"Overture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she said swiftly. "Why, the theatre's all full by now. The people are all in. They're tuning up for the overture. Look at it!" She pointed a wavering finger ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... small ones—at once. When it was all over he explained at some length that he did not wish ever to be taken out of an opponent's double. I expect this was another convention he was going to tell me about when he was interrupted in the overture to the rubber. Anyway he hadn't told me, and I at some slight cost—five hundred—had nobly carried ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... difference which could not have happened but in a moment of passion. I requested Mr Tilghman to tell him—1st. That I had taken my resolution in a manner not to be revoked ... Thus we stand ... Perhaps you may think I was precipitate in rejecting the overture made by the General to an accomodation. I assure you, my dear sir, it was not the effect of resentment; it was the deliberate result of maxims I had long formed for the government of my own conduct.... I believe you know the place I held ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... 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 a word to Thaumast, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... how 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 cottage ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... at his side on the top of the low rail fence. The soft May mists were gathering in the valleys, the orchards shone pink in the sunset. Away down in the beaver meadow the frogs were tuning up for their first overture of evening, and a whippoorwill far up in the Slash had begun to sing his lonely song to the dark hillside. Allister looked about him and uttered a great sigh ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... plumes of the bird of Paradise. His dress, composed of tapa cloth, shells, and feathers, was more elaborate than any I had seen in the islands. In his hand he carried a spear tipped with white quartz. His followers were decked in similar fashion. Raising his right arm in token of friendship, an overture to which I responded, the chief then addressed me in the same dialect to that used at Cortes' island, which I had little difficulty in understanding, although some ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... at 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 Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... reasonings can explain it. It was both ridiculous and provoking. At first, he employed himself in fomenting quarrels, and devising schemes to embark the sultan in his cause. Vizier after vizier was flattered and assailed. He rejected every overture for his peaceable return. He lingered five years in endless intrigues and negotiations, in order to realize the great dream of his life—the dethronement of the czar. He lived recklessly on the bounty of the sultan, taking no hints that even imperial hospitality might be abused and exhausted. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... blaze of light that shone through the curtain. The odour of cigarette-smoke and scent greeted them, with the rustle of dresses and the subdued sound of gay talk. The band struck up. Then, after the rolling overture, the curtain ran swiftly up, and a smart young person tripped on the stage in the limelight and made great ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... composer, born at Greenock; entered the Royal College of Music in 1883, and became junior professor of Harmony at the Royal Academy; his fertility in melody and mastery of the orchestra are devoted to music of strong national characteristics, as his overture "Land of the Mountain and the Flood," and his choral work "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... a hearty squeeze by the hand, was the suitable answer to this overture; and Caleb made his escape from the jovial party, in order to avoid committing himself by ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... study past creations, the more impressive and significant do the synthetic types, presenting features of the higher classes under the guise of the lower ones, become. They hold the promise of the future. As the opening overture of an opera contains all the musical elements to be therein developed, so this living prelude of the Creative work comprises all the organic elements to be successively developed in the course of time. When Cuvier first saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... shall go," he continued. "It may be for the best." He was thinking that if he rejected this overture, she might make no other: and, hard as it would prove to persuade Bale to leave him, he must undertake it. "In any case," ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... stage the first person she saw was Montgomery, the very one she wished most to avoid. After having conducted the overture he had come up to find out the reason of the 'wait.' Dick was rushing about, declaring that if this ever occurred again half a-crown would be stopped out of all ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... was assuring the Egyptians that he would support the Grand Seignior against the beys. But Djezzar, confiding in his own strength and in the protection of the English, who had anticipated Bonaparte, was deaf to every overture, and would not even receive Beauvoisin, who was sent to him on the 22d of August. A second envoy was beheaded at Acre. The occupations of Bonaparte and the necessity of obtaining a more solid footing in Egypt retarded for the moment the invasion of that pashalic, which provoked vengeance ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... enough to constitute nine 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 the Republic. The war ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... was penning 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 reperusal in ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... should have lost, not the sapphire of 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
