"Quadrille" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what a chance, that Arimaspian, for the imaginative pencil! And so it has come about that, while Milton periods are mostly effaced from memory by the sponge of Time, I can still see that vengeful Gryphon, cousin-german to the gentle beast that danced the Lobster Quadrille by ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... dying to 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. I know ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the Prince's side, the centre of a vivacious group. Evidently the orchestra might as well have been playing a selection from "Madame Butterfly," so far as she was concerned. This did n't help his mood and after waiting for the first dance, a quadrille in which even the elderly participated—it was given so they might—he sauntered out on the veranda and stood there gazing vacantly at the glowing ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... silence, and went through the steps of the quadrille without so much as a look at the talker, Ratman was sober enough to be annoyed at ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... and David Collins gayly led the quadrille that followed, and even Miss Castlevaine's habitual sneer was lost in the enjoyment of the moment. But Juanita Sterling, lover of all outdoors, devotee of music and the dance, with the best partner on the ground, went through the steps, her graceful feet and her ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... 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 a ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... bear the pall: (I wish I knew what king to call.) Madam, your husband will attend The funeral of so good a friend.' 'No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight; And he's engaged to-morrow night: My Lady Club will take it ill, If he should fail her at quadrille. He loved the Dean—(I lead a heart)— But dearest friends, they say, must part. His time was come; he ran his race; We hope he's in ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... independent provincial paper. 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 it was ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of "a household darling." I 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 fragrant flowers ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... luxurious house came the better class of British officers, and ombre and quadrille were often, I fear, played late into the long nights of winter. Single women, after a certain or uncertain age, were given a brevet title of "Mistress." Mistress Gainor Wynne lost or won with the coolness of an old gambler, and this habit, perhaps more than aught beside, troubled my father. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... band, verifying the 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 was ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... bestowed upon Mrs. Montagu and her "conversation parties," but there SEEMS some truth in the contention of Hannah More that those "blue-stocking" meetings did much to rescue fashionable life from the tyranny of whist and quadrille. Whether Mrs. Montagu really possessed any literary ability is a matter which does not call for discussion at this late hour, but it is something to her credit that she was able to attract under her roof such men as Horace Walpole, Dr. Johnson, Burke, Garrick, Reynolds, and many other conspicuous ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... would, however, here enter my humble protest against the quadrille and tiffin [scil. lunch] parties, which are sometimes given to the European ladies and gentlemen of the station at this imperial tomb; drinking and dancing are, no doubt, very good things in their season, even in ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... was very superb; only one Quadrille danced at a time, & great attention paid to the dancers. His Majesty sat between Lady Conyngham and Countess Lieven, [21] great attention paid to the former, who was most superbly dressed, and violent attention paid to the Opposition. Much civility also to Lord Lauderdale ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... earthen floor, and "calling out" is hard work for one man. There are but two kinds of dances,—the Red River jig, and a square dance which probably had for honourable ancestors the lancers on the father's side and a quadrille on the mother's. ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... NO MUSIC in the streets on Sundays. The first gent that rode him found himself dancing a quadrille in Hupper Brook Street to an 'urdy-gurdy that was playing 'Cherry Ripe,' such is the natur of the hanimal. And if you reklect the play of the 'Battle of Hoysterlitz,' in which Mrs. D. hacted 'the female hussar,' you may remember ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beautiful grove on each side of a romantic road leading through a valley. High wooded banks: groups of gaily-dressed village belles and beaux seen through the trees, in a quarry, in the sand-holes, everywhere where there was space enough to form a quadrille. This grove was planted by Gabrielle d'Estrees, for whom Henry IV. built a lodge near it. Fanny and Harriet danced with two gentlemen who were of our party, and they all danced on till dewfall, when the lamps—little glasses full of oil and a wick suspended to the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 them ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... come from?'—for the sound of an antiquated piano had been thrumming for some minutes from a distant room. The music was not ambitious—an old set of quadrille tunes. The colonel did not recognise it. He had no ear at all for music, and could just distinguish the quickstep of his regiment from 'God save the Queen.' In fact, when he paid any attention at all to music (and this was rare), it gave him no ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 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 had been performed ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... enough of the 'pretty fellow;' am tired of carrying hood and scarf, and sitting behind her chair through five long acts of a dull play; because I disappointed her in not searching for her at every drum and quadrille party; because I admired not her monkey; and because I broke a teapot with a ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 from ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... 