"Pirouette" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in air, peering about uncertainly. A scaly green body followed, four feet away, complete with long razor talons, heavy hind legs, and a whiplash tail with a needle at the end. For a moment the creature floated upside down, legs thrashing. Then the head and body joined, executed a horizontal pirouette, and settled gently to the floor like an eight-foot ...
— PRoblem • Alan Edward Nourse
... laughter so clear and bell-like through the frosty air. And an aching anguish fell upon me. I felt a mad desire to run after them, to plead with them to let me walk with them a little way, to let me laugh and talk with them. Every now and then they would pirouette to cry some jest to one another. I could see their faces: the girls' so sweetly alluring, framed by their dainty hats and furs, the bright colour in their cheeks, the light in their teasing eyes. A little further ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... lightness of heart, but merely a martial exercise. The corroboree of native companions (ANTIGONE AUSTRALASIANA) may certainly be the practice of a defensive manoeuvre, though it has the appearance of a graceful dance. A partially disabled bird will pirouette on tiptoes and flap its wings wildly in the face of its foe, and it is reasonable to imagine that the great birds in community would keep themselves well trained in their ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... with Davidge, knew the value of tantalism, and consented to the abduction. For revenge Davidge took up with Polly and danced after Mamise, to be near her. He followed so close that the disastrous cub, in a sudden pirouette, contrived to swipe Polly across the shin and ankle-bones with ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... of herbs who occupied the shop in Rue Pirouette which formerly belonged to Gradelle, the pork-butcher. Le Ventre ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... own liberal principles. He had consulted with Senor Pasta, and Senor Pasta had left him stupefied and confused, after advising him to do a million contradictory and impossible things. He had consulted with Pepay the dancing girl, and Pepay, who had no idea what he was talking about, executed a pirouette and asked him for twenty-five pesos to bury an aunt of hers who had suddenly died for the fifth time, or the fifth aunt who had suddenly died, according to fuller explanations, at the same time requesting that ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... together for a while and had an amusing little talk. The wind, too, made himself of the party, brought the colour into their faces, and gave them enough to do to repress their drapery; and one of them, amid much giggling, had to pirouette round and round upon her toes (as girls do) when some specially strong gust had got the advantage over her. They were just high enough up in the social order not to be afraid to speak to a gentleman; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the hills in June, And Columbine waltzes a gypsy tune; Or deep in the pleasance, happily met, She whirls with a gay little pirouette, Where the long trees lean in a twilight trance, Dreaming her ...
— In the Great Steep's Garden • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... table, there bounded on to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty white frock with tucks up to the knees, short trousers, sandaled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil and curl papers; who turned a pirouette, cut twice in the air, turned another pirouette, then, looking off at the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded forward to within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a beautiful attitude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair of buff slippers came in at one powerful ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the vivacity of the dancer's existence with the stupidity of her still-life poses. She longed to run and pirouette and leap into the air. She wished she could kick herself in the back of the head to music the way ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... cried Le Crapeau, making a pirouette expressive of his delight; "you will see what my master and I can do when the ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... from the stage of her own accord. At the age of thirty she saw that she was growing somewhat stouter, and she had tried pantomime without success. Her whole art consisted in the trick of raising her skirts, after Noblet's manner, in a pirouette which inflated them balloon-fashion and exhibited the smallest possible quantity of clothing to the pit. The aged Vestris had told her at the very beginning that this temps, well executed by a fine woman, is worth all the art imaginable. It is the chest-note C of dancing. ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... time the two ships continued to race up and down. The NX-1 would plunge, pirouette around the other, and scamper away towards the ceiling as if enjoying it all hugely, abruptly to forsake her course and come zooming down once more. She would weave in romping circles and seem to go utterly crazy as her jumbled navigator pulled ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... elaborate cadences, brought some solace to his heart. Then, with the elasticity of youth, he hurried off to play with the babies, or to design a new pigsty, or to read aloud the "Church History of Scotland" to Victoria, or to pirouette before her on one toe, like a ballet-dancer, with a fixed smile, to show her how she ought to behave when she appeared in public places. Thus did he amuse himself; but there was one distraction in which he did ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... add a word she had turned with a pirouette to the door, and fled, presenting herself a moment later in the drawing-room to the three ladies, whom she surveyed with a whimsical ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... with her, there suddenly bounded on to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty white frock, with tucks up to the knees, short trousers, sandalled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil and curl papers, who turned a pirouette, then looking off in the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded forward to within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a beautiful attitude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair of buff slippers came in at one powerful slide, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... who have nothing better—or who, at least, think they have—to amuse themselves with; it has no fitness for a country dwelling, whatever. All this kind of frippery smacks of the boarding school, the pirouette, and the dancing master, and is out of character for the farm, or the ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... in vogue, and I am afraid that pretty Mrs. Rylands's performances would now be voted slow. Her silk skirt and frilled petticoat were lifted just over her small ankles and tiny bronze-kid shoes. In the course of a pirouette or two, there was a slight further revelation of blue silk stockings and some delicate embroidery, but really nothing more than may be seen in the sweep of a modern waltz. Suddenly the music ceased. Mr. Rylands had left the harmonium and walked ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... began to pirouette, and as they whirled more and more rapidly, their huge glowing eyes made phosphorescent circles in the gloom like those that had so alarmed and fascinated us in the cavern. They gyrated round the ring of worshipers ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... where such variety may be seen in so small a compass. Rich and poor, from the almost naked to the almost naked lady (of fashion, of course.) "Oh crikey, Bill," roared a chimney-sweep in high glee. The villain turned a pirouette in his rags, and in the centre mall of the Garden too; he finished it awkwardly, made a stagger, and recovered himself against—what?—"Animus meminisse horret"—against a lady's white gown! But he apologized. Oh, ye gods! his apology was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... Monsieur and Madame Giraud were ensconced. Somewhat agitated by a slight flutter behind the folds, which made him fancy, on the sudden panic, that Rosalie was creeping that way, the epicier made an abrupt pirouette, and the hook on which the curtains were suspended caught ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attracted him. The cock-pit was his constant haunt, and in more senses than one was he a leg. No opera-dancer could be more agile, more nimble; scarcely, indeed, more graceful, than was Jerry, with his shoeless and stockingless feet; and the manner in which he executed a pirouette, or a pas, before a line of carriages, seldom failed to procure him "golden opinions from all sorts of dames." With the ladies, it must be owned, Jerry was rather upon too easy terms; but then, perhaps, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the seat of imagination from the head to the heart, and causing it to exhibit the wainscot in a pirouette, and the floor in an ague, is highly Shakesperesque, and, as the Courier is made to say at page 3 of the Opinions, "is worthy of the best days of that noble school of dramatic literature in which Mr. Stephens has so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... little feet moving restlessly under the table as if seized by a dancing frenzy. And, indeed, when the dinner was at an end and they had returned to the studio, Constance began to pace back and forth, to describe a dance-step or a pirouette, talking all the time, interrupting herself to hum an air from some ballet to which she kept time with her head, then suddenly gathered herself together and with one leap was at the other end ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... think it will do. Portray her delicate little feet, peeping out, pointing downwards, the force of the elements raising her on her tip toes, now touching, now disdaining the earth. Her dress expanded wide like that of Herbele in her last and best pirouette— round, round she goes—her white arms are tossed frantically in the air. Corinne never threw herself into more graceful attitudes. Now is seen her diminishing ankle—now the rounded symmetry—mustn't go too high up though—the wind increases—her ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... unknown things is to be had in the air. Dens of drink with their furtive thieves ... the enigma of the shadows of the church of Saint Eustache ... slinking feet to the rear of you ... at length, the Rue Pirouette and the sign of the angel Gabriel on the lantern before the house. Here is good company to be found! Well do I remember the bon-camaraderie of Henri Laverte, that most successful of Parisian burglars, of the good Jean ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... stood and put herself into all kinds of postures to see what varying silhouettes they would make on the hard and polished sand (that shone with a soft lustre like satin); now throwing up one arm, now another, and at last making a pirouette, twirling her shawl round, trying to keep it in a horizontal position by the rapidity of ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... under the table as though seized by a dancing frenzy. And in effect, dinner over, when they had returned to the studio, Constance began to walk backward and forward, now and then half executing a step, a pirouette, while continuing to talk, interrupting herself to hum some ballad air of which she would keep the rhythm with a movement of the head; then suddenly she bent herself double, and with a bound was at the other end ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... seen and half hidden among her lima-beans; but for the rest there was only the house, silent at best, or, worse, sending out through its half-open door the long, scornful No-o-o! of the maiden's unseen spinning-wheel. No matter the fame or grace of the rider. All in vain, my lad: pirouette as you will; sit your gallantest; let your hat blow off, and turn back, and at full speed lean down from the saddle, and snatch it airily from the ground, and turn again and gallop away; all is in vain. For by her estimate ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the admiration of his sex is notoriously fatal to the art that attracts it. He advanced and bowed jerkily, grasped one of the loops of her sash in the back, stamped gently a moment to get the time, and the artist sank into the partner, the pirouette grew ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... out. We understand that even the Little Mother can't ask her boys to take a girl to the German! But we aren't likely to pine away with all the other fun afoot," cried Natalie gaily, doing a pirouette across the room just by ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... rapid. My men were quarrelling among themselves. Alcides, who was fond of gesticulating on such occasions, let the steering gear go in order to give more force to his words by waving his hands in the air, regardless of the danger which was in front of us, with the result that the canoe turned a pirouette upon herself and down the ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... now moving slowly upstream by the incoming tide. It caught on the flats, performed a slow pirouette like some drowsy toe-dancer or exhausted merry-go-round, then extricated itself and floated majestically in the channel till the little apple tree became involved with the foliage ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... skirted around the heart of things, which in a fleet is always the Commander-in-Chief's flagship. Our handy, agile destroyer ran alongside a battleship with as much nonchalance as she would go alongside a pier. I should not have been surprised to see her pirouette over the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... shadows on the mountain Pirouette with one another See the leaf upon the fountain Dances with its leaflet brother See the moonlight on the earth Flecking forest gleam and glance! What are all these dancings worth ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... in chorus to see the dog dance, and the mother consented; so Topaz, when he was bade, sat up, and then, as Gabriel whistled, the dainty, dusty little white feet began to pirouette, and the children clapped their hands for joy and would have kept the dancer at his work until dark, but that Gabriel would not have ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham |
