"Dancing-master" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you have been telling us of them for many a long year. Here we live in an old rumbling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn, but that we never see company. Our best visitors are old Mrs. Oddfish, the curate's wife, and little Cripplegate, the lame dancing-master; and all our entertainment your old stories of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough. I hate ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... and lace ruffles fell over long-fingered hands, yellow as old ivory. The entire figure was fantastic, even a little grotesque, though after a pleasant fashion. In a mincing voice and with a strong French accent, M. Achille Pincornet, dancing-master and performer on the violin, intimated that he wished to vote for Mr. Ludwell Cary. Lewis Rand glanced sharply up, then made a sign to a sandy-haired and freckled man who, tally in ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... after two or three turns he became so dizzy that he was compelled to stop. "When I was at l'ecole militaire," added the Emperor, "I tried again and again to overcome dizziness which waltzing produced, but I could not succeed. Our dancing-master having advised us, in learning to waltz, to take a chair in our arms instead of a lady, I never failed to fall with the chair, which I pressed so lovingly that it broke; and thus the chairs in my room, and that of two or three of my companions, were destroyed, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... peril of your soul. Speak with all your heart, but with a moderate voice. It is said of our Lord, "He shall not cry"—literally, scream.' The helpers generally are commanded 'not to affect the gentleman. You have no more to do with this character than with that of a dancing-master.' And again, 'Do not mend our rules, but keep them,' with much more to the same effect. His preachers in Ireland are instructed how they are to avoid falling into the dirty habits of the country and the most minute and delicate rules about personal cleanliness ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... he was, perhaps, not altogether a fictitious personage. Ben Jonson names him in one of his plays, and he is also mentioned in Dekker's Honest Whore. Of one of the tunes mentioned in the song, viz., Hence, Melancholy! we can give no account; the other,—Mad Moll, may be found in Playford's Dancing-Master, 1698: it is the same tune as the one known by the names of Yellow Stockings and the Virgin Queen, the latter title seeming to connect it with Queen Elizabeth, as the name of Mad Moll does with the history of Mary, who was subject to mental ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... myself, one rolling and bumping from step to step, the other leaping through the air like some great winged creature—was nevertheless in the act of raising his gun to fire at me. As I hurled my great weight full upon him, the gun flew from his hands, and his little dancing-master figure went pirouetting across the terrace into the darkness beyond, in a vain struggle to recover his balance. I sprang down the terrace after him, and ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... because of the fact that society is so full of artificialities that men are deceived as to whom they are marrying, and no one but the Lord knows. After the dressmaker, and the milliner, and the jeweler, and the hair-adjuster, and the dancing-master, and the cosmetic art have completed their work, how is an unsophisticated man to decipher the physiological hieroglyphics, and make accurate judgment of who it is to whom he offers hand and heart? This is what makes so many recreant husbands. They make an honorable marriage ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... last class belongs the dance which Theseus is said to have instituted on his return from Crete, after having abated the Minotaur nuisance. At the head of a noble band of youth, this public spirited reformer of abuses himself executed his dance. Theseus as a dancing-master does not much fire the imagination, it is true, but the incident has its value and purpose in this dissertation. Theseus called his dance Geranos, or the "Crane," because its figures resembled those described by that fowl aflight; and Plutarch fancied he discovered in it a meaning which one ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... haven't a doubt they would like to sacrifice themselves and astonish the world by so doing, but common people would be apt to call it bigamy. So they have to do the very best they can with such wives as they have got, and furbish them up with diamonds, laces, flounces, and a dancing-master, till ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... good-bye, white man"), we rounded the point, and, with increasing pace, bore away through the outlying islands for the open sea. There was a strong trade blowing, making the old barky caper like a dancing-master, which long unfamiliar motion almost disagreed with some of us, after our long quiet. Under its hastening influence we made such good time that before dinner Vau Vau had faded into nothingness, mingling like ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... Tettyx, the Dancing-Master, in Love with Olympia an Athenian Matron, threw himself from the Rock with great Agility, but ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... beamingly every day, but the chauffeur hated it. He was a city product and looked as much at home on that hill-top as a dancing-master in a hay-field. He smoked cigarettes and read the sporting page of the paper in the garage, where gasoline rather deadened the country smells of flowers and hay, and tried to forget his degrading surroundings, but ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... the wind, you see, and the boat swings fore and aft, like a French dancing-master. If she had a swayed only a leetle grain, we might all have ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... and he shot his paper arrow straight at her breast. There was a pause of consternation among the dancers; this upset all the plans; and how could an untrained stranger execute the elaborate step of the dance especially invented by his Highness's own dancing-master for this occasion? ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... talked at a rate as if the gentry were obliged to tutors more than tutors to them." The tutor, in short, was decidedly tart in his admonitions to this honest family—he did not forget, either, to assure them that (generally) a college tutor was worse paid than a dancing-master. Here is a specimen of his advice—sound and practical ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... generalization, and from the usual anecdotal tit-bits told about him, that Confucius was an exceedingly timid, prudent, benevolent, and obsequious old gentleman who, as indeed his rival Lao-tsz hinted to him, was something like a superior dancing-master or court usher, But when the disjointed apothegms of his "Analects" (put together, not by himself, but by his disciples) are placed alongside the real human actions baldly touched upon in his own "Springs and Autumns," and as expanded by his three ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... 21. When I came to Coventry, I found notice had been given for my preaching in the park; but the heavy rain prevented. I sent to the Mayor, desiring the use of the town-hall. He refused; but the same day gave the use of it to a dancing-master. I then went to the women's market. Many soon gathered together and listened with all seriousness. I preached there again the next morning, and again in the evening. Then I took coach for London. I was nobly attended: behind ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... command, and turned it, into a dressmaking establishment. Anne Rory, who deserves more than a passing mention, one of the institutions of Honora's youth, who sewed for the first families, and knew much more about them than Mr. Meeker, the dancing-master. If you enjoyed her confidence,—as Aunt Mary did,—she would tell you of her own accord who gave their servants enough to eat, and who didn't. Anne Rory was a sort of inquisition all by herself, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... strength, but was beautifully awkward. The only time he ever attempted to dance he slipped and fell, to the great amusement of the company. He fled without asking the dancing-master ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the great fete at St. Cloud; he excused himself, "because it would make him miss a music-meeting at Worcester;" and she excused herself from the fireworks at Madame Pompadour's, "because it was her dancing-master's hour." I will tell you but one more anecdote, and I think You cannot be imperfect in your ideas of them. The Mar'echale de lowendahl was pleased with an English fan Lady Coventry had, who very civilly gave it her: my lord made her write for it again next morning, because he had given ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... in London about this nonsensical business is marvellous. I remember nothing in my life like it. Thousands of ballads, caricatures, lives, of Mrs. Clarke, in every blind alley. Yet in the midst of this stir, a sublime abstracted dancing-master, who attends a family we know in Kensington, being asked a question about the progress of the examination in the House, inquired who Mrs. Clarke was? He had heard nothing of it. He had evaded this omnipresence by utter insignificancy! The Duke should make that man his confidential ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... The one remaining child of wealthy parents, their idol and joy. A dancing-school having opened near their home, the daughter, for accomplishment, was sent to it. She came from her home, modest, and her innate spirit of purity rebelled against the liberties taken by the dancing-master, and the men he introduced to her. She became indignant at the indecent attitudes she was called upon to assume, but noticing a score of young women, many of them from the best homes in the town, all yielding to the vulgar ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... elders are still discussing the news and weighing its importance, it is already a part of the children's life. Little Amelia Alderson must have been a happy child, free, affectionate, independent; grateful, as a child should be, towards those who befriended her. One of her teachers was a French dancing-master called Christian, for whom she had a warm regard. She relates that long afterwards she came with her husband and a friend to visit the Dutch church at Norwich. 'The two gentlemen were engaged in looking round and making their observations, and I, finding myself somewhat cold, began ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... off a piece of the breast, so we speared the hen out of the water, laid it on the frame of a grindstone in the gin-house, and sat down to the festive board. "Will you have the light or the dark meat," asked Jim, with a politeness that would have done credit to a dancing-master. I told, him I preferred the dark meat, so he took hold of one leg and I the other, and we pulled the hen apart. The hen seemed to be copper-rivetted, for when I got a chunk of it down, and it chinked up a vacant place in the stomach, it did ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... breast as if in the dark one had clasped as she thought a sweetheart, to find when the light came that her arms were entwined around the dancing-master, or the tailor. But only for an instant. She was really touched and charmed. She became more and ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... he were performing on some instrument; and appeared to find the incessant execution it demanded, quite bewildering. All the young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and with their best hats in their hands, having been at different times announced and introduced, Mr Baps, the dancing-master, came, accompanied by Mrs Baps, to whom Mrs Blimber was extremely kind and condescending. Mr Baps was a very grave gentleman, with a slow and measured manner of speaking; and before he had stood under the lamp five minutes, he began to talk ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Dancing-Master; therefore, Sir, since all the Injury's mine, I'll pardon him for a Dance, and let the Agility of his Heels save his ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... will please in Paris, and she ought to please with her kindness and her great gentleness and simplicity. Her face is rather plain than pretty, but she has a beautiful figure, and when she is properly dressed and put into shape, she will do very well. I have begged her to engage a dancing-master as soon as she arrives, and not to dance until she has learned how. She is very anxious to please, and that is ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... a match of dancing was proposed, and a cake was the prize. The judges were Meniscus the dancing-master, and my brother Lamprias; for he danced the Pyrrhic very well, and in the Palaestra none could match him for the graceful motion of his hands and arms in dancing. Now a great many dancing with more heat than art, some desired two ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... confectioner's calling is not socially influential, or favourable to a soaring ambition? I have known a man who turned out to have a metaphysical genius, incautiously, in the period of youthful buoyancy, commence his career as a dancing-master; and you may imagine the use that was made of this initial mistake by opponents who felt themselves bound to warn the public against his doctrine of the Inconceivable. He could not give up his dancing-lessons, ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... other people's wits. Now, with thy outside and thy inside, thou art the very man to win a young girl's heart. Never doubt it! I tell thee it shall be so. Put but a bold face on the matter, sigh, smile, flourish thy hat, thrust forth thy leg like a dancing-master, put thy right hand to the left side of thy waistcoat, and pretty ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... paces. But even under these disadvantages the French soldiers surpassed all others in grace and ease of bearing. Officers were sometimes accused of sacrificing the efficiency of their commands to appearances. The evolutions of the troops involved steps more appropriate to the dancing-master than to the drill sergeant. [Footnote: Montbarey, ii. 272.] Such criticisms as these have often been made on the French soldier by his own countrymen and by foreigners. But those who think he can be trifled with on this account, are apt ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... particularly rude and disagreeable man, and that a country like Italy should have the impudence to set up a poet of its own. The Countess of Albany, made to be a leader of intellectual society, was happy; but Alfieri was not. Ever since his childhood, when a French dancing-master had vainly tried to unstiffen his rigid person, he had mortally hated the French nation; ever since his first boyish travels he had loathed Paris as the sewer, the cloaca maxima (the expression is his own) of the world; his whole life had ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... was a Venetian, daughter of a gondolier named Gardella. She was brought up by the senator Malipiero, whom my readers know for his good offices towards myself, who had her taught for the theatre, and gave her a dancing-master. I found her at Munich, after my flight from The Leads, married to Michel Agata. The duke took a fancy to her, and asked her husband, who was only too happy to agree, to yield her; but he was satisfied with her charms in a year, and put her on the retired list with the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... purchased at so great a cost. It seemed hard indeed to deprive her beautiful children of a fashionable education, and the struggle was very severe; but the mother triumphed over worldly vanity, and Monsieur de la Beaumont was told that his services in the family as dancing-master were no ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... voice, he addresses his men-at-arms: 'My friends, here is a quarry for you very different from your past prizes. It is a brand-new bridegroom, with his marriage-money still in his coffers; and all the cream of the courtiers are with him. Will you let yourselves go down before this handsome dancing-master and his minions? No, they are ours; I see it by your eagerness to fight. Still we must all of us understand that the event is in the hands of God. Pray we Him to aid us. This deed will be the greatest that we ever did; the glory will be to God, the service to our sovereign ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... HEART which is the best teacher of refinement and dignity, not the dancing-master," said her mother, sententiously, and departed upstairs to her own room, not so much ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the few I have. Don't you see? I don't know anything that's worth knowing. I wasted my time at school, for my head was full of beaux, dress, and nonsense. Besides, I don't think my teachers took much pains to make me understand anything. At any rate, my dancing-master, and perhaps my music-teacher—a little bit—are the only ones that have any reason to be proud of the result. Now I want you to brush up your ideas about everything, so you can answer the endless questions I ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... many things are slowly learnt. I have lately had occasion to observe that the Alphabet is one of these. I remember, too, in my own sorrowful experience, how the Multiplication Table was another. A good many years since, an eminent dancing-master undertook to teach a number of my schoolboy companions a graceful and easy deportment; but comparatively few of us can be said as yet to have thoroughly attained it. I know men who have been practising the art of extempore speaking for many years, but who have reached no perfection in it, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... of mock turtle was half lost on its entrance, by being upset over the leg of a dancing-master, who capered about the room to double quick time, from the effects of a severe scalding; on which the alderman (with a wink) observed, that the gentleman had no doubt caused many a calf s head to dance about in his time, and now he had met with a rich return. "I'll bring an action ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... street, of very little houses, most of them with very large brass plates like Miss Squilsby's. Coal-merchants, architects and surveyors, two surgeons, a solicitor, a dancing-master, and of course several house-agents, occupy the houses—little two-storeyed edifices with little stucco porticoes. Goldmore's carriage overtopped the roofs almost; the first floors might shake hands with Croesus as he lolled inside; all the windows of those first floors thronged with children and ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... He no sooner felt the touch of the gold, than he sprung twice or thrice from the earth with the agility of a wild buck, flinging out first one heel and then another, in a manner which would have astonished a French dancing-master. He ran to the boatmen to show them the prize, and a small gratuity made them take part in his raptures. He then, to use a favourite expression of the dramatic John Bunyan, "went on his way, and I saw ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... distinctly heard all. He had a voice such as I never heard before or since. He cast it out so that you might hear it at the meeting-house, [pointing towards the Quincy meeting-house,] and he had the grace of a dancing-master, of an actor of plays. His voice and manner helped him more than his sermons. I went with Jonathan Sewall."—"And you were pleased with him, Sir?"—"Pleased! I was delighted beyond measure."—We asked, if at Whitefield's return the same popularity continued.—"Not the same ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Our dancing-master was Mr Jay. He was a proficient in his art; and though he might not have been able to jump as high or to spin round on one leg as long as an opera-dancer, he was able to teach us to dance like gentlemen. He was also a professor of fencing and gymnastics, and a very good instructor he was. He understood ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Windsor," "What say you to young Mr. Fenton? He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses." Locke thus alludes to the graceful motions which dancing lends to the human frame: "the legs of the dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, fall, as it were, naturally, without thought or pains, into regular and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... down to dinner daily. These were dependants, friends, and intimates, who were regarded almost as part of the family, or at any rate seemed unable to tear themselves away from it: among them a musician named Dimmler and his wife, Ioghel the dancing-master and his family, and old Mlle. Below, former governess of Natacha and Sonia, the count's niece and adopted child, and now the tutor of Petia, his younger son; besides others who found it simpler to live at the count's expense than ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... instance of the extraordinary effect of music is related of a dancing-master of Alais, in the province of Languedoc. Being once over-fatigued in Carnival time by the exercise of his profession, he was seized with a violent fever, and on the fourth or fifth day, fell into a lethargy, which continued upon him for a considerable time. ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian |
