"Donna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the great poet is underlaid with romance and sadness. Born at Lisbon about 1524, he was given an education fitting him for a courtier's life, and it was an unfortunate affection for a high-born donna in attendance upon the queen that caused him to be banished from the land of his birth. After a roystering career as a soldier in Africa, he sought shelter at Goa, in India. There he wrote a volume severely castigating the home government for its official ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... around, but you're so contrivin' like, I thought you might find out a way." Memories of the footlights were temporarily banished upon hearing this wonderful intelligence. A puzzled pucker came between the brows of the little would-be prima donna and remained there until at last the exigency ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... be Wagner's benefit. Fifteen minutes before the curtain rose, he found the audience consisted of his landlady, her husband, and one Polish Jew. A free fight broke out behind the scenes; the prima donna's husband smote the second tenor, her lover, and every one joined in; even that small audience was dismissed. In this company die erste Liebhaberin was Wilhelmine Planer, one of twelve children of a poor spindle-maker. When the ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... that the piano, requisitioned by me for some special purposes of musical caricature, detracted somewhat from the restfulness of the haven. However that may have been, such intrusion was never resented; my Swedish prima donna, or my qualifications as a basso profondo, or a brass-bandsman, were always treated with the greatest indulgence by the ladies, and my high soprano flourished and positively reached unknown altitudes under the beneficent ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... important as the first lover. 'For,' said he, 'the small are of just as much importance as the great, in an artistic whole.' Then the hero demanded that the whole of his part should only be retorts on making his exit, for these the public applauded; the prima donna would only play in a red light, for that suited her best—she would not be blue: they were all like flies in a bottle, and I was also in the bottle—for I was the manager. I lost my breath, my head was quite dizzy! I was as miserable as a man can be; it was a new ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... couvrant de fleurs Tu lui rends l'air de la jeunesse. Du temps tu trompes la lenteur, Par toi chaque heure est une fete Democrite fut ton Docteur Anacreon fut ton Prophete; Tous deux pour sages reconnus, L'un riant des humains abus Te fit sonner dans sa retraite L'autre chantant a la guingette Te donna pour pomme a Venus Apres eux ma simple musette T'offre ses accens ingenus Charmant Grelot, sur ta clochette Je veux moduler tous mes vers, Sois toujours la douce amusette Source de mes plaisirs divers Heureux qui te garde en cachette ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... birds try our patience not a little. During the early summer I never wearied of watching the musical orioles flashing with their bright hues in and out of the foliage about the house; but when the early grapes were ripe, they took pay for their music with the sang-froid of a favorite prima donna. On one occasion I saw three or four alight on a Diana vine, and in five minutes they had spoiled a dozen clusters. If they would only take a bunch and eat it up clean, one would readily share with them, for there would be enough for ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... noble sala. "Oh, it's a magnificent house!" she murmured; after which I pushed her forward. When we had entered the parlor Miss Tita told me that she should now be able to manage, and at the same moment the little red-haired donna came to meet her mistress. Miss Tita's idea was evidently to get her aunt immediately back to bed. I confess that in spite of this urgency I was guilty of the indiscretion of lingering; it held me ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... would be worth having, and perhaps final. The great singer had the reputation of being very good-natured in such cases and was on friendly terms with Margaret's teacher, the latter being a retired prima donna. Margaret felt sure of a fair hearing, therefore, and it was for this trial that she was going to the city ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... saddle. He gayly salutes the Governor and General with a graceful sweep of his sombrero. He threads the crowded plaza with adroitness, swaying easily from side to side as he greets sober friend or demure Donna. He smiles kindly on all the tender-eyed senoritas who admire the brave soldier, and in their heart of hearts envy Juanita Castro, the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... Mustapha Fehmy, the Khedive, Tigrane, Yakoub Artin, and the other leading men. At Rome, as we passed through Italy, I made the acquaintance of many of my wife's friends, the most interesting of whom was, perhaps, Madame Minghetti, known to her friends as Donna Laura, and previously Princess Camporeale; and I obtained through Bonghi, whom we saw both at Naples and at Rome, an order to see Spezia—an order which was refused by the War Office, and granted by the Admiralty. The Admiral commanding the Fleet and ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... after such adverse fortune, be thus destined to occupy the highest position in the reformed world, is of itself remarkable. One of this prince's uncles, Leopold, is seated on the throne of Belgium, and one of his cousins, Ferdinand, on that of Portugal, in right of his consort, Donna Maria da Gloria, the daughter of Dom Pedro, king of Portugal and emperor of the Brazils, to whom, on the expulsion of the usurper, Dom Miguel, he was wedded in 1835. These princes of Coburg are ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... grand' mention D'une belle collation Qu'a la Duchesse de Chevreuse Sevigne, de race frondeuse, Donna depuis quatre ou cinq jours, Quand on fut revenue du Cours. On y vit briller aux chandelles Des gorges passablement belles; On y vit nombre de galants; On y mangea des ortolans; On chanta des chansons a boire; On dit cent fois non—oui—non, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... for Greybeards, produced at Drury Lane, 25 November, 1786. It owes much of its business to The Lucky Chance. See the Theatrical History of that comedy (Vol. iii, p. 180). Miss Farren acted Donna Seraphina, second wife of Don Alexis, one of the Greybeards. She ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... of the family was in repute as a metaphysician. This was interesting, because I had never before heard of a female metaphysician, although there were several cases of female mathematicians recorded in history. First among them was Donna Maria Agnesi, who wrote one of the best eighteenth-century books on the calculus, and had a special dispensation from the Pope to teach mathematics at Bologna. We were therefore very glad to accept an invitation from Lady Hamilton to spend an evening ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... "Fie, Donna Graciosa, you must not be too harsh with Eglamore. It is his nature to scheme, and he weaves his plots as inevitably as the spider does her web. Believe me, it is wiser to forget the rascal—as I do—until there is need of him; and I think you will have no more need to consider ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... day it rained; and Mrs. Delano read aloud "The Lady of the Lake," stopping now and then to explain its connection with Scottish history, or to tell what scenes Rossini had introduced in La Donna del Lago, which she had heard performed in Paris. The scenes of the opera were eagerly imbibed, but the historical lessons rolled off her memory, like water from a duck's back. It continued to rain and drizzle for three days; and ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... harlequin, buffo[obs3], buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello[obs3]; pulcinello[obs3], pulcinella[obs3]; extra, bit-player, walk-on role, cameo appearance; mute, figurante[obs3], general