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! A ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Prancing on their glorious battle-steeds (sham-battle, steeds not sham, but champing their bits as real quadrupeds with fire in their interior):—how many in all, I forgot to count. Perhaps, on the average, sixty in each Quadrille, fifteen of them practical Ritters; the rest mythologic winged standard-bearers, blackamoors, lictors, trumpeters and shining melodious phantasms as escort,—of this latter kind say in round numbers Two ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... all sole alone, four men? Probably playing whist or euchre. And now we began with waltzes, which passed into polkas, which subsided into other round dances; and then in very exhaustion we fell back in a grave quadrille. I danced with Hosanna; Wolfgang and Sarah were our vis-a-vis. We went through the same set that Noah and his three boys danced in the ark with their four wives, and which has been danced ever since, in every ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... coaxing whatever, she sang; and such a song! Her gray eyes grew dark, and her voice quivered, deepened, expanded into a melody that made you think the heavens had suddenly opened. Every other sound ceased; the doors and windows were filled with eager faces; the dancers ended in the middle of a quadrille, and the band came in a body to listen. I saw one fat Dutchman holding his fiddle in one hand while he wiped the tears from his eyes with the other. When the song was ended the old Italian took both her hands ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... began. Napoleon did not dance, but Marie Louise did. The first quadrille was thus made up: the Empress and the King of Westphalia, the Queen of Naples and the Viceroy of Italy, Princess Pauline Borghese and Prince Esterhazy, Mademoiselle de Saint-Gilles and M. de Nicolai. The second ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... man shamble or slouch, or throw his arms and legs about as if they were timber logs. Many is the time I have said to my scholars, when I was teaching dancing-school,—great lumbering fellows, hulking through a quadrille as if they were pacing a raft in log-running,—"Don't insult your Creator by making a scarecrow of the body He has seen fit to give you. With reverence, He might have given it to one of better understanding; but since you have it, for piety's ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... was brief, though brilliant; and again the cotillon and the quadrille, the waltz and the galoppe! At no moment of his life had the young Duke felt existence so intense. Wherever he turned his eye he found a responding glance of beauty and admiration; wherever he turned his ear the whispered tones were soft and sweet as summer winds. Each look was an offering, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... dancers out upon the lawn, and then they managed to go through one quadrille. But it was found that it did not answer. The music of the single fiddle which Crosbie had hired from Guestwick was not sufficient for the purpose; and then the grass, though it was perfect for purposes of croquet, was not pleasant to the feet ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... The band played the spring and I danced it round, while my cousin eyed me with extorted approval. The quadrille includes an absurd figure—called, I think, La Pastourelle. You take a lady with either hand, and jig them to and fro, for all the world like an Englishman of legend parading a couple of wives for sale at Smithfield; while the other male, like a timid purchaser, backs and advances with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Johnston is as brave a man as ever headed an army, yet he has often told us that his blood freezes when the guns open. I'm sure no one would ever suspect it, for he is as calm and confident as if he were in a quadrille when ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... uttered a sharp cry which the audience doubtless took for purest Italian. Immediately the animals all descended from their pedestals, and circled solemnly around him in a series of more or less intricate evolutions, all except the bear, who, not having yet been initiated into this beast quadrille, kept his place and looked scornful. At another signal the evolutions ceased, and all the beasts, except one of the lions, hurried back to their places. The lion, with the bashful air of a boy who gets up to "speak his piece" at a school examination, lingered in the middle of the stage. ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... a curious reason did not reign so long as its predecessor. From the peculiar nature of Quadrille, an unfair confederacy might be readily established, by any two persons, by which the other ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... great warmth of manner, "the man who has more than a hundred times aided your father's ministers by his advice—M. d'Herblay, in a word, who with M. de Valon, myself, and M. le Comte de la Fere, who is known to your majesty, formed that quadrille which was a good deal talked about during the late king's reign, and ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... beauty—you need only 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 she threw over Harry ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... 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 on taking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... reality to exile 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 place of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Germans and the Russians under Brussilov engaged in thrust and counter-thrust along the Styr which caused Czartorysk to change hands again and again, and earned for these operations the nickname of "the Poliesian quadrille"; and the fluctuations on the Strypa were equally indecisive. But the situation in the Balkans suggested the need for something less ambiguous nearer the Rumanian frontier if Rumanian neutrality ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... two British and four French airmen glided back and forth, in and out, circling, circling. With such grace and ease did they pirouette through their reconnaisance that Jeb was reminded of an aerial quadrille being danced five thousand feet above the earth; or, seeming to tire of this, one of them would change the play to hide-and-seek, point toward the translucent blue and scoot behind a cloud, with the others following. It was a cordial invitation for the Boche to come up and fight! Jeb did not see ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... 