"Overture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stop him?" groaned Mary Braddock, opening her eyes to look again upon the sinister figure across the way. She had not heard a word of Colonel Grand's minacious overture. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... prayer to God. Then, my son, being led into temptation, do not you persist in courting, nay, almost tempting temptation. Try the effects of absence, though but for a month." The good father even made an overture toward imposing a penance upon him, that would have involved an absence of some duration. But he was obliged to desist; for he saw that, without effecting any good, he would merely add spiritual disobedience to the other ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... promised a sensation even greater. As the crowd in the lobby thinned, the strains of the overture crashed out. Through the open door the little boy saw the curtain rise on a scene that to him represented the glitter and the glory of fairyland. Beautiful ladies danced and sang and the light flashed on brilliant costumes. With their unsold books in their hands, the ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... married. I was best man, and realized what a menstruum is music—what curious trafficking it causes, what opposites it intertwines. And the overture being finished the real curtain arose, as it does on ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... ineffectual and laughable attempts to manipulate in the approved fashion, you throw on one side. After the decks are cleared the young ladies bring out their sam-sins, and whilst we smoke Japanese pipes, they delight our ears with an overture, which we pronounce excruciating in English, though with our eyes ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... hundred pages or so of preface—or perhaps overture would be the better word, since in it a group of literary men, while contributing recondite recipes, flourish trumpets in every key—to his huge volume he says, "I wish to be read by people of the world, and practiced by people of the art" (gens de l'art); and although ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... was packed on this the first night of the Thessalonian play. It was already long past time for the performance to begin. The orchestra finished the overture and waited a few minutes; then began another selection. They played this through, and there was still no indication of the curtain going up. They played a third piece. The house became restless and began to clap for the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... among us, we all know, and voices not musical, it may be, to those who hear them for the first time, yet sweeter to us than any we shall hear until we listen to some warbling angel in the overture to that eternity of blissful harmonies we hope to enjoy.—But why should I tell lies? If my friends love me, it is because I try to tell the truth. I never heard but two voices in my life that frightened me ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... abruptly this chosen calm of my life was to be broken nor how these same studies were to be turned in a new and strange direction. But if on this night which was to witness the overture of a horrible drama, I had not hitherto experienced any premonition of the coming of those dark forces which were to change the whole tenor of my existence, suddenly, now, in sight of the elm tree which stood before my ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... of the commonwealth, that Tiberius should be declared a god, and have divine worship paid him. The Emperor was surprised at the proposal, and demanded of him to declare whether he had made any application to incline him to that overture? The senator answered, with a bold and haughty tone, "Sir, in matters that concern the commonwealth, I will be governed by no man."[213] Another gentleman mentioned something of the same kind spoken by the late Duke of B——m,[214] to the late Earl of O——y:[215] "My ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... to apply to the horse-dealer himself, whom he described as a very just and modest man. The horse-dealer, whose will was, in fact, broken by the incident which had occurred in the market-place, was, in conformity with the advice of the Lord Chancellor, only waiting for an overture on the part of the Squire or his relatives in order to meet them half-way with perfect willingness and forgiveness for all that had happened; but to make this overture entailed too great a sacrifice of dignity ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... clothes. I wonder if they were made for some great actor, or whether they were once the real thing? No, that's impossible..... I wish Miss Medford was going to take a part—perhaps she is.... unless that's her touch on the piano. The overture probably..... It's so cold in here, I must walk about..... The candle is ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... yet almost overwhelming pathos of the tones affected Dr. Grey much as the tremolo-stop in some organ-overture in a dimly-lighted cathedral; and, as the singer seemed to pour her whole aching heart and wearied soul into the concluding "Ah! tutto-tutto fini!" he turned, and involuntarily followed the sound, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... regard these few words as a further declaration of war, or as an overture to peace; but he lost no time in complying with the summons they conveyed. He started for Paris the next morning, and in the evening, after he had removed the dust of his journey and swallowed a hasty dinner, he rang at Mrs. Vivian's door. This ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... last will and testament upon the rocky floor of the den. What was his surprise to see the lion advance amicably and extend his right forefoot! Androcles, however, was equal to the occasion: he met the friendly overture with a cordial grasp of the hand, whereat the lion howled—for he had a carpet-tack in his foot. Perceiving that he had made a little mistake, Androcles made such reparation as was in his power by pulling out the tack and putting ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... her. Shall I play to you a little, Mr. Sefton? It is getting too dark to read." Bessie made this overture as a sort of amends to Richard, and the friendly little act seemed to ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... followed the example of that at Magdeburg and went into bankruptcy. During the honeymoon year, Wagner had composed only one work, an overture, based on "Rule Britannia." At that time "The Old Oaken Bucket" had not been written. He then drifted to Riga, where he became music-director and his wife a singer. Now his relentless ambition seized him and he determined to ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... to tackle a full score, and Jimson was so unconventional. A dedication would be found convincing, I believe. 'Dedicated to' (let me see) 'to William Ewart Gladstone, by his obedient servant the composer.' And now some music: I had better avoid the overture; it seems to present difficulties. Let's give an air for the tenor: key—O, something modern!