utility; super, supernumerary. company; first tragedian, prima donna[Sp], protagonist; jeune premier[French]; debutant, debutante[French]; light comedian, genteel comedian, low comedian; walking gentleman, amoroso[obs3], heavy father, ingenue[French], jeune veuve[French]. mummer, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... a question, Donna Violante! Not a man in Seville, not a man in Spain, but would send you gifts if he dared. It is not "Who would?" but ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... "Donna Maddalena," said Fabiano, "here is a signora who knows Ruffo. I met her at the Mergellina, and she asked me to show her ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... I? Oh! ah! We were waiting alongside the ship, with her lower chain-plates not a foot above water, for the donna to be hoisted over the rail, since she would not permit any of her attendants to precede her—though Heaven knows they were anxious enough to do so. By this time, too, after my men had left the deck of the ship, the crew had somehow ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... slippered feet about the kitchen premises—where he was carrying up from the cellar things that might freeze—ceased. He called "Good night, daughter," from the foot of the stairs, and the house grew quiet. But one is not a prima donna the first time for nothing, and it seemed as if we could not go to bed. Our light must have burned long after every other in Riverbend was out. The muslin curtains of Nell's bed were drawn back; Mrs. Deane had turned down the white counterpane ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... girl liked to think there were still old friends—friends of the family, at home, for whom, even should she live to sixty years of spinsterhood, she would never be anything but Miss Laura. This was as good as Donna Anna or Donna Elvira: English people could never call people as other people did, for fear of resembling ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... and he saw the roses going up over the footlights until they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the petals fell and scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down this crimson pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his prima donna by the hand; a dark woman this ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... Spain over there, Algiers over there. Creeping away to the left here, Nice. Round by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine Ground. City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, Porto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away to—hey! there's no room for Naples;' he had got to the wall by this time; 'but it's all one; it's ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... of music was the cause of the early modification of her voice. She wanted to sing everything she liked and she sang Valentine in Les Huguenots, Donna Anna in Don Juan, besides other roles she should never have undertaken if she wanted to preserve her voice. She came to realize this at the end of her life. "Don't do as I did," she once told a pupil. "I wanted to sing everything, and I ruined ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... Monmout donna six guinees au Bourreau de Londres, pour lui bien couper la tete; mais le miserable ne merroit par ces guinees, puisqu'il la lui coupa ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.02.09 • Various
... than one famous prima donna," said Alec, "she has made half a dozen 'positively last' ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... came another on the scene, and I suppose the play grew more entertaining to Mother, and Betty, and Molly, in the boxes. People don't think, you know, when they look down at the prima donna, painted, and smiling, and decked with flowers,—they don't think if she has a husband who ill-uses her, or a child dying at home. She has come there to make them sport. Well, there came an old lord,—a man ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... audience; I forgot myself, as I always do when once my soul, as it were, finds wing in music, and buoys itself in the air, relieved from the sense of earth. I knew not that I had succeeded till I came to a close, and then my eyes resting on the face of the grand prima donna, I was seized with an indescribable sadness, with a keen pang of remorse. Perfect artiste though she be, and with powers in her own realm of art which admit of no living equal, I saw at once that ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... subdued. She curtseyed again and again, not indeed with the timid simplicity of her first obeisance (so familiar already was she with the thought of the crowd's doom), but rather in the manner of a prima donna—chin up, eyelids down, all teeth manifest, and hands from the bosom ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Several weeks before Donna Sophonisba had received a letter sent from Flanders, and Ulrich's companion was well informed, for his wife served ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... frowning castles and embattled towns. And such an embattled town was this same city of Avila, in which, in 1525, lived the stern and pious old grandee, Don Alphonso Sanchez de Cepeda, his sentimental and romance-loving wife, the Donna Beatrix, and their ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... dearest Marchesa. I kiss your generous hand! As a matter of fact, I only told Donna Beatrice—may I call her Beatrice to you now, as I have long called her in my heart? I only told her that I had been unhappy, that I had loved twice—once a woman who is dead, once another who has long ago forgotten me. That was all. Was ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... utmost frankness and simplicity of speech. When McAdoo asked him at the White House if the present drive was satisfactory, he said in the most innocent way, "I am not there." Viviani, who is the head of the French Commission, is as jealous as a prima donna, terribly jealous of Joffre, (which makes Joffre feel most uncomfortable) because, of course, Joffre is ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... insisted feverishly: "You don't know. It may be awfully exciting! I have an idea that Coral's announcing her engagement—her engagement to Nick! Come, give me a hand, Streff—and you the other, Fred-" she began to hum the first bars of Donna Anna's entrance in Don Giovanni. "Pity I haven't got a black ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... planter of the Garden of Allah. Experimented with belle donna. H. is still in Who's Who, and multitudes of readers hope he will remain there for some time to come. Ambition: Sales. Recreation: Filling his fountain pen or cleaning typewriter. Address: Care of ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... more amiable than his own. It was a keen Toledo blade—keen enough to sever a hare. To nerve himself for the deadly work before him, he began thinking of a lady whom he had once met—the lovely Donna Lavaca, beloved of El Toro-blanco. Having thus wrought up his Castilian soul to a high pitch of jealously, he felt quite irresistible, and advanced towards the two ruffians with his poniard deftly latent in his flowing sleeve. His mien was hostile, his stride puissant, his nose tip-tilted—not ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... Hollande, et que depuis lors encore, nous n'y avons jamais trouve aucun produit de ce genre; mais notre commandant, sans s'inquieter d'une phenomene qui se rattache cependant d'une maniere essentielle a la geographie de cette portion de la Nouvelle Hollande, donna l'ordre ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... Donna Abreguardo. He now has his second wife, has the good don. By his first he has two daughters and a son. Young Don Ricardo is married and is at the Hacienda del Norte. The two se[n]oritas are of the marriageable age—oh, ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... one quality in humankind that really matters—softening, suffering and despair and turning away wrath, and as Donna knelt by the grave of the man who had possessed that quality to such an extent that he had considered his life cheap as a means of expressing it, she prayed that her infant son might be endowed with the virtues and ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... connaissent aussi bien que je vous connais, ils n'auront garde de vous elire.' La-dessus il se leva, emu de colere, rentra dans son appartement, et mourut quelques jours apres. Ce frere, contre lequel il s'etait emporte, fut precisement le successeur qu'on lui donna. C'etait un merite don't on aimait a tenir compte; surtout a un parent, de s'etre mis en opposition avec le chef de la republique."