... would have ornamented any light-opera stage. I never looked at her but I thought so; and her cuffs and apron merely accentuated the delusion. Such ankles are seldom seen when the curtain rises after the overture. Odd that frivolous thoughts could flit through an intellect dedicated ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... had been, since the times of Frederic the Great, in perpetual rivalry, the greatness of the common danger from such a warlike neighbor now induced Metternich to make every overture to Prussia to prevent a possible calamity to Germany; but Frederick William was obstinate, and his league with Alexander could not be broken. It appears, from the memoirs of Metternich, that it had ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... 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 ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... 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 hand, of two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. What was ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Duke admitted him. There was but one idea in his head as to what was coming. His son had taken this way of making some communication to him respecting his political creed. Some overture or some demand was to be preferred through Tregear. If so, it was proof of a certain anxiety as to the matter on his son's part which was not displeasing to him. But he was not left long in this mistake after Tregear had entered the room. "Sir," he said, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... to Belford.— He makes such a fair representation to Tomlinson of the situation between him and the lady, behaves so plausibly, and makes an overture so generous, that she is all kindness and unreserved to him. Her affecting exultation on her amended prospects. His unusual sensibility upon it. Reflection on the good effects of education. Pride ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... to the kitchen range; and we hibernated there, more or less, while the cold spell lasted. It was warm by the fifteenth, but on that day, in the hours of early dawn, we were awakened by a Wagnerian overture in the steam radiators. It became an anvil chorus ere long and there was no more sleep. By breakfast time we had all the things open that we could get open to let in fresh air and we were shouting to each other above the din and smell of the new pipes. We ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... press was thinning out. It was understood that the overture had begun. Other people who were waiting like Laura and her sister had been joined by their friends and had gone inside. Laura, for whom this opera night had been an event, a thing desired and anticipated with ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... of Private Box. Grandfather and Grandchildren discovered listening to the Overture. Father and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... be doubted. She possessed the faculty of telling interesting stories and novelettes, and with this apparently inexhaustible fund of invention she would amuse him between his periods of work. The description that we have of the composition of the great "Don Giovanni" overture gives a pleasing illustration of this phase of the family life. Owing to rehearsals and other work, the day before the performance arrived with no overture yet written. In the evening, according to his custom, Mozart began the task by sketching out the themes and a general plan ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... welcome of the American Peace Society to the delegation of more than two hundred members of the British Parliament who favor international arbitration. Few events have more profoundly impressed me than the presentation of this peaceful overture to the President of the United States. It seems to me that every true patriot who seeks the best interests of his country and every believer in the gospel of Christ must respond to the admirable address of Sir Lyon Playfair and that of his colleagues who represented the workingmen ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... it! Ah, we are a great people. If I could tell you the secrets of her eyes as she looks at me—but no, you are dry as dust, a creature of prose! And there will be an orchestra, too, for Pesach Weingott has promised to play the overture on his fiddle. How he stirs the soul! It is like David ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... he said, he might trust to my discretion, that I would not let Mr. B. know from whom I had the information: that, indeed, his motive in mentioning it was self-interest; having presumed to make some overture of an honourable nature to the Countess, in his own behalf; which had been rejected since that masquerade night: and he hoped the prudent use I would make of the intimation, might somehow be a means to break off that correspondence, before it ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... hated it, but he hated himself more. Here was one, who had hugged himself all his days as an adventurer waiting his chance, running away at the first challenge of adventure; a lover of Romance who fled from the earliest overture of his goddess. He was ashamed and angry, but what else was there to do? Burglary in the company of a queer poet and a queerer urchin? ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... 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 lady and her daughter gave him a welcome which—I will ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... Petersburg and Vienna have offered their mediation. The King has answered, that it will be personally agreeable to him, but that he could not accept it as yet, because he has allies whose concurrence is necessary. Dr Franklin is requested to acquaint Congress of this overture and the answer, and to engage them to send their instructions to their Plenipotentiaries. It is supposed that Congress will eagerly accept ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... Canning's overture was earnestly considered in America. The ex-Presidents, Jefferson and Madison, recommended its acceptance, but the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, opposed this, favouring rather a separate declaration by the United States, and of this opinion was also President ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... in the Red Light an', except Black Jack,—who of course is present offishul—the stranger's alone. He's weak an' meek an' shook by a cough that sounds like the overture to a fooneral. Ugly Collins, who's a tyrannizin' cowardly form of outcast, sizes him up as a easy prey. He figgers he'll have a heap of evil fun with him, Ugly Collins does. Tharupon he approaches the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... by far the ablest and most relentless enemy. The correspondence which has come to light in recent times, shows the importance which he attached to Tyrconnell's proposition—an importance still further enhanced by the direct but unsuccessful overture made to the earl by William himself, on landing in England, and before embarking in the actual ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... 