"Waltz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he was—and with the perspiration rolling in streams down his face, went in search of some frozen cranberries to refresh himself after his violent exertion. To this dance, which is called the "Russki" (roo'-ski), succeeded another known as the "Cossack waltz," in which Dodd to my great astonishment promptly joined. I knew I could dance anything he could; so, inviting a lady in red and blue calico to participate, I took my place on the floor. The excitement was perfectly indescribable, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Siam essayed a waltz with the Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, while the Sultan of Turkey basked in the smiles of a Chicago heiress ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... came to a certain lively waltz, and threw his whole soul, as it were, into the crank of his instrument, my beloved ragamuffin failed not to seize another cake-boy in his arms, and thus embraced, to whirl through a wild inspiration of figures, in which there was something ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... breath, or bust, hadn't you?" cried her disrespectful son, catching the portly matron about the spot where her waist should have been and hilariously whirling her about in a waltz which his own lameness rendered the more grotesque. "And where can you cook 'em? Why, right square in them old ovens at the mission. Full now of saddles and truck, but Samson and me'll clear 'em out lively. I'll make you a fire in ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... frail cables of lanterns looping her to her moorings. A side door of the theatre opened suddenly and a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst of music issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the side door closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of the music. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supple movement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had been the cause of all his day's unrest and of his impatient movement of a moment before. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... some music; it will play three tunes," said the Wizard, lifting the music-box from the bag. It first played "Coming Through the Eye," then "Violets Blue," and next struck up a lively German waltz. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... began to whistle a popular waltz—and the next minute the two elder people found themselves watching open-mouthed the whirling figure of Miss Helena Pitstone, as, singing to herself, and absorbed apparently in some new and complicated steps, she danced down the whole length of the drawing-room and back again. ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lustre of the sky was without a cloud; the sunny sea leapt under the fresh westerly breeze. From the beach, the cries of children at play, the shouts of donkey-boys driving their poor beasts, the distant notes of brass instruments playing a waltz, and the mellow music of the small waves breaking on the sand, rose joyously together on the fragrant air. On the next bench, a dirty old boatman was prosing to a stupid old visitor. Mr. Ronald listened, with a sense of vacant content in the ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... Wayland who spoke. She and the other teachers were seated on the raised platform at the end of the gymnasium. The long room was wreathed with garlands and brilliantly lighted, and they were watching the girls as they flitted by in their gay dresses, to the waltz that good ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... lowering looks. He stood in front of the line of spectators, who were amusing themselves by looking on. Every time that she came past him, his eyes darted down upon her eddying face; he might have been a tiger with the prey in his grasp. The waltz came to an end, Mme de Langeais went back to her place beside the Countess, and Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the while ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... last night in Bourcelles, and the spirit of pandemonium was abroad. Neither parent could say no to anything, and mere conversation in corners was out of the question. The door was opened into the corridor, and while Mother played her only waltz, Jimbo and Monkey danced on the splintery boards as though it were a parquet floor, and Rogers pirouetted somewhat solemnly with Jane Anne. She enjoyed it immensely, yet rested her hand very gingerly upon his shoulder. 'Please don't hold me quite so tight,' she ventured. 'I've never ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... not free to her as to other ladies. And then one day, or rather one night, there came a great sorrow,—a sorrow which robbed these terrestrial Paradises of half their brightness and more than half their joy. One evening he told her that he did not like her to waltz. "Why?" she innocently asked. They were in the brougham, going home, and she had been supremely happy at Mrs. Montacute Jones's house. Lord George said that he could hardly explain the reason. He made rather a ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... distinct stages in the evolution of Annette Brougham's attitude towards the knocking in the room above. In the beginning it had been merely a vague discomfort. Absorbed in the composition of her waltz, she had heard it almost subconsciously. The second stage set in when it became a physical pain like red-hot pincers wrenching her mind from her music. Finally, with a thrill in indignation, she knew it for what it was—an insult. The unseen brute disliked her playing, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... most extraordinary exhibition of all. Imagine two whirling balloons, a hundred feet in height, and so black that they stood out from the surrounding gloom, showing like pitch against the dimly lit sky behind. They began a witches' waltz in the firmament, sometimes leaning far backward, then dancing forward, as if saluting each other, then "balancing," then dancing up and down, then so far away from each other that one would pass out of the field of vision, ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... well-mannered people—all so "respectable." France is progressing by great leaps and bounds, at least in what arrests the eye. Its progress in government, liberty, and politics, is perhaps rather like that in a waltz. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... it is among Jews and Christians, among rich and poor, out under the open sky, and even in the atmosphere of the ball-room, consecrated though it be to such purposes. Go into any public dancing-room of Vienna, where the girls from the shops and the young men from their desks congregate to waltz and make love, and you shall observe that from ten to twelve they will dance as vigorously as at a later hour, but that they will hardly talk to each other till the mellowness of the small morning ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... dish of lobster, smothered in a spiced sauce that makes a cold dry wine only half quench one's thirst, and were proceeding with a crisp salad when Boldi, with a rushing crescendo slipped into a delicious waltz. De Savignac now sat with his chin sunk heavily in his hands, drinking in the melody with its spirited accompaniment as the cymballist's flexible hammers flew over the resonant strings, the violins following the master ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... themselves and chaffing with the crowd. The orchestra struck up some jubilant ragtime that set the heart dancing and the heels tapping in tune. Brighter than ever seemed the lights; more dazzling the white and gilt of the walls. Some of the girls were balancing lightly to a waltz rhythm. There was a witching grace in their movements, and the Youth watched them intently. He looked down at his feet clad in ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... well, and made it a point to cultivate the acquaintance of the leader of the orchestra. On his learning that I also played the violin, he promptly invited me to play a certain new waltz which he was desirous of learning. But I had no sooner taken the violin in my hand than the lazy rascal lighted a cigarette and strolled away, absenting himself for nearly an hour. But I was familiar with the simple dance music of the country, and ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... talks of you; in various keys, tunes, and expressions, I allow—but be it Lesson or Country Dance, Sonata or Waltz, you are really its constant theme. I wish you could come and see us, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... against the fellow. Just so one doesn't gather from the above line that the poet has any strong preference as between the false and the true, except that there is no good rhyme to "the false," unless you can count "waltz"; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... gay and dramatic laughing chorus and waltz of the first scene to the divine melody in which the heroine expresses her unshaken faith in Heaven, immediately before her lover's triumph closes the piece, the whole opera is a series of exquisite conceptions, hardly one of which does not contain some theme or passage ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... brilliance of the ball-room; seeing which I did not mind the slightly superior smile that curved Mr. Selwyn's very precise moustache; after all, my rhapsody had not been altogether thrown away. As I ended, the opening bars of a waltz floated out to us. Mr. Selwyn ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... himself together, and attempted to carry Mrs. Stuart off for the waltz, but for once in her life that lady had lost her head. "It is shocking!" she said, "outrageously shocking! I wonder if they told Mr. McDonald before he married her!" Then looking hurriedly round, she too saw the young husband's face—and knew ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... know, we are used to quite different graces, * * * * * The Czar's look, I own, was much brighter and brisker, But then he is sadly deficient in whisker; And wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey- mere breeches whisk'd round in a waltz with the J * *, Who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted With majesty's presence as those ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... as the bird, sprang from her seat and began to waltz about the room, her curls floating in the air, and her cheeks bright as a ripe peach. She looked like a fairy ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Bumpus?" cried Step Hen, as he ran out toward the spot where the other continued to waltz around in his bright red and white striped pajamas, that made him look like an "animated sawed-off barber's pole," as one of his chums had ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... picked it up. He danced in pleading. He showed all the pretty steps he could do. As a sign that the soldier had won his lady-love, Filippa at last consented that he should return the handkerchief, crown her proudly with it on her cloud of thick hair, and waltz away with her triumphantly. ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... subtle charm of indolent moods, and the sweet ecstacy of youthful pleasure, when with flying feet and in the abandon of delight she swings, circles, and floats through the measures of the voluptuous waltz. ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... of April 14th you mention the case of about twenty birds which seemed to listen with much interest to an excellent piping bullfinch. (445/2. Quoted in the "Descent of Man" (1901), page 564. "A bullfinch which had been taught to pipe a German waltz...when this bird was first introduced into a room where other birds were kept and he began to sing, all the others, consisting of about twenty linnets and canaries, ranged themselves on the nearest side of their cages, and listened with ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... appearance of successful hosts. White recognized Sommers and nodded, with one eye on the board. "Rag's acting queer," he said casually in the doctor's ear. "Are you in the market? Rag is Carson's latest—ain't gone through yet, and there are signs the market's glutted. Look at that thing slide, waltz! Gee, there'll ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... were singularly human. Much of the time was spent in trying on gorgeous clothes: gold-laced coats, and embroidered waistcoats, which had been sent by Paris tailors. Some of it was passed in the acquisition of accomplishments, notably in learning to waltz. Every day he sent a letter with flowers to meet the new Empress at every stage of her progress, and every day he received a reply from ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... An ordinary waltz; Yet distance gives it dignity. Who knows? Journeying through the woods the master haunted. Under the cyclamen, among the bracken, It may ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... the style of music to be furnished, and the rasping and scraping of that miserable instrument put me beside myself with nervousness. Then the "ball-room" had to be aired and lighted; then the negro's music was found to be incompatible with modern movements; even a waltz was proved impossible, and nobody would consent to remember a quadrille but Richard. So they had to fall back upon Virginia reels, and ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... is not, and you find this more in music than in any other phase of Spanish life. The Germans dance the gay and voluptuous waltz with a 'bock' in their hand, singing the Gaudeamus igitur, that students' hymn glorifying the material life free from care. The French sing amid rippling laughter, and dance with their free and elastic limbs, ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... am about you. The first time I saw you—it was at the ball in the Spanish Club—" Again Rosa drew away sharply, at which O'Reilly laid his other hand over the one in his palm, saying, quickly: "You and your stepdaughter, Rosa. Do you remember that first waltz of ours? Sure, I thought I was in heaven, with you in my arms and your eyes shining into mine, and I ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... and then getting among the parallelogram "props," as we used to call them (may their fathers' graves be defiled!), he stuck dead. For a whole evening did he pore patiently over one of them till A B, setting to C D, crossed hands, poussetted, and whirled round "in Sahara waltz" through his throbbing head. Bed-time, but no rest! Whether he slept or not he could not tell. Who could sleep with that long-bodied, ill-tempered-looking parallelogram A H standing on the bed-clothes, and crying out, in tones loud enough to waken the house, that ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Sibylla, in a little spirit of mischief. And, in the bright prospect of the future, she forgot past and present grievances, turned her laughing blue eyes upon her sisters, and, to their great scandal, began to waltz round and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... at the fonda, to which we and our "family are most respectfully invited." The sounds of music already invite us to the ball-room. We enter. The floor is full; a hundred couples are gliding through the graceful "Spanish dance," or "slow waltz," as it is termed here. Not a few blue-and-gold United States uniforms are to be seen in the throng. A full-uniformed major-general of volunteers adds the eclat of his epaulettes to the occasion. The ranchos have poured in their senoras and senoritas, and three rows of the dark-eyed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... but was overjoyed to discover that that resource of rural entertainment has no foothold in the Philippines. Dancing was next in order. The first dance was the stately rigodon, which is almost the only square dance used here. When it was finished and a waltz had begun, I insisted on going home, for I was tired out. Somebody loaned us a victoria, and thus the trip was short. A deep-mouthed bell in the church tower rang out ten slow strokes as I threw back the shutters after putting out my light. The military ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... steel serpents twisting and dying... Screeching of steam-glutted cauldrons rending... Shock of leviathans prone on each other... Scaled flanks touching, ore entering ore... Steel haunches closing and grappling and swaying In the waltz of the mating locked mammoths of iron, Tasting the turbulent fury of living, Mad with a moment's exuberant living! Crash of devastating hammers despoiling.. Hands inexorable, marring What hands had so ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... afar, These sulky levels smooth and free, The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare Slaughter below and smoke above, And death and hate and hell declare That men have found ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... of a bandolon, a harp, and fiddle, and the dances were the waltz, the bolero, and the coona. It is but just to say that finer dancing could not have been witnessed in the saloons of Paris. Even the peon, in his leathern spencer and calzoneros, moved as gracefully as a professor of the art; and the ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... he; "it ain't possible. However, I'll tell you what I'll do. Just to put your mind at rest, I'll go round and find out for sure. Just you waltz ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... A waltz was announced—rather, bellowed—and the boys drifted away from me. It was evident that they did not intend to become wall flowers. For myself, it occurred to me that, except my somewhat debatable acquaintance with Miss King, I did ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege of speaking with that year's simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as she played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I don't bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose much by the privation to which I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cried nervously. "I didn't think of the time. The band is playing the waltz—that's the second piece before the tournament. We must hurry. Oh, I do hope father ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... familiar waltz caused a quick reassembling of the dancers. The music tingled in Phil's blood. She kept time with head and hands, and then, swinging round, began dancing, humming the air as her figure swayed and bent to its cadences. By some whim the nearest corn-shock became the center of her attention. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... galleries were well filled with spectators seated at their ease, and intent on the party-coloured turmoil of the floor, where from time to time the younger promenaders broke away from the ranks into a waltz, and after some turns drifted back, smiling and controlling their quick breath, and resumed their promenade. The place was intensely light, in the candour of a summer day which had no reserves; and the brilliancy was not broken ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... professor of the College Hornpipe to the London University, had a long interview yesterday with Lord Palmerston to give his lordship lessons in the new waltz step. The master complains that, despite a long political life's practice, the pupil does not turn quick enough. A change was, however, apparent at the last lesson, and his lordship is expected soon to be able to effect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... condescending as to promise me a galop; I am rather late in claiming this gracious promise, but here is my friend, whose character for veracity you well know, and he will assure you the delay arose from no fault of mine." And as at this moment the orchestra gave the signal for the waltz, Albert put his arm round the waist of the countess, and disappeared with her in the whirl of dancers. In the meanwhile Franz was considering the singular shudder that had passed over the Count of Monte Cristo at the moment when he had been, in some ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the door, opened it, and stood in the illuminated ball. Johnson just had time to vanish from the key-hole and no more. Down the stair-way pealed the wild, melancholy music of a German waltz; from the dining-room came the clink and jingle of silver, and china, and glass. The woman's haggard face filled with scorn and bitterness as she gave one fleeting, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... there the young gentleman did me the honour of proposing to me. It was terribly embarrassing for me, but I allowed him to see, as unmistakably as possible, that I could give him no encouragement, and, as the introduction to the next waltz started, we parted the best of friends. About half an hour later, just as I was going to dance the lancers, Mrs. Mayford came towards me and drew me into the drawing-room. Mr. Baxter, his lordship's tutor, was with her, and I noticed that ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... slow" as "weak-kneed," and {426} "goody-goody" men. Let me recall that word, the fast and indecently-dressed "things," the animals of easy virtue, the "respectable" courtesans that flirt, chaff, gamble, and waltz with well-known high-class licentious lepers—such is the ideal of womanhood which a large proportion of our large city society ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... curly mustache and drawing himself up to his full height of six feet, "and when you're as old as I am and half as wise, Billy, you'll know that a pretty girl is worth ten times the thought our old frumps of generals demand. My name ain't Gordon if I haven't a mind to waltz over there through the mist and the wind just to tell them I've sent for Squeers. Then I'll get a ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... the morning air. On the walk before me were two beautiful children, a boy of six and a little girl of four. They were merry and happy as the birds were, and with an arm of each around the waist of the other, they went hopping and skipping up and down the walks, stopping now and then to waltz, to swing round and round, and then darting away again with their hop and skip, too full of hilarity, too instinct with vitality, to be for a moment still. The flush of health was on their cheeks, and the warm light of ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... exercise a little. You whistle 'The Beautiful Blue Danube,' and we'll waltz. This desert is the biggest, jolliest ball-room floor that ever was, and I dare say we shall be the first to waltz on it since the creation of the world. That will be something to boast of when we get home. Come, let's dedicate the Great ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... 'gentlemen' in those halcyon days. One Represented things—Parties in Parliament—Benevolent Societies, and British Hospitality in the form of astounding long dinners at which one drank healths and made speeches. In roseate youth one danced the schottische and the polka and the round waltz which Lord Byron denounced as indecent. To recall the vigour of his poem gives rise to a smile—when one chances ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Tracy to waltz again. Then they had a galop, and the party broke up. Anthony said good-night, and that he was coming up on Saturday. Then Saltonstall drew her into a little nook in the hall that made a connection with another room when it was ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... about it!" returned Coleman; "for my part, I think she looks rather jolly than otherwise;—see how she's laughing with my cousin Lucy; by Jove, how her face lights up when 121she smiles!—she's very decidedly pretty. Well, will you be introduced?—they are going to waltz." ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... with tables, where the people seated themselves as they came, and conversed sociably over their coffee and wine. The orchestra was placed in a little ornamental temple in the garden, in front of which I stationed myself, for I was anxious to see the world's waltz-king, whose magic tones can set the heels of half Christendom in motion. After the band had finished tuning their instruments, a middle-sized, handsome man stepped forward with long strides, with a violin in one hand and bow in the other, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... and some of the highest nobility on the space just in front of the dais. The rest of the hall is occupied by the other dancers, who later in the evening find their way into the diplomatic set. The dancing in the quadrilles and Lancers is of a rather stately and ceremonious sort. In waltz or galop the English always dance the same step, the deux temps, and the aim of the dancing couple is to go as much like a spinning-top as possible. They make occasional efforts to introduce puzzling novelties ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... leader or others in calling them. Full and complete directions for performing every known square dance, such as Plain Quadrilles, Polka Quadrilles, Prairie Queen, Varieties Quadrille, Francaise, Dixie Figure, Girl I Left Behind Me, Old Dan Tucker, Money Musk, Waltz Lanciers, Military Lanciers, Columbian Lanciers, Oakland Minuet, Waltz Quadrilles, etc. The "German" introduces over One Hundred of the newest and most popular Figures, fully described, and conveniently grouped ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... said Lolo, with a very derisive laugh: "why, Moufflou can do anything! He can walk on two legs ever so long; make ready, present, and fire; die; waltz; beg, of course; shut a door; make a wheelbarrow of himself; there is nothing he will not do. Would you like to see him ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... physician of the sanitarium that was now bringing so many patients to Urbana. A handsome, dare-devil sort of boy was Powlett, who speedily cut out all the local beaux at the parties and picnics which filled the summer of '75. A beautiful dancer was he, and taught Almira to waltz and "glide" in a style never before seen in Urbana, and that other couples first derided, then envied, then vainly strove to imitate. That Urbana censors should go to the widow with invidious comment upon Almira's misbehavior was a matter of course, and that the widow should ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Sarah Vixen—[I'm beginning now]—Her name was Sarah Vixen. She was a horrid old maid. One morning she went and played her organ in Euston Square. She played 'Wait till the clouds roll by,' and 'Sweethearts' waltz', and the 'Marseillaise,' one after the other, after which she paused and watched a tennis match which was going on in ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... river, a place with celebrated gardens which would always come back to her memory as a riot of roses. The frocks of the people on the lawn looked as though they were made of the petals of flowers, and a mad little haunting waltz was being played by the band, and there under a great copper birch on the green velvet turf near her stood Jem, looking at her with dark, liquid, slanting eyes! They were only a few feet from each other,—and he looked, and she looked, and the haunting, mad little ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... waltz-song in Act I of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, are often phrased as indicated in the brackets, in order to give the singer a chance to take breath, which is done after the ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... her head, "you were too busy being in love with Mrs. Van Skuyt to remember a waltz with only me! I was allowed to meet you as a reward for singing my very best, and you—you bowed with the indulgence of a grandfather, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... with dinner, and all stood open, so that any one might enter under the permission of the Court Marshal. All this I must notice here, because Sidonia afterwards caused much scandal by these means. The music now rejoiced her greatly, and she began to move her little feet, not in a pilgrim, but in a waltz measure, and to beat time with them, as one could easily perceive by ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... him is brass and the earth iron, when the trees and shrubs are languishing and the last blade of grass has given up the struggle for life, when the very roses smell only of dust, and all day long the roaring "dust devils" waltz about the fields, whirling leaf and grass and corn stalk round and round and up and away into the regions of the sky; and he unties a leather thong which chokes the throat of his goat-skin just where the ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... ass! I'm not insane.—Here, Mamie," I continued, opening the bedroom door, "come out and make it up with me, and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the supper, let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll waltz with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... has always seemed to me an outrage and an impertinence, though I may suppose it finds its excuse in the short-waisted costumes of our grandmothers. But the movement of the glass-smoothing valseuses was really a sort of waltz movement. The plates of glass were fixed with plaster on a solid rectangular table. Granite-dust was scattered upon the plates, and then a wooden plateau, armed on the under side with bands of cast iron or steel, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... must be plucked out the moment it springs up in the heart. My husband has been promised a school in another district, and when we have once left this place I shall forget it all. I shall tear my passion out by the roots. [The notes of a melancholy waltz are ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... Aunt Betty stood that Marion could hardly restrain herself from catching hold of her and whirling her around in a waltz. ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... awakens pleasant memories of circus day. Scots Wha Hae fills the Scotchman with love for his native heather. The odor of certain flowers is offensive because we associate it with a sad occasion. The beauty of a waltz is due not only to its composition but also to our having danced to it under particularly ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... rose restlessly and went to the window in the alcove. From the parlor below came the strains of a waltz and snatches of laughter; overhead the stars loomed big and white in the summer night. She thought how strange and lonesome it must be out at Thornwood with the lights all out and the windows nailed up. The little night things were singing in the garden by ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... hall and found it full of noble ladies and knights, servants, waiting maids, flower girls, all motionless and yet the flush of life on their cheeks. The dancers seemed about to whirl away in the waltz; the musicians bent over their violins; and a servant was in the act of passing cakes to the guests—yet they all held the same fixed position, and had since that day years before when ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... illumined, exactly enough for conversation, by half a dozen candles, placed in odd corners, at a great distance apart. In a deep armchair, near the fire, sat an old lady in black; at the other end of the room another person was seated at the piano, playing a very expressive waltz. In this latter person Newman recognized the young ...
— The American • Henry James
... a waltz, I believe," she said, striving to speak naturally; but her pulses had begun to stir again; the same inexplicable sense of exhilaration and insecurity ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... he could waltz in time to the music, and the people who banked the circle as far up as Skipper could see shouted and clapped their hands until it seemed as if a thunderstorm had broken loose. At last one of the men in tall hats tied a blue ribbon ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... ghostly tinkling of the Il Bacio waltz, and the ingenuous couples of Avignon rose and began to dance. The thirst-driven Lackaday plucked up courage, and strode to a deserted wooden table. He ordered beer. It was brought. He sipped luxuriously. One tells one's thirst to ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... lady, for the false, The fickle love's rememberance, What though another claim the waltz— The curtain soon will ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... win Marie Louise's affection, did more undignified things than he had ever done for any woman. For instance, one day when he was alone with Queen Hortense and the Princess Stephanie, the latter mischievously asked him if he knew how to waltz; and his Majesty replied that he had never been able to go beyond the first lesson, because 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... smiled graciously on him; she felt that, like the sun, she could shine on all that night. But as, in his insolence, his attentions grew marked, she soon shook him off by permitting Gus Elliot to claim her for a waltz. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Josselyn had sat there with the waltz-music in her ears, and her little feet, that had had one merry winter's training before the war, and many a home practice since with the younger ones, quivering to the time beneath her robes, and seen other girls chosen out and led away,—young matrons, and little ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... stirred by the webbed feet of waterfowl, or the wings of dipping swallows, with above and below a brawling rivulet, here and there showing cascades like the tails of white horses, or the skirts of ballroom belles floating through waltz ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... seen any one dance more beautifully than she; she fluttered above the floor, and could make the waltz more agreeable than any one else before or after her. That was my favorite dance. I was exclusively by her side at such times, and we could not gaze except into each other's eyes. I did not like the quadrille so well: ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the Convention of 1793 led, in the minuet, the graceful "pas de chale," with the daughter of an emigrant marquis. The most fanatical men of the days of terror, now exalted into wealthy land-owners, led on in the gay waltz the daughters of their former landlords; and these women pressed the hand soiled with the blood of their relatives because now, as amends for their traffic in blood, they could ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... him—a simple, plaintive strain wandering at will over a surface of steady rhythmic movement underneath, always creeping upward through mysteries of sweetness, always sinking again in cadences of semi-tones. With only a moment's pause, there came the Seventh Waltz—a rich, bold confusion which yet was not confused. Theron's ears dwelt with eager delight upon the chasing medley of swift, tinkling sounds, but ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... sat at the piano and played a few strains of an old waltz we had been discussing. I stood beside her while she sat there, and in tones trembling with the intensity of my feelings I poured forth the old, old story. I told her of my love in such words as I ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... the connection with the cars, increased as the day advanced. At last the monotonous motion of the stage coach, added to the agitated state of my nerves, began to affect me like the rolling of the sea. The trees of the forest seemed to waltz around me in mazy circles. Faster and faster they whirled, till my sight grew dim and I could scarcely distinguish them at all. My senses were winding up. I felt them slipping from me in spite of the strongest effort of my will to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... young man been oblivious of the daughter who now seemed in her native element. From his dusky point of observation he caught frequent glimpses of her, now whirling through a waltz in the parlor, now talking and laughing in a rather pronounced way from the midst of a group of gentlemen, and again coquettishly stealing off with one of them through the moonlit walks. Her manner, whether assumed or real, was that of extravagant gaiety. Occasionally ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... man, had a calm face that fitted well with the quiet wreaths of smoke he sent up on the air, from his almost ever-present cigar. It was our delight to coax him to bring out his violin on dance nights, and give us a charming waltz or two. You would hardly associate his intelligent and pleasant face with the dull work of an engine room, but he was there day by day, faithful and regular as a clock, for he was in earnest. He had the sublime faith in him, and in later years held a responsible position ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... she undertakes, I am certain," Lord Ernest said, "and for that atonement I speak of, Miss Hunsden, I claim the first waltz." ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... Duesseldorf to Wohlgebaum he played the Circuit of Gardens with nice clean Gravel on the Ground and Dill Pickles festooned among the Caraway Trees. Every time the Military Band began to breathe a new Waltz he would have Otto bring a Tub of the Dark Brew and a Frankfurter about the size of ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... felicity, and whose sons, great and small, bright and dull, have been learning the piano for three years or more, and still can do nothing. You are doubtless right; and, further, they never will learn any thing. You ask, Of what use is it to man or boy to be able to stammer through this or that waltz, or polonaise or mazurka, with stiff arms, weak fingers, a stupid face, and lounging figure? What gain is it to art? You say, Is not time worth gold, and yet we are offered lead? And the poor teachers torment themselves and the boys, abuse art and the piano; and ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... a sigh and her eyes grew dreamy as she fell to thinking of the future that lay before her. And as she planned with eager confidence her hand moved soothingly over the dog's head in measure to the languorous waltz that ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... partner to the hymeneal bargain is fat and full of content, happiness fairly oozing out of every oily pore. And is not happiness the goal of human endeavour, whether a man seeks it amid the electric lights, subtle perfumes, and dreamy waltz-music of a New York ballroom, or finds it seated with his community wives on a hummock ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... said Mr Winter good-humouredly. "You don't need to tell me that. Well, now, this looks like dancing. Miss Filkin, I see, is going to oblige on the piano. Now I wonder whether I'm going to get Miss Dora to give me a waltz ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... water, left by the rain in a hollow of the gravel-walk. Was she frightened? Not at all. The water felt delightfully fresh, her spirits flashed out like the sun himself, and in the joy of her heart she began to waltz, scattering and splashing the water about her. The crisp ruffles of the cambric lost all their starch, the pretty boots were quite spoiled, but Lota waltzed on, and in this plight Nursey, flying indignantly out from the kitchen door, found ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... and would it be becoming after all? A pretty, girlish sight, and you may laugh at it if you choose; but there was a prettier woman's tenderness underlying it, just as a strain of fine, coy sadness will wind through a mazourka or a waltz. For who would see the poor little hat to-morrow at church? and would he like it? and when he came to-morrow night,—for of course he would come to-morrow ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... light. The secret charms beneath her robe-folds hidden, Like heavens' joys to mortal eyes forbidden, Are dimly outlined to our rapturous gaze, Like veiled statues through a marble haze. Her fairy foot, as in the graceful waltz it glides, Our admiration equally divides. And proves, that of her many charms of form and voice, If one you had to choose, you could not make the choice. Their perfect harmony is like the arch's span; Displace one stone, you ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... replete with every comfort, become the rendezvous of old and young, and dancing is kept up till half-past eight o'clock. It must be confessed that it made one perspire to see the dancers tread a measure to a popular waltz, but there could be no question of the enjoyment of those ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... can perhaps teach himself to regret but few of the sweets which he is compelled to leave behind him. He can learn to disregard most of his youth's pleasures, and to live contented though he has outlived them. The polka and the waltz were once joyous; but he sees now that the work was warm, and that one was often compelled to perform it in company for which one did not care. Those picnics too were nice; but it may be a question whether a good dinner at his own dinner-table is not nicer. Though ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Dai-Butsu might be, but he gladly agreed. She fluttered on beside him with her long kimono sleeves like a big moth. Geoffrey's head was full of wine and waltz tunes. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... poised in giant flight, a sphere supported by four allegorical figures whose attitude of turning suggests some vague waltz-measure—a total effect of equilibrium well conveying the illusion of the sweeping onward of the earth; and there are arms raised to give the signal, bodies heroically risen, containing an allegory, a symbol which stamps them with death and immortality, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the eye, which made Philammon promise to obey. He glanced one look back through the gateway as he fled, and just saw a wild whirl of Goths and girls, spinning madly round the court in the world-old Teutonic waltz; while, high above their heads, in the uplifted arms of the mighty Amal, was tossing the beautiful figure of Pelagia, tearing the garland from her floating hair to pelt the dancers with its roses. And ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... close to the entrance of the green-house, idly watching the dancers as they waltz round the spacious room, we once more see Helen and Gladys in close companionship. What a pretty ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... the man would bring his wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's arms in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before. "The men ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... moment, please," said Edith; "I want to have you listen to this waltz before you ask any questions. I think it is perfectly charming;" and as she spoke the sound of violins filled the room with the witchery of a summer night. When this had also ceased, she said: "There is nothing in the least mysterious ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... piece of music at hand—a waltz, a particularly romantic and melancholy refrain, that was soothing to the man in the chair. He sat with his head thrown back, blowing rings of smoke into the air and secretly congratulating himself upon his progress. In imagination, he experienced all ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... him on to labour: but at what? He felt as if he were the demon in the legend, condemned to twine endless ropes of sand. The world, outside which he now stood for good and evil, seemed to him like some frantic whirling waltz; some serried struggling crowd, which rushed past him in aimless confusion, without allowing him time or opening to take his place among their ranks: and as for wings to rise above, and to look down upon ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... in the dance is only pleasurable because of that contact. I am fully aware of the fact that this idea is scouted and denied by those who indulge in the waltz and kindred dances. They claim that no thought of carnality ever enters into their feelings. I know from personal experiences that they are honest in this declaration, yet, from a psychical standpoint, they are woefully in error. Aestheticism and carnality are by no means as ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... instantly recovered her public, or ballroom, manner. Could it be that she had not been rightly uplifted by the greatness of their moment? Did she realize all it would mean to them? But she was meltingly tender when at last they swayed in the waltz to "Home, Sweet Home." And it was he who bore her off under the witching moon to the side entrance of the Mansion. They lingered a moment in the protecting shadows. Pearl was chatty—not sufficiently impressed, it seemed to him, with the sweet ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... brave men" circled hither and thither in the maze of the stately waltz and the festal two-step, and the dainty slippers kept graceful time with the strains of the exceptionally fine music of the hour. Lovely young women, with roses in their cheeks and their hair, caught the reflection of the radiant electric lights and the glory of the superb decorations, ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... her mouth and sounds the orders and puts them through the evolutions for an hour or more; and it is too beautiful for anything to see those ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz about, and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving, always graceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on, sometimes near by, sometimes in the distance, all just like a state ball, you know, and sometimes she can't hold herself any longer, but ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... violin piece. This grew hackneyed, but, nevertheless, survived till a comparatively late day. Bosio, feeling that variations were necessary, threw Rode's over in favor of those on "Gia della mente involarmi"—a polka tune from Alary's "A Tre Nozze." Then Mme. Gassier ushered in the day of the vocal waltz—Venzano's, of amiable memory. Her followers have not yet died out, though Patti substituted Arditi's "Il Bacio" for Venzano's; Mme. Sembrich, Strauss's "Voce di Primavera," and Mme. Melba, Arditi's "Se saran rose." Mme. Viardot, with a finer sense of the fitness of things, ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Eva?" asked Jeremias Munter, in a hasty and displeased tone, from Louise, in the pause between the anglaise and the waltz. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... in hand to the stairs we advance, Feet scarcely touching the carpet at all: Why should they walk who are able to dance? Clasping each other, we waltz ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... Montezuma, but they were rather modernized by the necessity of wearing various articles of dress which would have been superfluous in old times. They stationed themselves in the middle of the church, opposite the high altar, and, to our unspeakable astonishment, began to dance the polka. Then came a waltz, then a schottisch, then another waltz, and finally a quadrille, set to unmitigated English tunes. They danced exceedingly well, and behaved as though they had been used to European ball-rooms all their lives. The spectators looked on as though it were ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... of the great ball at Lady Merivale's town house. A Blue Hungarian Band was playing dreamily the waltz of the season, to the accompaniment of light laughter and gaily tripping feet. The scent of roses filled the air. Masses of their great pink blooms lurked in every small nook and corner; while in the centre of the room, ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... orchestra opened up with a march: the muffled sounds came up in steady rhythm: they were opening the dance with a polonaise. Tonio Kroeger sat still awhile and listened. But when he heard the march-time change to a waltz, he got up and glided ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... strains of a waltz joined the lure of Judith's warm loveliness, whispering, counselling, commanding: "Take her." Marcia gasped and stepped back, startled by the look she saw in the eyes of this man who, having spoken no word since ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... time the officer looked at the sodden turf and at the swollen Andelle beyond it, which was overflowing its banks; he was drumming a waltz with his fingers on the window-panes, when a noise made him turn round. It was his second in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... I have an engagement," panted Judith, looking at her card. "Yes, it's a waltz and dear old Mr. Pete Barnes has put his name down. See!" She held it up for Jeff's inspection. Pete had written, "Set this dance out with your true ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... no doubt, a far from rare mood in poetry. Even the waltz-songs of the music-halls express, or attempt to express, the longing of lovers for an impossible loneliness. Mr. de la Mare touches our hearts, however, not because he shares our sentimental day-dreams, but because he so mournfully turns back from them to the bitterness ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... to his native village, high in our hills, one moonlight night. He heard sounds of fiddle and fife from a roadside barn, and saw yellow light from its chinks; and then entering, he found many women dancing, old and young, and among them his affianced. He tried to snatch her round the waist for a waltz (they play Mme. Angot at our rustic balls), but the girl was unclutchable, and whispered, "Go; for these are witches, who will kill thee; and I am a witch also. Alas! I shall go ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... would not for the world let him know how I feel. I did tell him that I was not the wife he ought to have, but he would not believe me, and father was anxious, and so I married him, meaning to do the best I could. It was splendid at Saratoga, only Guy danced so ridiculously and would not let me waltz with those young men. As if I cared a straw for them or any other man besides Guy ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... their ear drums had become phonographic and reproduced the music with a perpetual motion which could not be stopped. Every lady was eager to reveal the dancing secrets to mine host, and before the evening was over he could waltz, tango, and do many of ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming) |