—DARU, Hist, de ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... 'La donna il palafreno a dietro volta, E per la selva a tutta briglia il caccia; Ne per la rara piu, che per la folta, La piu sicura e miglior ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... her condition, part of her expression. If at Miss Birdseye's, and afterwards in Charles Street, she might have been a rope-dancer, to-day she made a "scene" of the mean little room in Monadnoc Place, such a scene as a prima donna makes of daubed canvas and dusty boards. She addressed Basil Ransom as if she had seen him the other week and his merits were fresh to her, though she let him, while she sat smiling at him, explain in his own rather ceremonious way why ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... was here! She and Donna Teresa were always at the Villa. Once they used to go to Rome and Florence part of the year, ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... girls listened to the wonderful voice of the prima donna whose name has become synonymous with that of "Chu Chu San," the little Japanese maid. Anne wondered as she drank in the music whether this beautiful young prima donna had ever had any scruples about appearing before the public. Miriam was thinking that David would be ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Nature; enjoy 'em as we do Meat, Drink, Air, and Light, and all the rest of her common Blessings?— Therefore prithee, dear Knight, let me govern thee but for a Day, and I will shew thee such a Signiora, such a Beauty, another manner of piece than your so admired Viterboan, Donna Marcella, of whom ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... What I'd like—" he stopped and shut one eye and gazed, with his head on one side, at the unimaginative MacWilliams—"what I'd like to do now," he continued, thoughtfully, "would be to sit in the front row at a comic opera, ON THE AISLE. The prima donna must be very, very beautiful, and sing most of her songs at me, and there must be three comedians, all good, and a chorus entirely composed of girls. I never could see why they have men in the chorus, anyway. No one ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... Genoa," writes Boswell, "are no inconsiderable proportion of her people. These wretches flocked together from all quarters, and were formed into twelve companies." The Corsican chiefs called a general assembly, in which "On donna la Corse a la Vierge Marie, qui ne parut pas accepter cette couronne."[66] They were not, however, to be left long without a king, for the following year one of the strangest adventurers whom the world has ever seen made a bid for the crown. He promised the islanders the support of the ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... very condescending. Poor fools who tell us it! ignorant that where on one side is condescension, on the other side must be baseness. The rascals have ruined my physiognomy. I wear an habitual sneer upon my face, God confound them for it! even when I whisper a word of love in the prone ear of my donna. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... windows, their foreheads lowered, their eyebrows casting over their eyes the shadows as if of a profound fatigue. Beside the hall door loomed the white mane of Brantome, who turned, at an inflow of artificial light, to greet the small Italian woman that had recently become a prima donna. ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... conventional life, who, throwing off the fetters of an uncongenial and inconsiderate marriage, attempts to find happiness and independence in the cultivation of her own powers. She is eminently successful as prima donna, is brilliant and self-sustained—but fails to attain the imagined happiness, the Love-Eden so ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to entry, but outside the railings a great mob continually surged, and at such times as they could escape from their scholastic labours an army of students marched up and down singing: "Conspuez Zola!" to a tune roughly based on the air of "La Donna e mobile." Evening after evening Zola and his defenders had to escape from the court under the shelter of a cavalry escort, and on occasion the crowd made an ugly rush in its ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... for going," said Latisan. He followed her, and to her profound amazement she discovered that a woodsman could be as temperamental as a prima donna. "I'm going, too, Mr. Flagg," he called over his shoulder. "I'm going for good and all where you're concerned. I'm done with you. I gave you your fair warning. Send another man north ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... The pictures "Queen Prima Donna" and "Proxy" are two early nursery scenes of the many du Maurier contributed to Punch. They show the style, the flowing and painter-like stroke of the pen that revealed such a Rossetti-like sense of material beauty in his earlier drawings—a style worthy of ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... a small musical party, I heard Euphrasia Borghese sing, whom you may have heard, and who is to be Prima Donna at the new Opera-house, which opens on the 25th or 2eth of the present month. They begin with the "Puritani." It will be altogether devoted to Italian music, I suppose, from the tendency of the New York taste and the ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... is a common custom here, though you have the greatest plenty at your own table, to have two or three Mulatto girls come in at the time you dine, bringing, in a little silver plate, some of these high-seasoned ragouts, with a compliment from Donna such-a- one, who desires you will eat a little bit of what she has sent you, which must be done before her Mulatto's face, or it would be deemed a great affront. Had this been the fashion at Chiloe, we should never have offended; but sometimes here we could ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... dormant commission to the ambassador, which he was to make use of as occasion should require. Shortly after, he was appointed ambassador to that court, where he negotiated the marriage between his master King Charles II. and the Infanta Donna Catharina, daughter to King John VI. and towards the end of the same year he returned to England. We are assured by Wood, that in the year 1662, he was sent again ambassador to that court, and when he had finished his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... A prima-donna in the shining past, But now a mother growing old and gray, She thinks of how she held a people fast In thrall, and gleaned the triumphs ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... great Sutton," Davidge remarked, presently. "He's our prima donna. He's the champion riveter of this part of the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... very much smitten, but so, to be sure, were some of the Alcestes with the young ladies at Valparaiso. How we used to roast Owen about that Spanish Donna, and he was as bad at Sydney about the young lady whose father, we told him, was a convict, though he kept such a swell carriage. He had no peace about his father-in-law, the house-breaker! Don't I remember how you pinched her hand the night ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... he married her; now she had grown old Critical in their first glance at a prima donna Forgetfulness is like a closing sea He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two Her singing struck a note of grateful remembered delight It rarely astonishes our ears. It illumines our souls Madness that sane men enamoured can be struck by Obedience oils necessity ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... Troy, "All of which I saw, and some of which I was." Manuel Garcia was a son of the Manuel del Popolo Vicente Garcia, who brought the institution to our shores; he was a brother of our first prima donna, she who then was only the Signorina Garcia, but within a lustrum afterward was the great Malibran; and he sang in the first performance, on November 29, 1825, and probably in all the performances given ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... lady, Donna Clara Albitez, fell into the hands of Uracca. He treated her with as much delicacy and tenderness as if she had been his own daughter or mother, and availed himself of the first opportunity of restoring her ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... evening's entertainment particularly brilliant is the fact that it is to be graced by the dazzling presence of the peerless Donna Velvetina Peeleretta, who, as every one knows, is shortly to wear the diamond tiara ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... he seemed disposed to do anything which they disliked; adding, that Ganganelli would never have been poisoned provided he had had nephews about him to take care of his life, and to see that nothing unholy was put into his food, or a bustling stirring brother's wife like Donna Olympia. He then with a he! he! he! asked me if I had ever read the book called the "Nipotismo di Roma"; and on my replying in the negative, he told me that it was a very curious and entertaining book, which he occasionally looked at in an idle hour, and proceeded to ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... of an old Spanish Lady, the Senora Satisfacion de Mismar, who was the Palermo Manager's Aunt, made his engagements for him abroad, and played the Duenna or Singing Old Woman in his Comedies and Operas at home. Nothing could be properer than this arrangement, Donna Satisfacion being a Personage of exceeding Discretion and Propriety of Behaviour; so the two, with half a dozen more little Dancing-girls that had been hired to fill inferior places, started for Bordeaux, whence they designed to take shipping for Palermo. But by ill luck there was no Packet or ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... beautifully tortured, writhing and howling, and "Mahomet! Mahomet!" issuing out of their mouths, as they called on him in their burning agonies;—you could almost hear them scream. At the upper end of the room, under a splendid estrade, over which was an image of the blessed Virgin, sat Donna Isabella de Cardoza, mother to the bride, and near her Donna Ines, the bride, on rich almohadas; the bridegroom sat opposite to her, and though they never spoke to each other, their eyes, slowly raised, but suddenly withdrawn ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... France says in his apostrophe to the sex: 'Pour faire de vous la terrible merveille que vous etes aujourd'hui, pour devenir la cause indifferente et souveraine des sacrifices et des crimes, il vous a fallu deux choses: la civilisation qui vous donna des voiles, et la religion qui vous donna des scrupules.' The translation of which is (please take note of it, my dear young ladies with 'les epaules qui ne ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... because Annette's husband had turned up unexpectedly; and Charteris had gone again to hear Nadine Neroni, the new prima donna, concerning whom he and his enameled Italian friend raved tediously. But I never greatly cared for music; besides, the opera that night was Faust; the last act of which in particular, when three persons align before the footlights and scream at the top ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... forgotten alike the gossip and the heroines of the gossip, until she noted now the lines of deeper harassment in Kemper's face. These coming so suddenly after six months of Europe caused her to wonder if the affair with the prima donna had been really an ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... circumstances which gave life and vigour to these enterprises, which we shall briefly enumerate under three principal heads. In the first place, the marriage of Don Diego Columbus with Donna Maria de Toledo, induced many young gentlemen and ladies of good families to go over to Hispaniola, which proved of infinite importance to the new colony; as the strong tincture of heroism or romance in the Spanish character, was the fittest that could ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... from her vows, and gave them the nuptial blessing at the instance of Don Juan Casanova, majordomo of the Vatican, and uncle of Don Jacob. All the children born from that marriage died in their infancy, with the exception of Don Juan, who, in 1475, married Donna Eleonora Albini, by whom he had a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Church government, still has a chapel at Sa Leone. Thus each sect claims 1792 as the era of its commencement in the colony. In 1811 Mr. Warren, the first ordained Wesleyan missionary, reached Freetown and died on July 23, 1812. He was followed by Mrs. Davies, the prima donna of the corps: she 'gathered up her feet,' as the native saying is, on December 15, 1815. Since that time the place has never lacked an unbroken succession of ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna. And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there—Luciano Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest man who had ever been in the city! For a wonder, he wasn't a tenor, only a basso, but they adored him just ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... North Berwick, 'he caused all the company to com and kiss his ers, quhilk they said was cauld lyk yce; his body was hard lyk yrn, as they thocht that handled him'.[170] In 1598 Pierre Burgot, whose statement is quoted by several authors, 'a confesse, que le Diable luy donna a baiser sa main senestre, qui estoit noire, comme morte, & toute froide'.[171] In 1609, in the Basses-Pyrenees, Isaac de Queyran, aged 25, said that he and others 'le baiserent a vne fesse qui estoit blanche & rouge, ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... got inside, Donna Pepita?" Rube asked. "I know that I can trust you, but I can't trust others, and I don't want it known I ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... Europe in the course of two or three centuries. But because you cannot be Handel and Mozart—is it any reason why you should not learn to sing "God save the Queen" properly, when you have a mind to? Because a girl cannot be prima donna in the Italian Opera, is it any reason that she should not learn to play a jig for her brothers and sisters in good time, or a soft little tune for her tired mother, or that she should not sing to please herself, among the dew, on a May morning? Believe ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... offspring o' mine chasing the drums! Look at 'em now! Ruyven hunting about Tryon County for a Hessian to knock him in the head; Cecile sitting in rapture with every cornet or ensign who'll notice her; the children yelling for Lafayette and Washington; Dorothy, here, playing at Donna Quixota, and you starting for Stillwater to teach that fool, Gates, how to catch Burgoyne. Set an ass to catch ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... escaped the fate prepared for them by Alexander VI and his terrible son. Beautiful Sermoneta and all the great fiefs in the Maremma fell into the maw of the Borgias, and your ancestors either found death at their hands or were driven into exile. Donna Lucretia became mistress of Sermoneta, and eventually her son, Rodrigo of Aragon, inherited ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... Simao (1763-1829). He lived alternately in Italy and Portugal, and wrote several operas.] or some other Maestro di capella, or rather schiavo d'un primo uomo." [Footnote: Literally, "The slave of a primo uomo," primo uomo being the masculine form corresponding to prima donna, that is, a singer of hero's parts in operatic music. At one time also female parts were sung and acted by men or boys.] Now, thought I, now's the time; so turning to Antonia, I remarked, "Antonia knows ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... Donna Clara dreaming, On the ground her eyes were fastened. When she raised them, lo! before her Stood the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... you are able to do, but a woman without a lover is a pathetic thing. There is no real reason for her existence; all her little miracles of expression and posing are for naught. She is a sort of prima donna lost out of the play. There is no one to give her the happy cue to the whole meaning of life. Oh, my Love! I cannot live without a lover. Do not bereave me! I should shrivel up, I am sure,—grow ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... a move on in the last hour and a quarter, haven't they? I mean to say, at five o'clock you found a stranger in your taxi. Five minutes later you were smashed up. Now you're in a prima donna's room at the Opera House, eating a cold collation. Collation is ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... vol. i. p. 234. Larrey in his History of England seems to have given currency to the legend that Cardan foretold the Archbishop's death. "S'il en faut croire ce que l'Histoire nous dit de ce fameux Astrologe, il donna une terrible preuve de sa science a l'Archeveque qu'il avoit gueri, lorsque prenait conge de lire, il lui tint ce discours: 'Qu'il avoit bien pu le guerir de sa maladie; mais qu'il n'etoit pas en son pouvoir de changer sa destinee, ni ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... mirrors, gilded Cupids, Chinese porcelain, a delightful chaos of ribbons, garlands of flowers, white gloves, torn lace, false pearls, powder-puffs, diamonds of gold-leaf and spangles—such tinsel as one finds in the room of a prima donna. Paganini's outward appearance had also changed, and certainly most advantageously; he wore short breeches of lily-colored satin, a white waistcoat embroidered with silver, and a coat of bright blue velvet with gold buttons; the hair in little carefully curled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... au golphe le nom de St. Laurent, ou plutot il le donna a une baye qui est entre l'isle d'Anticoste et la cote septentrionale, d'ou ce nom s'est etendu a tout le golphe dont cette baye fait partie."—Hist. de la Nouvelle France, tom. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... Donna Pepita?' Rube asked. 'I know that I can trust you, but I can't trust others, and I don't want it known ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... humor. After receiving more or less mixed orders from me, I have heard him softly singing in the courtyard, "Donna e mobile." I only regret that as a family we aren't musical enough to assist with the "Sextette" ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... she, her, female, petticoat. feminality^, muliebrity^; womanhood &c (adolescence) 131. womankind; the sex, the fair; fair sex, softer sex; weaker vessel. dame, madam, madame, mistress, Mrs. lady, donna belle [Sp.], matron, dowager, goody, gammer^; Frau [G.], frow^, Vrouw [Du.], rani; good woman, good wife; squaw; wife &c (marriage) 903; matronage, matronhood^. bachelor girl, new woman, feminist, suffragette, suffragist. nymph, wench, grisette^; girl ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... fatigue. Indulgent to those under his command, and self-denying in all that regarded himself personally, his enthusiasm for the cause he served was such, that during nearly two years that he had been the accepted lover of Donna Gertrudis Olana, this was only the second time he had left his regiment for a few days' visit to his affianced bride. He had arrived at Logrono the preceding day from a town lower down the Ebro, where the battalion he commanded was stationed; and Don Torribio, with whom he was a great ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... had died in 1801, had married his second wife, Alexandrine Laurence de Bleschamps, who had married, but who had divorced, a M. Jonberthon. When Lucien had been ambassador in Spain in 1801, charged among other things with obtaining Elba, the Queen, he says, wished Napoleon should marry an Infanta,—Donna Isabella, her youngest daughter, afterwards Queen of Naples, an overture to which Napoleon seems not to have made any answer. As for Lucien, he objected to his brother that the Queen was ugly, and laughed at Napoleon's ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Modern Reformer Persian Poetry Pictures, Something about President's Message, the Prima Donna, Who paid for the Pure Pearl of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... of the renewal of their contract for another six weeks in the spring. Ilka was in the meanwhile to take lessons in singing at Hahn's expense, possibly with a view to future distinction as a prima donna of the opera. Her maestro had told her repeatedly that she had naturally a better voice than Nilsson, and that, if she could dry up for ever her fountain of tears, she might become a great artiste. For Ilka had the deplorable habit of crying on very slight provocation. The maestro, with his ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... up, and rendered the prima donna quite as effectively, interjecting "The Last Rose of Summer" as an aria in a manner that would have been encored in San Francisco. He responded with a few staccato notes, and the scene ended by their rushing into each other's arms and waltzing ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Bous Stephanoumenos. Where's your configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D: sua donna. Gia: di lui. gelindo risolve di non ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Donna Serafina; then are my doubts confirmed. Treacherous sex!—but I'll be revenged! Did you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... without being killed by anybody or finished by any other hands but those of melancholy. See you do not be slothful, but get up from this bed, and let us be off to the fields in our shepherd's clothing, as we had agreed. Who knows but behind some bush we may find the Lady Donna Dulcinea disenchanted, as fine a sight as there is to be seen? If it is that you will die of vexation at being conquered, lay the blame upon me, and say that through my not girting Rozinante well, they overthrew ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... beyond the bounds of natural affection, and scandalous in a Roman Pontiff, was the main motive of the Borgia's action. Of his children by Vannozza, he caused the eldest son to be created Duke of Gandia; the youngest he married to Donna Sancia, a daughter of Alfonso of Aragon, by whom the boy was honored with the Dukedom of Squillace. Cesare, the second of this family, was appointed Bishop of Valentia, and Cardinal. The Dukedoms of Camerino ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... they would treat Zouche, had he accepted his Sovereign's offer. But this I will admit,—that mediocre musicians always get on very well with Royal persons! I have heard a very great Majesty indeed praise a common little American woman's abominable singing, as though she were a prima-donna, and saw him give a jewelled cigar-case to an amateur pianist, whose fingers rattled on the keyboard like bones on a tom-tom. But then the common little American woman invited his Majesty's 'cheres amies' to her house; ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... recognized him, took his beautiful wife to a villa he possessed on the lago di Como, and after sojourning there a few days, went to Naples and forced the King to accept his resignation as minister of police. The Duke was dissatisfied with Naples, for no one would forgive him for marrying the Prima-Donna. The two then came to Paris after a brief mission, during which the Duke had been obliged to leave her alone at the lago di Como. There they purchased the hotel of which we have spoken, and prepared to receive the court, and exhibit ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... profession, for Mr. Vigo liked to be surrounded by genius and art. "I must have talent," he would exclaim, as he looked round at the amusing and motley multitude assembled at his splendid entertainments. And to-day upon his lawn might be observed the first tenor of the opera and a prima-donna who had just arrived, several celebrated members of the English stage of both sexes, artists of great reputation, whose principal works already adorned the well-selected walls of the Cedars, a danseuse or two of celebrity, some literary men, as Mr. Vigo styled ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... "Qual donna attende a gloriosa fama." Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy? Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy Whom all the world doth as my lady name! How honor grows, and pure devotion's flame, How truth is joined with graceful dignity, There thou ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... have corresponded to that description. In other regions it is surely true that to advance in conventional station would often entail a loss in true dignity and happiness. It would seldom benefit a musician to be appointed admiral or a housemaid to become a prima donna. Scientific breeding might conceivably develop much more sharply the various temperaments and faculties needed in the state; and then each caste or order of citizens would not be more commonly dissatisfied with its lot than men or women now are ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... rich touch on the piano, she possessed a particularly sympathetic voice, the development of which was so premature and remarkable that, under the tuition of Mieksch, her singing master, who was famous at that time, she was apparently ready for the role of a prima donna as early as her sixteenth year, and made her debut at Dresden in Italian opera as 'Cenerentola' in Rossini's opera of that name. Incidentally I may remark that this premature development proved injurious to Clara's voice, and was detrimental to her ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... that a single flower expresses a complete declaration of love, an offer of marriage, and, presumably, a hint at the settlement, is, with our more practical visionaries and enthusiasts of the nineteenth century, rather an echo of the stock market than a poetical fancy. We fear that no prima donna looks at her flowers without a thought of how much they have cost, and that the belle estimates her bouquet according to the commercial value of a lily- of-the-valley as compared with that of a Jacqueminot rose, rather than as flowers simply. It is a pity that the overwhelming luxury ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... fared better at her last appearance, it was only because a large number of people believed that she really was singing in New York for the last time; for when she returned a fortnight later for another "farewell," the sale of seats was so small that the spoiled prima donna refused to sing, and only one performance was given ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... sub-editor's departure for the provinces came up: it was only second in frequency to his "victories." About once a month the preparations for the tour were complete, and he would go about in a heyday of jubilant vocalization; then his comic prima-donna would fall ill or elope, his conductor would get drunk, his chorus would strike, and little Sampson would continue to sub-edit ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Valencia, who was to go to Naples to-morrow as papal legate, yet dressed tonight in cloth of gold, with no trace of his churchly dignity about him; there was their younger brother Giuffredo, Prince of Squillace, a handsome stripling, flanked by his wife, the free-and-easy Donna Sancia of Aragon, swarthy, coarse-featured, and fleshy, despite her youth; there was Giovanni's sometime wife; the lovely, golden-headed Lucrezia, the innocent cause of all this hate that festered in the Lord of ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... rendering antiquated the creations of former decorators, for it is essential that your wife be unable to change, at pleasure, this theatre of married happiness. The base should be plain and massive and admit of no treacherous interval between it and the floor; and bear in mind always that the Donna Julia of Byron hid Don Juan under her pillow. But it would be ridiculous to treat lightly so delicate ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... or four small ships in the harbor called the Cul, which was so strong by its natural position, and so well defended, that Mr. Benbow thought it not advisable to run any risk there for vessels of little value. We continued for three days in the bay, and sailed from thence for Cape Donna Maria, on the west side of Hispaniola, where we learned that Monsieur du Casse was gone to Cartagena. 'Twas clear that the Frenchman was in no mind to encounter us, and there was a good deal of grumbling among ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... proceed to let the reader into the secret of all this flutter and fluster. A great prince had made his appearance at the court of Paterflor, and had created almost as great an excitement in Fairyland as a new prima donna with bright eyes and a sfogato voice among mere mortals. Nobody knew exactly who he was, but he came from a great way off, and had a name as long as a province, and, beside being incalculably wealthy, it was universally voted (ladies ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... resemblance. There is little point of likeness between a young lady who is in training for a prima-donna and an obscure musiker, who contributes his share of shakes and ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... husband to be shared with other ears. And in the hush of the bed-time hour, when tired daddies are seeking repose in the oblivion of sleep, the unearthly bangs on the grand piano below in the parlor, and the unearthly screams and yells of the budding prima donna, as she sings to her ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... audience and to "Miss Lind," and, as he ended, with more hand-clapping and a bright and kindly smile Jenny Lind vanished, having secured the success of Mr. Otto Goldschmidt. It was a pretty scene. Perhaps the prima donna assoluta recalled the famous brava-a-a-a of Lablache on her first evening at her Majesty's Opera-house in London, which satisfied England that she was a great singer, and confirmed her career. To the audience ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... vo corre i fior novelli ... Ouesto e piu dolce e piu soave amore; Non sia chi mai di donna mi favelli, Poi che morta e colei ch' ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... a surprise for you in my next programme," he said, when the champagne and cigars had been discussed. "This is that I have secured Donna Lola, a Spanish dancer, direct from Seville. She is, I assure you, deliciously beautiful and remarkably accomplished. I pledge you my word, gentlemen, she will create a positive ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Laws. Destruction of the two Houses of Parliament. Change of Ministry in France. Congress of Vienna. Donna Maria acknowledged Queen of Portugal. Opening of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. Resignation of Earl Grey, succeeded by Lord Melbourne, who is again shortly succeeded by Sir Robert Peel. Irish Coercion Bill. Death of La Fayette; of William Wirt; of Dr. Porter; of General Huntingdon; ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... occhi porta la mia donna Amore; Per che si fa gentil eio ch'ella mira: Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira, E cui saluta fa tremar ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... having only made four hundred pounds with six concerts. My career as a prima donna is at an end. The public ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... sisterhood a young lady called donna Leonora, who being one of many daughters of a family, more eminent for birth than riches, was compelled, as too many are, to become a nun, in order to prevent her marrying beneath her father's dignity. She ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... was beating fast as she descended the stairway, bright spots of colour flaming in her cheeks and the diamonds sparkling in her ears. A prima donna might have guessed her feelings as she paused, a little breathless on the wide landing under the windows. She heard a footstep. Hugh came out of the library and stood motionless, looking up at her. But even those who have felt the silence and the stir that prefaces the clamorous applause ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... didn't! Hasn't every prima donna a larynx to hid behind?" She lifted off her fur cap, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... she sat, she could see her reflection in the mirror, and she looked at herself with frowning distaste. Jacqueline's beauty was oddly under eclipse just then. "I'm getting ugly—and whoever heard of an ugly prima donna?" she groaned in ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... had attracted the notice of the emperor at the last bal masque at the court, and it was said that this stranger, favoured by her disguise, had given him poisoned sweetmeats, without its being possible to discover from whose hand they came. Others accused the beautiful Florentine, Donna Livia, his mistress, who, according to them, was the fanatical instrument of a few priests. These anecdotes are the mere chimeras of surprise and sorrow, for the people can never believe that the events which have ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... set out, but not being able easily to reach Florence the same Night, they rested a League or two short, at a Villa of the great Duke's called Poggio Imperiale, where they were informed by some of his Highness's Servants, That the Nuptials of Donna Catharina (near Kinswoman to the great Duke) and Don Ferdinand de Rovori, were to be solemnized the next day, and that extraordinary Preparations had been making for some time past, to illustrate the Solemnity ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... me, senor, who lives in the castle now? The Donna Isabella is alone there, now, the only survivor of the noble race, except—except senor," (he laid a peculiar emphasis on the word,) "except a wilful son, whom she has disowned and driven from her house. He is a handsome lad, and married, here in ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... began with an overture from the orchestra. Then came Fraulein, the prima donna of the Imperial Opera, and then the boys. Carl came first, and played a brilliant, sparkling little piece, and was loudly applauded; next Gottfried and Johann, and then Raoul. When he stepped out upon the platform, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... have been informed he previously loved another, your mind ought to be at rest. Before he loved you, Donna Inez had received the homage of his heart. As she is your most intimate friend, and has told you this secret, you are free to bestow your love upon whom you wish, and cover your refusal to listen to him under the guise ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... see!" said Holmes. "Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... through San Pasqual. From the main-line tracks a branch railroad now extends north across the desert, through the eastern part of Kern county and up the Owens river valley into Inyo, although at the time Donna Corblay enters into this story the railroad had not been built and a stage line bore the brunt of the desert travel as far north as Keeler—constituting the main outlet from that vast but little known section of California that lies east of the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... stage. Miss KELLOGG, for example, never attempted English opera, because she knew that people who had heard ROSE HERSEE or CAROLINE RICHINGS would laugh at her claim to be "the greatest living Prima Donna," should she compete with those birds of English song. Wherefore, she wisely confined herself to the Italian stage, sure of pleasing a public that knows nothing of music, but is confident that a lady who enjoys ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... number and size. It became a task to keep up with his clippings. He developed into a personage, as much a personage as a grand-opera prima donna on tour. His successes were talked over in clubs. His name came to be known to the men in the street. His "camera eye" was now and then mentioned by the scientists. His unblemished record was referred to in an occasional editorial. When an ex-police reporter came to him, ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... word to make it mark quite blackly: 'All these Indian things are for pretty, nice Miss Peasmarsh's stall.' She thought of adding, 'There is nothing for Mrs Biddle;' but she saw that this might lead to suspicion, so she wrote hastily: 'From an unknown donna,' and crept back among the boards and ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... booming through the sounds of their habitation, came the dynamite explosions blowing up the city in blocks. When the muffled roar was over, the gathering quiet was pierced by the thin, high notes of gramophones. From the shadow of trees Caruso's voice rose in the swaggering lilt of "La Donna e Mobile," to be answered by Melba's, crystal-sweet, from a machine stored in a crowded cart. There were ragtime melodies, and someone had a record of "Marching Through Georgia" that always drew forth applause. Then, as the night ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... de la Choue who had made all the arrangements for Pierre's sojourn in Rome. Of the ancient and once vigorous race of the Boccaneras, there now only remained Cardinal Pio Boccanera, the Princess his sister, an old maid who from respect was called "Donna" Serafina, their niece Benedetta—whose mother Ernesta had followed her husband, Count Brandini, to the tomb—and finally their nephew, Prince Dario Boccanera, whose father, Prince Onofrio, was likewise dead, and whose mother, a Montefiori, had married again. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sensation among the masterpieces of the Renaissance. They welcome you with open arms. That is because we know what the creators were thinking about. They are quite personal and familiar; they had as many moods, one suspects, as a fashionable prima donna. They give pleasure. This Faun gives pleasure and something more—a sense of disquieting intimacy. While intruding upon your reserve with his solemn, stark and almost hostile novelty, he makes at the same time a strange appeal—he touches upon chords in our ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Margaret Deland Bambi Marjorie Benton Cooke Bandbox, The Louis Joseph Vance Barbara of the Snows Harry Irving Green Bar 20 Clarence E. Mulford Bar 20 Days Clarence E. Mulford Barrier, The Rex Beach Beasts of Tarzan, The Edgar Rice Burroughs Beechy Bettina Von Hutten Bella Donna Robert Hichens Beloved Vagabond, The Wm. J. Locke Ben Blair Will Lillibridge Beth Norvell Randall Parrish Betrayal, The E. Phillips Oppenheim Better Man, The Cyrus Townsend Brady Beulah (Ill. Ed) Augusta J. Evans Black ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... The great soprano, the prima donna, appeared and delivered herself of a song for which she was famous with astonishing eclat. Then in a little while the stage grew dark, the orchestration lapsed to a murmur, and the tenor and the soprano reentered. He clasped her in his arms and sang a half-dozen bars, then holding her ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Donna Rafaela Mora," answered the girl, simply. "I am daughter of the Commandant of Fort San Carlos. I am no Nicaraguan, but a Spaniard And, senor, what is ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... to hear music and to see ever so many celebrities. Oh, and let me remember to tell you that M. Thierry, the blind historian, has sent us a message by his physician to ask us to go to see him, and as a matter of course we go. Madame Viardot, the prima donna, and Leonard, the first violin player at the Conservatoire, are to be ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... people had come from ten miles off to see Squire Tempest's widow married; but she had a spectral look in the faint light of the chancel, and seemed as strange an image at this wedding as the ghost of Don Ramiro at Donna Clara's bridal dance, in ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... dictate to two or three secretaries at once. The masculine love of glory and ambition, expression of a well-working ante-pituitary, was combined with the effeminate echoes of an equally well-evolved post-pituitary. No prima donna was more concerned with the care of her skin, complexion and hair than he. The analogy extends even to superfluous hair which he had removed, not by the modern electrolysis, but by depilation with forceps and main force. The attendants at his bath would polish ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... feeling against the prima donna was that day of excessive bitterness, and every one ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... her. It seemed strange that crime should be set to music, and that one should have to see abduction, treachery, vice, and a murder brutally committed in full view of the audience, while the tenor sang the lightest of all his lyrics: "La donna e mobile." ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... delegation of home people were on hand to meet Miss Cayvan, and she immediately assumed the haughty airs of a prima donna. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... visited a large sugar manufactory belonging to a lady, Donna Anna da Sousa. The flat alluvial lands on the banks of the Senza or Bengo are well adapted for raising sugar-cane, and this lady had a surprising number of slaves, but somehow the establishment was ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... was acquainted with the Donna of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo requested her to smother the King of France with kindness, and demonstrate to him the great advantage of the Castilian imagination over the simple movement of the French. To which the Marchesa of Amaesguy consented ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... with the public rendition of Home, Sweet Home occurred in Washington at one of the theaters where Jenny Lind was singing before an audience composed of the first people of our land. In one of the boxes sat the author, then on a visit to this country, and a favorite everywhere. The prima donna sang her greatest classical music and moved her audience to the wildest applause. Then in response to the renewed calls she stepped to the front of the stage, turned her face to the box where the poet sat, and in a voice of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... head, but at the same moment another door near the orchestra admitted a small white butterfly figure, leading in a tall queenly apparition in black, whom she placed in a chair adjacent to the bejewelled prima donna of the night—a great contrast with her dust-coloured German hair and complexion, and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... donna, onde sia colto Nella sua rete alcun novello amante; Ne con tutti, ne sempre un stesso volto Serba; ma cangia a tempo atto e sembiante." Tasso, Jerus. Del., c. ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Avenel' is not quite so good as a real well authenticated ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you all about her, and so can Rose, perhaps. I myself have no doubt ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... and that of Prince Philip, which gave so much satisfaction to the monarch, that he sent him to Portugal, to paint the portraits of King John III., Catherine of Austria his Queen, and sister to Charles, and that of their daughter, the Princess Donna Maria, then contracted to Philip; he also painted the portrait of Donna Catalina, Charles' younger sister; all of which gave entire satisfaction, and the artist was munificently rewarded, and the honor of knighthood conferred on ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... orchestra and chorus supporting international stars, and of visiting troupes from New York and Chicago in this auditorium provide two spectacles one on the stage and the other in the assemblage itself. The auditorium seats 10,000 persons. To be present when a prima donna awes this audience into silence by her tones, and then to hear a triumphant roar of approval rend the silence, is an unforgettable adventure ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. 'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;— Prologues in metre are to other pros As worsted stockings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... of cruelty, but of development. And when, out of the thousands of dogs sent there, the corps of trainers found one with promise of strong ability, such a pupil was handled with all the care and gentleness and skill that a temperamental prima donna might expect. ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... his guitar, When over the olives the star Of eve, like a rose touch'd with gold, Doth slowly its sweet rays unfold. Perchance 'tis in some city square, And the people all follow us there. Don, donna, slim chulo, padrone, The very dog runs with his bone; One half of the square is in the shade, On the other the red sunset fades; The fount, as it flings up its jets, Responds to my brisk castanets; I wear a red rose at my ear; And many a whisper I hear: "If she were a lady, behold, None other ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... simple description is best: "Una donna nuda che dorme, tanto bella che pare viva, insieme ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... was in her own room; so she was, for she ran away as soon as she heard her father knock. I made my bow to the old gentleman, and gave him the segars. He was serious at first, but the sight of them put him into good humour, and in a few minutes Donna Seraphina (they call a lady a Donna in Spain) came in, saluting me ceremoniously, as if we had not been kissing for the hour together. I did not remain long, as it was getting late, so I took a glass of the old gentleman's sour wine, and walked off, with a request from him to call again, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... it, she had never been in anything before in her life, and no prima donna was ever more excited over her debut than she at the thought of this little recitation; but her pleasure met with a sudden check upon the discovery that a white dress would be necessary. She hadn't a white dress, and she knew ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... to Mrs. Tresham, and he saw possibilities for her that Signor Maria never would have contemplated; though when Roland told him what Maria had said he endorsed his opinion so far as to admit the excellence of such a training for a great prima donna. ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... this Irrational Knot as a stranger after 25 years, I am proud to find that its morality is not readymade. The drunken prima donna of a bygone type of musical burlesque is not depicted as an immoral person, but as a person with a morality of her own, no worse in its way than the morality of her highly respectable wine merchant in its way. The sociology of the successful inventor is his own sociology too; and it is by ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... passionate and brilliant, and that a veil, as it were, was extended over all the rest of the representation, so that a person who had heard only the second act of La Griselda would have asked with surprise, if it was really the wonderful prima donna, the songs of whom were purchased with gold, and the wonderful talent of whom, had enslaved the audiences of the great Italian theatres. The reason was, that, after the second act, the star which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... that Wilfred Ball felt the same glow greatly intensified when he strolled up to the pay-box, twirling his walking-stick, to take his stand near by as the future proprietor of the girl inside. Perhaps the young husband of a great prima donna may feel nearly as sophisticated and proud and "in it" when he strolls carelessly into the dressing-room where the bouquets of admirers overflow upon the floor—but this is scarcely likely, for he would not have the morning freshness ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... the heart of the West, of San Pasqual, a sun-baked desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best gambler, the best and worst man of San Pasqual and of lovely Donna. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne |