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 ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... respite amid the continual wars of the Indian tribes is scarcely more than a truce. Nevertheless, it is concluded with considerable form and ceremony. The first advance toward a cessation of hostilities is usually made through the chief of a neutral power. The nation proposing the first overture dispatches some men of note as embassadors, accompanied by an orator, to contract the negotiation. They bear with them the calumet[279] of peace as the symbol of their purpose, and a certain number of wampum belts[280] ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... fully developed Sonata-allegro form is the design in which the classic overture and the first movement of the symphony, sonata and concerto are usually framed. The student must be careful not to confound this musical form with the complete sonata of three or four movements. It is not to be called the "sonata form," but the "sonata-allegro form." It is to ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... minutes the overture was continued; then the band stopped and looked around with an air of triumph, while Joe uttered two or three more howls by way of effect, and to show that he could have kept it up ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... from the pavilion, Till the two old friends were turning Toward that spot without suspicion. Like a volley then resounded At their entrance a loud flourish, Every instrument saluting; And like roaring torrents bursting Wildly through the gaping sluice-gate, So the overture let loose now Its loud storming floods of music On the much astonished hearers. With the greatest skill young Werner Led the orchestra, whose chorus Gladly yielded to his baton. Ha! that was a splendid bowing, Such a fiddling, such a pealing! Hopping lightly, like ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... General Maceo and shot 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 ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... a boy, advantage was taken of the fact by 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, and Chosokabe ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... not buried in matter. This is the spirit- [1] ual dawn of the Messiah, and the overture of the angels. This is when God is made manifest in the flesh, and thus it destroys all sense of sin, sickness, and death,—when the brightness of His glory encompasseth ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... trousers-pockets all the corners of the hall rang with: "Now the fun will begin! Now the fun will begin!" And thither among those who were welcoming the guests—but he was no longer walking, he was gliding, swimming on the music—every dance was a jubilant overture on the name Nettenmair—he felt no floor, no feet, no legs beneath him, he scarcely still felt young Frau Nettenmair swimming along beside him, hanging to his right fin, the most beautiful among the beautiful, just as he was the most jovial among the jovial, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... overture, or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... certainly through the influence of Rosalie, from the beginning took a keen interest in the younger. He played Richard's music at the theatre—to his own confusion on at least one occasion. Richard had composed an overture in six-eight time with a fearful stroke of the drum, a Paukenschlag, every fourth or fifth bar; Dorn played it; the audience grew mirthful. That is all. What the motive was for the drum-strokes I cannot ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... my train provides for me is doubly entertaining if it be but the overture to greater delights. If some magic property which the train possesses—whether it be the motion or the clankety-clank—makes me happy even when I am only thinking about a cow, is it any wonder that I am happy in thinking about the delightful new life to which I ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... as adamant in their observance of the rules in such matters. More than once I arrived at the opera a few minutes late, once four minutes late, the doors are closed and guarded, and I listen to the overture from the outside. At a concert led by the famous von Buelow half a dozen women come in after the music has begun, rustling, sibilant, and excited. The music stops, the great conductor turns to glare at them, and, referring to the geese which are said ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... to prescribe. Had I observed a different conduct, I must have been a loser by it in the end; and all I could expect, after destroying some part of their property, would have been the empty honour of obliging them to make the first overture towards an accommodation. But who knows if this would have been the event? Three things made them our fast friends. Their own good-nature and benevolent disposition; gentle treatment on our part; and the dread of our fire-arms. By ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... 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 consecrate the rest of his life ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... noise and pleasureless excitement had to be worn away, ere the party with whom Elizabeth came to Dunwich would agree to return. Elizabeth's remonstrances, entreaties, and anger were alike unheeded by the companions of her voyage. She had haughtily rejected every overture on the part of Arthur toward a reconciliation, and declined to receive fairings or attentions of any kind from him, to manifest her indignant sense of the slight she had experienced from him in the early part of the day; and Arthur had retorted by paying his ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... nothing of the plays, and the projects for plays, with which, for some time past, he had seen his daily post-bag distended. He had made out, on looking at these things, no difference at all from one to the other. Here, however, was something more—something that made his fellow-guest's overture independently interesting and, as he might imagine, important. He smiled, he was friendly and vague; said "A work of fiction, I suppose?" and that he didn't pretend ever to pronounce, that he in fact quite hated, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... 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 against disappointment ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... orders, and sat in silence through an overture. Grant was delighting himself simply in her presence, and guessed that for her part she could not retract the confession her love had wrung from ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... an angel.'' In these Liebig concerts we then heard, for the first time, the music of a new composer,—one Wagner,—and agreed that while it was all very strange, there was really something in the overture to "Tannhuser.'' ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... overture began that evening, Brand was in his seat in the stalls; and he had scarcely sat down when he knew, rather than saw, that certain figures were coming into the box which he had been covertly watching. The opera ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... then sit down at the prompt table there and make notes," directed Handy, "of our lay-out. We open with a grand overture by the Handel and Hayden Philharmonic Society; and as a matter of course, on account of their patriotic kindness in volunteering for the celebration of the anniversary of the foundation of Gotown, they will have an encore and will then play a medley of national American airs, 'Yankee Doodle,' ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... and children's stories, as if he himself still were a child. He would write and listen, drop his pen and laugh, and then go on with work again. The day before the first performance of "Don Giovanni," when the final rehearsal already had been held, the overture still remained unwritten. It had to be written overnight, and it was she who sat by him and relieved the rush and strain of work with her cheerful prattle. It is said that, among other things, she read to him the story of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp." Be ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... fancied for some days that his proposals were accepted; but before he could enter on any of the Eastern arrangements his active mind had already suggested, he learned that the overture was rejected "with a contempt which," as Madame Campan sagaciously admits, "the court would doubtless have concealed, if they could have foreseen the future." Contenting himself with the angry menace, "They shall soon hear some of my news," within a month he became the author ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Barquettes Norvegienne—No? Madame did not so desire? Of course not. He frowned terrifically at the waiter, who glared ferociously at the diminutive waitress. Morbleu! What imbecile suggested Barquettes Norvegienne? Monsieur Beauchamp mentioned other dishes as an overture to the meal, waxing increasingly wrathy towards the waiter on each veto. Ah! monsieur desired Consomme Anton. The proprietor's face beamed and his arms were outstretched towards heaven. That this gentleman should order Consomme Anton, the soup ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... 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 upon ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... part of my penance; and I will show the higher, stronger pride of one who makes no vain, useless pretence to happy indifference, but who can maintain a self-control so perfect that even Mrs. Alston shall not see one unmaidenly advance or overture." ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... 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
... incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note of time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic influence, how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with each other complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest within them. A touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... how to receive this overture, but he was finally thawed by Herbert's manner, and they were soon sauntering about on the lawn on the ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... your ear. I bring no overture of war, no taxation of homage; I hold the olive in my hand: my words are as full of peace ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... domes which flank the great dome of the cathedral of Florence enhance and reinforce the latter, and prepare the eye for a climax which would otherwise be too abrupt. The central pavilion of the Chateau Maintenon, with its two turrets, echoes the entire facade with its two towers. Like the overture to an opera, it introduces themes which find a more extended development elsewhere ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... charge of the fiddlers. The good women laughed for joy; the men winked at each other and popped their fists; it was like the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, or a battle with a den of snakes. Upon the completion of the grand overture of the fiddlers the brilliant programme of the "exhibition," which usually lasted all day, opened with "Mary had a little lamb;" and it gathered fury until it reached Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death!!!" The programme was interspersed with compositions by the girls, from the simple ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... Mission garden; but in his ignorance of the language he could not even interrogate his Indian housekeeper. On the third night, however, his hymn was uninterrupted by any sound from the former musician. A sense of disappointment, he knew not why, came over him. The kindly overture of the unseen player had been a relief to his loneliness. Yet he had barely concluded the hymn when the familiar sound again struck his ears. But this time the musician played boldly, confidently, and with a singular ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... capacity in America. By a grim pleasantry of Fate, the letter from England conveying final and official information of the approval of the aforesaid Ministers, and arranging for the publication of the first formal overture from the United States (for the movement was to be made to appear to emanate therefrom) arrived in America on the very day of the appearance—and readers will remember how totally unexpected the appearance was—of Mr. Cleveland's Venezuelan message. What would have been the effect upon the crisis ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... passages like the violin and the clarinet. As the point is of some interest, I should like to bring it before the reader with some examples. The essential character of the horns is nowhere more truly conveyed than in the soft passage near the beginning of the overture to Der Freischuetz, and it is the contrast between the two nature scales on the C horn and the F horn which gives the character to this lovely idyll. The trumpets are capable of even less variety of expression than the horns, as ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... of one of the last string quartets. In fact the instances in which composers have put their pieces to widely divergent purposes are innumerable and sometimes amusing, in view of the fantastic belief that they are guided by plenary inspiration. The overture which Rossini wrote for his "Barber of Seville" was lost soon after the first production of the opera. The composer did not take the trouble to write another, but appropriated one which had served its purpose in an earlier work. Persons ignorant of that fact, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence, and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... finished speaking the overture, which had now been on for some time, ceased, and the curtain went up on a very ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... memories of his childhood and college life softened his heart. He forgot the double-line fences and determined to go on the morrow to Drayton Hall and make up the quarrel. He would offer the first overture and a full declaration of regret, and this, he was quite sure, would make it up. Once he actually turned his horse around to go straight across the fields as he used to do in his boyhood, but there below him were the double-line fences stretching brown and clear. No horse could get over them, and ...
— The Christmas Peace - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... gift was not great, and his choral writing is generally of the most unpretentious description. But his recitative is always solid and dignified, and often impassioned and pathetic. Music, too, owes him a great debt for his invention of what is known as the French form of overture, consisting of a prelude, fugue, and dance movement, which was afterwards carried to the highest conceivable pitch of perfection ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Montpeliers having made this overture, the potingers[163] most unnaturally and wickedly made him a poisonable potion stuffed wt sulfre, quick silver, a vicked thing they cal l'eau forte, and diverse others burning corrasive ingredients to drink. He being ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... This overture was received with a general shout of applause, which altogether drowned the voice of the dissidents, if any there were amongst the Alsatian senate who could have resisted a proposal so popular. The words of, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... up their tiny bagging undergarments, and at disentangling hat elastics from the soft hair at the back of moist little necks. If a mother occasionally showed signs of friendliness, Rachael accepted the overture pleasantly, but managed to wander next day to some other part of the beach, and so evade the definite beginning of ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... the whack on me nose," responded Mrs. Connelly quite unexpectedly. She was looking squarely at the window where Mrs. Dunleavy sat behind the screen of blue mosquito netting. They were both conscious that Mrs. Connelly made a definite overture of peace. ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... are perfectly right, my worthy friend," replied Aramis, constantly consulting with his looks the countenance of Biscarrat, who had grown silent and constrained. "You wish, Monsieur de Biscarrat, to say something to us, to make us some overture, and ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... chiefly in New Orleans; but this, I believe, is the only cloud that has darkened his horizon, or disturbed the tranquil current of his life. His consecration, with its attendant fatigues, must have been to him a wearisome overture to a pleasant drama, a hard stepping-stone to glory. As to the rest, he is very unostentatious, and his conversation is far from austere. On the contrary, he is one of the best-tempered and most cheerful old men in society that it is ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... sweetly it peals With grass or heather beneath our heels,— For bells are Music's laughter!— But a London peal, well mingled, be sure, With vulgar noises and voices impure,— With a harsh and discordant overture To the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Melbourne, but what was tantamount to it. He had desired somebody (she did not say who) to speak to Frederick,[6] and said he would call on him himself the next day. Something, however, prevented him, and she did not say whether he did call or not afterwards. He denied ever having made any overture at all. To Palmerston he proposed the choice of four places, and she thinks he would have taken in Huskisson if the latter had lived. He would have done nothing but on compulsion; that is clear. It is very true (what they say Peel said of him) that no man ever had any influence with him, only ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... facing the open sea, with Olga beaming at the head of the table, would have been a peaceful and pleasant meal, had Muriel's state of mind allowed her to enjoy it. But Nick's treatment of her overture had completely banished all enjoyment for her. She forced herself to eat and to appear unconcerned, but she was quivering inwardly with a burning sense of resentment. She was firmly determined that ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... been able to find the overture of 'Oberon' here," he began:—"Mme. Byelenitzyn was merely boasting, that she had all the classical music,—as a matter of fact, she has nothing except polkas and waltzes; but I have already written to Moscow, and within a week I shall have that overture. ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... get the overture of Oberon here," he began. "Madame Byelenitsin was boasting when she said she had all the classical music: in reality she has nothing but polkas and waltzes, but I have already written to Moscow, and within a week you will have the overture. By the way," he went on, "I wrote ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... you to keep on your table, at your elbow. Very many of 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 ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... not impregnable; but the terms and manner of compliance were as decent as those in marriage among us, and according to their notions, the agreement was as innocent. When any of our people made an overture to any of their young women, he was given to understand that the consent of her friends was necessary, and by the influence of a proper present it was generally obtained; but when these preliminaries were settled, it was also necessary to treat the wife for a night ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the two great states between which it had the misfortune of lying. Hoping to free his country, he sent ambassadors to Uaphris, who were to conclude a treaty and demand the assistance of a powerful contingent, composed of both foot and horse. Uaphris received the overture favorably; and Zedekiah at once revolted from Babylon, and made preparations to defend himself with vigor. It was not long before the Babylonians arrived. Determined to crush the daring state, which, weak as it was, had yet ventured to revolt ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... the beginning. After this overture the stings and slurs came thick and fast. It seemed to the dismayed Vice-President that every one in New York took delight in recalling to publicity some detail discreditable to his Bostonian discovery. From all over ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... discomforts, of every sort and kind; with cures for all these evils; and to end finally by a grand climax of supplication, invocation, imprecation, resignation, and beatification, in the regular crash of a stout-expiring overture. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... along the streets too rapidly to have time or breath to speak, and it was five minutes after the time when we scrambled into the orchestra, and found that the overture ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... is uneasy about 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 ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stranger she generally merely bows her head slightly and says: "How do you do!" Strictly speaking, it is always her place to offer her hand or not as she chooses, but if he puts out his hand, it is rude on her part to ignore it. Nothing could be more ill-bred than to treat curtly any overture made in spontaneous friendliness. No thoroughbred lady would ever refuse to shake any hand that is honorable, not even the hand of a coal heaver at the risk ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... lady given him but a moment's time I make no doubt he would have come instantly at the truth and the little farce would have been turned into a tragedy on the spot. But she gave him no time. The spinet in the ball-room alcove was tinkling out the overture to a minuet, and she laid the tips of her dainty fingers on the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... calashes; all the inns are filled to excess, where insolence reigns at its height. All occupations have ceased; at the moment of the performance the town has the aspect of a desert. All the passions, all the solicitudes, all the life, of a whole population, is concentrated at the theatre. The overture commences; so intense is the attention, that the buzzing of a fly could be heard. On its conclusion, the most tremendous uproar ensues. It is either applauded to the clouds, or hissed, or rather howled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... suddenly at head appeerd Satan: And thus was heard Commanding loud. Vangard, to Right and Left the Front unfould; That all may see who hate us, how we seek Peace and composure, and with open brest 560 Stand readie to receive them, if they like Our overture, and turn not back perverse; But that I doubt, however witness Heaven, Heav'n witness thou anon, while we discharge Freely our part: yee who appointed stand Do as you have in charge, and briefly touch What ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... was to clear out the remnant of the inhabitants, and the overture to this performance was the following ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... 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 those ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... progress, progression, march, advancement, promotion, preferment, elevation, appreciation, enhancement; overture, tender, proposal, proffer, offer. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... beautiful arm, as the splendour of the brilliants on her bracelet—I, of course, said the lustre of the arm itself—was so great as to obstruct my view of the stage. She smilingly complied. The last long-drawn note of the overture was over, the curtain had risen, and the prima donna Schenkelmann was just trilling forth that exquisite aria with which the opera of the Gasthaus begins, when the door of the box immediately adjoining the imperial one opened, and a party entered in the gay Wallachian ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Marriage supper, and that means gladdest festivity. Twelve manner of fruits, and that means luscious and unending variety. Harp, trumpet, grand march, anthem, amen, and hallelujah in the same orchestra. Choral meeting solo, and overture meeting antiphon, and strophe joining dithyramb, as they roll into the ocean of doxologies. And you and I may have all that, and have it forever through Christ, if we will let Him with the blood of one wounded hand rub out ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... with Raff, it is but natural that MacDowell should have been influenced strongly toward the poetic and fantastic and programmatic elements that mark the "Forest Symphony" and the "Lenore Overture" of his master. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... peacemaking had never occurred between them before. Mrs. Lessways, as simple in forgiveness as in wrath, did not disguise her pleasure in the remarkable fact that it was Hilda who had made the overture. Hilda thought: "How strange I am! What is coming over me?" She glanced at the range, in which was a pale gleam of red, and that gleam, in the heavy twilight, seemed to her to be inexpressibly, enchantingly mournful. And she ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... were bought, they might as well be used. So that evening, as they sat in the theater listening to the lively overture, even Miss Lydia was minded to relegate their troubles, for the hour, to second place. The Major, in spotless linen, with his extraordinary coat showing only where it was closely buttoned, and his white hair smoothly roached, looked really fine ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... officers. Although the detention of the Young Otter, and the cause of his being detained, had been made known to the Angry Snake, weeks passed away, and yet there appeared no intention on the part of the chief to redeem his young warrior by producing Percival. Every day an overture on his part was expected, but none came, and those who were in the secret were in a continual state of suspense and anxiety. One thing had been ascertained, which was that the Indian fired at by John had been killed, and this occasioned much ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... stage. I was thirty-five! This harmless little work was received with the fiercest hostility. "It is impossible to tell," wrote Jouvin, a much feared critic of the time, "in what key or in what time the overture is written." And to show me how utterly wrong I was, he told me that the public was "a compound of angles and shadows." His prose was certainly more obscure than ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... the slight indications of time which the concertmeister (first violin-player) gave them; and not to attend to Beethoven's conducting-stick. Moreover, it should be observed, that conducting a symphony, an overture, or any other composition whose movements remain continual, vary little, and contain few nice gradations, is child's play in comparison with conducting an opera, or like work, where there are recitatives, airs, ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... to her to suit herself rather than her hearers, and her snowy fingers—from which flashed Daisy's diamond and a superb emerald—swept the keys with a masterly grace and skill. Ethelyn was perfectly at home at the piano, and dashing off into a brilliant and difficult overture, she held her hearers for a few minutes astonished both at her execution and the sounds she made. To the most of them, however, the sounds were meaningless; their tastes had not yet been cultivated up to Ethelyn's style. They wanted something familiar—something they had heard before; and when the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... or scarlet maple is well named, for its flowers, not any more conspicuous in form than those of its close relation, the silver maple, are usually bright red or yellow, and they give a joyous color note in the very beginning of spring's overture. Not long are these flowers with us; they fade, only to be quickly succeeded by even more brilliant samaras, a little more delicate and refined than those of the silver maple, as well as of the richest and warmest hue. Particularly ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... India, and to him the Iteghe Helena applied for aid. Her ambassador arrived at Goa, "bearing a fragment of wood belonging to the true cross on which Christ died," which relic had been sent as a token of friendship to her brother Emanuel by the empress of AEthiopia. The overture was followed by the arrival at Masawwah of an embassy from the king of Portugal. Too proud, however, to await foreign aid, David at the age of sixteen took the field in person against ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... garb. His eye, listless no more, scanned the hollow. 'That's only the overture,' he cried. 'The opera will soon begin. We must put a breastwork up in these gaps or they'll pick us off ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... to summon to obedience the inhabitants there and at Saco and Cape Porpoise, in the Lygonian patent, and the conditions made resistance unlikely. Disregarding the Rigby claims,[40] the settlers in southern Maine accepted the overture of the Massachusetts commissioners. Accordingly, Welles, Saco, and Cape Porpoise followed the example of Kittery and Gorgeana, and came under the ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... Neufchatel, taking with me four or five hundred Louis. I cast my eyes on Fauche-Borel, the King's printer at Neufchatel, and also yours and mine, as the instrument by which to make the first overture, and I selected as his colleague M. Courant, a native of Neufchatel. I persuaded them to undertake the business: I supplied them with instructions and passports. They were foreigners: so I furnished them with all the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... musical construction of the overture with which the music-drama opens, as it is well known that Wagner in his Preludes prepares the spectator's mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the leading motives appear in this Vorspiel and must be appreciated to be understood. First we have ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Strauss, even from Palestrina to Debussy, the achievements of genius lay at his mercy. He criticized them with a freedom that was entirely unprejudiced by tradition. Beethoven was no more to him than Arthur Sullivan—indeed, was rather less. The works of his choice were the "Tannhaeuser" overture, a potpourri of Verdi's "Aida," Chopin's Study in Thirds (which ravished him), and a selection from "The Merry Widow" (which also ravished him). So that on the whole it may be said that he had ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... prove this I picked out an instrumental piece which we had not played all the evening. It was the finale of the overture to "Faust"; a selection, by the way, which was a great favourite of Harry's and is one of mine. Ariadne listened in silence ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... compromised themselves and are compelled to execute their threats, the thing is done in a hesitating manner that avoids nothing so much as the means to the end, and catches at pretexts to succumb. The bray of the overture, that announces the fray, is lost in a timid growl so soon as this is to start; the actors cease to take themselves seriously, and the performance falls flat like an inflated balloon that is pricked with ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... home over the shop. No doubt there would be a certain awkwardness, visible to others if not to themselves, about her living in one part of London and her children in another. But here also her good sense would come on;—and, besides, this furnished house in town would be a mere brief overture to the real thing—the noble country mansion he was going to have, with gardens and horses and hounds and artificial lakes and deer parks and everything. Quite within the year he would be able to realize this ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... hardly find a more perfect morning than this in early March. The sun was heralded over the hills in a blaze of glory; meadow larks strung like beads on a telegraph wire were calling their cheery notes, and robins were singing their overture to the morning sun. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... though indeed it was rather the languor of waiting for what was going to 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 of her dreams. ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... profess 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 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... up to Rheingold and Tristan. The modest fellow once paid me a visit afterwards and told me that he had gone regularly to different places in order to see the productions of my operas, which had given him the opportunity of comparing the representation of Tannhauser in Prague, in which the overture had lasted twenty minutes, with the one in Dresden, which, under my direction, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... is that the overture? I never will be on, I'm sure— The things us actresses endure, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... interest to an air which everyone—so she said—must feel to be rather heavy in the form in which Handel left it. As for her governess, she indeed had been a rarely accomplished musician: she was a pupil of the famous Dr Clarke of Cambridge, and used to play the overture to Atalanta, arranged by Mazzinghi. Nevertheless, it was some time before Theobald could bring his courage to the sticking point of actually proposing. He made it quite clear that he believed himself to be much smitten, but month after month went by, during ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... 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
... the orchestra stalls were Beauchamp and Debray, whose attention was divided between the stage and the arrivals of splendidly attired elegantes in the different loges, during the overture. All the elite of Paris ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... righted it, and one laying hold of the bow, and the other the stern, they swung it between them, as two washerwomen might a basket of dirty clothes. I must confess that I was a great deal mortified at seeing my command treated thus slightingly, which mortification was not a little increased by an overture that they kindly made to me, saying, that if I were at all tired, they would, with all the pleasure in the world, carry me in it. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... 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 United ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Le Pere la Victoire by Ganne. This was followed by Gillet's Loin du Bal. At Suppe's overture from Banditenstreiche, the eternal skat players came tramping into the saloon, having delayed, as usual, to finish their game. At all the tables much wine was being drunk, because it strengthened one's courage and dulled one's nerves. The passengers toasted the Roland. It ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... no reply. 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
... face that 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 ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... impregnably intrenched, will make the best of the marriage, especially as the groom is of royal blood. Next, an alliance with the French king against the emperor. Why not; was not Francis once ready to treat even with Solyman to defeat Charles, an overture which shocked Christendom? And while Charles' energies are bent to the task of protecting his country from the Turks, a new leader appears; a devil-may-care fellow—and ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... was, what I repeat, that your creed that no one can wish to marry you except for your wealth is a morbid conviction, and must lead to unhappiness; that I do not believe that Lord Roehampton is influenced in his overture, if he make one, by any unworthy motive, and that any woman whose heart is disengaged should not lightly repudiate such an advance from such a man, by which, at all ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... the overture begun, and fear not, if the action of the play demand a lion, but that he shall be a beast of Peter Quince's picking. The ladies shall not be frighted, for our chief comedians will enact modish people of a time ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... is not to be had for the asking. Humours must first be accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, company and circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, the quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not that the talker has any of the hunter's pride, though he has all and more than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows the ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Cantos up to this I 've not begun what we have to go through. These first twelve books are merely flourishes, Preludios, trying just a string or two Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure; And when so, you shall have the overture. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... into beautiful womanhood, Arbaces determined to claim her life and her love for himself alone; but his first overture not only met with rebuff, but revealed the fact that she already loved Glaucus. Angered by a fate which not even his dark sorcery could remove, and which the prophecy of the stars had foretold, he is further enraged by the violent opposition of Apaecides, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... touched the keys, her eyes watching eagerly for a chance to speak to the Boss and see if he knew anything of Gardley; but Forsythe was close beside her all the time, and there was no opportunity. She struck the opening chords of the overture they were to attempt to play, and somehow got through it. Of course, the audience was not a critical one, and there were few real judges of music present; but it may be that the truly wonderful effect she produced upon the listeners was due ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... all the Parisian breeding of Mademoiselle Viefville to preserve her gravity during this overture, though she kept her bright animated, French-looking eyes, roaming over the assembly, with an air of delight that, as Mr. Bragg would say, made her very popular. No one else in the party from the Wigwam, Captain Truck excepted, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... 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. He would already have ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... father had left, a gentleman called and asked to see Edith. On entering the room where he had been shown by the servant, she found a young man whose countenance she had never seen before. He made known his business after a few embarrassing preliminaries, which proved to be an overture of peace from Allison, if she would accept the offer of marriage he had made her five years previously. After hearing the young man patiently through, Edith replied, in a firm voice—"Tell Mr. Allison that there is no evil in this world or the next that I would ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... man is contained in the single phrase, "Il etait toujours brusque," which at least shows a fine freedom from self-consciousness on the part of the man whose only remark on being told of the death of Brod, the famous oboist, was, "Ah, he hadn't much tone" ("Ah, petit son"). Of the overture to Leonore Cherubini only remarked that he could not tell what key it was in, and of Beethoven's later style he observed, "It makes me sneeze." Beethoven's brusqueness, notorious as it was, did not prevent him from assuring Cherubini ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... education from year to year. Surely your field in Brooklyn is not more important than mine was at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York, nor can your people be more attached to you than mine were to me." This letter—although its kind overture was promptly declined—was a gratifying proof that the once bitter controversies between "old school" and "new school" had become quite obsolete. When I mentioned this letter to my beloved Princeton instructor, Dr. Charles Hodge, a few weeks before his death, he simply ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... an invitation!" commanded Colonel Carter, and the left-hand gun barked out an overture, killing one sepoy. The rest made off in ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... But my own sensibility told me how much of additional grandeur accrued to these two lines as being the immediate and all-pompous opening of the poem. The same feeling I had received from the crashing overture to the grand chapter of Daniel—"Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords." But, above all, I felt this effect produced in the two opening ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey |