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 ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... release her. As it chanced, Maria was again his partner, and drawing her nearer to Maddy, he said, "Your fingers ache by this time, I am sure. It is wrong to trouble you longer. Agnes will take your place while you try a quadrille ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... saw that it was necessary to submit; and Mr. Springer, the master of the ceremonies, was called, and requested to point out some eligible partners for the young ladies. One went off with a Whig auctioneer; another figured in a quadrille with a very Liberal apothecary; and ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... remonstrant dancing men, however, Mr. Grandcourt was not numbered. After standing up for a quadrille with Miss Arrowpoint, it seemed that he meant to ask for no other partner. Gwendolen observed him frequently with the Arrowpoints, but he never took an opportunity of approaching her. Mr. Gascoigne was ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to 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
... old days when he was doing the literature for the Barnum show, Tody Hamilton would have made the best nominee I can think of. Remember, don't you, how when Tody started in to write about the elephant quadrille you had to turn over to the next page to find the verb? And almost any one of those young fellows who write advertising folders for the railroads would gladly tackle the assignment; in fact, some of them already have—but not with any ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... sounded as if he had been barrelled up in a puncheon, and was cantando through the bunghole; then Rubiochico sang, and the Don sang, and we all sang and bumpered away; and Mr Seco got on the table, and gave us the newest quadrille step; and, in fine, we were all becoming dangerously drunk. Longtram, especially, had become uproarious beyond all bounds, and, getting up from his chair, he took a short run of a step or two, and sprang right over the table, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... several people down from Buffalo, and mother, of course. I wish you could have seen her, bless her heart. She had on all her old lace, and my coiffeur did her hair beautifully. She looked so handsome, and Will insisted on her dancing a figure of a quadrille with him, and how graceful and dignified she was. You would have been very proud. I was. Lots of people asked about her, and some seemed so surprised when they heard she was my mother. How rude people are; and what did they expect my mother to be like? After all, do I look like the daughter of ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... to the Hall of St. George, a quadrille or two is danced to promote digestion, and the members of the Imperial family, bowing first to the diplomatic corps, and then to the other guests, retire to the private apartments of the palace. Now we are at liberty to leave,—not sooner,—and rapidly, yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... from that as a fountain, the desire of wealth and applause. Besides these, or what might be deduced as corollaries from these, he will teach not much else of any effective value: some dim notions of divinity, perhaps, and book-keeping, and how to walk through a quadrille. ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... send him volumes about peace and war, Spaniards, camps, and conventions; but d'ye think he cares sixpence to know who is gone to Compiegne, and when they come back, or who won and lost four livres at quadrille last night at Mr. Cockbert's?—No, but you may tell him what you have heard of Compiegne; that they have balls twice a week after the play, and that the Count d'Eu gave the king a most flaring entertainment in the camp, where the Polygone was represented in flowering shrubs. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... 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
... give a ball; but we only know about a dozen people. We've got to wait till we know enough at least for two sets of a quadrille." ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... reached the landing, the gold and rose-colored clouds were fading into soft masses of white and ashen gray, and moonlight was taking the place of sunset. As we went up the green slope to the sitio, a dance on the grass was proposed, and the Indian girls formed a quadrille; for thus much of outside civilization has crept into their native manners, though they throw into it so much of their own characteristic movements that it loses something of its conventional aspect. Then we returned to the house, where while here and there groups sat about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... Garden.' The conservatory opened into a library, and from the library you reach the antechamber, thus completing the 'giro' of one of the prettiest houses in St. Petersburg. I waltzed one waltz and quadrilled one quadrille, but it was hard work; and as the sole occupation of these parties is dancing and card-playing—conversation apparently not being customary—they are to me ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... G—'s ball, which was very splendid. I had been dancing, for although I was not considered probably good enough among the young aristocrats to be made a partner for life, as a partner in a waltz or quadrille I was rather in request, for the odium of governess had not yet been attached to my name, having never figured in that capacity in the metropolis, where I was unknown. I had but a short time taken my seat by Lady R—, when the latter ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... brilliant assemblage stood about in the ballroom floor ready for a quadrille. Elena Ashley and her betrothed were ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... he said to the animal presently, "it looks more like a swim than a waltz quadrille, and neither of ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... completes fifteen hundred miles of railway in the incredibly short space of time of a year and a half, and almost before the public is aware of its having been commenced, he is back again in St. Petersburg dancing at a Court ball in a quadrille opposite the Empress. The railway made by him runs at present from the Caspian Sea to the Amou-Daria River, and will be continued to Bokhara, Samarkand, and Tashkend, in a northerly direction, while on the south it is to enter Persia. Should European complications, by removing the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... again, the people rushed to see a quadrille where two women, with ease, were kicking off men's hats; and while watching them I heard that a special display of fireworks had been arranged in Marie's honour, the news having got about that this was her last night at the Elysee. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... annoyance is the knowledge of the fact that they dance almost into your eyes out of sheer vanity. They are simply admiring their own reflection in the mirror of the eye; or, may be, some mistake their own reflected forms for other flies performing the part of a "vis-a-vis" in their unwearying quadrille. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... 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 Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... 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 coming in ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... by modern dandyism. But for Rastignac, Mme. Anastasie de Restaud was the woman for whom he had sighed. He had contrived to write his name twice upon the list of partners upon her fan, and had snatched a few words with her during the first quadrille. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... 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 regale themselves without ceremony or bother every time the inclination ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... now had to part with a cordial grasp of hands. The introductory tune, warning the ladies to form in squares for a fresh quadrille, cleared the men away from the space they had filled while talking in the middle of the large room. This hurried dialogue had taken place during the usual interval between two dances, in front of the fireplace of the great drawing-room of Gondreville's ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... in the shade of some titled turban. In fact, Mr. Coates was a great success. There was an air of most romantic mystery that endeared his presence to all the damsels fluttering fans in the Pump Room. It set them vying for his conduct through the mazes of the Quadrille or of the Triumph, and blushing at the sound of his name. Alas! their tremulous rivalry lasted not long. Soon they saw that Emma, sole daughter of Sir James Tylney Long, that wealthy baronet, had cast a magic net about the warm Antiguan ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... one drinks one's fill Of folly and cold water, I danced, last year, my first quadrille With old Sir Geoffrey's daughter. Her cheek with summer's rose might vie, When summer's rose is newest; Her eyes were blue as autumn's sky, When autumn's sky is bluest; And well my heart might deem her one Of life's most precious flowers, For half her thoughts were of its ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... considered the most charming of the maidens present, as undoubtedly she was the most blooming, and she seemed to enjoy the ball as much as any one. She danced with Captain Hemming, and went through a quadrille with Commander Babbicome. He then entreated her to perform a valse with him. Laughing heartily, she advised him not to make the attempt. Even the quiet dance had reduced him ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... instance, from the four cardinal points to the same centre,) should surround their encampment, and shut up every avenue to escape. On this plan, the field of battle would have been one vast slaughter house; for quarter was not granted on either side. [4] But the quadrille, if it were ever seriously concerted, was entirely defeated by the failure of General Needham, who did not present himself with his division until nine o'clock, a full half hour after the battle was over, and ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... gathered together; all the notables which the English colony of that place could muster were there, as well as all those in high office, and also the moneyed aristocracy; in fact, everybody of standing felt glad to attend the marriage feast of the house of Mortimer & Co. Just now the sounds of a quadrille commenced, and the various pairs began to arrange themselves for the occasion, when the lackey in attendance was pushed aside and a horse's head ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... "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
... of the handsomest there. They said the most becoming (but that was de l'eau benite de Cour); perhaps it was because the Dukes of Orleans, Nemours, and Aumale, who never dance, and did so very little that evening, all three honoured me with a quadrille. You see I expose to you all the very linings of my heart I dissect it and exhibit all the vanity it contains. But you will excuse me when I tell you of a compliment that might have turned a wiser head than mine. The fame of my huntress's costume (Mademoiselle ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... 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
... and profane. For what's true beauty, but fair virtue's face? Virtue made visible in outward grace? She, then, that's haunted with an impious mind, The more she charms, the more she shocks mankind. But charms decline: the fair long vigils keep: They sleep no more! (17)quadrille has murder'd sleep. "Poor K—p! cries Livia; I have not been there These two nights; the poor creature will despair. I hate a crowd—but to do good, you know— And people of condition should bestow." Convinc'd, o'ercome, to K—p's ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... was given in the evening. Rose danced well enough for a queen; and she yielded herself up entirely to the enchantment of such a happy day. The prince, ever eager to be near her, was figuring away in a quadrille, when twelve o'clock struck: great, then, was his astonishment, while gazing passionately on his partner, ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... you said 'quadrille'. But I know the turns. Right turn, I turn to the right; left turn, I turn to the left; about turn, I turn just about, but not quite; form fours, I form—excuse me, but how does one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... you 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 ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... created an immense sensation. Some of the ladies frowned, others turned up their noses, yet others tucked in their skirts when she approached; and all vowed that they would decline to touch Miss Priest's hand in the quadrille. Miss Priest did not care a jot for these demonstrations, and she never danced square dances. Among the gentlemen she created ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... expertness 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 versa. Elders and preachers ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... as the rhythm which was kept up as regular as a clock, whack! whack! whack! whack! And there were two or three other fellows with badges on that went around shouting: "Select your podners for the next quadrille! One more ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... well as Kensington rejoiced, and the festivities were wound up with a ball given at St. James's Palace by order of the poor King and Queen, over whose heads the cloud of sorrow and parting was hanging heavily. We are told that the ball opened with a quadrille, the Princess being "led off" by Lord Fitzalan, eldest son of the Earl of Surrey and grandson of the Duke of Norfolk, Premier Duke and Earl, Hereditary Earl Marshal and Chief Butler of England. Her Royal Highness danced afterwards with Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, son ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... go in. The barn is full of our wounded. Go up a bit higher, and you will see a sort of pig-sty to the right—that is where the General is. Good-bye, my dear fellow. If ever we meet again in a quadrille ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... place in a quadrille, not exactly wishing Philip to fail, but rather hoping that he would prove a poor performer, in order that he might have a little triumph over Maria, who had the bad taste to prefer the young ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... whistle to the tune of the waltz quadrille, but she stood with tears in her eyes until the brave tune ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Grant," "Miss Emma," "Miss Mary," "Brigham Young and his Wife," "The Three Graces," "The Bear," &c., &c.; all of them veritable vegetable phenomena. One of the trees has been sawn across at its base, and on it there has been built a ball-room, in which a quadrille of eight or ten couples can be ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... 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 its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... Lafayette to hold a fete champetre in the gardens which should be very different from anything the court of France had seen before. She said that all her guests should appear either as goblins or as nymphs. They would not dance the quadrille nor any other stately measure, but would be free to romp and play such jokes as might occur to them. When he heard these plans ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... opera-dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame Anybody's finished pupils. Not the least. It was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even country-dance dancing. It was neither in the old style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the English style: though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous one, I am told, deriving a delightful air ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... was opened by a quadrille d'honneur. Governor and Mrs. Morgan, the historian Bancroft and Mrs. Bancroft, Colonel and Mrs. Abraham Van Buren, with others were to dance in it. The rush was so great that the floor gave way, and in tumbled the whole centre ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... space occupied by chaperones and corpulent cronies,—blessing the new mode;—dances now being given to dancers, not to dowagers and matrimonial slave-dealers, as heretofore. Mrs. Brown calculates her company; and thinking there is enough for a quadrille in either room, she commences to form them—pouncing, from time to time, upon timid young men by the door, who are led forward, like lambs from a flock, to sacrifice,—until the sets are completed—all but one couple—Mrs. Brown stating herself "distressed ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... 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;' and, Miss L'Estrange, I wish you would come as Juliet. It seems rude even to suggest a character to any ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... summoned, and "Newport" comes with his stirrup and steel for the "triangle" accompaniment, and the merry feet of the dancers are soon keeping time to the homely but inspiriting music. The "German" and the "Boston" have not usurped the places of the old-time cotillon, quadrille and Virginia reel, and the dance is often varied by romping games of "Blindman's Buff," "Move-House" and "Stage-Coach," in which old and young unite with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... the 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 ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... gave a little sharp laugh. "You are a thousand miles away. I will take care of the Tuileries myself; the day I decide to go they will be very glad to have me. Sooner or later I shall dance in an imperial quadrille. I know what you are going to say: 'How will you dare?' But I SHALL dare. I am afraid of my husband; he is soft, smooth, irreproachable; everything that you know; but I am afraid of him—horribly afraid of him. And yet I shall arrive at the Tuileries. But that ...
— The American • Henry James
... 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. Red silk neckerchiefs knotted with elaborate carelessness displayed ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... His father's widow had all her hopes, sympathies, recollections, prejudices, engaged on King James's side; and was certainly as noisy a conspirator as ever asserted the king's rights, or abused his opponent's, over a quadrille table or a dish of bohea. Her ladyship's house swarmed with ecclesiastics, in disguise and out; with tale-bearers from St. Germains; and quidnuncs that knew the last news from Versailles; nay, the exact force ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... quite the reverse, in fact, as, I believe, I have previously described. We only "dropped in" of an evening to see friends, and spend a quiet hour or two over bezique and music. On these occasions, a carpet cotillon or quadrille has been sometimes indulged in; but it was the exception and not the rule. We were generally satisfied with much milder pastime; our visits rarely exceeding the interval between tea and "supper" time, when we partook of a friendly, though seedy, abernethy ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... could sooner gain him, Than with her wit to entertain him. She ask'd about her friends below; This meagre fop, that batter'd beau; Whether some late departed toasts Had got gallants among the ghosts? If Chloe were a sharper still As great as ever at quadrille? (The ladies there must needs be rooks, For cards, we know, are Pluto's books.) If Florimel had found her love, For whom she hang'd herself above? How oft a-week was kept a ball By Proserpine at Pluto's ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... lived much under the Sea" (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
... Waverley 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;' and, Miss ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... of Mars, on the contrary, were devoted entirely to the service of the fair sex. Many of the officers' wives accompanied the regiment, and these helped to make up the quadrille, the mazurka, the redowa,—at that time the latest dance,—and every day saw ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... 'Since all men must confess, That time lies heavy more or less; Why should it be so hard to get Till two, a party at piquet? Play might relieve the lagging morn: By cards long wintry nights are borne: Does not quadrille amuse the fair, Night after night, throughout the year? Vapours and spleen forgot, at play They cheat uncounted hours away.' 40 'My case,' says Will, 'then must be hard By want of skill from play debarred. Courtiers kill time by various ways; Dependence wears out half their ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... village blacksmith, the postman, and the bell-ringer had not left by that time, they were in an unusually dissipated frame of mind. By ten o'clock the great kitchen was dark, and the mice were making up a quadrille upon the hearth, supposing no cat to be ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... crowded between Sylvester and joyous Babe in her turquoise blue on the front seat of the Ford, while the back seat was occupied by Girlie in scarlet and "Momma" in purple velveteen, the dance was well under way. The Hudsons came in upon the tumult of a quadrille. The directions, chanted above the din, were not very exactly heeded; there was as much confusion as there was mirth. Sheila, standing near Girlie's elbow, felt the exhilaration which youth does feel at the impact of explosive noise and motion, the stamping of feet, the shouting, the loud ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... here enter my humble protest against the quadrille and lunch parties which are sometimes given to European ladies and gentlemen of the station at this imperial tomb; drinking and dancing are no doubt very good things in their season, but they are sadly out of place in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mr. Ritson; "no, they just walk a quadrille or spin a waltz, as my friend, Lord Bobadob, calls it, nothing more—no, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... feast for Bob's and Molly's friends. Rose, too, the music of fiddles under the stairway in the hall, and Mrs. Crittenden and Judge Page, and Crittenden and Mrs. Stanton, and Judith and Basil, and none other than Grafton and radiant little Phyllis led the way for the opening quadrille. It was an old-fashioned Christmas the mother wanted, and an old-fashioned Christmas, with the dance and merriment and the graces of the old days, that the mother had. Over the portrait of the eldest ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... so taking to the inexperienced, of playing alone:—above 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 with an evening. They gave time to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... in you to run away and leave me when I was your partner in the first quadrille! I do not see why you should have disappointed me for anything that fellow could have said ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Robert, in his pretty way, must needs be led up to Daisy Medland and dance a quadrille with her, apologising politely to Dick Derosne, who had arranged to sit out the said quadrille with the same lady, and became a violent anti-Perryite on ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... could not see 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 ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... own, are an agreable relief, and the least subject to pall of any pleasures under the sun: and really, philosophically speaking, what is life but an intermitted pool at quadrille? ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... with a quadrille, but in this Mrs. Carr did not dance, being employed in the reception of her guests. Then followed a waltz, and, as its first strains struck up, several applicants came to compete for the honour of her hand; but she declined them all, saying that she was already engaged; and presently Arthur, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Melanie executed opera selections, and a French quadrille which excited my extremest admiration. My beautiful aunt laid stress upon the fact that she had only studied two years. A very intricate plan began to ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... up with music and dancing. One of the chief attractions of the big hotel in which we are so wholesomely housed is evidently the enormous salon given up after dinner to the waltz, country dance, and quadrille. Our hostess with much ease and tact looks in, paying her respects, to one visitor after another, and all is enjoyment and mirth till eleven o'clock, when the large family party, for so our French fellowship may be called, breaks ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... The third quadrille represented the Saxons, clad in the bearskins which they had brought with them from the German forests, and bearing in their hands the redoubtable battle-axes which made such havoc among the natives of Britain. They were preceded by two Scalds, who chanted ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... I claim your hand for the quadrille?" said George Marshall, bowing before Lizzie at the presentation of Madam ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... right eye. The while there were no guests, he and Isaiah Savvich quietly rehearsed Pas d'Espagne, at that time coming into fashion. For every dance ordered by the guests, they received thirty kopecks for an easy dance, and a half rouble for a quadrille. But one-half of this price was taken out by the proprietress, Anna Markovna; the other, however, the musicians divided evenly. In this manner the pianist received only a quarter of the general earnings, which, of course, was unjust, since Isaiah Savvich ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... not long remain in the hands of the Jews, and there must have been a great demand for them among the belles of Mayence, for I remember a ball there at which the Empress might have seen all the ladies of a quadrille party dressed in her cast-off clothes.—I even saw German Princesses wearing them" (Memoires de ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... 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 ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... reserves were, of course, posted behind. Cavalry, as at Omdurman, played but a slight role in this typically national action and such mounted troops as were present seem to have been intermixed with the line in the fashion later known, in the jargon of the service, as "The Beggar's Quadrille." The Brigade of Guards is not mentioned in any record that I can discover, but was probably set by reversed companies in a square perpendicular to the main ravine and a little in front of the salient angle which appears upon the map at ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... 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, if the ladies of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... shall go with mamma." All this had been said apart, while a 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 ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... century French beste an obsolete card game said to have resembled Nap; also certain penalties at Ombre and Quadrille. The word most frequently occurs in connection with Ombre, which is derived from the Spanish hombreman. The one who undertakes the game has to beat each of the other two; if he fails he is said to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... the cleared space 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 Bretonne France, which was, however, characteristic of the country. The Englishman has set no distinguishable impress upon the prairie. It has absorbed him with his reserve ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... at the end of a week he received an invitation to a ball where he thought she would be, he must perforce obey, and go with tremulous heart. She was engaged in a quadrille that passed to and fro beneath blue tapestry curtains, and he noticed the spray of lilies of the valley in her bodice, so emblematic did they seem of her. Beneath the blue curtain she stood talking to her partner after the dance; and he did not go to speak to her, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... dancers who emerged from the shadows. For the most part they were dressed up like animals and imitated the cries of the beasts that they represented, although some of them wore little or no clothing. To the sound of wild music of horns and drums these creatures danced a kind of insane quadrille which seemed to suggest everything that is cruel and vile upon the earth. They danced and danced in the moonlight till the madness spread from them to the thousands who were gathered upon the farther side of ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... too!" laughed the other girl, "But did you notice what a ninny I had in that last waltz-quadrille? Don't you hate partners who stand away off, and barely touch your finger-tips as they dance with you? Upon my word, I'd rather have the straight-as-a-mackerel kind, who hold you so tight you ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... 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
... fiddle was squeaking merrily so a tune that he remembered well,—it was associated with one of the most delightful evenings of his life, that of the tournament ball. A mellow negro voice was calling with a rhyming accompaniment the figures of a quadrille. Tryon, with parted lips and slowly hardening heart, leaned forward from the buggy-seat, gripping the rein so tightly that his nails cut into the opposing palm. Above the clatter of noisy conversation rose ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... fell off and tripped me up. Why do such things always happen to me? Somebody told us to do squads left and it looked as if we were playing Ring Around Rosie. Then we performed a fiendish and complicated little quadrille called a "company square." I found myself, much to my horror, on the inside of the contraption walking directly behind the company commander. It was a very delicate situation for a while. I walked on my tip-toes so that he wouldn't ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... yet!" said the Virginian, looking in upon the people. There was Miss Wood, standing up for the quadrille. "I didn't remember her hair was that pretty," said he. "But ain't she a ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... years! Think of Methuselah! It's summer in the world still, and it's only spring at St. Saviour's. It's the time of the first flowers. Let's dance—no, no, never mind the Cure to-night! He will not mind. I'll settle it with him. We'll dance the gay quadrille." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she discovered, to her horror and amazement, that all four girls were out of bed—were dressed in brilliantly-fantastic costumes, representing the four grotesque "Queens" of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs, familiar to us all on the pack of cards—and were dancing a quadrille, in which Jessie sustained the character of The Queen of Hearts. The next morning's investigation disclosed that Miss Yelverton had smuggled the dresses into the school, and had amused herself by giving an impromptu fancy ball to her companions, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... they are called, but more correctly speaking, afternoon parties, are generally held from four to seven o'clock in the afternoon. Sometimes a sufficient number for a quadrille arrange to remain after the assemblage has ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... de Lauzun, the favorite of Louis XIV., owed his fortune to his grace in dancing in the king's quadrille. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Rapture, than the Loose can dream? What, tho' thou build'st, by thy persuasive Life, Maid, Child, Friend, Mistress, Mother, Neighbour, Wife? Tho' Taste like thine each Void of Time, can fill, Unsunk by Spleen, unquicken'd by Quadrille! What, tho' 'tis thine to bless the lengthen'd Hour! Give Permanence to Joy, and Use to Pow'r? Lend late-felt Blushes to the Vain and Smart? And squeeze cramp'd Pity from the Miser's Heart? What, tho' 'tis thine to hush the Marriage ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... another, that he and I had the only red sashes in the room, - and they were both of the hue of blood, sir, blood. He shook hands with myself and all the members of my family. Then the cream came, and I found myself in the same set of a quadrille with his honour. We dance here in Apia a most fearful and wonderful quadrille, I don't know where the devil they fished it from; but it is rackety and prancing and embraceatory beyond words; perhaps it is best defined in Haggard's expression of a gambado. When I and my great enemy found ourselves ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about, for which I was quite unwilling to stake my guineas. The ladies, too, were mad for play; but exceeding unwilling to pay when they lost. Thus, when the old Countess of Trumpington lost ten pieces to me at quadrille, she gave me, instead of the money, her Ladyship's note of hand on her agent in Galway; which I put, with a great deal of politeness, into the candle. But when the Countess made me a second proposition to play, I said that as soon as her Ladyship's remittances were arrived, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'presarved squinches'—which might have passed for fragments of granite, and were a trifle sour in addition; the apple pie, which, had it been large enough, would have been a splendid foundation for a quadrille; the bread, which looked like rye, but wasn't; and the tea, which neither cheered nor inebriated. This is what good, honest city people eulogize under the name of 'a real country tea;' and half an hour after I had left the festive ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... bride and her husband led the quadrille in the sitting-room, opposite a trooper and the neighbor woman; the Swede had as his partner the new teacher, a young lady from St. Paul; and the biggest brother had his mother. Above them, as they ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... the three, and introduced them. Redmond asked me for the first quadrille, and Harry Lothrop engaged Laura. Frank said to me behind his handkerchief,—"It's en regle; I know where they came from; their fathers are brave, and their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... had Miss Sophy's hand for the first quadrille (country-dances being low, were utterly proscribed) and so gained an advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner and contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady as she moved through the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr Swiveller had of the market-gardener, for determining ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... polonaise were heard now, and the guests, grouping themselves in pairs, strode through the wide halls. A quadrille followed the polonaise, and it was a charming sight to see all these graceful women and young girls dance. Irene kept up a cross-fire of words with the vicomte and Velletri. Talizac had just whispered some gallant sentence to her, when a high officer of the Royal Life Guards ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... and it was wonderful how much freshened she felt by the gay motion, and perhaps by Mysie's merry, good-natured eyes and caressing hand. After that she had another turn with Gillian and one with Hal, and even one with Fergus because, as he politely informed her, no one else would have him for a quadrille. But, just as this was in progress, and she could not help laughing at his ridiculous mistakes and contempt of rules she met Uncle Reginald's eye fixed on her in wonder 'He thinks I don't care,' ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but the blousard who comes here is generally arrayed in some fancy costume, which he hires for the night for a trifling sum or has devised in his leisure moments from odds and ends gathered in an old-clo' market. There is a group of four now prancing in a quadrille, who are blousards enjoying at once their hours of ease and of triumph. Emulous of the "artists" of grander balls, they have got themselves up in the guise of American Indians, and are a sight to behold. Their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Labitzky's quadrille of all nations, dedicated by special permission to H.R.H. Prince Albert, performed Eighteen consecutive Nights at the GRAND NATIONAL CONCERTS, and invariably encored twice or three times nightly [some words illegible] 4s.; Piano Duet, 6s., Orchestra, 8s. On Order of all ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... Freda saw Colonel Vaughan and Miss Nugent together in a quadrille. Sir Hugh had asked her to dance with him, but she begged him to let her sit down that first dance, and promised ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... ladies as their partners, and, strange as it may seem, there is nothing in their behaviour that the most fastidious can complain of. They are perfectly polite, quiet, and well conducted; and what is more remarkable, go through a quadrille as well as their neighbours. The ball was quietness itself, until near the end, when the wind-instruments were suddenly seized with a fit of economy, the time they were paid for having probably expired, and stopped short in the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... country dances on the various ranches, Belle never missed quadrille, two-step, waltz or schottische, and she danced by herself or sang songs during the intervals, while the women of the range sat stiffly along the walls on benches, stared at Belle and whispered behind their weather-reddened ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... 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, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... are glad you came. Now our meeting is complete. We want evidence. Tell us all you know about the strange men. You had a good chance to observe. You were not in the little quadrille on the road." ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... pulling him to his knees. While he took breath so, the mutter went on, and through the door came the jigging fiddle. A fire of desperation lighted in his eyes. "Buffalo Girls!" he shouted, hoarsely, in her ear, and got once more on his feet with her as though they were two partners in a quadrille. Still shouting her to wake, he struck a tottering sort of step, and so, with the bending load in his grip, strove feebly to dance ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... since the days of her schoolgirl waltzes and polkas in the play-room at Belforet. It was about an hour after the dancing had begun, when Lady Laura brought her no less a partner than Mr. Granger, who had walked a solemn quadrille or two with a stately dowager, and whose request was very surprising to Clarissa. She had one set of quadrilles, however, unappropriated on her card, and expressed herself at Mr. Granger's disposal for that particular dance, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon |
