaps a couple of hundred guards of different kinds; and three or four hundred English ladies, and not so many foreign male spectators; so that the place looked empty. The Cardinals in scarlet, and Monsignori in purple, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... continued to lecture. Ripley and Dana made an earnest effort to secure him a place on one of the daily journals in New York. In February, 1851, Dwight and Mary Bullard, who had been a frequent visitor at Brook Farm, and a member of the choir at Channing's church in Boston, of which Dwight was the musical leader, were married. She was a beautiful and attractive woman, of some musical talent, and of a most unselfish and winning character. They went to live in Charles ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... the virgin rapture that was June, And cold is August's panting heart of fire; And in the storm-dismantled forest-choir For thine own elegy thy winds attune Their wild and wizard lyre: And poignant grows the charm of thy decay, The pathos of thy beauty, and the sting, Thou parable of greatness vanishing! For me, thy woods of gold and skies of grey With ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... think or I may think of the one mistake in all her sad and loving life, I know and feel that in the court where her conscience sat as judge she stood acquitted, pure as light and stainless as a star. "George Eliot" has joined the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of this world, and her wondrous lines, her touching poems, will be read hundreds of years after every sermon in which a priest has sought to stain her name shall have ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence. . . . . . feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused And in diffusion evermore intense. So shall I join the choir ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... were settled first, and at last, when the boys and the younger girls were all arranged—when the organ was swelling high, and the choir and congregation were rising to uplift a spiritual song—a tall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory pew. The French-gray ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... this proud king was sitting in his place at church, at vesper service; his courtiers were about him, in their bright garments, and he himself was dressed in his royal robes. The choir was chanting the Latin service, and as the beautiful voices swelled louder, the king noticed one particular verse which seemed to be repeated again and again. He turned to a learned clerk at his side and asked what those words meant, ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... their names like a fragment from a choir book, from Homer to Victor Hugo. Then his glance would seek another head equally glorious although less white, with blonde and grizzled beard, rubicund nose and bilious cheeks that in certain moments scattered bits of scale. The sweet eyes of his godfather—yellowish eyes spotted ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Cardea, for the glory of God, and the honour of St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the Cid and other good knights who lay buried there, and for the devotion of the people, to beautify the great Chapel of the said Monastery with a rich choir and stalls, and new altars, and goodly steps to lead up to them. And as they were doing this they found that the tomb of the blessed Cid, if they left it where it was, which was in front of the door of the Sacristy, before ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... humor rose in her from the ferment of utter fatigue and anxiety. When Paul came in, looking very grave, she told him with a wavering laugh, "If I tried as hard for ten minutes to go to Heaven as I've tried all day to have this dinner right, I'd certainly have a front seat in the angel choir. If anybody here to-night is not satisfied, it'll be because he's harder to please than St. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the baptismal font, the altar cloth, and the robes of the vested choir he insisted should be immaculate in whiteness. White, the color of the lily, he declared, was the emblem of purity. There were members of his flock so worldly minded as to whisper insinuatingly that white was extremely becoming to Colette King. Many washerwomen had applied for the task ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... larks' nests, and the larks possess the sky, Like a choir of happy spirits, melodiously debating, All is ready for your coming, dear Ritchie—yes, and I, Dear Ritchie, ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... to the heavenly strains of Palestrina, Pergolese, and Marcello. Sometimes the soloists sing Gounod's "Ava Maria" and Rossini's "Stabat Mater," and, fortunately, drown the squeaky tones of the old organ. A choir of men and boys accompanies them in "The Inflammatus," where the high notes of M.'s tearful voice are almost supernatural. People swarm to the Laterano on Saturday to hear the Vespers, which are especially fine. After the solo is finished, the priests begin their monotonous Gregorian chants, and ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... no word of surprise, but her whole soul was filled with wonder. The highest festivity and the greatest gayety she had ever witnessed was a choir tea-party. She had a most beautiful voice; in fact, neither herself nor any of those around her knew the value of her voice ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... And the birds and the breeze are ter me Lots better than high-toned supraners, Although they don't get to "high C"; And the church, with its grand painted skylight, Seems cramped and forbiddin' and grim 'Side of my old front porch in the twilight When God's choir sings its ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that such music would not have had any ethical significance to him, bad or good. Augustin lived before what we reckon the very beginnings of modern music, with nothing to entice and delight his ears in the choir but the simplest ecclesiastical chant and hymn-tune sung in unison. We are accustomed to an almost over-elaborated art, which, having won powers of expression in all directions, has so squandered them that they are of little value: and we may confidently say that the emotional power ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty— Be the good presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... we attended even-song at the cathedral. I shall not say what I felt when the white-surpliced boy choir entered, winding down those vaulted aisles, or when I heard for the first time that intoned service, with all its "witchcraft of harmonic sound." I sat quite by myself in a high carved-oak seat, and the hour was passed in a trance of serene delight. I do not have many opinions, it is true, but ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for about an hour about pearly gates and the golden streets of Paradise; and there was Mitch lyin' there, pale, his eyes sealed, just asleep, but in such a deep, breathless sleep. And they had the church choir there which sang. And one of the ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... good-will from the Governor of your great Commonwealth [Roger Wolcott] as well as from the chief executive [Josiah Quincy] of the capital city of your State. No one stands in this magnificent presence, listening to the patriotic strains from choir and band, without knowing what this great audience was thinking about. It was thinking, it is thinking this moment, of country, because they love it and have faith in themselves and in its future. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... minister of this sacrament is the priest, as stated above (Q. 82, A. 1). Consequently, all the words spoken in this sacrament ought to be uttered by the priest, and not some by the ministers, and some by the choir. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... as he spoke, his frame, renewed In eloquence of attitude, Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher; Then swept his kindling glance of fire From startled pew to breathless choir; 10 When suddenly his mantle wide His hands impatient flung aside, And lo! he met their wondering eyes Complete in all ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Father thinks it is jest as well to have one o' the girls set in between me an' Amos. The meetin'-house is full, for everybody goes to meetin' Thanksgivin' day. The minister reads the proclamation an' makes a prayer, an' then he gives out a psalm, an' we all stan' up an' turn round an' join the choir. Sam Merritt has come up from Palmer to spend Thanksgivin' with the ol' folks, an' he is singin' tenor to-day in his ol' place in the choir. Some folks say he sings wonderful well, but I don't like Sam's voice. Laura sings soprano ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... the tiny drawing-room both of which looked on to the vast and solemn cathedral, and the peaceful dignified Close. East Chester Cathedral is Norman, with a low, massive tower, a grand, majestic nave, and a choir full of stately historic tombs. The whole city is so quiet and decorous a place, that the perpetual daily chants and hymns of praise seemed to sound far and wide over the roofs of the houses. Ellinor soon became a regular attendant ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... gay and open about this Cathedral. The whole ritual is clear to view; there is a lavish display of scarlet in the choir upholstery; the music is singularly swift and cheerful; the whole tone of the place is bright and joyous. One cannot but realise how perfectly such a worship is adapted to such worshippers. Surely ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... have not read Miss Cleveland's book; but, if the author condemns the poetry of George Eliot, she has made a mistake. There is no poem in our language more beautiful than "The Lovers," and none loftier or purer than "The Choir Invisible." There is no poetry in the "beyond." The poetry is here—here in this world, where love is in the heart. The poetry of the beyond is too far away, a little too general. Shelley's "Skylark" was in our sky, the daisy of Burns grew on our ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Houghton," he exclaimed. "Do you happen to know if your brother is at home? I want just to speak to him about the choir treat." ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... The choir arose to sing, accompanied by the organ, and their voices rolled out under the vaulted aisles of foliage, with that thrilling, far-away effect of the singing voice in the midst of illimitable spaces. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... the children's voices in the choir sounded so sweet and soft! The clear sunshine streamed so warmly through the window into the pew where Karen sate! Her heart was so full of sunshine, peace, and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunshine to God, and there no one asked ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... golden tubes of the organ which as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals—gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense—threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and antichoir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter! with thy love which was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult; trumpet and echo—farewell love and farewell ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... for those early days, built chiefly of stone, which was fast superseding wood as a material for churches, dedicated to St. Wilfred. The lofty roof, the long choir beyond the transept, gave magnificence to the fabric, which was surrounded without by the cloisters of the priory, of which it ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... of the girls by name,' she said, 'but I have heard of Eloise Smith. She sings in the choir, and is a ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... and am far on the road to perdition," Elinor said. "I hurried down this way from choir practice and Uncle Lloyd's gone and left the lower door locked. It thundered so, and Dennie didn't come into the study, and nobody heard my screams. But if I perish, I perish," she added ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... invited to assemble in the church. Missael in a new silk cassock, with a large cross on his chest, and his long hair carefully combed, ascended the pulpit; the priest stood at his side, the deacons and the choir at a little distance behind him, and the side entrances were guarded by the police. The dissenters also came ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... work at the library the first thing and has been off and on ever since, and is now going to do it permanently, besides teaching a class in the Sunday-school, looking after the choir-boys, running errands for you, ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... ash-buds change their sombre suit, The orchards blossom white and red - Promise of Autumn's riper fruit, When Spring's voluptuousness has fled. Awake! awake, O throstle sweet! And haste with all your choir to greet This Queen who ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... which they had already made so noted in Paraguay and other lands. Their labors are thus more advantageously conducted, and many conversions result. At Carigara their church services are greatly aided by a native choir, who sing in both their own and the European modes. A letter from Father Enzinas praises the purity of the converted Indian women. Father Sanchez relates a notable case in his missionary labors at Barugo. The ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... Bishop says a prayer, And the choir sing "Amen," The hammers break in on them there: Clang! Clang! Beware! Beware! The carved swan looks down at the passing men, And the cobbles wink: "An hour has gone again." But the people kneeling before the ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... the Bay of Monterey, or of any other bay which was sheltered, or on which "the navies of the world could ride." Father Crespi celebrated here "the Feast of Our Father in the New World"; "or," he adds, "perhaps in a corner of the Old World, without any other church or choir than a desert." Portola offered to return, but Crespi said: "Let us continue our journey until we find the harbor of Monterey; if it be God's will, we will die fulfilling our duty to God and our country." So they crossed the Salinas again, and went northward along the shore of the ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... the order usually called Saxon, and from tradition is said to have been built in the time of Harold, predecessor of William I. But there is no history or written instrument of any kind now extant, concerning the origin of this structure. The two side aisles are of pure Norman architecture. The choir was built in the reign of Edward III. as appears by a license of the eleventh year of that king's reign, to the chapter, to get stones from a quarry in Shirewood Forest for building the choir. The chapter-house is a detached building, connected by a cloister with the north aisle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various |
