"Quadrille" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one boundary-wall to the other there was not a bush old enough to hang an association upon. The stereotyped bed of flaming yellow calceolaria balanced the conventional bed of flaming crimson verbena; the lavender heliotrope faced the scarlet geranium, like the four corners in a quadrille. The garden was the modern nurserymen's ideal of suburban horticulture, and no more. But to Valentine this half-acre of smooth lawn and Wimbledon gravel pathway had seemed fair as those pleasure gardens of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos mountain, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... beside in the honeysuckle vines of their porticos, without risk of acute heart trouble, testifies the callow volume. They treated every lad in the battery like a lieutenant, and the "ladies' man" like a king. You should have seen him waltz them or in quadrille or cotillon swing, balance, and change them, their eyes brightening and feet ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... spring when the mating-instinct is strong, I have seen a flock of white ibises waltzing about the sky, going through various intricate movements, with the precision of dancers in a ballroom quadrille. No sign, no signal, no guidance whatever. Let a body of men try it under the same conditions, and behold the confusion, and the tumbling over one another! At one moment the birds would wheel so as to bring their backs in shadow, and then would flash out the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... receptions in the old Chateau recalled the days of Frontenac's merry court; or, still further back, that night of Canada's first ball, the 4th of February, 1667, when the courtly soldiers of the Carignan-Salieres regiment led the grand dames of New France through the mazes of a Versailles quadrille. From a child, indeed, Quebec had conned the worldly wisdom of Fontainebleau. Her wholesome reputation for the social graces is reflected in the compliment paid by George III. to the first Canadian lady who had the honour to be presented at the Court of St. James's: "Madame, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... occupation. Afterward their friend Clara joined them, and all three suddenly decided to change their life. They were about to leave the place when the drunken guests became noisy, the fiddler struck up a lively song of the first figure of a Russian quadrille, the pianist began to thump in unison, a little drunken man in a white necktie and dress coat caught her up. Another man, stout and bearded, and also in a dress coat, seized Clara, and for a long time they whirled, danced, shouted and drank. Thus a year passed, a second and ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... the queen, and contented himself with making known the reason for his journey to the minister Cecil, and with begging him to ask his mistress for an audience next day. Elizabeth was dancing in a quadrille at the moment when Cecil, approaching her, said in a low voice, "Queen Mary of Scotland has just given birth to a son". At these words she grew frightfully pale, and, looking about her with a bewildered air, and as if she were about to faint, she leaned against an arm-chair; then, soon, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... even to the Christmas party that Margaret gave in town, though the Major urged him. He spent Christmas with the Major, and he did go to a country party, where the Major was delighted with the boy's grace and agility dancing the quadrille, and where the lad occasioned no little amusement with his improvisations in the way of cutting pigeon's wings and shuffling, which he had learned in the mountains. So the Major made him accept a loan and buy a suit for social purposes after Christmas, and had him go to Madam Blake's ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... doubt, where dwelt the widows and wives of other navy captains; where they tattled, loved each other, and quarrelled; talked about Betty the maid, and her fine ribbons indeed! took their dish of tea at six, played at quadrille every night till ten, when there was a little bit of supper, after which Betty came with the lanthorn; and next day came, and next, and next, and so forth, until a day arrived when the lanthorn was out, when Betty came no more: all that little ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... how a young wife takes the first step to the brink of a precipice. A quadrille, a ballad, a picnic party is sometimes cause sufficient of frightful evils. You are hurried on by the presumptuous voice of vanity and pride, on the faith of a smile, or through giddiness and folly! Shame and misery ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... the first quadrille became almost painful to see. "Do tell me, my dear, when is ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... each face as it came round to the light. There were girls and women—some of all ages. Even the gross mulatto was "on the floor," hobbling through the figures of a quadrille. But Lilian? I was disappointed in not seeing her—a disappointment that gratified me. Where was she? Among the spectators? I made a hurried examination of the circle. There were faces fair and young—white teeth and rose-hued cheeks—but not hers. She was not among them! I turned to ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... children—for your true Creole never leaves the small folks at home—and the baskets and mothers downstairs, the young folks go up-stairs and dance to the tune of the best band you ever heard. For what can equal the music of a violin, a guitar, a cornet, and a bass viol to trip the quadrille ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... the "grand march." The "grand march" proper is a form of exhibition long since relegated to balls of the "Tough Boys' Coterie" and other assemblages of the same class. But it has survived, in place of a lancers or quadrille of honor, at the Charity Ball, and we have either to go through with it or watch it from the boxes with Christian patience. If you are to take part, I would advise you to present yourself at the hall or opera house about nine ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... said Bice, "but keep time. That is all you require in a quadrille. Why does every one laugh and go wrong. But it is a shame! One should not dance if one will not take the trouble. And why does he not do anything?" she said, in the pause between two figures, suddenly ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... except at pantomime season; and whilst probably the average keen playgoer of Paris is acquainted with the names of the orthodox steps, and is aware that in the ballet one begins as petit rat, then becomes a quadrille ballerina, develops into a coryphee, blossoms into a minor subject, grows into a subject, and eventually emerges and reaches the stars as a prima ballerina, few of us ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... did not, till the society itself and its sentiments with it were breaking up, indulge in anything that can be called real passion. Sensibility prevented that also. The kind of love-making which was popular may be compared without much fancifulness to the favourite card-game of the period, quadrille. You changed partners pretty often, and the stakes were not very serious; but the rules of the game were elaborate and precise, and it did not admit of being ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... all, the overpowering attractions of a Sans Prendre Vole,—to the triumph of which there is certainly nothing parallel or approaching, in the contingencies of whist;—all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captivation to the young and enthusiastic. But whist was the solider game: that was her word. It was a long meal; not, like quadrille, a feast of snatches. One or two rubbers might coextend in duration ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... space they were dancing what was presumably a quadrille, though it bore almost as great a resemblance to a Scottish country dance, or indeed to one of the measures of rural France, which was, however, characteristic of ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... three decided to change their life. They thought that the night was over, and were about to go away, when suddenly the noise of tipsy voices was heard in the ante-room. The violinist played a tune and the pianiste began hammering the first figure of a quadrille on the piano, to the tune of a most merry Russian song. A small, perspiring man, smelling of spirits, with a white tie and swallow-tail coat, which he took off after the first figure, came up to her, hiccoughing, and caught her up, while ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... said to the animal presently, "it looks more like a swim than a waltz quadrille, and ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... quadrille already formed," said Miss Byrton—"that is de rigueur. There could not be a fancy ball without a Waverley quadrille. How I should like two Shakesperian ones! I thought of having one from 'As You Like It' and another from 'Romeo and Juliet;' ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... I suppose you mean. Yes; you might be competent to take a part. It cannot be a regular ball; they would have had the quadrille band for anything of that sort. Faith—we'll go. However, let us see the man first, and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... their quadrille-set were resting themselves, whilst this country dance was going on. Miss Georgiana was all the time endeavouring to engage Count Altenberg in conversation. By all the modern arts of coquetry, so insipid to a man of the world, so contemptible to a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the deepest of bows, offered her his hand, and led her to her place on the floor. M. de Keudell and the Countess Wimphen took their places opposite the Queen. There were only two other couples. Every one stood while this quadrille was ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... to the kitchen, but her flighty thoughts were swinging corners in the quadrille with Jeb, and the fried potatoes were gracefully shot into the coal-scuttle as the pan was waved aloft in imitation of dancers she had ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... for the purpose of bringing out her tragedy. The rehearsals, where "the only grave person present was Mr. Liston!—the tragic heroines sauntering languidly through their parts in bonnets and thick shawls,—the untidy ballet-girls" (there was a dance in "Foscari") "walking through their quadrille to the sound of a solitary fiddle,"—she was never weary of calling up for the amusement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... During a quadrille a roar of satisfaction went up. She was discovered. At previous balls, in the figure, 'all hands round,' Freda had displayed an inimitable step and variation peculiarly her own. As the figure was called, the 'Russian Princess' gave ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... the company, great and small, gentle and simple, abandoned themselves to the dance: not the modern quadrille, with its graceful gravity, but the merry, social, old country-dance; the true dance, as the Squire says, for a wedding occasion, as it sets all the world jigging in couples, hand in hand, and makes every eye and every heart dance merrily to the ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... all that glittering sea Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks to where He deems it is his proper place to be Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air Or proudlier prancing with Mercurial skill Where science marshalls forth her own quadrille.'" ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... hint that he rides gallantly, or waltzes nicely, or wears neat boots, and it will do quite as well. I recollect perfectly that Cousin Emily made her great marriage—five thousand a year and the chance of a baronetcy—by telling her partner in a quadrille, quite innocently, that "she should know his figure anywhere." The man had a hump, and one leg shorter than the other; but he thought Emily was dying for him, and proposed within a fortnight. Emily is an artless creature—"good, common-sense," Aunt Deborah calls it—and so ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... must have one made, a newer one still, if I'm to take your arm. Oh, how silly I am; you won't take me in, of course. Denoisel, please keep a quadrille for me. We shall give a ball, of ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... Boris. Then he impatiently opened the carriage door and jumped out. Billy heard him talking excitedly; a growling male voice answered him, then another voice interposed, high and strident, with the amused ring of social intercourse, as if a gentleman were laughing at his own joke in the midst of a quadrille. Billy, left alone, was frightened, afraid of the darkness, of the voices outside, of what would happen and what she had done—the simple, painful fear of the little girl with a bad conscience. Boris opened the carriage door ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... best known, which I might mention, are the tarantella of the Neapolitans, the bolero and fandango of the Spaniards, the mazurka and cracovienna of Poland, the cosack of Russia, the redowa of Bohemia, the quadrille and cotillion of France, the waltz, polka and gallopade of Germany, the reel and sword dance of Scotland, the minuet and hornpipe of England, the jig of Ireland, and the last to capture America is ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... the engagement I had made with his daughter. At ten o'clock I was standing by her side in the middle of a ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing to execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to the resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there; the ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first place among them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it had not been for the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes. ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... brought his fri ends to the house which in his opinion was the best, he declared his firm intention of dancing a quadrille. The medical student grumbled something about their having to pay the musicians a rouble, but agreed to be ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... cxarlatano. Quackery cxarlatanismo. Quadrangle kvarangulajxo. Quadrant kvadranto. Quadrate kvadrato. Quadrate kvadrata. Quadratic kvadrata. Quadrature kvadrato. Quadrille kvadrilo. Quadruped kvarpieda. Quadruple kvarobla. Quaff glutegi. Quaggy marcxa. Quagmire marcxejo. Quail (bird) koturno. Quail tremi. Quaint stranga. Quake tremi—egi. Qualification eco, kvaliteco. Qualify kvalitigi, ecigi. Quality ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... (said the Real Turtle) ("I haven't," said ALICE), "and perhaps you were never introduced to a Lobster—" (ALICE began to say "I once tasted—" but checked herself hastily, and said, "No, never"),—"So you can have no idea what a delightful dance a (Diplomatic) Lobster Quadrille is!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... out my excuses. What I said, and what I did not say, I do not now remember; but certainly, it was her turn now to blush, and her arm trembled within mine as I led her to the top of the room. In the little opportunity which our quadrille presented for conversation, I could not help remarking that, after the surprise of her first meeting with me, Miss Dashwood's manner became gradually more and more reserved, and that there was an evident struggle between her wish to appear grateful for what had occurred, with a sense of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... me, and see if I care," he said, desperately. "It's like I'd want to have it. I couldn't never dance more'n I want to with you. I wisht I could dance all the dances there'll be in your life with you.... Come on. This here's a quadrille." ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... Isaac gave the rod into her hand, when she danced forward and back, chasse-ed, and executed other figures of a quadrille, till Puss Leek came up to play the fish. She wasn't so much like a katydid as Elsie, or so much like a wired jumping-jack as Jacob Isaac. She played the fish so awkwardly that John came up and took the rod from her hand. He had no sooner felt the pull at the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... him, but it was quite impossible; the crowd was too great. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, and the dancers were bringing up the dust from the floor in great ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... and the participants in it should have modestly and gratefully received the choruses of congratulation that were ready to be offered during the supper and dance that followed. Instead of that, what happened? Francesca drove home with Miss Dalziel before the quadrille d'honneur, and when Willie bade me good-night at the gate in the loaning he said, "I shall not be early to-morrow, dear. I am going to ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... relaxed; every body knows every body. The elder men take to billiards and ecarte,—the graver ladies form into little coteries; a younger one goes to the piano, a circle is made, a romance is sung; and then, as the strain becomes lighter, the feet beat in sympathy, and the gay quadrille is formed. At eight or nine o'clock the room is at its fullest; the village minstrels are called in—some half-dozen violins, a clarionet, and a cornet; the music becomes louder, the mazy waltz is danced, and the enjoyment of the day is at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... you cannot see them, the musicians, with sad, gentle faces, are tuning up their fiddles. A stately quadrille lies open on their stands. They are going to attack the old-fashioned piece. At the first notes our heroes and masks will lead ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... for partners for a quadrille. The fiddlers had already tuned their instruments. From where he stood he could see the figures forming, but Jim watched the stairway. At last she came, with a company of other girls, none of whom he saw, and ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... public and all sorts of persons were admitted and encouraged to come, young Pynsent having views upon the county and Lady Rockminster being patroness of the ball. There was a quadrille for the aristocracy at one end, and select benches for the people of fashion. Towards this end the Chevalier did not care to penetrate far (as he said he did not care for the nobs); but in the other part of the room he knew everybody—the wine-merchants', ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "A quadrille, two waltzes, and the cotillon. That will do very well. As nobody knows you in that domino, we can dance as often as we please, and you will only be seen with me in the cotillon. What is your costume? I am sure it is ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... directing a quadrille in native fashion. There was much laughter, confusion, and applause. None of this noise disturbed the man. He did not look at the lighted windows. He might really have been a gigantic insect entirely unrelated to the human creatures so noisily ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... take much knowledge to dance a quadrille, particularly if you get on a side set. Come, we have an hour before it is time to go. Suppose I give ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... does she dance? Is it a valse, a polka, a quadrille?" "No. Would that it were!" And Mr. Greyne, unable further to govern his desire for full expression, gave Mademoiselle Verbena a slightly Bowdlerised description of the dances of the desert. She ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... and a few feathers before, began; then the Henri Quatres and Quatresses, who were Lady Craven, Miss Minching, the two Misses Vernons, Mr. Storer, Mr. Hanger, the Duc de Lauzun, and George Damer, all in white, the men with black hats and white feathers napping behind, danced another quadrille, and then both quadrilles joined; after which Mrs. Hobart, all in gauze and spangles, like a spangle-pudding, a Miss I forget, Lord Edward Bentinck, and a Mr. Corbet, danced a pas-de-quatre, in which Mrs. Hobart ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... piano for the first quadrille, and aunt Helen for the second dance. It was most enjoyable. There was a table at one end of the room on which was any amount of cherries, lollies, cake, dainties, beers, syrups, and glasses, where all could ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... and the scaffold! The pleasant dream was at an end, and the fashionable world, giving up its former habits, took to harmless occupations—card-playing, dissipation, and the reading of French light literature. "The French quadrille," as a writer of the time tersely expresses it, "has taken the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... watched her one evening, not a long while since, at a gay ball, where her mother and I sat as spectatresses. She had been persuaded from our side by a dashing distingue youth, and was moving most gracefully with him through a quadrille. In the pauses of the dance he seemed most anxious to interest her, and I saw his fine, dark eyes bend on her very tender glances. Her bouquet seemed to him an object of especial attention, and though a graceful dancer himself, he seemed so wrapt up in his notice of these ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... a wedding, it is proper for the bride to open the first quadrille with the best man, the groom dancing with the first bridesmaid. It is not, however, very customary for a bride to dance, or for dancing to occur at an evening wedding, but it is not a ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... old-timer in the Strip, called off. While the company was gathering, the fiddlers began to tune up, which sent a thrill through us. When Ben gave the word, "Secure your pardners for the first quadrille," Miller led out the bride to the first position in the best room, Jack's short leg barring him as a participant. This was the signal for the rest of us, and we fell in promptly. The fiddles struck up "Hounds in the Woods," the prompter's voice rang out "Honors to your ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... her opinion when, after the quadrille, Guy came to tell her that he had never seen anything so delightful; and he entertained Mary Ross with his fresh, joyous pleasure, through ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... soul of Eugene St. Eval could hold commune; but this night there was more animation than usual glittering in his dark eyes. He was the first of the admiring crowd to join Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton's party, and petition for the hand of Caroline in the next quadrille. It was with a smile of proud satisfaction her father relinquished her to the young man, for she had consented, although the watchful eye of her mother observed her glance round the room, as if in search for some other, and a shade of disappointment ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... evenings; a charity bazaar sheds genial consternation; Christmas and New Year are solemnised with Pantagruelian dinners, and from time to time the young folks carol and revolve untunefully enough through the figures of a singing quadrille. A magazine club supplies you with everything, from the Quarterly to the Sunday at Home. Grand tournaments are organised at chess, draughts, billiards, and whist. Once and again wandering artists drop into our mountain valley, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dance with you, and this is the basket quadrille. Jordan dances like a pump handle, but he's a good fellow. Now let us have something worth while. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... place in the crowd,' sighed Honora, beginning her toilet; 'and you will enjoy it when you are there. Your first quadrille is promised to Owen, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... remark that I must relate it as the involuntary testimony of an enemy. An amiable and most excellent clergyman of this state, happened to be present one evening when some young ladies went through a quadrille. He looked on with great apparent pleasure. The next morning he was rallied by some of his townsmen on having countenanced dancing by his presence; when he roundly denied the charge, and asserted that no dancing had taken place, but only, as he expressed it, "a most beautiful ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... seen them did not watch to see them again? Other people began to take up the new titles; and Mme. Lasalle made courtesies to 'the Duchess,' and Stuart Nightingale and Mr. May bowed low before 'her Grace,' entreating her hand for the quadrille or the promenade. ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... going through this opening, and also through slits in the canvas. The pavilion is fantastically decorated in various tastes, and is lit with lanterns. A good-natured moon, nevertheless, shines into it benignly. Some of the card tables are neglected, but at one a game of quadrille is in progress. There is much movement and hilarity, but none from one side of the tent, where sit several young ladies, all pretty, all appealing and all woeful, for no gallant comes to ask them if he may have the felicity. The nervous woman chaperoning ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... Gronow ('Reminiscences', vol. i. p. 32), she introduced the quadrille after Waterloo, she was a despot. 'Almack's', the very clever and personal picture of fashionable life, published in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... danced, arrayed all in green, With the Clear Wings,[80] whose beauty gave life to the scene; The Mouse,[81] quite enamoured, entreated in vain The hand of the lovely Pease Blossom[82] to gain, And the Satellite,[83] though he till now had sat still, Made up to the Seraph[84] to dance a quadrille. The Quakers,[85] who ne'er had been seen at a ball, With the Coronets[86] galloped around the great hall, And the sad Mourning Widow,[87] her weeds put away, To waltz with the lustrous Japan,[88] now quite gay; While the Magpie[89] ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... which, when Watchorn, the huntsman, cast up, which he did on a higgler's horse, he found the only sound one in his stud had gone to the neighbouring town to get some fiddlers—her ladyship having determined to compliment Mr. Bugles' visit by a quadrille party. Bugles and she were old friends. When Mr. Sponge cast up at half-past eleven, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... plait and threw back her head, loving it all—the wind and the dark sky and the tense feeling of readiness for the storm with which everything seemed charged—with an almost pagan joy. She even began a dance, a fantastic sort of lonely quadrille (if it could be given any special name), there on the flagged walk by the end of ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... passions (which you and I know is not the case) she might be a good nurse for her child; but, as matters stand, I do verily think, that the milk of a good comely cow, who feeds quietly in her meadow, never devours ragouts, nor drinks ratifia, nor frets at quadrille, nor sits up till three in the morning, elated with gain, or dejected with loss; I do think, that the milk of such a cow, or of a nurse that came as near it as possible, would be likely to nourish the young squire much better than hers. If it be true that the child sucks in ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... very popular, has been superseded by Whist. Quadrille, the game referred to by Pope in his "Rape of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... it again. The sea was freckled by the rain, the waves were beaten into submission. The tide was rather low, and not very far away a great company of porpoises bowed each other through the mazes of a slow quadrille. There were a few rocks spotted like leopards, and on one of these a young brown seagull rested, and allowed itself occasionally to ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... rigid silence, and went through the steps of the quadrille without so much as a look at the talker, Ratman was sober enough to be ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... it. The great gate is flung open, and the procession marches in, splendidly costumed and glittering: the marshals of the day, then the picadores on horseback, then the matadores on foot, each surrounded by his quadrille of chulos. They march to the box of the city fathers, and formally salute. The key is thrown, the bull-gate is unlocked. Another bugle blast—the gate flies open, the bull plunges in, furious, trembling, ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... now slow, he draws the bow To suit his changing will; A march, a waltz, a polka, and An intricate quadrille, Each in its turn is rendered ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... simplicity and sweetness are quite impossible to describe in print. But who has not beheld these among women, and recognised the presence of all sorts of qualities in them, even though they say no more to you than that they are engaged to dance the next quadrille, or that it is very hot weather? George, always the champion of his regiment, rose immensely in the opinion of the youth of the corps, by his gallantry in marrying this portionless young creature, and by his choice of such a ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... occasion to the revellers and their friends from the environs; for at the Towers nothing was done by halves in those days. There the august heads of the household were expected to walk solemnly through a quadrille with the housekeeper and head butler. Mrs. Masham's and Mr. Norbury's sense of responsibility on these occasions can neither be imagined nor described. This great event made conscientious dressing for dinner more than usually necessary, however ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... different, the caterpillar of trade having crawled a little farther up the stalk of fashion, for the shops, I found, went right up to the Park, and the old W. K. house where we once danced our long-forgotten Dresden China Quadrille, in imitation of the equally forgotten Eighty-Three event, confronted me as a beehive of business offices. I couldn't quite get used to the new names and the new faces and the new shops and the side-street theaters and the thought of really nice girls going to a prize-fight ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Mr Vernon is dancing with, I wonder? She is a stunner, isn't she, my boy?" said Dicky, sidling up to me, and pointing with his chin towards a very beautiful girl, to whom our second lieutenant had just then given his hand, and was leading up to form a quadrille. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... were several children's dances, one of which was at "Andresen's at the corner," and Ella was there. Just at the conclusion of the second quadrille, she heard whispered "Aksel Aaroe, Aksel Aaroe!" and there he stood at the door, with three other young fellows behind him. The hostess was his elder sister. The four had come up from a card party to ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... The ladies in character costumes and masks. The gentlemen in official dress and unmasked, with the exception of six tall figures in scarlet kaftans, who are treated with marked distinction as they move here and there among the promenaders. Quadrille music throughout the dialogue. Count SERGIUS PAVLOVICH PANSHINE, who has just arrived, is standing anxiously in the doorway of an antechamber with his eyes fixed upon a lady in the costume of a maid of honor in the time of Catherine II. The ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... lad should do—bought himself an accordion, a shirt with a starched front, a loud-colored necktie, overshoes, and a cane. Externally he became like all the other youths of his age. He went to evening parties and learned to dance a quadrille and a polka. On holidays he came home drunk, and always suffered greatly from the effects of liquor. In the morning his head ached, he was tormented by heartburns, his face was ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... But they did not repudiate the idea of ghosts. They abhorred a mirror's breakage. They disliked a Friday's errand. They shuddered over a seven-times sneeze or at a howling dog at midnight. And the gentle sex, especially, would and did tell fortunes almost as jealously as play quadrille and piquet. Let us be courteous to them. Let us remember that Esoteric Buddhism, Faith Healing, and Psychic Phenomena were not yet enjoying systematic cultivation and solemn propagandism; and that relatively ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... victorious cavalcade arrived near the queen, Don Antonio and the chief of the quadrille vaulted nimbly from their horses, when the conqueror knelt at the feet of his gracious sovereign, who, with a condescending smile, threw the portrait ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... orchestra has given its signal—a short bugle call announcing a quadrille; and those in the garden are running down into the ball-room to hunt ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... proper, most of whom are Andalusians, consist of espadas (or matadores), banderilleros and picadores, in addition to whom there are numbers of assistants (chulos), drivers and other servants. For each bull-fight two or three espadas are engaged, each providing his own quadrille (cuadrilla), composed of several banderilleros and picadores. Six bulls are usually killed during one corrida (bull-fight), the espadas engaged taking them in turn. The espada must have passed through a trying novitiate in the art at the royal school of bull-fighting, after ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... old adage, "In for a penny, in for a pound." But to all this I gave my consent; I could afford it well, and I liked to please my wife and daughters. The ball was given, and this house-warming ended in house-breaking; for just before the supper-quadrille, as it was termed, when about twenty-four young ladies and gentlemen were going the grand ronde, a loud noise below, with exclamations and shrieks, was heard, and soon afterwards the whole staircase ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... eyes rolled and his body swayed with the rhythm of the dance as he watched each set with growing pride. They danced a quadrille, a mazurka, another quadrille, a schottische, the lancers, another quadrille, and another and another. They paused for supper at midnight and then danced ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... often only another name for a ball. We may have as many and as weighty objections to dancing, as conducted at these fashionable parties, as to the formal dinners and rich and late suppers which are in vogue in the same circles, but this is not the place to discuss the merits of the quadrille or the waltz, but to lay down the etiquette of the occasions on which they are practiced. We condense from the various authorities before ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... they enjoy at least a moral certainty of never living worse than they do to-day: while the little knot of unmarried females turned fifty round Red Lion Square may always be ruined by a runaway agent, a bankrupted banker, or a roguish steward; and even the petty pleasures of six-penny quadrille may become by that misfortune too costly for their income.—Aureste, as the French say, the difference is small: both coteries sit separate in the morning, go to prayers at noon, and read the chapters for the day: change their neat dress, eat their little dinner, and play ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... fair-haired, lackadaisical young gentleman was standing twiddling his thumbs waiting to dance with Florence. At last the little book from her waist was brought forth, and Harry's name was duly inscribed. The next dance was a quadrille, and he saw that the space after that was also vacant; so he boldly wrote down his name for both. I almost think that Florence must have suspected that Harry Annesley was to be there that night, or why should the two places have been kept vacant? "And ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... height; the sound of music, the shimmer of jewels and rustle of costly silks mingled with the hum of conversation, and the tread of dancing feet as Russell deposited hat and overcoat in the dressing-room and entered the blazing parlours. The quadrille had just ended, and gay groups chattered in the centre of the room; among these, Maria Henderson, leaning on Hugh's arm, and Grace Harris, who had been dancing with Louis Henderson. As Russell crossed the floor to speak to the host and hostess, all ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... they were still dancing the quadrille, the pretty gowns of the girls and black coats of the men making a picturesque sight as they blended in ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... wholly unpractised by the British troops; but I had seen it already on its most perfect scale in the Prussian retreat, which I and my hussars had our share in covering. My first step was to warn my soldiers and the dragoons of the probability of attack, and my second to call for a favourite quadrille, in which I saw all our guests busily engaged before I left the chateau. My next was to repeat my Prussian lesson in reconnoitring all the avenues to the house. This, which ought to have been our first act ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... me to dance, and engaged me for the next but one; and then Mr. Caxton brought up one of his brother cadets and presented him, and he asked me, and looked disappointed when for both the next dances I was obliged to refuse him. I was quite glad when Mr. Thorold came and carried me off. The second quadrille went better than the first; and I was enjoying myself unfeignedly, when in a pause of the dance I remarked to my partner that there seemed to be ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... by the arrival of the royalties, including the pink-and-white maiden who is to be Prince Wilhelm's fate, and the royal quadrille begins. The Prince leads his Princess to her place, when it is discovered that another lady is required to complete the figure, and an aide-de-camp is despatched into the ballroom to fetch one. He returns, ushering in the beautiful ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to go down, Odalite conducted them to the drawing room, where now, at one end, the negro musicians were seated on chairs raised upon a long, broad bench, and were beginning to tune their instruments, preparatory to playing up an inspiring quadrille tune. ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Captain Dobbin? I dare say he is tres aimable; but how can one love a man with feet of such size? Your husband's feet are darlings—here he comes. Where have you been, wretch? Here is Emmy crying her eyes out for you. Are you coming to fetch me for the quadrille?" And she left her bouquet and shawl by Amelia's side, and tript off with George to dance. Women only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tip of the little shafts which sting a thousand ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... dancing a quadrille to swing a young person of the opposite sex twice round at a select party when you are but slightly acquainted, but feel quite confident ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... with the needle, and my skill in laying out work; but as I had no brother to come for me, I usually went home before the evening frolic, which consisted of plays. Male and female partners went through the common quadrille figures, keeping time to the music of their own voices, and making a denouement every few moments by some man kissing some woman, perhaps in a dark hall, or some woman kissing some man, or some man kissing all the women, or vice ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... struck up just then and saved me. The next moment I was far, far at sea in the plain quadrille. We carried it through with distinguished success; that is, we got as far as "balance around" and "half-a-man-left," when I smelled hot whisky punch, or something of that nature. I tracked the scent through several rooms, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... visitors, if they be men enervated by the climate or by pleasure, indifferent to the fate of nations, strangers to political chicane, they will, in the natural order of events, become converted to the ideas of the Roman aristocracy, between a quadrille and ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... window; a broad beam issued from the door and threw a welcoming beacon across the darkness and silence of the night. The scraping of fiddles mingled with the rhythmic scuffle of feet and the singsong of the words that the dancers sung as they whirled through the figures of the quadrille and lancers. About the walls of the room where the dancing was in progress stood a fringe of gallants, their heads newly oiled, and proclaiming the fact in a bewildering variety of strong perfumes. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... certainly rather a curious coincidence that when Mr. Matthew Kendrick and his grandson Richard entered upon the scene of the Grays' Christmas Eve party it should be at the moment when Mr. Rufus Gray and his niece Roberta were dancing a quadrille together. Richard had just been received by his hosts and had turned from them to look about him, when his searching eye caught sight of the pair. This was the precise moment—he always afterward recalled it—when his heart gave its first great, disconcerting leap at sight ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... his heart and hand, we verily believe, in the middle of a quadrille; but on this point we are not quite certain. Sure are we that on this night the great politician found himself defeated by a boy—this we may assert ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... fer de quadrille!" cried the fiddler, in a sing-song voice, quite in harmony with his music. Westerfelt did not want to dance. He had ridden hard that day, and was tired and miserable, but he saw no way of escape. The party had been given in his honor, and he must ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... by this painful outbreak. It was only three weeks ago that M. Bartin had dedicated a new quadrille to her; and but a fortnight since Signor Mancussi had sung four operatic airs gratuitously at one of her musical and dramatic soirees. But respect for herself and for her guests—especially for Mr. Overtop, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... formed a double row of four. Then the Yaybaka began to hoot, the orchestra to play, the choristers to sing, the whizzer to make his mimic storm, and the wand bearers to dance. The latter, keeping perfect time with the orchestra, went through a series of figures not unlike those of a modern quadrille. In our terpsichorean nomenclature the "calls" might have thus been given: "Forward and back. Chassez twice. Face partners. Forward and back. Forward and bow. Forward and embrace. Forward and wave wands at partners," &c. When several of these evolutions ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... much more graceful than the foolish gambols with their ridiculous titles which you young people call dancing nowadays. Fox-trot, indeed! And bunny-hug. And rag-time. I never heard such names in my life! We danced the Highland schottische, and the quadrille, and Sir Roger de Coverley. And do you remember your famous curtsy, Esther? And how Madame made you ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... manner; a reduction of former price of Hall; strict adherence to a uniform price of Help, and every care taken to select and furnish the most careful and obliging attendants, with the enchanting music of the SALEM QUADRILLE BAND, cannot fail to secure the patronage of a generous public. Did I say above, "enchanting music"? Yes. Without the fear of contradiction, during thirty years and upwards that it has been my privilege ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... wouldn't lose them, And languish in the dumps By having to quadrille on A pair of polished stumps— But a corky limb, though one might dread, Isn't half as bad as ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... not disappoint us in our last evening together, Miss Candlish," said Glenville, coming to the rescue of the unfortunate tutor, and speaking in his most fascinating manner, "I have hoped for the pleasure of a quadrille and lancers and" (with an effort) "a waltz with you this evening if you ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... you to sit there like mourners? Strike up, you mummies, or you pay yourselves for what you drink to-night. Soul of desires!"—as the musicians grabbed up their instruments, and a leaping, lilting, quick-beating air went rollicking out over the hubbub—"a quadrille, you angels of inspiration! Partners, gentlemen! Partners, ladies! ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... meant it simply. We Americans think ourselves sharp, but I have long since found out that we may meet more than our matches over here. I think we will go back. Mother means to try to get up a quadrille." ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... There were also several ladies, married and single, and lastly, even Karmazinov who, though he could not be said to bustle, announced aloud with a complacent air that he would agreeably astonish every one when the literary quadrille began. An extraordinary multitude of donors and subscribers had turned up, all the select society of the town; but even the unselect were admitted, if only they produced the cash. Yulia Mihailovna observed that sometimes ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
