"Prelude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indeed resplendent on that beautiful morning of the 4th of May, in honor of the procession and religious services to be held as a sort of prelude to the formal opening of the States-General the following day. From the Church of Our Lady to the Church of Saint Louis, where M. de la Farre, Archeveque of Nancy, was to celebrate mass, the streets through which the procession ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... one of the best-reputed older musicians, a friend and companion of Mendelssohn (whom I have already mentioned apropos of the tempo di menuetto of the eighth symphony), [Footnote: Ferdinand Hiller] to play the eighth Prelude and Fugue from the first part of "Das Wohltemperirte Clavier" (E flat minor), a piece which has always had a magical attraction for me. [Footnote: i.e. Prelude VIII., from Part I. of Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues.] He very kindly complied, ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... call first upon the older, and the etiquette upon the subject is strict. Dr. Ripley was pedantically exact on such points, and yet he deliberately drove over next day and called upon Dr. Verrinder Smith. Such a waiving of ceremony was, he felt, a gracious act upon his part, and a fit prelude to the intimate relations which he hoped to ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... about laws, and all that we have been saying is only the preamble of the laws which we are about to give. I tell you this, because I want you to observe that songs and strains have all of them preludes, but that laws, though called by the same name (nomoi), have never any prelude. Now I am disposed to give preludes to laws, dividing them into two parts—one containing the despotic command, which I described under the image of the slave doctor—the other the persuasive part, which I term the preamble. The legislator ...
— Laws • Plato
... elbow-room, too, my hearty, or I shan't be able to fiddle. Come, what will you have this fine morning?" said Harness, tuning his instrument. As soon as it was in tune he flourished a prelude from the top of the scale to the bottom, ending with an "Eh-haw! eh-haw!" in imitation of the braying of ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... ladies' dressing-room two pretty girls, with difficulty soothed by Mrs. Sumter, were vainly striving not to cry their eyes out—Kate Sumter dismayed at the almost uncontrollable grief of her friend, who, strange to military measures, imagined that Bob's arrest was but the prelude to his being shot at sunrise, or ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... as that of a cradle. Then, as they whirled round a bend they suddenly, and without warning, found themselves sweeping through a gorge with vertical, rocky, fern-grown banks on either hand. Too well they knew what that sort of thing was the prelude to. There were rapids ahead, almost to a dead certainty, and they had missed their chance of inspecting before attempting to shoot them, for there was no landing on either of those vertical banks; while as for returning to a point where landing was possible, they might as well have attempted to ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Heeren, "was always accompanied by some instrument. The bard was provided with a harp on which he played a prelude, to elevate and inspire his mind, and with which he accompanied the song when begun. His voice probably preserved a medium between singing and recitation; the words, and not the melody were regarded by the listeners, hence it was necessary for him to remain intelligible to all. In countries ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... As a prelude to Earth's surrender, Axelson demanded that World President Stark and a score of other dignitaries should depart for the Moon as hostages. Every ray fortress in the world was to be dismantled, every treasury was to send its gold to be piled up in a great ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... a smile. Now our party gazed on these things as they move the wise. They felt calm and happy; and deceptive hope whispered they might yet remain so. Acme took up her guitar, and throwing her fingers over it, as she gave a soft prelude, warbled that sweet although common song, "Buona notte, amato bene." She sung with great feeling, and feeling is ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... ob Proo, massa," replied the negro, with that self-satisfied clearing of the throat which was usually the prelude ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... you to alter the order of the questions." The public astonishment had reached its height. There was no longer any deceit or bravado in the manner of the accused. The audience felt that a startling revelation was to follow this ominous prelude. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of a man-of-war's man, Hockins went off, and, without prelude, began. Dead silence was the instant result, for the small bird-like pipe seemed to charm the very soul of every one who heard it. We know not whether it was accident or a spice of humour in the seaman, but the tune he played ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... not face the cannon's mouth. It requires bravery beyond conception to do this last mission for those we love and esteem. I realized for a moment the difficult task and during the reading of the scriptures the battle was raging within me. When the moment came and the organ began the prelude, I arose as in a dream, and casting my eyes away from the beloved form, I began in a low voice the beautiful song (by Felix Marti) "By the River." As I sang I forgot all earthly sorrow and directed my thought ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... said the barber, "I give my word here and before God that I will not repeat what your worship says, to King, Rook or earthly man—an oath I learned from the ballad of the curate, who, in the prelude, told the king of the thief who had robbed him of the hundred gold crowns and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was the prelude to my dream. I could see myself like the novice who had just been admitted as a nun. I pictured myself lying down on the ground covered over with the heavy black cloth with its white cross, and four massive candlesticks placed at the four corners of the cloth, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... touch, she drew from the keys a plaintive prelude, which soon modulated itself into "The Light of other Days." She played and sang it with so much feeling, that it seemed the voice of memory floating with softened sadness over the far-off waters of the past. The tune was familiar to Alfred, but it had never sung itself into his heart, as ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... salt, pepper and cayenne, and one teaspoonful of made mustard, rub smooth and add one-half teaspoonful of vinegar, one tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce and the juice of one small lime. Lay the tripe in this sauce as soon as it is removed from the fire. Serve with buttered toast. An excellent prelude to this dish is a ...
— Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures • Joe Tilden
... No prelude did I there perceive To a drama at all, Or foreshadow what fortune might weave From beginnings so small; But I rose as if quicked by a spur I was bound to obey, And stepped through the casement to her Still ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... fiction, there exists a difference of opinion, which, in the absence of any authoritative command, leaves each free to act according to their own feelings and opinions. Viewing this life merely as the prelude to another state of existence, it does seem strange that the future should ever be wholly excluded from any representation of it, even in its motley occurrences, scarcely less motley, perhaps, than the human mind itself. The author can only wish it had been her province to have raised plants ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... that was responsive; no indication of the sweet surrender that doubly endears, and which makes such irresistible appeals for protection and sensitive understanding to a man worthy of the name; and what evidences of confusion she betrayed were rather those which commonly prelude the execution of unwelcome resolution; a suggestion of a lurking disposition to readmit the Peri into Paradise, restrained by a knowledge of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... repeat that the latest Gothic or romantic schools have all been taking Keats' direction rather than Scott's, or even than Coleridge's. Rossetti's work, I should say, e.g., in such a piece as "The Bride's Prelude," is a good deal more like "Isabella" and "The Eve of St. Agnes" than it is like "The Ancient Mariner" or "Christabel" or "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." Rossetti got little from Milton and Dryden, or even from ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... in vain to thrust out of his mind the astonished consternation of his classmates, the sneers of the marines and the jeers of the civilians there at the gate, who had seen his disgrace. Almost in tears now, he realized at last this was but a prelude to years of being scorned and ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... sent to their new homes. The little King, the one darling of his mother, was snatched from her, and violently transferred from one fierce guardian to another; each regarding the possession of his person as a sanction to tyranny. He had been introduced to the two winsome young Douglases only as a prelude to their murder, and every day brought tidings of some fresh violence; nay, for the second time, a murder was perpetrated in the Queen's ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... harsh noises of our day A low, sweet prelude finds its way; Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, A light ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... As a prelude and preparation for the study of the religion of the Athenians, it may be well to consider religion in its more abstract and universal form; and inquire in what does religion essentially consist; how far is it ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the foregoing is a mere prelude, in the affairs of Mrs Garlick and Maria, was occasioned by the extraordinary performances of the Mayor of Bursley. This particular mayor was invested with the chain almost immediately upon the conclusion of a great series of revival services in which he had conspicuously ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... filled the mind of the captive queen with terror, which prepared her to listen with avidity to any schemes, however desperate, for her own deliverance and the destruction of her enemy; and proved the prelude to that tragical castastrophe which was now ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... old heads to my bosom to shelter them from the storm. How was I going to tell them? The carriage went like the wind, and I could hear the clashing of the boughs under which we passed. The stillness of the afternoon had been but the prelude to a storm. ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... fell in a cascade and formed a lake beneath the castle walls. On the surface of the lake were little boats, painted and gilt, so pretty and dainty that the princess challenged the ambassadors to a voyage. None hesitated to do so, for they thought it was all a gay pastime, and a merry prelude to the marriage festivities. But no sooner had they embarked than boats, fountains, and lake vanished, and the frogs ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... dayspring, death's minute of night? Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul, the mistake, {280} Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,—and bid him awake From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set Clear and safe in new light and new life,—a new harmony yet To be run and continued, and ended—who knows?—or endure! The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure; By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world's reward ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... chart occupied by the Russian fleet at that moment. No sooner was the message decoded and its purport made known than mutual congratulations were exchanged; for even as the fall of 203 Metre Hill into the hands of our soldiers had been the prelude to the surrender of Port Arthur, so now the fact of the Russian fleet being in square 203 on the chart was accepted as an ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... as April 23 a street fight took place which was accompanied by assaults on Jewish passers-by—a prelude to the pogrom. On the day before the fateful Sunday, the Jews were warned by the police not to leave their houses, nor to open their stores on the morrow. The Jews were nonplussed. They failed to understand ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... This case of ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place her fingers on its edge. She did so, but almost screamed as a butterfly fluttered forth, and, alighting on her finger's tip, sat waving the ample magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled wings, as if in prelude to a flight. It is impossible to express by words the glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were softened into the beauty of this object. Nature's ideal butterfly was here realized in all its perfection; not in the pattern of such ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... flutter about the piano told that somebody was to play or sing. David took the seat and began a prelude. Then he sang ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... varying rhythms and the strange thrill of their wild dissonances are absolutely enthralling. Charles Boner, in his work on Transylvania, says that even the aged find it impossible to resist the dance when a gypsy band invites them to it. Their prelude is slow and sonorous, the music quickens, there is a rush of tones, the fantastic melody hastens on at a head-long pace—every one, old and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Diana's face, as she stepped out to join him, struck a buffet of warm air; a heavy scent of narcissus rose from the flower-boxes on the terrace; and from a garden far below came the sharp thin prelude of a nightingale. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... however, were but the prelude to a harsher sound which interrupted and annihilated them: the Court-house bell clanging out twelve. "All right," said Joe. "It's noon and I'm 'across ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... enter it as a 'war to end war,' a final struggle which should abolish the intolerable burdens of armaments and conscription. They were taught to exalt it as a strife for oppressed and helpless peoples; the prelude to a new brotherhood and cooperation among the nations, and to that reign of justice which is ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... taking the vacant seat at the piano, asked if we would not like to hear an English song. His sisters laughed heartily, thinking him to be only in jest; but their amusement changed to wonder and admiration when, after running his fingers lightly over the keys, he began playing a soft and melodious prelude. It seemed that when a boy of fifteen, he had as a sort of amusement learned the rudiments of music, but he had not begun with any settled purpose of making progress in the study, and had soon become tired of it. What then was their surprise to hear him sing with much taste and skill, ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... put into the inner prison in five pairs of fetters each, that his little room had been torn down, and his mat, pillow, &c. been taken by the jailers. This was to me a dreadful shock, as I thought at once it was only a prelude to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... purpose in the poem that she should have been one of those persons who in this world have not manifested all that lies within them. Does she still exist, or is she now no more than the thing which lies in the little enclosure at Collonge? The poem after its solemn and impressive prelude becomes the record of an hour's debate of the writer with himself—a debate which has a definite aim and is brought to a definite issue. In conducting that debate on immortality, Browning is neither Christian nor anti-Christian. The Christian creed involves a ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... blood was evidently at boiling point, came prancing down on him in a Zulu-like fashion, swinging his long arms like a windmill, and finding that his enemy made no attempt at receiving him, but only moved away apprehensively, he seized him by the collar as a prelude to dealing him a series ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... was, for several years, a registered lobbyist in Washington, representing foreign commercial interests. He is a chief architect of President Kennedy's 1962 tariff-and-trade proposals—which would internationalize American trade and commerce, as a prelude to amalgamating our economy with that ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... learned to dread this beginning, as it was generally the prelude to something disagreeable. But she was learning, also, to submit to disagreeable things. She only said, meekly, ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... the gradual curtailment of the privilege of representation in legislation and government have been noted, not merely because they form an important part in a full statement of the negro problem, but as a prelude to the following facts, and suggestions to ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... silence in such a place, but not for the sounds which I commence to hear. First of all an osprey sounds the prelude, above my head and so close to me that it holds me trembling throughout its long cry. Then other voices answer from the depths of the ruins, voices very diverse, but all sinister. Some are only able to mew on two long-drawn notes: ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... him, all three, for such invitations were usually the prelude of some agreeable surprise which he had ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a deep meditative state. Her gaze was directed inward; the gentle depths of her eyes became expressionless. She gave a certain sigh, the prelude to the ecstatic breathless trance. For a time she had fled to the questionless realm, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... Unexpected. You push your boat round some acute angle of water, with willows and tall rushes obscuring your course, and then suddenly shoot out into the open, with a view, perhaps, of an old church or manor-house, or of stately fields and trees—things which a boy feels may be the prelude to the romance of his life. So strong with me, indeed, was this feeling that fate was waiting round the corner, not to stick a knife into me, but perhaps to crown me, that when I wrote my unfinished novel, I began with a boatload of undergraduates shooting out ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... famous story of the orator who, with a great flourish of rhetoric as prelude, announced to his audience the startling fact that there was a "gre—at difference in people?" On the strength of this original statement, it has been supposed that there were a variety of tastes to be suited ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... charger loose into the corn-field, and robs the peasant whom he harangues on the rights of the people—this republican baptism will give no new power to the conversion. The German phlegm will kick, the French vivacite will scourge, and then alone will the true war begin. Yet all this may be but the prelude. When the war of weapons has been buried in its own ashes, another war may begin, the war of minds—the struggle of mighty nations, the battle of an ambition of which our purblind age has not even a glimpse—a terrible strife, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... much of it is entirely wilful. The thinker makes theories to justify what is done; he, too, sees all life in terms of action, he is the parasite of action. For a German professor the whole process of history was but a prelude to the wilfulness of Germany; he could not experience the past except in terms of what Germany willed to do; and the aim of his theorizing was to remove all scrupulous impediments to the action of Germany which she may have inherited ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... traitor pines, you sang what life has found The falsest of fair tales. Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around, That native music of her forest home, While from the sea's blue fields and syren dales Shadows and light noon spectres of the foam Riding the summer gales On aery ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... Miss Kate Sparks and Miss Nora, they could not understand why the breaking of half-a-dozen hearts should not be the prelude to every marriage. That, they said with much conviction, was always the case in America, and a girl was thought all the more of who ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... we have the same thing said by another man in another key. 'Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.' The prelude to the assertion makes all the difference. Here is the warranted ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... King in reply was not heard, but those habituated to read his countenance in its very faint varieties of expression, might have seen that it conveyed reproof; and its purport soon became practically known, when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter of the hall, in which sate certain ghost-like musicians in white robes—white as winding-sheets; and forthwith a dolorous and dirgelike voice chaunted a long and most tedious recital ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spent a seedy autumn. The Russo-Turkish campaign, which had been unjustifiably allowed, by foreign Powers, to drain Egypt of her gold and life-blood—some 25,000 men since the beginning of the Servian prelude—not only caused "abundant sorrow" to the capital, but also frightened off the stranger-host, which habitually supplies the poorer population with sovereigns and napoleons. The horse-pest, a bad typhus, after raging in 1876 ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... scene, in all the white mystery of moonlight, enhanced by the white-blossomed trees and the soft outlines of slumbering sheep. One of the birds, in a bush close to them, began prolonging its drawn-in notes in a continuous prelude, then breaking forth into a varied complex warbling, so wondrous that there was no moving till the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I have no time just now to describe. It ended, however, somehow or another, in the parties plighting their troth. As I said before, love and murder are very good friends; and a chop from a tomahawk was but a prelude for the descent of Love, with "healing on ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... drunk poison—oh What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life's early cup with such a draught of woe? The nameless worm would now itself disown; It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone 5 Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, But what was howling in one breast alone, Silent with expectation of the song Whose master's hand is cold, ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... shout, sing, and dance—hats and caps went up, flags waved in the breeze—so delighted were they at the sight and sound of Dixie. The whole presented more the spectacle of a holiday procession, or a gala day, rather than the prelude to the most sanguinary battle of ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... seemed to be a prelude to the ceremonies. The bonzes, fifteen in number, left the vestry to the sound of shrill, noisy music. They took their stations before the altar, where they made many genuflexions and gestures. They then presented ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... "It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'" said Andrews. "If you didn't think the same as M. Emile Faguet and everyone else about St. Antoine, I'd ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the great amusement of Ireneus, who really would have taken for the dinner itself the prelude to it. ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... the appearance of that rough flatboat that made me wish I had hailed her quiet crew; for, strange to say, they did not send after me a shower of slang phrases and uncouth criticisms, the usual prelude to conversation among flatboat-men when they desire to cultivate the acquaintance of a fellow-voyager. In fact, it was rather startling not to have the usual greeting, and I wondered why I heard no friendly expressions, such as, "Here, you river thief, haul alongside and report yourself! Whar ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... broken down the fair mind itself,—but it had all created a gracious form for the memory to dwell on, an undying association with the "Tancredi," as beautiful, instructive, and joy-giving as the "Divino Amore" of Raphael, the exquisite onyx heads in the "Cabinet of Gems," or that divine prelude the Englishman was at that moment pouring out from his piano in a neighboring palazzo, in a flood of harmony as golden and rich as the wine of Capri, every note of which, we know, had been a life-drop wrung from the proud, breaking heart of Chopin, when he sat alone, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of their attitude has constituted old Jolyon's 'home' the psychological moment of the family history, made it the prelude of their drama. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... contrast between the larva and the imago that can be found throughout the whole class of the insects. The Bluebottle's eggs, the well-known 'fly blow' laid in summer time on exposed meat, not unnaturally arouse feelings of disgust, yet they are the prelude to one of the most marvellous of all insect life-stories. The fly—with its large globular head, bearing the extensive compound eyes, the highly modified feelers with their exquisitely feathered slender sensory tips, and the complex suctorial jaws; with its compact ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... part the action was nothing more than an unconscious reaction to distressing thoughts. Larkin, however, on seeing the sudden climb, grinned with delight. This climb for altitude was nothing more than the prelude to a dive that would start them into a merry game of hare and hound. So McGee had forgotten all about his doleful sermon against dog-fighting? And so soon. Ha! Trust the freckled "Little Shrimp" to feel blood racing through his veins ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... Russia's economic prospects. Russia's economy grew 6.6% in 2006 and inflation growth was below 10% for the first time in the past 10 years. Russia shows signs of increasing its ties to the global economy, having signed a bilateral market access agreement with the US as a prelude to possible WTO entry. Nevertheless, serious problems persist. Oil, natural gas, metals, and timber account for more than 80% of exports, leaving the country vulnerable to swings in world commodity prices. Russia's manufacturing base is dilapidated ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Captain Cros's tablet gives us a glimpse of the methods by which he managed to secure himself against the competition of any rival. The capture of Shirpurla must have been one of his earliest achievements, for its proximity to Gish-khu rendered its reduction a necessary prelude to any more extensive plan of conquest. But the kingdom which Lugalzaggisi ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... him with a perpetual grievance. His early life appears to have been irregular, and to the end he was a weak, vain, discontented man. His chief work is De Regimine Principum or Governail of Princes, written 1411-12. The best part of this is an autobiographical prelude Mal Regle de T. Hoccleve, in which he holds up his youthful follies as a warning. It is also interesting as containing, in the MS. in the British Museum, a drawing of Chaucer, from which all ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... lassitude, with which people will look upon a provision for the public, which is bought by discord at the expense of social quiet. Hence the bitter heart-burnings, and the war of tongues, which is so often the prelude to other wars. Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which is according to the free will of the giver. A false shame, or a false glory, against his feelings and his judgment, may tax an individual to the detriment of his family, and ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the tone of the successive intimations chance had sent me, and which in this great concert of misfortunes were like a prelude of mournful modulations to a funereal theme, the mighty cry of expiring love, I cried out: "Surely you believe that this pure lily cut from earth will ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... prelude to something which elicits that exemplification of the vocative case which has been given in the first ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... shaking hands while he spoke. I was not quite certain that I did hear the breakers, the noises on board the tumbling vessel making it difficult to distinguish sounds. Shortly after this there came a lull, but we thought it only the prelude to ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... kettle of water with a board over it. A stream of water comes from the organ. There is a horse near which kicks or bites me. Again:—I play on the piano to a friend who is a German scholar the opening theme of the Tristan and Isolde Prelude. My friend tells me the pronunciation of the title of the opera and it sounds to me like Froebel. That the name of the world-famous music drama, the apotheosis of passion, should be transformed to that of the notable child educator ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... duke, 'no matter; stay with me a while. I wish your counsel about some affairs that concern me nearly.' He then told Valentine an artful story, as a prelude to draw his secret from him, saying that Valentine knew he wished to match his daughter with Thurio, but that she was stubborn and disobedient to his commands, 'neither regarding,' said he, 'that she ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... fortune; indeed, it was the prelude to a disaster worse than any that McClellan had suffered. Pope advanced by the route of the original invasion, and reached exactly the point where McDowell's army had been routed. Here he paused and waited. While ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... States. They were, indeed, entitled, by the treaty of 1815, to occupy this fortress, as well as that of Camachio. They could urge no better excuse for a display of military power in the Pope's States on occasion of the threatened disturbance of 16th July. This parade was only the prelude to further military operations. On 13th August, General Count Auesperg occupied all the posts of Ferrara. Whatever may be said as to treaty rights, this was, undoubtedly, an insult to the Papal flag. The most energetic remonstrances were ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... of chapters of "Artemus Ward" is a prelude to such a deed as this, the book should be filed among the archives of the nation, and the author should be canonized. Henceforth I see the light and ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... resigned his Honorary Magistrateship, I hope that both these patriots will not consider that they have done their last duty by their acts of renunciation, but I hope they will regard their acts as a prelude to acts of greater purpose and greater energy and I hope they will take in hand the work of educating the electorate in their districts regarding boycott of councils. I have said elsewhere that never for another century will India be faced with a conjunction ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... was thus that the necessary milieu was prepared. The organization of the five great nations, and the levelling of political and spiritual interests under political and spiritual despots, formed the prelude to that drama of liberty of which the Renaissance was the first act, the Reformation the second, the Revolution the third, and which we nations of the present are still evolving in the establishment of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to a couple of young fellows who were standing about thirty yards away. The young men, being afraid, ran off and then the Germans fired and killed one of them named D." The murder of this innocent fugitive civilian was a prelude to the burning and pillage of Herve and of other villages in the neighborhood, to the indiscriminate shooting of civilians of both sexes, and to the organized military execution of batches of selected males. Thus at Herve some fifty ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... him with his back to the wall. He vanishes in the shining cloud of a witty abstraction when cornered. His prose is full of winged neologisms, his poetry heavy with the metaphysics of ennui. Remy de Gourmont speaks of his magnificent work as the prelude to an oratorio achieved in silence. Laforgue, himself, called it an intermezzo, and in truth it is little more. His intellectual sensibility and his elemental soul make for mystifications. As if he knew the frailness ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... deep sigh, the man uttered the words, "Thank God!" for the third time within the last four-and-twenty hours. It was an appropriate prelude to his sinking into that mysterious region of oblivion in which the mind of worn-out man finds rest, and out of which it can be so familiarly yet mysteriously summoned—sometimes by his own pre-determination, but more frequently ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... the colored light touched her face and dress. Except for this, the corner was somewhat dark. Amber was Evelyn's color. She struck a few chords that seemed to echo in the distance and then, glancing at Jim, began a prelude with a measured beat. His face was intent; he seemed to search for something in the music that sounded as if it were getting nearer. She wondered whether he heard the call of trumpets and horses' feet drumming in the dark. Somehow she thought ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... breaking into a vault a few notes of prelude were struck upon the piano in the parlor below, and a sweet voice, softened ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... name, accentuated proudly by the liveried servants, and announced in a resounding voice, sounded in Jenkins's drawing-rooms like the clash of a cymbal, one of those gongs which, in fairy pieces at the theatre, are the prelude to fantastic apparitions. The light of the chandeliers paled, every eye sparkled at the dazzling perspective of the treasures of the Orient, of the showers of the sequins and of pearls evoked by the magic syllables ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... that bitter air and foul, Still list'ning to my escort's warning voice, "Look that from me thou part not." Straight I heard Voices, and each one seem'd to pray for peace, And for compassion, to the Lamb of God That taketh sins away. Their prelude still Was "Agnus Dei," and through all the choir, One voice, one measure ran, that perfect seem'd The concord of their song. "Are these I hear Spirits, O master?" I exclaim'd; and he: "Thou aim'st aright: these loose the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... last he grew strong enough to walk, he went with her across to the native pastor's house, where together they stood up before the Rev. Tavita Singua and were married. This was the prelude to another and more binding ceremony before the American Consul in Apia, whither they both went in a canoe borrowed from Faalelei. The official books were withdrawn from the safe and the thirty-six Americans in Samoa ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... with a strong, rich whistle, like the high notes of a fife, "Cheo-cheo-cheo-cheo," repeated over and over as if to make perfect the start of a song he is about to sing, suddenly he stops, and you learn that there is to be no glorious performance after all, only a prelude to — nothing. The song, such as it is, begins, with both male and female, in March, and lasts, with a brief intermission, until September — "the most melodious sigh," as Mr. Allen calls it. Early ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... into the shanty suspended the conversation for a moment only, and then General Sherman, without prelude, rehearsed his plans for moving his army, pointing out with every detail how he would come up through the Carolinas to join the troops besieging Petersburg and Richmond, and intimating that my cavalry, after striking the Southside and Danville railroads, could ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... with warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surprise, that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and the far-away hills all marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage of the "Prelude," has used this as a figure for the feeling struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the uproar of the great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the other ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... responsibility, and I wasn't to suppose it was my gift only, to spoil and mess up as I chose, but that it belonged to the world. When he said that, cold shivers trickled down my spine. He looked so solemn, and he made me feel so solemn, as though I were being turned, like Wordsworth in The Prelude, into ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... now given the necessary prelude to the story which I have to tell. I cannot but think that, in spite of the isolated manners of Great Britain, readers in that country generally must have become acquainted with the views of the Fixed-Periodists. It cannot but be that a scheme ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... that no pains or expense has been spared to make this volume every way worthy of the enterprising publisher whose name it bears, and the host of merry, happy children, who are destined to delight in its pages. It is a fitting prelude to the holiday season, and sets a high mark for other publishers to follow. It is one of the books that we delight to heartily commend, for its intrinsic value is equal to its exquisite beauty. It is just the book to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... how his body tingled all over with warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surprise, that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and the faraway hills all marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage[15] of the "Prelude," has used this as a figure for the feeling struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the uproar of the great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the other way ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... these two examinations was unquestionably very great in spreading consternation and bewilderment far and wide; but they were only the prelude to the work, to that end, arranged for the day. The public mind was worked to red heat, and now was the moment to strike the blow that would fix an impression deep and irremovable upon it. It was Thursday, Lecture-day; and the public services usual ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... itself to my own sleep, settled itself there, and is to this hour a part of the fixed dream-scenery which revolves at intervals through my sleeping life. This it was:—She would hear a trumpet sound—though perhaps as having been the prelude to the solemn entry of the judges at a town which she had once visited in her childhood; other preparations would follow, and at last all the solemnities of a great trial would shape themselves and fall into settled images. The audience ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... which were many, were gazing with silent wonder at it, and in the second moment, all the rest had joined them in their confused contemplation. But the third moment witnessed a drastic change in their behavior, for their initial bewilderment wore off and suddenly, with a united prelude of the drawing in of a breath, they all began speaking at once, resulting in a clamorous din that lasted for a few moments, before things hushed again and we could hear a few individual voices discussing loudly. Though we couldn't make out their exact words, they ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... skyward, passing the neighbourhood of the organ, and having a door to its loft. As he ascended, came a pause in the music;—and then, like the breaking up of a summer cloud in the heavenliest of rain-showers, began the prelude to the solo in the Messiah, THOU DIDST NOT LEAVE HIS SOUL IN HELL. Up still the curate crept softly. All at once a rich full contralto voice—surely he had heard it before—came floating out on the torrent, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... had an idea where to go, and that his questioning was really a prelude to its announcement. "Where do ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... quite as respectable as Mr. Gunter's father; to which Mr. Gunter replied that his father was to the full as respectable as Mr. Noddy's father, and that his father's son was as good a man as Mr. Noddy, any day in the week. As this announcement seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking and clamoring ensued, in the course of which Mr. Noddy gradually allowed his feelings to overpower ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... We stayed quietly under shelter, preparing for our real journey after so much prelude. The Isaac Newton's steam-whistle had sent up the curtain; the overture had followed with strains Der-Frei-schutzy in the Adirondacks, pastoral in the valleys of Vermont and New Hampshire, funebral and andante in the fogs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and without any prelude, Mary proffered her request. Of course it was refused. Mary pouted, and was getting ready for an outburst, when Wolsey spoke up: "With your majesty's gracious permission, I would subscribe to the petition of the princess. She has been good enough to give her promise in the matter of so much importance ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... true that our modern sense of the continuity of history has shown us that neither in politics nor in nature are there revolutions ever but evolutions only, and that the prelude to that wild storm which swept over France in '89 and made every king in Europe tremble for his throne, was first sounded in literature years before the Bastille fell and the Palace was taken. The way for those red scenes ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... judgments well founded in contrariety. We should not, forsooth, forget to mention that Fuddle, in his love of decorum—though he scarce ever sat in judgment without absorbing his punch the while—never permitted in his forum the use of those knock-down arguments which were always a prelude ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... women, of the vast majority, the clatter and clash of housewifery prelude and postlude the spring song of their years. And the rattle of dishes, of busy knives and forks, the quick tapping of Maud's attendant feet, the sound of young and ravenous jaws at work: these sounds were in Joan's bewildered ears, and the sights which they accompanied in her bewildered ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... captains of industry, who were more often than not, rogues in the disguise of public benefactors. Nearly all of them were citizens of Kansas. The cessions of 1854, negotiated by George W. Manypenny, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, were but a prelude to the many that followed. For years and years there was in reality never a time when some sort of negotiation, sub rosa or official, was not going on. The order of procedure was pretty much what it had always been: a promise that the ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... With this general prelude let us turn to what Mr. Williams has to say about the industries connected with iron and steel. He opens by referring to a visit of the English Iron and Steel Institute to Duesseldorf ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... us look at him. He was not ugly. Nay, there was something of attractive in his face—the smooth-curved chin, the shrewd yet sleepy eyes, and finely cut thin lips—a curious mixture of audacity and meekness blent upon his features. Yet this impression was but the prelude to his smile. When that first dawned, some breath of humour seeming to stir in him unbidden, the true meaning was given to his face. Each feature helped to make a smile that was the very soul's life of the man expressed. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Its prelude is nigh, and the death of the Indian half-breed is to initiate it. For the fugitive slave knows the part this vile caitiff has played, and will not scruple to kill him; the less that it is now an inexorable necessity. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... sung precisely as he had written them, and protested against the innovations that had been permitted to suit the caprices and gratify the vanity of singers. It was his idea that the Sinfonia, in other words the Overture or Prelude, should indicate the subject and prepare the spectators for the characters of the pieces, and that the instrumental coloring should be adapted to the mood of the situation, thus anticipating modern procedure. He prepared ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... we are asked to hoard up everything as for a time of famine, is, in its own right, the richest, easiest, and happiest of life. Nay, by managing its own work and following its own happy inspiration, youth is doing the best it can to endow the leisure of age. A full, busy youth is your only prelude to a self-contained and independent age; and the muff ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hundred more are summoned by a wizard's wand from the land of shadows, to march by the central figures of these volumes; to dance, flutter, love, hate, intrigue, and die before our eyes. It is the largest and most varied showbox in all history; a prelude to a series of battle-pieces—Rossbach, Leuthen, Molwitz, Zorndorf—nowhere else, save in the author's own pages, approached in prose, and rarely rivalled ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... is preceded by a series of false promises and followed by a series of calumnies. Between such a prelude and such a finale, you may perform a symphony of frightfulness with Dr. Strauss' orchestration—it will sound as innocent and artless as the three notes of a shepherd's pipe. The violation of Belgian neutrality is bad ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... Cheniston led the way across the hall, and they entered the drawing-room, Iris bringing her prelude to a close as the door opened to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... with us, how short the time seemed and how it dragged when she had gone. The worst thing possible for me, this seeing her and being with her; I knew it. I knew it perfectly well. But, knowing it, and realizing that it could not last and that it was but the prelude to a worse loneliness which was sure to come, made no difference. I dreaded to be well again, fearing that would mean the end ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... one day, conscious, they shall sing that song; One day by river clear of south or north, Pagan no more, the laurelled head shall rise, And chaunt the Warfare of the Realm of Souls, The anguish and the cleansing, last the crown - Prelude of songs celestial!" ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... to surround me, and I heard a low but extremely distinct and sweet voice, which appeared to issue from the centre of it. The sounds were at first musical like those of a harp, but they soon became articulate, as if a prelude to some piece of sublime poetical composition. "You, like all your brethren," said the voice, "are entirely ignorant of every thing belonging to yourselves, the world you inhabit, your future destinies, ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... prince was eleven years of age when his father died. During his minority he was nurtured in learning and piety[51] by his mother, Blanche of Castile, whose devotion to her son, and firm and wise regency were a fitting prelude to the reign of a saintly king. Even after he attained his majority, St. Louis always sought his mother's counsel and was ever respectful and submissive to her will. When the news of her death reached him in the Holy Land, he went to his oratory, fell on his knees before the altar, submissive ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... which the subject naturally suggested: the great lord, who is driven by idleness and ennui to deceive a poor drunkard, can make no better use of his situation than the latter, who every moment relapses into his vulgar habits. The last half of this prelude, that in which the tinker, in his new state, again drinks himself out of his senses, and is transformed in his sleep into his former condition, is from some accident or other, lost. It ought to have ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... airgonation, supposing that it will not only be perfected, but will depose navigation. I did not finish it, because I am not skilled, like the gentleman that used to write political ship-news, in that style which I wanted to perfect my essay; but in the prelude I observed how ignorant the ancients were in supposing Icarus melted the wax of his wings by too near access to the sun, whereas he would have been frozen to death before he made the first post on that road. Next, I discovered an alliance ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... pause, the Easterner's mind, like a film, took lasting impressions of three men—the iron-nerved master of the ceremony; the Swede, pale, motionless, terrible; and Johnnie, serene yet ferocious, brutish yet heroic. The entire prelude had in it a tragedy greater than the tragedy of action, and this aspect was accentuated by the long, mellow cry of the blizzard, as it sped the tumbling and wailing flakes into the ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. He is accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who has a subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the depressing disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a soft, low, weird-like prelude: and then came a voice like that of a thrush, at which every other in the room seemed to hush instinctively. ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... revulsion of the pulse, this alteration of strain, this change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music? Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... as a preparation for her rising resolution, when her husband's horn, in all its well-known windings, struck her ear. That sound had hitherto inspired the pulses of a living heart, and sent through her veins the delightful tumult of a gratified hope; it had been the prelude to the close embrace of affection; the flourish of joy on the meeting again of separated hearts. It was now the death-knell of both. She would have sunk to the ground as the sound fell on her ear, but that the recess ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... of the events, not important in themselves, but which seem to have the relation of a prelude to the great tragedy, was derived from three persons, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Blaine, and Mr. Marshall Jewell. At the request of the President, Mr. Conkling called upon him the Sunday preceding the day of catastrophe. The President ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... to go abroad for a romantic plot than Hosea, or the author of Ruth, or the writer of the royal Epithalamium (Psalm xlv), an almost certainly pre-Exilic composition. This Psalm has been well termed a "prelude to the Song of Songs," for in a real sense Canticles is anticipated and even necessitated by it. In Ruth we have a romance of the golden corn-field, and the author chooses the unsophisticated days of the Judges as the setting of his tale. In Canticles we have a contrasted picture ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... introductions are rarely given to those invited to an entertainment, a gentleman may ask any lady for a dance. She will probably accept, but he must not take this as the prelude to an after acquaintance. In America, however, it is necessary to ask some mutual friend to first request the favor of the lady, and then, if granted, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... trifles, and after looking at them for a moment singled out a dim old brown and golden book which Chelles had given her. He examined it lingeringly, as though it touched the spring of some choked-up sensibility for which he had no language. "Say—" he began: it was the usual prelude to his enthusiasms; but he laid the book ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... station or of birth has no tendency to prelude the favour of God. In this respect, he "seeth not as a man seeth," but, in the past dispensations of his mercy, appears to have preferred the lowly as objects of high and distinguishing manifestations. This is the case in the Christian era, and to ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... his proposed labors Sir Arthur noticed some ruined walls, the great gypsum blocks of which were engraved with curious symbolic characters, crowning the southern slope of a hill known as Kephala, overlooking the ancient site of Knossos, the city of Minos. It was the prelude to the discovery of the ruins of a palace, the most wonderful archeological find ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... him to it. My object was to make it as easy as possible for him to come with me. As long as there was no clash between us there was no object in my seeing him; it was only when the clash came or was imminent that I had to see him. A series of breakfasts was always the prelude to some active warfare.[*] In every instance I substantially carried my point, although in some cases not in exactly the way in ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... now rested on the strangers, and it was hard for them to appear unconscious of it. A great crowd was slowly filling the room and an orchestra in a balcony on the left of the dais began to make delightful music on instruments the strangers had never before seen. After an entrancing prelude a sound of singing was heard, and far up in a grand dome, lighted like the one the captives had just admired over the central court of the palace, they saw a bevy of maidens, robed in white, moving about in mid-air, apparently ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... good for fishing in troubled waters. D'Argenson notes that it is a fair opportunity to make use of Charles. Now we scrape acquaintance with a new spy, Oliver Macallester, an Irish Jacobite adventurer. {286} Macallester, after a long prelude, tells us that his 'private affairs' brought him to Dunkirk in 1755. On returning to London he was apprehended at Sheerness, an ungrateful caitiff having laid information to the effect that our injured hero 'had some connection with the Ministers of the French Court, or was upon some ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... the prelude to the discussion, some months later, in the National Convention, of the proposition to destroy the monuments of the Kings at Saint-Denis, to burn their remains, and to send to the bullet foundry the bronze and lead off ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... into the stillness did the intruder dare again to draw breath. Coming as it had the very moment that the door had closed noiselessly behind her, the double stroke had sounded to her like a knell: or, perhaps more like the prelude to the wild alarum of a tocsin, first striking her heart still with terror, then urging it into ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... to the Haynes-Cooper plant and the fight that was before her. There settled about her mouth a certain grim line that sat strangely on so young a face. The service marched on. There came the organ prelude that announced the mourners' prayer. Then Rabbi Thalmann began to intone the Kaddish. Fanny rose, prayer book in hand. At that Clarence Heyl rose too, hurriedly, as one unaccustomed to the service, and stood with unbowed ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... the certainty of doing injustice to the learning and ingenuity with which the author has supported his views. Kuhn has shown it to be extremely probable, first, that the Christmas games, which both in Germany and England have a close resemblance to those of Spring, are to be considered as a prelude to the May sports, and that they both originally symbolized the victory of Summer over Winter,[17] which, beginning at the winter solstice, is completed in the second month of spring; secondly, that the conquering Summer is represented by the May King, or by the Hobby-Horse ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... prelude, he took a few seeds and began to coax the bird, until it, in point of fact, performed various tricks, on the stage, clasping in its beak a mask and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... continental expeditions beyond the first mission of Lord Arundel and his forces, yet it is impossible not to suspect (as the French at the time anticipated) that this decided interference, on the part of England, with the affairs of France, may have been a prelude to the enterprise of the next reign. Who can say that the battle and victory at St. Cloud passed away without any influence on the course of events which made Henry V. heir ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... was the prelude to many more. Grisell wanted to hear it over again, and then who was the Archbishop martyr, and who were the Virgins in memory of whom the lamps were carried. Both these, and many another history, parable, or legend were told her by Sister Avice, training her soul, throughout ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he can do it," said Bob, with no small amount of pride; and Leander, with his head held so high that it was almost impossible to see his instrument, struck one or two notes as a prelude, while Joe took his station at a point about as far distant from the ring as the door of the tent ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... do less than bow to this flattery, but he wondered what such a curious prelude foreshadowed. "It means no good to me," he thought, "or he would not begin with such praise." ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... bell ceased its jangling, the harmonium began a quavering prelude, and from a door at the back, behind the little platform and desk, three men entered: first Mr. Thurston; then a little crooked man who must, Maggie knew, be Mr. Crashaw; finally, in magnificent contrast, Mr. Warlock. A quiver of emotion passed over the Chapel—there ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... death would be the most glorious act of his life. No one could imagine, from the calm and subdued conversation, and the quiet appetite with which these distinguished men partook of the entertainment, that this was their last repast, and but the prelude to a violent death. But when the cloth was removed, and the fruits, the wines, and the flowers alone remained, the conversation became animated, gay, and at times rose to hilarity. Several of the youngest men of the party, in sallies of wit and outbursts ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... the prelude soft; And so it chanced, for many a door was wide, From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft, The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide: The level chambers, ready with their pride, Were flowing to receive a thousand guests: ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... crash of chords from the piano melted into a rippling prelude, and Winifred breathed easier when her friend began to sing. Her voice was sweet and excellently trained, and there was a deep stillness of appreciation when the clear notes thrilled through the close-packed hall. No one could doubt that the first part of the aria was a success, for half-subdued ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss |
