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Choir   /kwˈaɪər/   Listen
Choir

noun
1.
A chorus that sings as part of a religious ceremony.
2.
A family of similar musical instrument playing together.  Synonym: consort.
3.
The area occupied by singers; the part of the chancel between sanctuary and nave.



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"Choir" Quotes from Famous Books



... stood: "Son of the white Sea Spirit, high in rule, Storm-lord Palaemon, Oh, be merciful: Or sit ye there the warrior twins of Zeus, Or something loved of Him, from whose great thews Was-born the Nereids' fifty-fluted choir." Another, flushed with folly and the fire Of lawless daring, laughed aloud and swore 'Twas shipwrecked sailors skulking on the shore, Our rule and custom here being known, to slay All strangers. And most thought this was the way To follow, and seek out for ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... home from singing school—she warbled like a bird. A sweeter voice than hers for song or speech I never heard. She was soprano in the choir, and I a solemn bass, And when we unisoned our voices filled that holy place; The tenor and the alto never had the slightest chance, For Mary's upper register made every heart-string dance; And, as for me, I shall not brag, and yet I'd have you know I sung a very likely ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... had the forest sung so wonderfully over their heads, never was the wind so sweet and caressing, never at any time had the noises of the forest, the rustling of the breeze in the trees, the voices of the birds, the echoes of the woods, seemed to merge into such an angelic choir, so sweet and grand, as at this moment, full of ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... In Eden on the humid Flowers, that breathed Their Morning Incense, when all things that breathe From th' Earth's great Altar send up silent Praise To the Creator, and his Nostrils fill With grateful Smell; forth came the human Pair, And join'd their vocal Worship to the Choir ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... full of murmurs; The sky is full of wings; The earth is full of breath. With voices, choir on choir With tongues of fire, They sing how Life out-sings— ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody

... starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre By which he sits and sings, 20 The trembling living wire ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... bereaved, and for the dear ones waiting for us at home; the brief, practical address; and—to finish—the National Anthem, which one sang with dimmed eyes and a lump in the throat—it seemed to mean so much. No service in the finest man-built place of worship, with pealing organ and highly-trained choir, with sermon earnest and inspired, could have such power to move and impress, to convey such certainty of the near presence of the Almighty and the Eternal, as did these humble, informal meetings under the stars, the congregation dimly visible as it clustered ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... sweet crescendo as they turned into the pasture, fairly plowing their way through a sea of daisies. Behind them came two little acolytes, fair as angels, swinging their golden incense lamps; then followed six choir boys, chanting the Mass, like veritable della Robbias, in their red soutanes and exquisite, white, lace surplices. Next were the clergy, in robes of cloth of gold and rare Flemish lace, carrying the Host under a purple ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... them being forms of worship used before altars. Among the Romans, too, there were sacred dances: the Salian and Lupercalian being named as of that kind. And even in Christian countries, as at Limoges, in comparatively recent times, the people have danced in the choir in honour of a saint. The incipient separation of these once-united arts from each other and from religion, was early visible in Greece. Probably diverging from dances partly religious, partly warlike, as the Corybantian, came the war-dances proper, of which there were various kinds. Meanwhile Music ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... retained. If the preacher be not the celebrant, it seems to be in accordance with the Prayer-Book of 1549, and with old custom, that he should wear a Surplice, as having previously taken his place in the choir, and also a hood, ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... I looked at no one except that I curtsied my thanks to the Abbess before kneeling down by the grating looking into the choir. My grief had always been too deep for tears, and on that day I was blessed in a certain exaltation of thoughts which bore me onward amid the sweet chants to follow my Philippe, my brave, pure- hearted, loving warrior, onto his rest in Paradise, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... perform such an operation. The papal authority excommunicated those guilty of the crime and those upon whom such an operation had been performed, but received artificial voices, which were the result of accident, into the Sistine choir. This pretext served the church well and, until the year 1878, when the disgrace was wiped out by Pope Leo XIII, the Sistine choir was an eloquent commentary upon the attitude of an institution placed, as ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... a volunteer choir of fifty voices?" he said. "It was Stairs's idea, and he has carried it out alone. The choir consists entirely of bluejackets, soldiers, volunteers, Red Cross nurses, and boys from ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... and gold organ was subdued to a velvet whisper. Suddenly a boy arose behind the carved benches of the choir. He sang in a voice ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson

... wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons: he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday: the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir singer. With his mighty voice, he filled the church when he led the Magnificat at vespers. Our master wound up and regulated the village clock. This was his proudest function. Giving a glance at the sun, to ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... stillness, calling up the confused thoughts that take possession of the most sceptical minds, and compel them to yield to the influence of the touching harmonies of the human voice. The Church was coming to the aid of a creature that knew her not. The cure appeared, preceded by a choir-boy, who bore the crucifix, and followed by the sacristan carrying the vase of holy water, and by some fifty women, old men, and children, who had all come to add their prayers to those of the Church. The doctor and the soldier looked ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... 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 of a brass band, or the hoarse shouts of a ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... sorrow tire, This hallowed hour do Thou renew, When beckoned up the awful choir By pastoral hands, toward Thee ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... had joined the choir, came singing up the stairs and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F. Jerusha wrenched herself from the window and refaced the troubles ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... and ground floors easy of access with soft seats for Caucasians? Will the great chorus of Heaven be divided into two parts, a white division and a black division? And will the Hallelujah Chorus as sung by the white choir be more acceptable to God than that ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various

... taught the people. The sayings of that wonderful day are kept in the gospels, and are called the "Sermon on the Mount." There was no choir, no organ, no church made with hands, but the words are now read in every Christian church in the world. The preacher sat on a green hillock, His dark cloak thrown back showing His white tunic, and the spring ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury

... waves of people at his word divide, Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide; Even to the palace the sad pomp they wait: They weep, and place him on the bed of state. A melancholy choir attend around, With plaintive sighs, and music's solemn sound: Alternately they sing, alternate flow The obedient tears, melodious in their woe. While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, And nature speaks at every pause ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... and also that they had waited long. The consent, notwithstanding the hurry of preparations, it involved, besides the annihilation of her desire to meditate on so solemn a change in her life and savour the congratulations of her friends and have the choir of St. Catherine's rigorously drilled in her favourite anthems was beautifully yielded ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... ancient Psalm Chants. They are given in full score, and in their proper cliffs. In the upper part, however, the treble is substituted for the "cantus" or "medius" cliff: and the whole work is so arranged as to suit the library of the musical student, and to be fit for use in the Choir. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various

... his God were all given with the exactness of an ancient Israelite. No words could have persuaded him of the propriety of meditating when the choir was singing, or of sitting down, even through infirmity, before the close of the longest prayer that ever was offered. A mighty contrast was he to his fellow-officer, Deacon Abrams, a tight, little, tripping, well-to-do man, who used ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... across the river said confidentially to a friend that he was going to launch on the community "a legitimate sensation"—a boys' choir. My plans for getting the poor people to church succeeded. Such a thing as fraternizing the steady goers—goers by habit and heredity—and the unsteady goers—goers by the need of the soul—was impossible. The most surprising thing in these evening meetings ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... happened that there was choir practice that very evening, and that I was at the chapel an hour or so. When I returned, I found the three bachelors sitting around the open fire, smoking, and looking very comfortable indeed. Before I was quite in the room they all stood up and began to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... varied, as usual upon such occasions, by local talent. Leila MacDonald, who sang contralto in the church choir, and Mrs. Arthur Wells, who sang soprano, and Mrs. Jack Evarts, who played the piano very well, and Miss Sally Anderson, who had taken lessons in elocution, all had their parts, besides the president of the club, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense— So shall I join the choir invisible, Whose music is ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... were tragically violated. John of Gaunt had imprisoned in the Tower two knights who had offended him. They escaped and rushed into sanctuary at Westminster, but were soon pursued thither by the Constable of the Tower and a company of armed men. The two knights were in the choir of the Abbey attending high mass, and the deacon was just reading the words "If the good man of the house had known what time the thief would appear"—when the service was interrupted by the clash of arms. One of the knights escaped, the ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... photographs; where one superintends a collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his own choice, apart from his religious duties and the general labours of the house. Each must sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in the haymaking if he has a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although he must be occupied, he may be occupied on what he likes. Thus I was told that one ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... brings no enduring Love, nor any other good, out of pain; nor out of contention; but out of joy and harmony. And in this sense, human and divine, music and gladness, and the measures of both, come into her name; and Cher becomes full-vowelled Cheer, and Cheerful; and Chara opens into Choir and Choral.[52] ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... the liturgical spirit from her teachers, the daughters of St. Benedict in Lisieux, so that she could say before her death: "I do not think it is possible for anyone to have desired more than I to assist properly at choir and to recite perfectly the Divine Office"—may it not be to the influences from Le Mans that may be traced something of the honey-sweet spirit of St. Francis de Sales which pervades the pages ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... youthful fondness; the image is now dearer than the most sacred; there is a halo round it, like light from heaven: he adores its placid, eternal, changeless aspect; if it could move, the charm would half dissolve; he loves it—as an image! And then how rapturously joins he with the wondering choir of more stagnant worshippers, while they yield to this substantial form, this stone-transmigration of his love, this tangible, unpassionate, abiding, present deity, the holy hymns of praise, due only to the unseen God! How gladly he sings her titles, ascribing ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Furies. Speak not of thrones, dream but of glory and Hellas—of what thy soul tells thee is that virtue which makes life an Uranian music, and thus unites it to the eternal symphony, as the breath of the single flute melts when it parts from the instrument into the great concord of the choir. Knowest thou not that in the creed of the Persians each mortal is watched on earth by a good spirit and an evil one? And they who loved us below, or to whom we have done beneficent and gentle deeds, if they go before us ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... may be thus stated: 1. The ancients understood it to relate to the steps of the temple: of this supposition I shall speak hereafter. 2. Luther, whom Tholuck is inclined to follow, renders it a song in the higher choir: intimating that they should be sung from an elevated position, or, as Patrick says, "in an elevated voice." 3. Junius and Tremellius would translate it "Song of Excellences," or "Excellent Song." 4. Gesenius ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various

... gray old Earth goes on At its ancient pace, Lifting its thunder voice In the choir of Space; And the Years, as they go, Are singing slow, Solemn dirges, full ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... mountain, high in heaven. Let every good the king has ever done With this sweet incense mingled rise to thee; And every secret, every open sin Be laid upon this goat, to sink from sight, Drunk by the earth with his hot spouting blood, Or on this altar with his flesh be burned." And all the Brahman choir responsive cried: "Long live the king! now let the victim die!" But Buddha said: "Let him not strike, O king! For how can God, being good, delight in blood? And how can blood wash out the stains of sin, And change the fixed eternal law of life That good from good, ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... no sermon in either of the parish churches in Ely, but prayers only; and those of the respective congregations who wish to hear a sermon remove to the cathedral, where they are joined by the ecclesiastics and others who have "been to choir". Consequently, any one may "go to sermon" (I use the language of the place) without having been to prayers, or to prayers in one of the parish churches, or the choir, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... aproned pygmies engaged silently and industriously on sub-contracts; the main army of labourers had gone. The walls rose massively clear out of the white-powdered confusion into arches and high domes; and the floor of the choir, and a loftier floor beyond that, also rose clear. Perspectives ended in shadow and were illimitable, while the afternoon light through the stone grille of the western windows made luminous ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... words, as it is a veritable cathedral as to size and grandeur. The choir is immensely lofty, and constructed of granite most elaborately wrought in the later Gothic or flamboyant style. The nave and transepts are in the old Romanesque style, with solid pillars and low round arches. The church is beautifully kept, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various

... staying in the monastery, to humiliate himself in that manner as a public penance. The Prior only gave a little start, as if an electric shock passed through his frame, when, on taking his seat in the choir, his eye fell upon that motionless form. But he did not leave his place until the last prayer had been said, the last psalm chanted. Then he rose and walked deliberately to the place where Dino lay, and laid his ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... marching along in my proper place in the ranks of the company, stepping to the same step as the soldier in front of me did. Sometimes, when weary, broken down and worn out, some member of the regiment would start a tune, and every man would join in. John Branch was usually the leader of the choir. He would commence a beautiful tune. The words, as I remember them now, were "Dear Paul, Just Twenty Years Ago." After singing this piece he would commence on a lively, spirit-stirring air to the tune of "Old Uncle Ned." Now, reader, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... is very simple. Merely because la rue Geoffrey L'Asnier was built before carriages were invented, the man who gave it its name having doubtless dwelt there during the fourteenth or fifteenth century, as one could easily infer after inspecting the choir of our parish church. But last Good Friday, the Germans in trying out their super-cannon, bombarded St. Gervais. The roof caved in, killing and wounding many innocent persons, and ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... historic background marks most of Mr. Allen's stories. In 'The Choir Invisible,' a tale of the last century, pioneer Kentucky once more exists. The old clergyman of 'Flute and Violin' lived and died in Lexington, and had been long forgotten when his story "touched the vanishing halo of a hard ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... was more Jemima's idea of what such an affair should be than her own had been; with a bishop officiating, and a choir in surplices (rather weak-voiced and tearful, without their beloved leader) and a matron-of-honor in a very smart New York frock, and the little church crowded to its doors, and even spilling into the road beyond. Nor was ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... Filipinas were paying 36,670 pesos annually for one dean, four dignitarios, five canons, four racioneros, four medio-racioneros, and other inferior helpers, including the choir, a total of twenty-six individuals; 3,330 pesos annually is to be added for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... the singing boys of the choir take any great delight in music? the satiety rather renders it troublesome and tedious to them. Feasts, balls, masquerades and tiltings delight such as but rarely see, and desire to see, them; but having been frequently at such entertainments, the relish ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... ever rise Above thy lonely, sun-bleached frame; No epitaph of well-turned lies Shall be inscribed beneath thy name; No bells for thee a dirge shall ring, No choir beside thy grave shall sing, Yet hast thou ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... and Pagans. Sydney is divided into four parishes: St. Philip, St. James, St. Andrew, and St. Lawrence; in the two first of which churches have long existed, and in St. James's church the cathedral service is daily used, with weekly communion; and there is a choir, organ, &c.[138] In the two last named parishes no churches have existed until very recently, but through the indefatigable exertions of Bishop Broughton, which have been not unworthily seconded by the Rev. W. Horatio Walsh, and ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... Sir Daniel's. But look ye a little, what an excellent thing it is to be a Jack-of-all-trades! An I had not been a shipman, ye had infallibly gone down in the Good Hope; an I had not been a thief, I could not have painted me your face; and but that I had been a Grey Friar, and sung loud in the choir, and ate hearty at the board, I could not have carried this disguise, but the very dogs would have spied us out and barked at us ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... want of an introduction. Dolores was delighted to promise that as soon as she heard from Uncle Alfred, she would get him to patronize them, and the reading occupied several Sunday afternoons. Dolores suggested, however, that a goody-goody story about a choir-boy lost in the snow would never do for the Many Tongues, and a far more exciting one was taken up, called 'The Waif of the Moorland,' being the story of a maiden, whom a wicked step-mother was suspected of murdering, but who walked from time to time like the 'Woman in White.' There was only too ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... service were said about him, with Masses, obsequies, etc." After the body was removed to the chapel it was kept there twelve days, with "Masses and dirges sung and said everyday." Norroy, king at arms, stood each day at the choir door, saying: "Of your charity pray for the soul of the high and mighty prince, our late sovereign lord and king, Henry VIII." When the body was lowered into the grave we read of a De Profundis being read over it. God grant it ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... 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 voices trill Notes ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... village of Midlothian, by the wooded side of the North Esk, 61/2 m. S. of Edinburgh; has ruins of a 14th-century castle, and a small chapel of rare architectural beauty, built in the 16th century as the choir of a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... foundation of his fortune. He was given an old arm-chair while the others sat upon soap-boxes and nail-kegs. Cobb's Twins, William and James, were there, Emmanuel Howe, the minister's son, and Bob Wood who still sang bass in the village church choir. ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... pl. canonicals (priestly garments); pontificals; cassock, cotta (choir vestments). Associated ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... of simultaneous elevation and depression of the ground was in some cases as much as twelve feet; and several persons who were in the choir of one of the churches escaped by simply stepping on the pavement of the street, which was brought up to a level with the spot where they stood. Instances occurred of whole houses sinking bodily into the earth, till their roofs were fairly underground; but so little were the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... that historic morning of June the twenty-eighth, when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia Duchess of Hohenberg, were murdered in the streets of Saravejo. London, when he reached it, was a choir of a million voices not yet tuned to the ringing note of one. It was incredible that the storm, foreseen so often over the port wine, should really be bursting at last. Mediation will find a way. Not this time; the ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... angels meet thee; may the judicial senate of Apostles greet thee; may the triumphant army of white-robed Martyrs come out to welcome thee; may the band of glowing Confessors, crowned with lilies, encircle thee; may the choir of Virgins, singing jubilees, receive thee; and the embrace of a blessed repose fold thee in the bosom of the Patriarchs; mild and festive may the aspect of Jesus Christ appear to thee, and may He award thee a place among them that ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... of Rock River were amazed and horrified one Monday morning to learn that Dot Burland had eloped with the clerk in the principal bank in the town, a married man and the leader of the choir in the First Church. Some of the people when they heard of it, said: "I do not believe it," and when they were convinced, the tears came to their eyes. "She was such a pretty girl, and think of Mrs. Willard—and then Sam—who would have supposed Sam ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... cant and clap-trap. He preached Church principles with commanding eloquence, and he practised them with unceasing devotion. His church was always open, yet his schools were never neglected; there was a perfect choir, a staff of disciplined curates, young and ascetic, while sacred sisters, some of patrician blood, fearless and prepared for martyrdom, were gliding about all the back slums of his ferocious neighbourhood. How came the Whigs to give such a church ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... harmless and reasonable is refused a body here, if he asks it in the right spirit. So they are outfitted with these things without a word. They go and sing and play just about one day, and that's the last you'll ever see them in the choir. They don't need anybody to tell them that that sort of thing wouldn't make a heaven—at least not a heaven that a sane man could stand a week and remain sane. That cloud-bank is placed where the noise can't disturb the old inhabitants, ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain

... you rank me with the choir, Who tuned with art the Grecian lyre; Swift to the noblest heights of fame, Shall ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... steeds around, Free from their harness, graze the flow'ry ground. The love of horses which they had, alive, And care of chariots, after death survive. Some cheerful souls were feasting on the plain; Some did the song, and some the choir maintain, Beneath a laurel shade, where mighty Po Mounts up to woods above, and hides his head below. Here patriots live, who, for their country's good, In fighting fields, were prodigal of blood: Priests of unblemish'd lives here make abode, And ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... a congregation," said her companion. "The neighbouring country furnished few attendants, I fancy; the old monks and their retainers were about all. The choir would hold most of them; the nave, where we are standing, would have been of little use except ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... man had been plied with more than a dozen kinds of wine, each (I presume) very good, but altogether (I should suppose) calculated to remind the drinker of his head on rising in the morning. The cloth was now removed and after-grace sung by a choir, for even with two prayers this sort of omnivorous feasting at night is not quite healthy. I trust there is no presumption involved in the invocation of a blessing on such indulgences, yet I could imagine that an omission of one of the prayers might be excused ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... roofless, but the entire walls were standing. The small clerestory windows of the nave were perfect, and the large windows of the two transepts and of the west end were nearly so. Of the opposite window, which had formed the back of the choir, very little remained. The top of it, with all its tracery, was gone, and three broken upright mullions of uneven heights alone remained. This was all that remained of the old window, but a transom or cross-bar of stone ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... conduct the orchestra of the Gewandhaus there. This proved an important turn in his career. In 1841, Frederick William IV. of Prussia invited him to Berlin, where he organized the famous Cathedral choir. Returning to Leipzig, he founded the musical conservatory in that city. The sudden death of his favorite sister, Fannie, gave him such a shock that he died within a few months after her. Mendelssohn exerted little ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... 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 ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... Goat The Difference The Difference in Horses The Fire New Year's Day The Giddy Girl's Quarrel The Gospel Car The Infidel and His Silver Mine The Knight and the Bridal Chamber The Legend of the Lake The Man from Dubuque The Mistake About It The Naughty But Nice Church Choir The New Coal Stove The Sudden Fire-Works at Racine The Uses of the Paper Bag The Waters of La Crosse The Way to Name Children The Way Women Boss a Pillow The Woodcock Those Bold Bad Drummers Those Step Ladders! Tragedy on the Stage Trains Without Conductors Try to Save Two Shillings Unscrewing ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... and wave and fire In awe and breathless silence stood, For One who passed into their choir Linked them ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... outside the cemetery gates, and by help of a paper given to her in the office she found the grave of little Joseph. It was in a shelf of vaults like ovens, each with its marble door, and a photograph on the front. They were all photographs of children, sweet smiling faces, a choir of little angels, now singing round the throne in heaven. The sun was shining on them, and the tall cypress trees were singing softly in the light wind overhead. Here and there a mother was trimming an oil-lamp that hung before her baby's ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... chestnut alley, greeting here and there the church-goers, and walking on with them, chatting softly. They all remained standing a short time under the great linden, waiting until the bell ceased, until the church-door was opened and the minister appeared with the sacristan and the four choir-boys. Not until then were they allowed ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... a gold chasuble in the vestry, in readiness for the benediction. The peasant cried: "The Spaniards are in the orchard!" Horrified, the cure ran to the door of the church, and the choir-boys followed, carrying ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various

... the church is very fine. It is the most elevated spot on Fifth avenue. The length of the building will be 332 feet; breadth of the nave and choir, 132 feet; breadth at the transepts, 174 feet. The foundations rest upon a stratum of solid rock. The first course is of Maine granite, the material used in the Treasury Building at Washington. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... Sec. XLI. In the choir of the same church, St. Giov. and Paolo, is another tomb, that of the Doge Andrea Vendramin. This doge died in 1478, after a short reign of two years, the most disastrous in the annals of Venice. He died of a pestilence ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... 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; ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... to them simply the First Church; grander, by several degrees, than any other church in the city, having the finest choir, and the finest organ, and the most elegant carpets, and making the grandest floral display of all the temples, as became the First Church, of course; but to-day, this glowing, glorious August day, it ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... Music was established in London in 1710, with the view of promoting the study and practice of vocal and instrumental harmony. This institution had a fine musical library, and was aided by the performances of the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal and the choir of St Paul's, with the boys belonging to each, and continued to flourish for many years. About 1734 the academy became a seminary for the instruction of youth in the principias of music and the laws of harmony. The Royal Academy of Music was formed for the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... grave, anxious face, and Eustacie chiefly remembering her own white satin and turquoise dress, which indeed she had seen on every great festival-day as the best raiment of the image of Notre Dame de Bellaise. She remained in the choir during mass, but Berenger accompanied the rest of the Protestants with the bridegroom at their head into the nave, where Coligny beguiled the time with walking about, looking at the banners that had been taken from himself and ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not all in one direction. Many distinguished foreigners came down to Spain, to profit by the new love of art in the Peninsula. It was Philip of Burgundy who carved, with Berruguete, those miracles of skill and patience we admire to-day in the choir of Toledo. Peter of Champagne painted at Seville the grand altar-piece that so comforted the eyes and the soul of Murillo. The wild Greek bedouin, George Theotocopouli, built the Mozarabic chapel and filled the walls of convents with his weird ghost-faces. Moor, or Moro, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... devotion with which their forms of worship have been enriched for four hundred years. To ignore Angelus Silesius, Paul Gerhardt, Albert Knapp, Philip Spitta and their glorious compeers, would be to silence a choir that sang the praises of the Lord ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner

... the Middle Ages, particularly from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. The capital of a column was the favourite place for the indulgence of the mason's taste in caricature; the misereres, or folding scats of the choir, for that of the wood-carver. It is impossible to conceive anything more droll than many of the scenes depicted on these ancient benches. Emblematic pictures of the months, secular games of all kinds, or illustrations ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... thousand times ten thousand and thousand of thousands" shall sing, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and blessing." O that my poor voice may join that celestial choir!—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... cast but a chill and feeble light into the vast cavern, so that the choir and chapels are buried in perpetual twilight. The windows in the vestibule do very little towards the illumination of the interior. At the extremity of the nave, which is raised on steps to form a choir, anciently stood the high altar, but this has been removed. ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... was the last revolutionary hero of the county. An oration was delivered in the meeting-house; and the brass band of Welbury played "My country, 'tis of thee," all the way from the meeting-house to the graveyard gate. After the grave was filled up, guns were fired above it, and the Welbury village choir sang an anthem. The crowd, the music, the firing of guns, produced an ineffaceable impression upon Hetty's mind. While her grandfather's body lay in the house, she had wept inconsolably. But as soon as the funeral services ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... at length, after much self-denial of its members, was almost free from debt, and whose pulpit was adorned with the gifted and talented Dr. Potts! who could give up their cushioned and carpeted pews, the choice choir, the grand organ, and the many sweet Christian associations of past years, and throw in their lot with a little handfull of Jesus' praying disciples, who had few possessions, save that faith which made them lovingly cling to their ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... there was the organist up aloft, and doubtless an assistant to blow the bellows. If either of them should chance to glance down into the body of the church at the moment when the fugitives happened to be making for the chosen spot, all would be lost. For instance, the choir stalls rose in tiers one behind another, and that of course meant that beneath the floor of the rearmost tier there would be a hollow space amply sufficient to conceal a dozen men—if they could but obtain access to it. ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... grasped fully through man's emotional nature. There is no quicker or surer way to get to the heart of a composition than by performing it, and since participation in chorus singing is of necessity unselfish and creative of sympathy, there is no better medium of musical culture than membership in a choir. It was because he realized this that Schumann gave the advice to all students of music: "Sing diligently in choirs; especially the middle voices, for this ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... choir of colored singers, young men and women, went forth from Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., and introduced a peculiar variety of songs and music, which they and their successors have carried with eclat well-nigh ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various

... In the choir are the renowned frescos of Dominic Ghirlandaio,—scenes from the lives of John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary. These, however, are but names and frames. The great merit of these paintings is that they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... all right. Kay is going to conduct. He's often done it at choir practices when Mulholland ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... a parchment, Haf! (HAF takes a scroll out of a box in the choir and reaches it over to him.) You were blind, then, when I ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horse-back, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,—all this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole abbey so illuminated, that one saw it to greater advantage than by {81} day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest chiaroscuro. ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... did they guess the extent of the tragedy they were witnessing. There was no music, and the ceremony was brief and soon at an end. The only touch of joy, of festiveness, was that afforded by the choice blooms with which Mr. Wilding had smothered nave and choir and altar-rails. Their perfume hung heavy as incense ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... mansions of the dead Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire; The pealing organ, and the pausing choir; The duties by the lawn-rob'd prelate paid; And the last words, that dust to dust convey'd! While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend, Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. Oh gone for ever! take this long adieu; And sleep in peace, next thy lov'd Montague. ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... on the stairs. The door opened. A choir boy appeared, followed by an old priest in a surplice. As soon as she perceived him, the dying woman, with one shudder, sat up, opened her lips, stammered two or three words, and began to scratch the sheets with her nails as if she had ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... I in endless day For ever chase dark sleep away, And endless praise with th' Heavenly choir, Incessant sing ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various

... it? She never has since, that's certain! And look at your name: it's 'Waitstill,' yet you never stop a moment. When you're not in the shed or barn, or chicken-house, or kitchen or attic, or garden-patch, you are working in the Sunday School or the choir." ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... thou mourn that the gray and mouldering door Swings back to the reverent crowd no more? That the tall and waving grass defiles The well-worn flags of the crowdless aisles? That the wild fox barks, and the owlet screams Where the organ and choir pealed out ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... Miss Felicia might say to Ruth. It was what she had said to HIM which made him realize the absurdity of all his hopes. Everything that he had longed for, worked for, dreamed about, was over now—the long walks in the garden, her dear hand in his, even the song of the choir boys, and the burst of joyous music as they passed out of the church door only to enter their own for life. All this was gone—never to return—never had existed, in fact, except in his own wild imagination. And once more the disheartened boy turned his tired pain-racked ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... way was clear. Within his soul was no hesitation. He was one of those fortunate beings who are not called to Wander-Jahre, but are born with sails set and seas charted. Already the baby of four little years was a musician, and as choir-boy and violinist he walked unhesitatingly and surely to his life work. He was graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in 1894, and married soon after the daughter of one of his professors. Then his life began, and whatever it lacked of physical adventure in the conventional round of ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... being said at different altars met their ears, for it was still early in the day. The Prioress passed the length of nave, and went beyond the choir to the lady chapel, with its slender supporting columns and exquisite arches, and there she, with Grisell by her side, joined in earnest ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... at each stroke the statue of a palatine sallies forth, bows to the king of bronze, and again disappears within the opening wall—twelve strokes toll as they pass, and twelve palatines appear, make obeisance, and vanish. Hark! from the distant chambers sound the choir of female voices; vague and dreamy the notes begin, but at each return they grow clearer and more defined. They are gliding on from hall to hall, ever drawing nearer and ever calling more loudly upon the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... green pastures to hearken, the little gold beetles stopped running among the grass, the fishes ceased to shoot about in the brooks. He sang long hours, and it seemed but a brief moment. The very church bells sounded sweet no longer; the folk left the choir songs of the priests and ran to hear him. All who heard his voice were heart-sick after the singer, so grand and sweet ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... waiting outside alone until they should return from their devotions. So he seated himself at the back, and after a brief, jaunty glance at the sunburnt, shaggy congregation, made himself as comfortable as might be. He had not seen a face worth keeping his eyes open for. The simple choir and simple fold gathered for even-song, and paid him no attention on their part—a rough American bound for the mines was no longer anything but an object ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... usually, however, the social affairs of the school alone which cause the girl to develop the habit of too many evenings away from home. It is the school party plus the church social, plus the moving pictures, plus the girls' club, plus the theater, plus choir practice, plus the informal evening at her chum's, plus a dozen other dissipations, that in the course of a few years change a quiet, home-loving little schoolgirl into a ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... one was yet in the church. A Reader was reciting the Hours in the choir. His voice, sometimes interrupted by a cough, sounded monotonously, rising and falling by turns. Lavretsky placed himself at a little distance from the door. The worshippers arrived, one after another, stopped, crossed themselves, and ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... Scriptures there are ideas which seem to overtask the powers of human language. I sat down with Mrs. M. in one of the little compartments, or stalls, as they are called, into which the galleries are divided, and which are richly carved in black oak. The whole service was chanted by a choir expressly trained for the purpose. Some of the performers are boys of about thirteen years, and of beautiful countenances. There is a peculiar manner of reading the service practised in the cathedrals, which is called ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... of stone, and its interior is a great amphitheater. Special attention has been given to fresh air and light; there is nothing of the dim, religious light that goes with medieval churchliness. Behind the pulpit are tiers of seats for the great chorus choir. There is a large organ. The building is peculiarly adapted for hearing and seeing, and if it is not, strictly speaking, beautiful in itself, it is beautiful when it is filled with encircling rows ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... directions, from 1. 100, respect this species of the drama only. The application of what he had said concerning music, is then most naturally made, I. to the tibia, the music of the acts; and, 2. to fides, that of the choir: thus confining himself, as the tenor of this part required, to tragedy only. Hence is seen the mistake, not only of M. Dacier, whose comment is in every view insupportable; but, as was hinted, of ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... considered indispensable, duly to scatter round that each might have his appropriate portion, the crumbs of salvation he dispensed, and "gave out" an appropriate hymn, in which the Supreme Being was acknowledged as the Ruler of the Seasons. This was sung, it must be confessed, by a sadly shrunken choir, stoutly supported, however, by the congregation in the body of the meeting-house, without the sound of tabret, or harp, or other musical instruments; for in those days not even the flute or grave bass-viol, those pioneers of the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... 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; When suddenly his mantle wide His hands impatient flung aside, And, lo! he met their wondering eyes Complete in all ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... Temple-bar she was again entertained with songs, sung in concert by a choir of men and boys; and having from thence proceeded to Westminster, she returned the lord mayor thanks for his good offices, and those of the citizens, that day. The day after, the lord mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs, assisted at the coronation, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... more at their ease, and chatted freely with me. Marjorie told me that her father had sent the paper. Father was going to preach on Sunday; he preached every Sunday, and numbers of people came, and Jack was in the choir. ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton

... asleep, engrossed by these mysterious influences and impressions, I thought I heard celestial sounds upon mine ear; vibrating music's rapturous strain, as though an heavenly choir were near, dispensing melody and pain. As though some angels swept the strings, of harps ethereal o'er me hung, and fann'd me, as with seraph's wings, while thus the voices sweetly sung: "Be bold of heart, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... organ. I remember well Sir Robert Stewart's novel setting of "God save the Queen." The men sang it first in unison to the music of the massed military bands outside the Cathedral, the boys singing a "Faux Bourdon" above it. Then the organ took it up, the full choir joining in ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... Laughingstocks that the reader who wishes to become intimately acquainted with Mr. Hardy as a moralist most frequently recurs. We notice here more than elsewhere in his poems Mr. Hardy's sympathy with the local music of Wessex, and especially with its expression by the village choir, which he uses as a spiritual symbol. Quite a large section of Time's Laughingstocks takes us to the old-fashioned gallery of some church, where the minstrels are bowing "New Sabbath" or "Mount Ephraim," or to a later scene where the ghosts, in whose melancholy apparition Mr. Hardy ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... turn in the same direction; and presently there came: first the trumpeters on spirited horses, and these ranged themselves on each side of the road by the shore leading to the scene of the "marriage." In front of them the choir of women took their stand to the left and, on the right, the men who had marched after them. All alike were arrayed in light sea-green garments, and loaded with lotos-flowers. The women's hair, twined with white blossoms, flowed over their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 417 feet long, 156 feet wide, and 110 feet high, is the most interesting portion of this massive structure. The vaulting of this great nave is supported by seventy-five huge pillars. The pulpit is a masterpiece of modern wood-carving. The choir and sanctuary are set off by costly railings, and are beautifully adorned by reliefs in wood and stone. The organ, with 6,000 pipes, is one of the finest in Europe. "The choir has a reputation for plain ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... always ready for lectures and concerts, marching off to the hall with me on his arm as proudly as if I had been the most bewitching damsel. Excepting on Saturday, when I was usually engaged at the choir rehearsal, we were rarely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various



Words linked to "Choir" :   chancel, chorister, bema, sing, sanctuary, chorus, set, choir loft, choir school, music, consort, area, choral



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