—seven sharps." And he made a business-like signature across the staves, and then paused and browsed for a while on the handle of his pen. Melody, with no better inspiration than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... coup d'archet announced the overture, and roused her energy, as if Ithuriel's spear had pricked her. She came down dressed, to listen at one of the upper entrances, to fill herself with the musical theme, before taking her part in it, and also to gauge the audience and ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... happen than the weariness of experience gone by. She was weary, not because of the past, but because the fairy theatre of life still kept its curtain down, and forced her to play over and over again the impatient overture ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... that says "Don't" when you squeeze it,—he actually mistook her for a goddess.' Ah! reader, don't you wish you could make such a splendid mistake? I do. I'd give anything to be once more sitting before the footlights for the first time, with the wonderful overture just beginning to steal through ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... was giving way to such thoughts as these, and vainly endeavouring to make up his mind as to what he would do, that Martin made his offer to Anty. To tell the truth, it was Martin's sister Meg who had made the first overture; and, as Anty had not rejected it with any great disdain, but had rather shown a disposition to talk about it as a thing just possible, Martin had repeated it in person, and had reiterated it, till Anty had at last taught herself to look upon it as a likely and desirable circumstance. Martin ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... providentially, the band of the beef—that is, the band behind the beef; that is, the band that nightly hymns the beef (the phrase is to be had in three qualities)—struck up the overture from Tannhaeuser, which is not the only music that makes the Sphinx forget my existence; and thus, forgetting me, she momentarily forgot the whitebait. But I remembered, remembered hard—worked at pretty things, as metal-workers punch ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... source of dread, and when the carriage called for Albert and herself she was in an excited state of mind, and maybe it was not all on account of Mrs. Nason either. They had barely taken their seats in the box, and the orchestra had only just begun the overture, when the usher knocked and Blanch, followed by the rest of the family, entered. That young lady greeted Alice with an effusive kiss at once, and the next instant she found herself shaking hands with a rotund and gray-haired ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... like Tarzan the Terrible must be a fellow-tribesman of his lost friend, was more than glad to accept this overture of peace, the sign of which he returned in kind as he ascended the trail to where the other stood. "Who are you?" he asked, but the newcomer only shook his head to indicate that ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... dinner. The count employed all his practised seductions on Laurence, which were so brilliant and able that they were well fitted to surprise and dazzle a young girl. It was not long before the count was the hero of the mayor's household. Nothing formal had been said, nor any direct allusion or overture made; yet M. Courtois was sure that Hector would some day ask his daughter's hand, and that he should freely answer, "yes;" while he thought it certain that Laurence would not ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... authorship of the music has been often contested, but it is proven by the conclusive evidence contained in the pamphlet on the subject, by his nephew, published in Paris, in 1865. Schumann has used the "Marseillaise" in the overture to "Hermann and Dorothea," and also in his song of the ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage; I hold the Olive in my hand; my words are as full ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... first-tier box presented to her husband with the accustomed heavy courtesy of the Societe Harmonique. She went early to the hall that she might hear the entire music-making of the evening—Van Kuyp's tone-poem, Sordello, was on the programme between a Weber overture and a Beethoven symphony, an unusual honour for a young American composer. If she had gone late, it would have seemed an affectation, she reasoned. Her husband kept within doors; she could tell him all. And then, was there not ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... So with the other general feature in verse 12. A true wife is a fountain of good, and good only, all the days of her life—ay, and beyond them too, when her remembrance shines like the calm west after a cloudless sunset. This being, as it were, the overture, next follows the main ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the house electrician, with each hand on portions of the big switchboard, threw on the border and bunch lights, making the great stage almost as light as day. Then, out in front, Dorothy heard the orchestra as it struck into the overture, and hastening away, she seated herself in her dressing-room to await her ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... so ungrateful as to go out of the way to be civil to her enemies, to royalists; as if those worn-out creatures had hearts, as if they could comprehend the struggle that took place in my mind between duty, and generosity to the fallen, before I could make the first overture to their acquaintance; as if they could understand the politeness of the heart, or anything nobler than curving and ducking and heartless etiquette. This is the last notice I will ever take of that old woman, unless it is ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... climaxes, exceptions, surprises, suspensions, in which harmony delights; the change from the last bar of the overture to the first of the opening recitative in the "Messiah," the chord upon which the victor is crowned in "The Meistersingers," the 59th and 60th bars in Handel's "Every Valley." (I hope some of us are "old-fashioned" enough to be unashamed ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... the palm or pulp which is under the thumb. Then put he the forefinger of the right hand in the like buckle of the left, but he put it under, and not over, as Panurge did. Then Panurge knocked one hand against another, and blowed in his palm, and put again the forefinger of his right hand into the overture or mouth of the left, pulling it often in and out. Then held he out his chin, most intentively looking upon Thaumast. The people there, which understood nothing in the other signs, knew very well that therein he demanded, without speaking ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... After a lively overture by piano, violin, and harp, the three Misses Hunt, in Japanese costume, gave a prettily kittenish rendering of "Three Little Maids from School," selection from one of those Gilbert and Sullivan operettas latterly enchanting both England and America. The tub-shaped Herr Spiegelmeyer, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... them carrying a big drum, the other hidden under a Punch and Judy show. Of a sudden there sounded a shrill note, high above the organ, a fluting from the bottom to the top of the gamut, the immemorial summons to children, the overture to the primitive drama. It was drowned in a scream of welcome, which, in its turn, was outdone by thunderous peals ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Barndale regarded him with amazement. Demetri Agryopoulo, salaried hanger-on to the Persian embassy, was glaring like a roused wild beast at these two shadowy figures in the shadow of the orchestra. The band was crashing away at the overture to 'Tannhaeuser,' the people were laughing and chattering as they circled, and not an eye but Barndale's regarded this drama in the corner. The Greek's hand was in his bosom, where it clutched something with an ugly gesture. His face was in ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... windows. The sunlight and ventilation to the ancients was given through empty spaces in the roofs.... Hoofs knocked under the weight of materials thrown out by Vesuvius; it is undoubted, however, that roofs were provided with covers or supported terraces. In the middle of the roofs was cut an overture through which air and light brought their benefits to the underlaid ambients.... Proprietor disposed the locals according to his own delight.... So that, there were bed, bath, dining, talking and game rooms." ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... attainment of the dominion they aimed at, a dominion as universal as that of Rome; and so intoxicated were they with that vast ambition that under all their present distress and danger they haughtily rejected every overture for a treaty or a cessation of arms; that the war was a just and necessary measure, advised by the Parliament itself from the conviction that, at any rate, Delenda est Carthago—such a government'must be destroyed; and that therefore the King may well say it was their war; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... all by the study of music itself. Instead of this, I contented myself with hearing bits from Freischutz played by my sisters. Yet my passion for it gradually grew so strong that I can remember taking a particular fancy for a young man called Spiess, chiefly because he could play the overture to Freischutz, which I used to ask him to do whenever I met him. It was chiefly the introduction to this overture which at last led me to attempt, without ever having received any instruction on the piano, to play this piece in my own peculiar way, for, oddly ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... chair, pulled forward the velvet drapery so as to shut out the view of the house, and fixed his eyes upon the heads of the musicians in the orchestra. The overture was nearly over. The curtain would very soon go up. Then he observed that Powell still stood near him. The man was strangely officious to-day, he thought. Could that be connected in any way with the fact he had had his hair cut? For a moment the notion appeared ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Alexander's overture was unheeded at Vienna, at least for the moment, because Metternich was in Paris wooing Napoleon's good will. Simultaneously and openly, therefore, the fencing between Paris and St. Petersburg went on. A rejoinder to the counter-project ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... felt it was my death knell. But through the darkness of my weltering soul (for I was presumably dead and undoubtedly damned) there marched, stood still, and curtsied majestically towards each other, the great grave opening chords of the overture. And when they had delivered, solemnly, their mysterious herald's message and subsided, off started the little nimble notes of the fugue, hastening from all sides, meeting, crossing, dispersing, returning, telling their wonderful ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... between the tallness of their spars, and the low character of the adjacent shores. As we drew near the Narrows, the wind increased; and forty sail, working through the pass in close conjunction, terminated the piece with something like the effect produced by a finale in an overture. The brightness of the morning, the placid charms of the scenery, and the propitious circumstances under which I commenced the voyage, in a commercial point of view, had all contributed to make me momentarily forget my private ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Saltzburg, brandishing his baton as if he were conducting an unseen orchestra, plunged through the scenery at the left upper entrance and charged excitedly down the stage. Having taken his musicians twice through the overture, he had for ten minutes been sitting in silence, waiting for the curtain to go up. At last, his emotional nature cracking under the strain of this suspense, he had left his conductor's chair and plunged down under the stage by way of the musician's bolthole to ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... gain your aid by a deceitful silence. I owe ye an apology for the way I treated your overture before, but I must tell you that both my own, and my girl's word is given to Major Hennion, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Otomo Yoshishige, who invaded Hizen, so that Masaiye had to apply to the Shimazu family for succour. The Satsuma chieftain suggested that the matter might be settled by mutual withdrawal of forces, but Yoshishige declined this overture, and the result was a battle in which the Otomo troops were completely defeated. Otomo Yoshishige then (1586) had recourse to Hideyoshi for assistance, thus furnishing the opportunity of which Osaka was in search. Orders were immediately issued to Mori, Kikkawa, Kohayakawa, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... one other attempt to win Tom's favor as she was walking about the garden. But Tom eyed her askance and discreetly declined her overture. There had always been cats at Miss Arabella's, and two great dogs as well as her pony, and birds so tame they would fly ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... not this overture," said that magniloquent Spaniard, "to engender in a person of my talents, and with the heart of a Mendoza, venom enough for vengeance. I could not more desire than I did already to assist in so holy a work; nor could I aspire to greater honour than would be gained in uniting ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Ireland, they know that he had been mildly interested in Ireland as material for art as far back as 1894, and that it was Mr. Martyn who had interested him in the things of home. Mr. Moore tells us all about it more than explicitly in the "Overture" to his trilogy. In the first chapter he tells us that the interest faded away gradually, to be reawakened in 1899 by a visit paid him in London by Mr. Martyn and Mr. Yeats, who came to ask his help in founding a "Literary ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... greatly relieved, but still this friendly overture might be merely a feint to open the way for a home thrust. Sam was silent. So Yan said, presently, "We ain't allowed to use anything but what the Indians had or could ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... he had made it parenthetic, that he didn't happen "personally" to know Basil French—as if it would have been at all likely he should know him, even im personally, and as if he could conceal from her the fact that, since she had made him her overture, this gentleman's name supremely baited her hook! Oh, they would help Julia Bride if they could—they would do their remarkable best; but they would at any rate have made his acquaintance over it, and she might indeed leave the rest to their thoroughness. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... A triangular conversation of this sort was almost impossible. The members of the orchestra were already climbing up to their places, in preparation for the overture to the last act. Sir ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... civil lady of the shop proceeding to inquire after the health of his master and mistress, and the general news of Aberleigh, master Ben, who well knew her proficiency in gossiping, and had the dislike of a man and a rival to any female practitioner in that art, checked at once this condescending overture to conversation by answering with more than his usual consequence: "The chief news that I know, Miss Firkin, is, that our geraniums are all pining away for want of fresh earth, and that I am sent in furious haste after a load of your best garden-pots. ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... wedding coat. On the Continent of Europe, and especially in the Latin countries, where class barriers are more formidable, the situation differs materially, and to the disadvantage of the girl. If she makes an overture, it is an invitation to disaster; her hope of lawful marriage by such means is almost nil. In consequence, the prudent and decent girl avoids such overtures, and they must be made by third parties or by the man himself. This is the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... devil, and not to be convinced, till too late, I replied to his peaceful overture by the most insulting irony: "You were not afraid to fire at a poor boy in the water," said I, "though you do not like to stand a shot in return. Come, come, take your ground, be a man, stand up, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... into a rhythmic clatter, always changing in distance and intensity. When it comes near, you should get into a tunnel, and stand there while it passes. I did that once, and it was like the last page of an overture by Beethoven—thunderingly impetuous. I cannot conceive how any person can hope to disparage a train by comparing it with a stage-coach; and I know something of stage-coaches—or, at least, of diligences. Their effect on the men employed about them ought to decide the superiority ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... to know me so well," answered the marquise, with another effort, as unsuccessful as the former, to free the bridle of her horse, "you should know how a woman like me would receive such an overture; say to yourself what I might say to you, and above all, what I might say ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... proper overture to the tale that was about to be told. Conversation was impossible until the storm raved past and was heard dying in deep, reverberating echoes from the depths of the Devil's ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the Sonnets I do not care for: mostly because of the Subject: but there is pretty sure to be some beautiful line or expression in all; and all pure, tender, noble, and—original. Old Spedding supplies a beautiful Prose Overture to this delightful Volume: never was Critic more one with his Subject—or, Object, is it? Frederick Tennyson, my old friend, ought to have done something to live along with his Brothers: all who will live, I believe, of their Generation: ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... Unfortunately, his first overture of what he considered good-fellowship had been made to an upper-classman, and had been a grievous mistake. Ken had not yet recovered from its reception. He grew careful after that, then shy, and finally began to struggle ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... the glaciers shaped itself suddenly into an organ, and there was one whose face I well knew sitting at the keyboard, smiling and pluming himself like a bird as he thundered forth a giant fugue by way of overture. I heard the great pedal notes in the bass stalk majestically up and down, as the rays of the Aurora that go about upon the face of the heavens off the coast of Labrador. Then presently the people rose and sang the chorus "Venus ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... for a peace was after gaining advantage, he sent one Ru'fus, whom he had taken prisoner, to effect an accommodation with Pompey, offering to refer all to the senate and people of Rome; but Pompey once more rejected the overture, considering the people of Rome too much in Caesar's ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the last portion of Oliver Twist, its author, having been relieved altogether from his engagement to the magazine, handed over, in a familiar epistle from a parent to his child, the editorship to Mr. Ainsworth; and the still subsisting agreement to write Barnaby Rudge was, upon the overture of Mr. Bentley himself in June of the following year, 1840, also put an end to, on payment by Dickens, for the copyright of Oliver Twist and such printed stock as remained of the edition then on ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... with ample funds by the munificence of citizens who remained, and sent forward to Virginia, to make their breasts a shield for the proud old "Mother of Presidents." The battle of Bethel was regarded as part of an overture to the opera of Blood, yclept "Subjugation," and people watched in silence for the crimson curtain to rise on the banks of the Potomac. Russell Aubrey had succeeded in raising a fine full company for the war, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... lonesomeness that oppressed him by tackling his neglected correspondence. Somehow, to-day, the sense of his isolation had come over him stronger than ever. His rank forbade any intimacy with his miserable handful of men, who had already fallen into the monotony of routine, while every friendly overture he made towards the citizens of Flambeau was met with distrust and coldness, his stripes of office seeming to erect a barrier and induce an ostracism stronger and more complete than if they had been emblems of the penitentiary. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... high a degree of exactness and perfection of style is reached. This band appeared to me to differ from all others I have heard in this,—that it plays music of a higher order; on this occasion, for instance, it gave an arrangement of Mozart's overture ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... too proper a sense of dignity to allow herself to be entrapped into the acceptance of an obligation by one whom she so deservedly despised. She replied coldly that she had jewels enough, and did not desire to increase the number. But the overture thus made by Madame du Barri could not be kept secret, and more than one of her partisans followed the hint afforded by her example, and showed a desire to make their peace with their future queen. The Duc d'Aiguillon himself was among the foremost of her ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Superior, alas! would be sure to make inquiries as to the friends whom she had visited—the magic violin of M. Szmera played its first notes, accompanied by Madame Odinska on the piano, and by a delicious little flute. They played an overture, the dreamy sweetness of which extorted cries of ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... 'comic person.' It is merely a clever skit in which Goethe has a hit at the public and those who supply it with so-called drama. It has no organic connexion with the play. The Prologue in Heaven begins with the songs of the three Archangels—sonorous verses of majestic harmony, like some grand overture by Bach or Handel. These verses are, I think, meant to intimate the great harmonious order and procession of the natural and moral universe, as Pythagoras intimated them by his 'Music of the Spheres'—those ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... rate, the fact is, their training is so imperfect they daren't let themselves go. It's only when a man possesses the lower secrets of his art perfectly that he can aim at the higher. But the band is nearly through the overture. Just tell me before the curtain goes up something about the play. I have only very vague ideas about it. The scene ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Patrick Gillespie and Mr. Minzies were called up by the protector to London, where he proposed to him, that he would take off the heavy fines, that were laid on severals in Scotland, which they were unable to pay; he seemed to like the motion, but when he proposed the overture to the council, they went ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... man takes a fancy to any one [of the young women,] it is not considered as absolutely necessary, that he should make an overture to the girl herself. The first object is to agree with the parents, concerning the recompense to be given them for the loss of the company and services of their daughter. The value of two slaves is a common price, unless the girl ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... stopping and looking at the friendly propounder, 'that's nae bad overture, as they say in the General Assembly. I have heard waur motions ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... time, Western history emerged, and—astonishing thing—began to move and change! "Why," I said, "there's something trying to happen! What is it? Is there going to be a melody?" There was not one. But there was—has the reader ever heard the second—or is it the third?—overture to "Leonora"? A scale begins to run up, first on the violins; then one by one the other instruments join in, till the great basses are swept into the current and run and scale too. So it was here. The West began; but the East caught it up. The unchanging drone began ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... State is of opinion that this overture should be attended to without delay, and that the proposal of treating at Madrid, though not what might have been desired, should yet be accepted, and a commission plenipotentiary made out ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... a letter. It must not be long; it must not strike the lyrical note; yet assuredly it must not read like a commercial overture. He had great difficulty in writing anything that seemed tolerable. Yet done it must be, and done it was; and before going to bed he had dropped his letter into the post. He durst not leave it for ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... members of the orchestra took their places for the overture, and it was to the appropriate strains of "Land of Hope and Glory" that the curtain rose on the ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... the members of the National Association, duly discussed, and so far as one of the parties could do, accepted; that is, the National Society pledged itself to be merged into a Union Association, provided the American would make the same surrender at its first Anniversary. But as this overture for peace was rejected, the mission of the Union Society ended, leaving the National free to reassert itself and go forward with its catholic platform and persistent demands for "National protection for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... unfriendly attitude. Within a mile and a half of the town several of the officers impatiently urged an immediate attack; but as the president's commands were to keep peace as long as possible, Harrison decided to send an officer with a small guard to arrange for a conference. This overture, however, did not succeed; the Indians were hostile, and even made an attempt to capture the officer and his men. And Harrison then ordered his army to advance ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy grove of an overture, whence rushes the ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... snowy wreaths from their pipes, and varying their employment now and then with a pull at the tin pots, which seemed to afford them extreme satisfaction. In this manner we lay till the moon waned; and the owl having finished his overture, we rolled ourselves in our blankets, and watched the twinkling star, till sleep ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... matter off; but if she could not be induced to talk of Lord Blandamer, she thought of him the more, and rehearsed again and again in day-dreams and in night-dreams every incident of that momentous Saturday afternoon, from the first bars of the overture, when he had revealed in so easy and simple a way that he was none other than Lord Blandamer, to the ringing down of the curtain, when he turned to look back—to that glance when his eyes had seemed to meet hers, although she was hidden behind a blind, and he could not have guessed that ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the commissarial resolutions of the 9th of May, 1781, the 16th of January, and the 20th of March, of the present year, 1782, have examined the resolution of their High Mightinesses of the 4th of May, 1781, containing an overture, that the President of the Assembly of their High Mightinesses had made, 'that a person, styling himself J. Adams, had been with him, and had given him to understand that he had received letters of credence for their High Mightinesses from the United States of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... envoys, the Lord Inchiquin unexpectedly declared, with his army, in favour of the king against the parliament, and instantly proposed an armistice to the confederate Catholics, as friends to the royal cause. By some the overture was indignantly rejected. Inchiquin, they said, had been their most bitter enemy; he had made it his delight to shed the blood of Irishmen, and to pollute and destroy their altars. Besides, what pledge ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... possible that something might be gained on the other side by his refusal to see the elder brother of his son-in-law. He might, by refusing, leave it open to his enemies to say that he had rejected an overture to peace, and he now regarded as his enemies almost the entire Germain family. His own son-in-law would in future, he thought, be as much opposed to him as the head of the family. The old Marchioness, he knew, sincerely ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... yet quite abandoned the hope that Ralph who was not the heir might yet possess the place; and when he heard of his nephew's doings, heard falsehood as well as truth, from day to day he built up new hopes. He had not expected any such overture as that which had come from Sir Thomas; but if, as he did expect, Ralph the heir should go to the Jews, why should not the Squire purchase the Jews' interest in his own estate? Or, if Ralph the heir should, more wisely, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... "is founded on a bass, as on a fruitful soil. Mahomet was to have a majestic bass voice, and his wife necessarily had a contralto. Kadijah was quite old—twenty! Attention! This is the overture. It begins with an andante in C major, triple time. Do you hear the sadness of the ambitious man who is not satisfied with love? Then, through his lamentation, by a transition to the key of E flat, allegro, common time, ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... opened the concert with a brilliant solo by way of overture, which was duly reported by the musical critic in the shape of a chalk line on the table. The length of the effusion did not matter; a long aria, or a brilliant but spasmodic cadenza, each counted one, and one only. The Bermondsey bird, heedless of the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... absence, so far extinguished but that it immediately revived on his return. Of this she took care to give Mr. Trent proper intimation; for she was not one of those backward and delicate ladies who can die rather than make the first overture. Trent was overjoyed at this, and with reason, for she was a very lovely girl in her person, the only child of a rich father; and the prospect of so complete a revenge on the attorney charmed him above all the rest. To be as ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... thence outside to the little thatched cook-house a few yards away. With ardent infatuation Etheridge rested his blue eyes on the white-robed, slender figure as she stood at the door and watched the Niue cook light his fire for an early cup of coffee—the first overture to breakfast at Etheridge's. ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... in," answered Billy, accepting noncommittally the meat and the overture for peace. "They'll be here in ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... purposely silent while awaiting a sign from her, she had read his heart from the first. His every look and tone for years had been an unconscious act of wooing, and so when she brought matters to a point as she did, 'twas on her part not so much an overture as a consent. As for marriage proposal in general, all men with whom I have discussed it have confessed their own scenes thereof to have been, in the mere words, quite simple and unpoetical, whether enacted in confusion ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... answered in the affirmative, wondering if this were a friendly overture. He had noticed that Mr Smith's eyes had a sort of inward look as though he had disliked or disdained his surroundings. The captain's wife had disappeared then down the companion stairs. Mr Smith said 'Ah!' and waited a little longer to ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... wait for the overture. The minute he hands Kazedky over he fades towards the elevator. There's nothin' for me to do but wait; so I picks out a red velvet chair and camps down on it to watch the promenade. That's what it was, too; for Mallory acts like he'd forgot everything he ever knew except that he's got to talk ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... him before United States Commissioner Loring. The next morning Theodore Parker hastened to the court-room to say that he was the chaplain of the Abolition Society, and had come to offer counsel. But the fugitive was afraid to accept the overture, lest his master punish him the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a tribe which has reduced the problem of housing and home life to its lowest common denominator. The Poonans of Central Borneo, discovered and described by Carl Bock, build no houses of any kind, not even huts of green branches; and their only overture toward the promotion of personal comfort in the home is a five-foot grass mat spread upon the sodden earth, to lie upon when at rest. And this, in a country where in the so-called "dry season" it rains half the time, and in the "wet season" all ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... greater glories which might appertain to a future Marchioness of Hartletop. In that direction she was not without sufficient wisdom. But then Lord Lufton had not offered to her, nor given any signs that he intended to do so; and to give Griselda Grantly her due, she was not a girl to make a first overture. Neither had Lord Dumbello offered; but he had given signs,—dumb signs, such as birds give to each other, quite as intelligible as verbal signs to a girl who preferred the use of her toes to that ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... accompanying the voice, repeat portions of the melody in short symphonies. Pistocchi was one of the most prominent stage-singers of his time, and established a school of singing at Bologna. His most famous oratorio is entitled "Maria Vergine addolerata," and is without overture or chorus. Burney notes that in the close of this work degrees of diminution of sound, such as "piano," "piu piano," and "pianissimo," are used for the first time. Caldara wrote a large number of oratorios, mostly adapted to the poetry of Zeno ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... of horns referred to in Titus II, ii, 10 is a technical term in forestry for a particular set of notes on the horn. Mehul (1763-1817), in his overture 'Le jeune Henri,' introduces several old French hunting fanfares, which perhaps may give an idea of what was meant by 'Horns wind a peal.' [See Appendix.] Also in Purcell's 'Dido and Eneas,' No. 16 (date 1675), in the ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... with Jules Benedict's overture to his opera, The Crusaders, himself conducting the orchestra of 60 instruments. It was an admirably balanced and effective orchestra, and notwithstanding that we had to listen as it were round a corner, we felt the unity and full force of its strong chords, and traced the precise ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... able-bodied musicians are discoursing Beethoven's rambling "Eroica," it were possible to dispatch and to dress a carload of as fine beeves as ever hailed from Texas; and the performance of the "Sakuntala" overture might be regarded as a virtual loss of as much time as would be required for the beheading, skinning, and dismembering of ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... forward while the two women overwhelmed Hazel with a flood of exclamations and questions, and extended his hand. Hazel accepted the overture. She had long since gotten over her resentment against him. She was furthermore amazed to find that she could meet his eye and take his hand without a single flutter of her pulse. It seemed strange, but she was glad of it. And, indeed, she was too much taken up with ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... rejected. From Fort Defiance, a fort he built and named, at the junction of the Miami and Le Glaize rivers, he, in August, 1794, went down the Miami River, with about one thousand men, until he came close to a British post, at the foot of the rapids of the river. Here he sent a last overture to the Indians, promising peace if they would lay down their arms. Upon their rejecting this, he, on August 20th, moved to the head of the rapids, and attacked them with such vigor, using again his favorite weapon, the bayonet, that their ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... "Will that content you?" sez he, blowin' on his knuckles for all the world like a Scots Greys orf'cer. "Content!" sez I. "For your own sake, man, take off your spurs, peel your jackut, an' onglove. 'Tis the beginnin' av the overture; stand up!" ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... than a minute, and presently the four were seated in their box, and the gay strains from the overture of The Strand Girl came floating ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... England with the king, leaving his bride behind. And Chancellor Hyde being presently re-established in his offices, and settled in his residence at Worcester House in the Strand, sent for his wife and children; the more speedily as he had received an overture from a noble family, on behalf of "a hopeful, well-bred young gentleman," who expressed himself anxious to ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... replied promptly, the little hand again stealing through the long sleeve and stroking my much-admired skirt. She had now snuggled down beside me upon the settee, and instinctively, rather than from any desire to show friendliness, I drew my arm about the small shoulders, which overture was interpreted as an invitation for the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... The entire overture, long as it was, was played to a dark house with the curtain down. It was exquisite; it was delicious. But straightway thereafter, or course, came the singing, and it does seem to me that nothing can make a Wagner opera absolutely perfect and satisfactory to the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... him down unarmed. It is said that his friends recovered his body and buried it in a secret place unknown to the Spaniards, who were anxious to obtain it for exhibition as a trophy of war in Havana. Maceo was equal to Toussaint L'Overture of San Domingo. His public life was consecrated to liberty; he knew no vice nor mean action; he would not permit any around him. When he landed in Cuba from Porto Rico he was told there were no arms. He replied, "I will get them ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... own counsel, never intimating a wish or expectation of her son's return. Her surprise upon his arrival was well counterfeited; nor was it ever known beyond mother and son that the latter had not been first to make the overture. But this son, in some respects so like his mother, might have evinced less disposition to do at once her bidding had not the inducements held forth ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... opening bars of the overture to Fred, with rather the air of a man who lets a trout have line. And ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... wage, and could eat three meals, besides second breakfast and afternoon coffee, down deep in his heart old Adelbert felt that he had lost caste. The Opera—that was a setting! Great staircases of marble, velvet hangings, the hush before the overture, and over all the magic and dignity of music. And before his stall had passed and repassed the world—royalties, the aristocracy, the army. Hoi polloi had used another entrance by which to climb to the upper galleries. He had been, then, of the elect. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the concentration of her thoughts. The melodies which she had played rang in his ears now. For the girl possessed the gift of music, and the strings of her violin spoke to the questions of her bow. There was in particular an overture—the Melusine overture—which had the very sob of the waves. Durrance had listened wondering, for the violin had spoken to him of many things of which the girl who played it could know nothing. It had spoken of long perilous journeys and the faces of strange countries; of the silver way ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... arrived; the guests assembled; the great dramatic experiment stood on its trial. Magdalen had made the most of her opportunities; she had learned all that the manager could teach her in the time. Miss Garth left her when the overture began, sitting apart in a corner behind the scenes, serious and silent, with her smelling-bottle in one hand, and her book in the other, resolutely training herself for the coming ordeal, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of business the orchestra was asked for an overture, and while it was playing Evan was called behind the scenes. A gentleman, whom he took for a bank official, was waiting to speak ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... constructed and adjusted as not only to sound each note and chord in its proper sequence and relation, but to regulate also the duration of the sound vibration. If this machine were operated in such a manner as to play, in a single second of time, the entire overture of an opera which would normally occupy half an hour, we should hear only an unintelligible noise a second long. This would be due to no defect in the sound-producing mechanism, but to the limitations ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... reading two interesting French books: Emile Faguet's "Short History of French Literature" and Dumas' "Vingt Ans Apres." I wish you would send me Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," or one of Hegel's books. This evening I listened to Beethoven's "Egmont" overture—what a glorious work it is! Keep your eye for me on any books dealing with ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Women and marriage and breaches of marriage appear indeed; but the earlier Graal stories are dominated by the most ascetic virginity-worship, and the earlier Arthur-stories show absolutely nothing of the passion which is the subject of the magnificent overture of Mr. Swinburne's Tristram. Even this story of Tristram himself, afterwards fired and coloured by passion, seems at first to have shown nothing but the mixture of animalism, cruelty, and magic which is characteristic ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... a rustling of ladies' silks, and of cavaliers' velvets, and the grateful spectators took their seats, while the emperor, with a look of extreme satisfaction, opened the score of the Porno d'Oro, laid it on the ledge of the box, and began to hum the overture. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... look). I do not put up my fidelity To sale, Count Terzky! Half a year ago I would not have advised you to have made me An overture to that, to which I now Offer myself of my own free accord. But that is past! and to the duke, field-marshal, I bring myself, together with my regiment. And mark you, 'tis my humor to believe, The example which I give will not remain ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... baton. The orchestra ceased its tuning. The lights were lowered. Silence and stillness enwrapped the auditorium. And the quivering violins sighed out the first chords of the "Lohengrin" overture. For me, then, there existed nothing save the voluptuous music, to which I abandoned myself as to the fascination of a dream. But not for long. Just as the curtain rose, the door behind me gave a click, and Sullivan entered in all his magnificence. I jumped up. On his arm ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... The interval between overture and finale is, as has been said or hinted, uncommonly lively, and for once, not only in the final retribution, Paul has distributed the peine du talion pretty equally between his personages. Dorsan has already lost another grisette mistress, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Upon this overture we ventured to request that he would come in and suffer us to shut the door, which we also locked. Next we produced the official paper nominating his son to a small place in the customs,— not yielding much, it was true, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... States equal in extent to Kentucky. It must be confessed that a device better calculated to produce jealousy, suspicion, ill-will and hatred, could not have been contrived. It is further affirmed that this overture, offensive in itself, was made precisely at the time when a swarm of colonists from these United States, were covering the Mexican border with land-jobbing, and with slaves, introduced in defiance of Mexican laws, by which slavery had been abolished throughout ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... rustle of a large, mannerly audience was heard as the janitor opened and closed the door; and stage-fright seized the boy. The orchestra began an overture, and, at that, Penrod, trembling violently, tiptoed down the hall into the Janitor's Room. It was a cul-de-sac: There was no outlet save by ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... listening to the overture to Tannhauser, there came back to her the memory of that night. Ever through the mad Satanic discords she could hear, now faint, now conquering, the Pilgrims' onward march. So through the jangled discords of the world one heard the ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Whether she had struggled or not, there was a catch-penny effect about the whole thing which added to the fever in his cheek and made him wish he had money to buy up the stock of the vociferous little boys. Suddenly the notes of the organ rolled out into the hall, and he became aware that the overture or prelude had begun. This, too, seemed to him a piece of claptrap, but he didn't wait to think of it; he instantly edged out of his place, which he had chosen near the end of a row, and reached one of the numerous doors. If he had had no definite plan he now had ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... the city, the mayor took possession, and sallied forth to meet the commander of the National forces for the purpose of surrendering the town, making terms for the protection of property, etc. Sherman paid no attention at all to the overture, but pushed forward and took the town without making any conditions whatever with its citizens. He then, however, co-operated with the mayor in extinguishing the flames and providing for the people who were rendered destitute by this destruction of their homes. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... naphtha flares and by the burning souls, had possessed him; and the noises, the shriek and the whisper, the jangling rattle of the piano-organ, the long-continued scream of the butcher as he dabbled in the blood, the lewd litany of the singers, these seemed to be resolved into an infernal overture, loud with the expectation of lust and death. And how the spectacle was set in the cloud of dark night, a phantom play acted on that fiery stage, beneath those hideous brassy lamps, very slowly swinging in a violent blast. As all the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... reconciliation,) that since I find I have the good fortune to stand so well with your relations, I will, from time to time, acquaint you, by letter, when you are absent, with every step I shall take, and with every overture that shall be made to me: but not with an intention to render myself accountable to you, neither, as to my acceptance or non-acceptance of those overtures. They know that I have a power given me by my grandfather's will, to bequeath the estate he left me, with other of his bounties, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... gist of that 'Overture on Education' which was carried some three weeks ago by a majority of the Free Church Presbytery of Glasgow. It has the merit of being a clear enunciation of meaning; of being also at least as well fitted to express the views of the Established ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... body having considered the award as not obligatory and advised me to open a further negotiation, the proposition was immediately made to the British Government, but the circumstances to which I have alluded have hitherto prevented any answer being given to the overture. Early attention, however, has been promised to the subject, and every effort on my part will be made for a satisfactory settlement of this question, interesting to the Union generally, and particularly so to one ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... the orchestra, where the musicians sat awaiting him, seemed to confirm a rumour that was now circling among the audience, warning all to prepare for a disappointment. His baton was brought in and laid on the book of the new overture. When at last he was seen bearing onward through the music-stands, a low murmur ran round. Rocco paid no heed to it. His demeanour produced such satisfaction in the breast of Antonio-Pericles that he rose, and was guilty ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... exhibit a thoroughly ungenerous course on the part of the American authorities, contrasted with a desire not to offend on the part of Britain. President Madison's Declaration of War was made on the 18th of June, 1812, and the British Government, after using every honorable overture for friendship, only issued theirs in October, couching it, besides, in terms of regret and reproach at the unfairness in which Madison's party persisted. Owing to that unfairness and other causes the ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... or Mendelssohn being regarded as serious figures in art at all. Yet I honestly believe that poems like 'Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal,' or 'Come down, O Maid,' have a high and permanent beauty about them; or, again, the overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream. I can't believe that it isn't a thing full of loveliness and delight. I can't for the life of me see what happens to cause such things to be forgotten. Tennyson and Mendelssohn seem to me to have been penetrated with a sense of beauty, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... voorlooper[Afrikaans], voortrekker[Afrikaans]. prelude, preamble, preface, prologue, foreword, avant-propos[Fr], protasis[obs3], proemium[obs3], prolusion[obs3], proem, prolepsis[Gram], prolegomena, prefix, introduction; heading, frontispiece, groundwork; preparation &c. 673; overture, exordium[Lat], symphony; premises. prefigurement &c. 511; omen &c. 512. Adj. precursory; prelusive, prelusory, preludious[obs3]; proemial[obs3], introductory, prefatory, prodromous[obs3], inaugural, preliminary; precedent &c. (prior) 116. Phr. "a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... floral offerings from many distinguished actors in England and America, while telegrams from Booth, McCullough, Lawrence Barrett, Irving, Ellen Terry, Christine Nilsson, and Lillie Langtry, bade her be of good courage, and wished her success. The overture smote like a dirge on her ear, and when the callboy came to announce that the moment of her entrance was at hand, it reminded her of nothing so much as the feeling of mourners when the sable mute appears at the door, as a signal to form the procession to the tomb. But in a moment ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... the same party. I fagged at writing letters to Lockhart, to Charles, and to John Gibson, to Mr. Cadell, Croker, Lord Haddington, and others. Lockhart has had an overture through Croker requesting him to communicate with some newspaper on the part of the Government, which he has wisely declined. Nothing but a thorough-going blackguard ought to attempt the daily press, unless it is some quiet ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... heaved, and she was just about to speak, when, there was a sudden clap as of thunder, and she leaped up in her seat. But it was only the beginning of the overture, and she sat down laughing. There was a tender passage in the music; and after it was over she was very quiet for a while, and then whispered to Polly that she hoped little Johnnie wasn't worse to-night, and it seemed wicked to enjoy ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... a long while. He was busy with the rehearsals which Wurzelmann was conducting. Professor Doederlein was not to take charge of the orchestra until it had been thoroughly drilled. The programme was to consist of Daniel's works and the "Leonore Overture." Wurzelmann referred to the Beethoven number as "a good ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... six o'clock, after stopping barely an hour with him, and as soon as her carriage had driven off he dressed and went to the opera. During the overture, he saw the Princess enter her box and looking dazzlingly beautiful; she was wearing the same green velvet cloak, trimmed with ermine, that he had had in his hands a short time before, but almost immediately she let it fall from her shoulders, and showed a bust which was worthy of the Goddess of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... streamed from the parlor windows, illuminating exquisitely stained pictures of the Apostles. Strains from a select orchestra greeted them as they entered the house, and Hubert recognized with a queer feeling of incongruity the overture from a well-known opera. The appealing notes of the violins drew his memory instantly to the production he had lately enjoyed, but he thrust the mental vision from him as unworthy of Christ, and tried not to ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... the production of "Fidelio" was, it did not escape criticism from an eminent source. Cherubini was present at the first performance at the Karnthnerthor Theatre in Vienna, and when asked how he liked the overture (Leonora ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... evidence against him, enforced conviction in the young man's guilt in spite of the detective's previous belief to the contrary. In assisting Queensmead in his search Colwyn had cherished the hope that Ronald, if captured, would declare his innocence and gladly respond to his overture of help. But, instead of doing so, Ronald had taken up an attitude which was suspicious in the highest degree, and one which caused the detective to falter in his belief that the Glenthorpe murder case was a much deeper mystery than the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... something to do, and that she mustn't be weak for this, must much rather be strong. For many hours after, none the less, she remained weak—if weak it was; though holding fast indeed to the theory of her success, since her agitated overture had been, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... I see it is time for us to withdraw; the Actors are preparing to begin. Play away the Overture. ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... Duke of Gloucester (with whom, indeed, I have no doubt, in spite of chronology, that she very often dined), was commissioned to inquire of me diplomatically, and without committing Abbey Hill too much by the overture, whether I would take a large and antiquated mansion, in which abbots were said to have lived many centuries ago, and which was still popularly styled Abbots' House, situated on the verge of the Hill, as in that case the "Hill" would think ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not restricted to what adults think good for them. Just at present our young people are going mad over ragtimes, apparently because syncopated rhythms are new to them. If they had learnt what can be done with syncopation from Beethoven's third Leonora overture, they would enjoy the ragtimes all the more; but they would put them in their proper place ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... pleasures of the festive board, to which it is indeed as indispensable a prelude, as an overture is to an opera: and the host will thus acquire an additional claim to the gratitude of his guests. We urge this point more strongly, because, from want of attention to it, we have seen more than once persons whom many kindred ties would have drawn ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... for my own use, I lighted it at the little wax candle that stood before them; and after having thrown in two or three whiffs amongst them, sat down and made one of the company. I need not tell my reader, that lighting a man's pipe at the same candle is looked upon among brother-smoakers as an overture to conversation and friendship." From the very beginning smoking has induced and fostered a spirit ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... tempo is very rapid, the 4-4 measure will probably be given only two beats, but in an adagio movement, as, e.g., the first part of the Messiah overture, it may be necessary to beat eight for each measure in order to insure rhythmic continuity. There are many examples of triple measure in which the movement is so rapid as to make it impracticable to beat three in a measure, and the conductor is therefore content merely to give a ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... of children, he took up his hand, and did not make the slightest response to the sly overture of the small coquette, the effect as Honor well knew of opposition quite as much as of her strong turn for gentlemen. She pouted a little, and then marched on with 'don't care' determination, while Humfrey and Honora began to talk over Hiltonbury affairs, but were ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... kindness. As an overture to peace and goodwill, it was reenforced by very large eyes, the intense blackness of which was softened by a perceptible glow of pleasure. Uel was won on the instant. A recollection of the one supreme singularity of the new acquaintance—his immunity from death—recurred to him, and he ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Glaize and the Maumee, and began the erection of Fort Defiance. The whole country was filled with the Indian gardens and corn fields which extended up the Maumee to the British fort. On the thirteenth of August, the General dispatched the scout, Christopher Miller, with the last and final overture of peace. In the event of a refusal, there must be a final appeal to arms. "America," said Wayne, "shall no longer be insulted with impunity. To the all-powerful and just God I therefore commit myself and gallant army." Impatient of a reply, Wayne moved forward again on the fifteenth, and met ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... Hester was, Helen stood beside her, but no attention whatever was paid to her. Then she laid her hand lightly on Hester's arm. The result was the same. Hester stood with her eyes fixed upon the river, and made no response to the overture of friendship. Then Helen turned away, feeling that she had ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird |
