"Waltz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suddenly the bird begins revolving in the air about its perch, like a moth wheeling round and close to the flame of a candle, emitting a series of sharp clicks and making a loud humming with the wings. While performing this aerial waltz the black and white on the quills mix, the wings appearing like a grey mist encircling the body. The fantastic dance over, the bird drops suddenly on to its perch again; and, until moved to another display, remains as stiff and motionless as a bird ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... of the ball arrived. Mme. Loisel made a great success. She was prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, endeavored to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wanted to waltz with her. She was remarked by ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... of seventy-four, of whom seventy are young women, some of them very handsome. The music is of the modest kind that might be expected from a clarionet and a guitar. The majority of the participants come to the house with their chairs on their heads. The dances are the polka, the waltz, quadrilles, including the Lancers, and two or three native dances called La Polomila, the Dondon Karape and La Santa Fe, which are accompanied with graceful poses, while the women, as they dance, snap their fingers in imitation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... for protection. But they'd want protection that would protect. Grady's trying to sell us a gold brick. He hated us to begin with, and when he'd struck us for about all he thought we'd stand, he'd call the men off just the same, and leave us to waltz the ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... a minute, and now, without looking,—indeed, he looked everywhere but at me, while we talked,—made a bow as if just seating me from a waltz, and, with his eyes and his smile on Louise all the way down the room, went out. Did you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... young folks were gliding about the big hall to the strains of a Strauss' waltz, while the judge and his friends looked on, taking an almost melancholy pleasure in the gay ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... polka, schottische, waltz, etc., there are many who strongly object, but, danced in private homes and in most cases under the eye of the young girl's mother, there can be found nothing dangerously objectionable in this favorite amusement. The minuet is a stately, beautiful old ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Italians, he was by nature cruel. As he passed the gates the horse slid and stumbled to his knees; he was up instantly, only to receive a hard stroke between the ears. This unexpected treatment caused the animal to rear and waltz. This was not the stolid-going campaign mount, but his best Irish hunter, on which he had won prizes in many a gymkhana. There was a brief struggle, during which the man became master both of himself and the horse. They were just passing the confines of the villa when a man darted ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... the lack of exercise. Dear old GOSSET! he was better off in that respect. Remember how he used to waltz up and down between doorway and table with BRADLAUGH? A heavy partner, too, especially taken after dinner. But, on score of health, not by any means an undesirable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... had all the light gaiety of the Gaul, and, after the manner of their ancestors, were born cooks. A capital regimental band accompanied them, and whenever weather and ground permitted, even after long marches, they would waltz and polk in couples with as much zest as if their arms encircled the supple waists of the Celestines and Melazies of their native Teche. The Valley soldiers were largely of the Presbyterian faith, and of a solemn, pious demeanour, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... A gay waltz that made her think of flashing water, the laughter of children. Tschaikowsky. Thrilled, she waited for the finale. Silence. Scharwenka's "Polish Dance," with a swing and a fire beyond anything she had ever heard before. Another stretch of silence—a ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz—the clocks began to strike the hour of three ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... made a resolution not to think about the book which he was forced to write, the book, nevertheless, was completed. One page of it was found on the bed of a sick man, another on the sofa of a boudoir. The glances of women when they turned in the mazes of a waltz flung to him some thoughts; a gesture or a word filled his disdainful brain with others. On the day when he said to himself, "This work, which haunts me, shall be achieved," everything vanished; and like the three Belgians, he drew forth a skeleton from ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... those lovers' rambles! A man as he grows old can perhaps teach himself to regret but few of the sweets which he is compelled to leave behind him. He can learn to disregard most of his youth's pleasures, and to live contented though he has outlived them. The polka and the waltz were once joyous; but he sees now that the work was warm, and that one was often compelled to perform it in company for which one did not care. Those picnics too were nice; but it may be a question whether a good dinner at his own dinner-table is not nicer. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... of the Bororos—purely vocal—had three different rhythms: one not unlike a slow waltz, most plaintive and melancholy; the second was rather of a loud warlike character, vivacious, with ululations and modulations. The third and most common was a sad melody, not too quick nor too slow, with temporary ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... smooth tea-tray, and the tray tilted a little at one end, the doll will waltz across the ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and picked up his flute. With infinite softness a waltz danced lightly through the quiet room. To such a fanciful, eerie piping might the ghost of a child have danced. Then without pause or warning it swung dramatically into a stirring melody of power ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... and will," shouted each man. And again they honoured in wine her image. Sir John Marraby uttered a cry familiar in the hunting-field. The MacQuern contributed a few bars of a sentimental ballad in the dialect of his country. "Hurrah, hurrah!" shouted Mr. Trent-Garby. Lord Sayes hummed the latest waltz, waving his arms to its rhythm, while the wine he had just spilt on his shirt-front trickled unheeded to his waistcoat. Mr. Oover gave ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... a merry span Of years uncounted when convulsion ran Right through the veins of me, to make me blest, And yet accurst, in that revolving quest Known as a waltz,—if waltz indeed it were And not a fluttering dream of gauze and vair And languorous eyes? I scarce can muse thereon Without a pang too ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... coo and flutter from the dovecot; Hortense is drawing water from the well; and as all the rooms open into the court, you can see the white-capped cook over the furnace in the kitchen, and some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-a-manger. "Edmond, encore un vermouth," cries a man in velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic after-thought, "un double, s'il vous plait." "Where are you working?" asks ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... science seldom reaching higher than the accompanying of a song so as to set off a tolerable voice, or aid a weak one, and the attracting a circle of beaus round a young lady, while she exhibits the nimbleness of her fingers in the execution of a darling waltz, or touches the hearts of the fond youths with a plaintive melody accompanied with false notes. Thus far, or but little further, does music extend, save in a few scattered instances. Like a plover-call, it is used to allure the fluttering tribe ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... says she. "It was you who suggested him as a partner, anyway. And hurry, Bobby, there goes the waltz!" ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... gracefully, the greatest and most perfect performance attainable by a ropedancer. With beads of perspiration on her brow, and eyes uplifted, she threw the cage aside, swung her Mercury staff aloft, and danced along the rope in waltz time, as though borne by the gods of the wind. Whirling swiftly around, her slender figure darted in graceful curves from one end of the narrow path to the other. Then the applause reached the degree of enthusiastic madness which she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... their cornets; Limpy-toes brought his flute, Wiggle his fife, Scamper the alto horn, and Nimble-toes his beloved drum. At a signal from Uncle Squeaky, the little band began to play Silvy's Waltz. ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... in a submarine! Of course, we couldn't expect them to wait for a German undersea craft to come popping out of the ocean and waltz up alongside so they could say: 'Good morning, Mr. Dutchman! Won't you please accept this fine ship?'" ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... party. Every Tuesday she receives calls; every Thursday she calls upon her acquaintances. Whenever she has a spare moment, it is bestowed upon her dressmaker. If she thinks, it is to design new trimmings; if she dreams, it is of a heavenly soiree dansante, with an eternal waltz to everlasting music, and a ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... songs with the merriest or most blackguard words to the most dirge-like tunes; but our fishermen sing religious words to the liveliest tunes they can learn. I notice they are fonder of waltz rhythms than of any others. The merchant sailor will drawl the blackguard "I'll go no more a-roving" to an air like a prolonged wail; the fisherman sings "Home, beautiful home" as a lovely waltz. Blair always encouraged the men to sing a great deal, and ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... her guitar accompaniment a little "Bird Waltz," and whirled on the pavement in time, till I doubt if she herself knew whether the guitar had gone mad, and were waltzing about her, or she were ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... romantic about it!" returned Coleman; "for my part, I think she looks rather jolly than otherwise;—see how she's laughing with my cousin Lucy; by Jove, how her face lights up when 121she smiles!—she's very decidedly pretty. Well, will you be introduced?—they are going to waltz." ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... meant only a recognition of the day. Actually it had held for both of them a more personal significance, the swift outreach of youth to youth. But the dance was an escape. She had learned at Winnipeg the waltz of the white race. No other girl at Faraway knew the step. She chose to think that the constable had asked her because this stressed the predominance of her father's blood in her. It was a symbol to all present that the ways of the Anglo-Saxon were ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... The "Kiss Waltz" was a great favorite and the opening bars were beginning, "Hun" Williams, leader of the orchestra, putting a good swing into it. Renestine and Jaffrey glided with the rhythm of the music and danced until the last ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... now reigns supreme; and his music, when directed by himself, still abounds in those exquisite little touches, that inspire hope like the breath of a May morning. Strange to say, the intoxicating waltz is gone out of vogue with the humbler classes of Vienna,—its natal soil. Quadrilles, mazurkas, and other exotics, are now danced by every "Stubenmad'l" in Lerchenfeld, to the exclusion ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... the "trot," And letting the waltz go to pot, In the glorious Jazz Most undoubtedly has Discovered the pick ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... dance!" exclaimed Philippa, as the musical box began a lively waltz tune; "Dennis shall ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... Moorish kiosk. Number nine went up on the board. It was a waltz tune. The pale girls, the old widow lady, the three Jews lodging in the same boarding-house, the dandy, the major, the horse- dealer, and the gentleman of independent means, all wore the same blurred, drugged expression, and through the chinks in the planks at their feet ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the direction of the side window there came a burst of instrumental music. With it, singing the words of a waltz from a popular opera, blended a ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... better partners than girls," she said to Mr. Parsons as they danced the last waltz together. "And I think their rooms are prettier than ours, if these are fair samples. But they can't have any better time at ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... dance taking in all of the girls, which they presented during the course of the evening. The music for it was the "Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz" and the girls impersonated in their dance the Danube River, winding through its green valley. The girls, dressed in light green, were the river itself, while Gladys, in a filmy white dress with water lilies twined in her long yellow hair, was the Spirit of the Danube, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... reply; and as though embarrassed by the personal nature of the inquiry, the man rose and repaired to a remote corner, where he began a solemn waltz with his offspring in ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... consist of a cadenza to Beethoven's C minor concerto, a valse-caprice, a ballade, four sketches, a "Bal Masque" Waltz, a Children's Carnival and Children's Album, her concerto in C sharp minor, a transcription of Richard Strauss's "Serenade," five pieces (Barcarolle, Menuet Italien, Danse des Fleurs, Scottish Legend, Gavotte Fantastique), and a set of six duets entitled "Summer Dreams." For violin and piano, besides ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... the evening I met Felicity again and she gave me the second "Hesitation Waltz." Afterwards she led me to some nice basket ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... flowers, gay curtains, flags, and cloths. The floor is shining like silver, and as polished as a mirror. The band strikes up the Blue Danube waltz, and amid the usual bustle, flirtation, scandal, whispering, glancing, dancing, tripping, sipping, and hand-squeezing, the ball goes gaily on till the stewards announce supper. At this—to the wall-flowers—welcome announcement, we adjourn ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Hauton, turning to his sister, "don't you know Bellamy?—Bellamy," repeated he, coming close to her, whilst the gentleman was paying his compliments to Lady Oldborough, "Captain Bellamy, with whom you used to waltz every night, you know, at—what's the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... became as happy and merry as the rest; so we carried on, until about ten o'clock, when the lights began to waltz a little, and propagate also, and I found I had got enough, or, peradventure, a little more than enough, when the senior captain rose, and walked very composedly out of the room—but I noticed him pinch the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... closer and closer to the lattice. One of her little feet went tap-tapping on the gravel, beating the measure of the waltz. For at the sound of the music, at the sight of the locked and whirling couples, her memory revived; she heard again the beating of the measure old as time; she felt in her limbs the start and strain of the wild energy; and instinct, savage and shy, moved in the rhythm of her blood, and desire ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... friends and friendship, I have (as I already said) named the only remaining male for whom I feel any thing of the kind, excepting, perhaps, Thomas Moore. I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world—not much remembered when the ball is over, though very pleasant for the time. Habit, business, and companionship in pleasure or in pain, are links of a similar kind, and the same faith in politics is ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... quietly, and passed unobserved into the third stall. The wall which divided one room from another was of pine boarding and did not reach the ceiling. As the eavesdropper slid to a seat a phonograph in front began the Merry Widow waltz. Noiselessly Flandrau stood on the cushioned bench with his ear close to the top of the dividing wall. He could hear a murmur of voices but could not make out a word. The record on the instrument wheezed to silence, but immediately a rag-time ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the pastrycook, was paying court to her, too—to say nothing of the homage of messieurs Tricotrin, the poet, and Goujaud, the painter, and Lajeunie, the novelist. You would never have guessed that her wages were only twenty francs a week, as you watched her waltz with Tricotrin at the ball on Saturday evening, or as you saw her enter Pomponnet's shop, when the shutters were drawn, to feast on his strawberry tarts. Her costumes were the cynosure of the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... faut upon their trip abroad, or "bust." The other great event is the ship's belle in her pink chiffon. It makes you almost wish you were a dancing-man, to see her. But there are dancing-men enough—among them the ship's doctor. He leads her in the mazes of the waltz and, while dancing, is given an anaesthetic, in shape of a languishing glance or two. Before he comes to, his partner has performed a minor operation on ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... Alpha Nus who had said that they would be at home; noises of all kinds, from not unmusical singing to plainly unmusical whoops, exhaled from every pore of the Hall. The piano on the lobby was groaning out a waltz from its few attuned keys and the little space between the big rug and the rail overlooking the dining-room was packed with forms in various conditions of negligee, dancing earnestly ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... the best of the throng In the ballroom of Life and go lilting along; We follow our fancy, and choose as we will, For waltz or for tango or merry quadrille; But ever one partner is waiting us all At the end of the programme, to ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... delightfully melodious, generally fail to hold the reader's attention. The movement is languid; there is little dramatic interest, and only a suggestion of humor. The very melody of his verses sometimes grows monotonous, like a Strauss waltz too long continued. We shall best appreciate Spenser by reading at first only a few well-chosen selections from the Faery Queen and the Shepherd's Calendar, and a few of the minor poems ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said unpleasant things—truthful, but eminently tactless,—and she felt that he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music just then ceased, and her daughter's figure, tall, slight, and marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the ballroom and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... for flight, a sphere upheld by four allegorical figures, whose attitude, as if they were twirling their burden, suggests a vague waltz measure, a marvel of equilibrium which perfectly produces the illusion of the earth's revolution; and there are arms raised as a signal, bodies of heroic size, containing an allegory, a symbol that brings death and immortality upon them, gives them to history, to legend, to the ideal ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... you are irredeemably committed," replied Ralph, as the music, after some prefatory flourishes, broke into the delicious rhythm of a Strauss waltz, "then it is no use struggling against fate. Come, let us make the plunge ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... vegetation, placid as sleep itself, only stirred by the webbed feet of waterfowl, or the wings of dipping swallows, with above and below a brawling rivulet, here and there showing cascades like the tails of white horses, or the skirts of ballroom belles floating through waltz or gallopade. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... that his cheeses were safe. I swept with a light wing over a politician's eyes, and straightway he dreamed of theatres and music. I caught an undertaker in his first nap, and I have left him whirled into a waltz. For what would be sleep if it did not contrast life? Then I came to a solitary chamber, in which a girl, in her tenderest youth, knelt by the bedside in prayer, and I saw that the death-spirit had passed over her, and the blight was on ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hilarity. This is serious business, Cappy. I can show you where you and I can waltz into the Chicago Pit, make a killing on December wheat, and escape with a sizable wad before our ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... and origin of the Hohenzollerns, we believe) they would have shown themselves. In those exhilarating miles of valley, bicycled in company with a blithe vagabond who is now a professor at Cornell, we learned why the waltz was called "The Blue Danube." So heavenly a tint of transparent blue-green we have never seen elsewhere, the hurrying current sliding under steep crags of gray and yellow stone, whitened upon sudden ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... alike, had partaken of an "eye-opener," Baptiste gave the signal, and the fiddler struck up his plaintive wail. The reedy strings of his instrument shrieked out the long-drawn measure of a miserable waltz, the company paired off, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the voice, a kindly light in the eye, which made Philammon promise to obey. He glanced one look back through the gateway as he fled, and just saw a wild whirl of Goths and girls, spinning madly round the court in the world-old Teutonic waltz; while, high above their heads, in the uplifted arms of the mighty Amal, was tossing the beautiful figure of Pelagia, tearing the garland from her floating hair to pelt the dancers with its roses. And that might be his sister! He hid ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... country dances on the various ranches, Belle never missed quadrille, two-step, waltz or schottische, and she danced by herself or sang songs during the intervals, while the women of the range sat stiffly along the walls on benches, stared at Belle and whispered behind their weather-reddened hands, and tittered. She taught big-jointed, bashful ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... hall of the administration building was thrown open, and there was dancing and music until an early hour in the morning. All the belles of the town turned out to welcome the soldiers, hypocrites that they were, and they danced with their enemies as readily as they would waltz with their own dear Filipinos. Every one seemed to have a good time, and the soldiers went to bed just in time to get three hours' sleep before starting ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... acquired with such startling rapidity in the community. When Honora and Howard drove up to the door in the deepening twilight, every window was a yellow, blazing square, and above the sound of voices rose a waltz from "Lady Emmeline" played with vigour on the piano. Lily Dallam greeted Honora in the little room which (for some unexplained reason) was known as the library, pressed into service at dinner parties as the ladies' ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... enter the town. We again mounted on our stilts, for the guard had forced us to dismount, or they could not have kissed me, every now and then imitating a dance, until we arrived at the Grande Place, where we stopped opposite the hotel, and commenced a sort of waltz which we had practised. The people in the hotel looked out of the window to see our exhibition, and when we had finished I went up to the windows with O'Brien's cap to collect money. What was my surprise to perceive Colonel O'Brien looking ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... can't be," said he; "it ain't possible. However, I'll tell you what I'll do. Just to put your mind at rest, I'll go round and find out for sure. Just you waltz in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Grace at the head of the staircase. She had never looked more Venus-like than in this fairy glow, with a plant-filled window behind her, opening out into the summer darkness. The music of a waltz of Strauss was rising from below, and I felt a wonderful thrill as she again took ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... could never act. He tried it once, upon urgent solicitation, but he had not proceeded far before he caught Joseph around the waist, and with that astonished friar in his arms proceeded to dash into a waltz, over which the curtain was dropped. He had no sympathy with the moonlight mistiness and lace-like complexity of that weird and many-fibred nature. It lacked for him the reality of the imagination, the trumpet blare and tempest rush of active passion. But Edwin Booth, coming after Forrest, ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... a glimpse of him, and began a sort of waltz towards him. Mr. Pierce followed; and when they reappeared, Mr. Pierce's arm was encircling my husband's old blue frock. How his friends do love him! Mr. Bridge was perfectly wild with spirits. He danced and gesticulated and opened his round eyes like an owl.... My ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... officer for a godfather and (as is the custom in Spain) the city of Seville for a godmother. The adventures of her life were written out by her in an exercise-book. She told me that, at a ball in Calcutta, she had once refused to waltz with a wealthy gentleman who was so encrusted with diamonds that he resembled a snuff-box. When he asked her the reason for refusing to dance, she replied: "Sir, I cannot dance with you because you have hurt my foot." The would-be waltzer was ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... happy in her work at the theatre, ready to go out for a stroll with him if the morning were fine, he wanted his old comrade, who was always so wise and prudent and cheerful, whom he could always please by sending her down a new song, a new waltz, an Italian illustrated journal, or some similar little token of remembrance. But if Estelle's theory were the true one, that Nina was gone forever, never to return; her place was vacant now, never to be refilled; and ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Paris, the silver thread of the Seine and its bridges. There is a faint whirring, and two faces emerge vaguely from the dark—the hero and heroine swinging along in a Taube. And as they fly they sing a wistful little waltz song, a ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... was the best man I ever knew who wa'n't a whaler. He was a navy sailor, he was, and a whole ten-pound battery by hisself. Why, you jest ort to see him waltz his old tin-clad gun-boat up agin one of them reb forts—jest naturally skeered 'em half to death before he commenced shooting ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... "Whenever there was a waltz figure in the mazurka, I waltzed with her for a long time, and breathing fast and smiling, she would say, 'Encore'; and I went on waltzing and waltzing, as though unconscious ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... Queen, and courtiers take their places within the circle. The circle moves to waltz step, singing stanza I, of ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... pulse, moved a lighter, fierier, prouder body, sounded a more ironic and disdainful laughter, breathed a rarer air than had beat and moved and sounded and breathed in music. It made drunken with pleasant sound, with full rich harmonies, with exuberant dance and waltz movements. It seemed to adumbrate the arrival of a new sort of men, men of saner, sounder, more athletic souls and more robust and cool intelligences, a generation that was vitally satisfied, was less torn ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... about that. From the window close at hand came out the excruciating strains of a very lusty instrument, and the record was that of a vulgar "catchy" waltz-tune, taken down from a brass-band. All Riseholme knew what her opinion about gramophones was; to the lover of Beethoven they were like indecent and profane language loudly used in a public place. Only one, so far as was known, had ever come to Riseholme, and that was introduced by the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... houses, her frail cables of lanterns looping her to her moorings. A side door of the theatre opened suddenly and a shaft of light flew across the grass plots. A sudden burst of music issued from the ark, the prelude of a waltz: and when the side door closed again the listener could hear the faint rhythm of the music. The sentiment of the opening bars, their languor and supple movement, evoked the incommunicable emotion which had been the cause of all his day's unrest and ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... programme for the evening, I was soon in a trying dilemma. Amiable and courteous as these fashionable lions were acknowledged to be, they could not get themselves to sacrifice the pleasure, great or small, which they found in a waltz or polka, to sit the dance out quietly with a girl of scruples ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... promptly in his seat at the first strains of the waltz, which proved to be the next number. Claire stepped out upon the ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... been oblivious of the daughter who now seemed in her native element. From his dusky point of observation he caught frequent glimpses of her, now whirling through a waltz in the parlor, now talking and laughing in a rather pronounced way from the midst of a group of gentlemen, and again coquettishly stealing off with one of them through the moonlit walks. Her manner, whether assumed ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... compliment your dancing," said the Earl, as the waltz was finished, "for you must have been told so often how wonderfully well you dance. But I must tell you what a pleasure it is to dance ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... let a march steal on me," retorted the captain, disposing himself comfortably among his rugs and cushions, "or a waltz, or a lullaby, or anything else you choose. But music of some sort I ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... pine groves on Maple and Government islands loom up big and black. The Judge was enjoying his vacation the better for its lateness. He had bolted his supper early enough to secure his favorite chair in the best part of the piazza: a mandolin orchestra was playing a waltz from "The Serenade," and playing it well, the Judge thought. He threw away the match with which he had lighted his third cigar—to keep off the mosquitoes, he blandly told his conscience—and leaned back in the Morris chair, thinking how congruously comfortable ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... of age, he made his first attempt at composition, producing for a public occasion at the seminary in Athens, Ohio, where he was a student at the time, the "Tioga Waltz," which, although quite a pretty affair, he never thought worthy of preservation. In the same year, shortly afterwards, he composed music to the song commencing, "Sadly to mine heart appealing," now embraced ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not why;—from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavor to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to an open window. The dancers were whirling by us. The waltz was one of those melancholy ones which speak the spirit of the dance more eloquently than any merry melody can. The sound of the sea booming beyond in the darkness came to us, and long paths of light, now red, now green, stretched toward the distant ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... neighbours. The ball was quietness itself, until near the end, when the wind-instruments were suddenly seized with a fit of economy, the time they were paid for having probably expired, and stopped short in the midst of a waltz; upon which the gentlemen waltzers shouted "Viento! Viento!" at the full extent of their voices, clapping their hands, refusing to dance, and entirely drowning the sound of some little jingling guitars, which ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... sort. How far would I have got if every time the band played a two-step my grenadiers had dropped their guns to pirouette over those snow-white wastes? Let the diplomats do the dancing. For soldiers give me men to whom the polka is a closed book and the waltz an abomination." ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... said the domino. 'But come—they are beginning the waltz. Here is a little hand as yet unoccupied. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... is this?—what goblin sounds of Macbeth's witches?—Beethoven's Spirit Waltz! the muster-call of sprites and specters. Now come, hands joined, Medusa, Hecate, she of Endor, and all the Blocksberg's, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... or waltzing mouse is a Japanese variety with many peculiarities, such as having only one of the three semicircular canals of the ear well developed. It has a strong tendency to waltz round and round in circles without sufficient cause and to trip sideways towards its dormitory instead of proceeding in the orthodox head-on fashion. But this freak is a very educable creature, as Professor Yerkes has ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... as the bird, sprang from her seat and began to waltz about the room, her curls floating in the air, and her cheeks bright as a ripe peach. She looked like a fairy excited ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... not dancing," says the tall, gaunt man, who has now come up to her. "So much I have seen. Too warm? Eh? You show reason, I think. And yet, if I might dare to hope that you would give me this waltz——" ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... light of the 'Winter Garden.' The conservatory opened into a library, and from the library you reach the antechamber, thus completing the 'giro' of one of the prettiest houses in St. Petersburg. I waltzed one waltz and quadrilled one quadrille, but it was hard work; and as the sole occupation of these parties is dancing and card-playing—conversation apparently not being customary—they are to me not ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... penetrating that it made the water come to Harry's eyes. But it changed suddenly to something that had all the sway and lilt of the rosy South. Men sprang to their feet and clasping arms about one another began to sway back and forth in the waltz ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... stationed within a few yards of him, commenced to play a popular waltz, and Pritchard to talk. Tavernake turned his fascinated eyes from ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had her in his arms in a deliciously wild waltz, a swinging, irresponsible, gipsy-like thing which set the blood coursing and ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... suppose the man would bring his wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's arms in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before. "The men are bearable, but ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'Chillon's Viennese waltz was played by the band: played a second time, special request, conveyed to the leader by Prince Ferdinand. True, most true, she longs to be home across the water. But be it admitted, that to any one loving colour, music, chivalry, the Island of Drab ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the movement considerably, contrary to the character of the true Menuet. It is clear that he incorporated the "Landler," [Footnote: A South German country dance in 3/4 time, from which the modern waltz is derived.] particularly in the "Trio"—so that, with regard to the tempo, the designation "Menuetto" is hardly appropriate, and was retained for conventional reasons only. Nevertheless, I believe Haydn's Menuets are generally ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... went the shuffling of feet, the swish of garments, the gay talk and laughter of the young people; and on and on talked Mr. Stevens and Mr. Turner, until one familiar strain of music penetrated into Sam's inner consciousness; the Home Sweet Home waltz! ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... took the daughter's place at the piano and began to play snatches of an old waltz tune—"it would be free from all the morbid unnaturalness, the silliness, the froth of things. There is too much hardness in every life—in the world—in the very laws of life, for such things ever ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... preliminaries proved disappointing. So much so that in the last of the series a soured sportsman on one of the benches near the roof began in satirical mood to whistle the "Merry Widow Waltz." It was here that the red-jerseyed thinker for the first and last time came out of his meditative trance. He leaned over the ropes, and ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... the brilliant garden from her deep porch chair. Barbara, in conference with a capped and aproned maid at the end of a sunny corridor, Sally chatting with Richie, as she straightened the scattered books on the library table, Ted dashing off a popular waltz with her head turned carelessly aside to watch the attentive Keith; all these to Julia were glimpses of a life so free, so full, so invigorating as to fill her ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with ponderous circumlocution. She subscribed to papers and magazines, which she read and remembered. And she danced! When other women thought even a waltz immoral and shocking; perfectly stiff, her curls exactly in place, Agatha could be seen, and frequently was seen, waltzing on the front porch in the arms of, and to a tune whistled by young Adam, whose full name was Adam Alcibiades Bates. In his younger days, when discipline had been required, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... music, whether waltz or psalm, Among a crowd, I find myself alone; It does not touch me with a soothing balm, But brings an ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... spin she stretches her limbs, She golfs, she punts, she rows, she swims - She plays, she sings, she dances, too, From ten or eleven till all is blue! At ball or drum, till small hours come (Chaperon's fan conceals her yawning), She'll waltz away like a teetotum, And never go home till daylight's dawning. Lawn tennis may share her favours fair - Her eyes a-dance and her cheeks a-glowing - Down comes her hair, but what does she care? It's all her own and it's worth the showing! Go search the ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... square dance was over. The City Band was just beginning to play a waltz. Annixter assuring himself that everything was going all right, was picking his way across the floor, when he came upon Hilma Tree quite alone, and looking anxiously among ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... ultimate social ratios. She is unusually well educated, speaks three languages, knows that somehow North and South America are not exactly the same as the Northern and Southern States, has heard of Virgil and the Crusades, can play a waltz well, and possesses a very sweet little voice. She is undoubtedly pretty. Brown, on the whole, as to colouring—brown skin, liquid brown eyes, dark brown hair—a nose not regular but attractive, a mouth not small but expressive, ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... of a haunting waltz that sang clear in the night beyond the open windows wove itself into the texture of Sally's thoughts and set her blood tingling ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink With the three-thousandth curtsy; there the waltz, The only dance which teaches girls to think, Makes one in love even with its very faults. Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink, And long the latest of arrivals halts, 'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... "scorning measures" talk of men— There Luttrel steps 'twixt me and fame— So like, egad, we're just the same; I never half squeeze out a thought, But jumps its fellow on the spot— My tenderest dreams, my fondest touch, Are victims to his ready clutch; The whirling waltz, the gay costume, The porcelain tooth, the gallic bloom; The vapid smiles, the lisping loves Of turtles (never meant for doves)— The dreary stuff that fills the ears, Where all the orators are peers— The hides reveal'd through ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... the measure. She stood still and listened. No, no, not a sound save the rain on the roof. It was the music of her own heart, beating irregularly and fiercely to an intermittent lilt, like a Hungarian waltz or a ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... waltz. They are absolutely fixed and predetermined (though the poet may invent new patterns if he chooses). But he uses them only as forms on which he arranges his words and phrases. For the rhythm of language is extremely soft and malleable: by skilful handling it ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... finished and left. A little water and spirits spared from the travelers' meal gave a slight air of restoration to these mysterious offerings, and a couple of splendid butterflies, whether attracted by the flowers or the alcoholic perfume, commenced to waltz around the bouquet; but the corollas contained no honey for their diminutive trunks, and after a slight examination they danced ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... the ball-room, where she saw Elsie whirling through a waltz, looking as happy and unconscious as if she had not just crushed a warm, loving human ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... was great—and more than that; he displayed that sincere appreciation which always arouses an artist to his best effort, and, too, in an unexplainable manner, makes him feel like shedding tears. I showed my gratitude by playing for him a Chopin waltz with all the feeling that was in me. When I had finished, my mother's eyes were glistening with tears; my father stepped across the room, seized me in his arms, and squeezed me to his breast. I am certain that for that moment he was proud to be my father. He sat and held me standing between ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... lounge, Eric wondered why he had chosen this of all places. Last night's ordeal should have kept him away for ever; and the band was playing a waltz which he had heard when Barbara dined with him on her return from the Cap Martin. Music, especially the seductiveness of the waltz rhythm, was bad enough at any time when one needed to keep one's ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... came to a certain lively waltz, and threw his whole soul, as it were, into the crank of his instrument, my beloved ragamuffin failed not to seize another cake-boy in his arms, and thus embraced, to whirl through a wild inspiration of figures, in ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... flowers, canaries, and pretty trinkets. Her rooms and garden, it is true, were small and poorly fitted-up, yet everything in them was so neat and methodical, and bore such a general air of that gentle gaiety which one hears expressed in a waltz or polka, that the word "toy" by which guests often expressed their praise of it all exactly suited her surroundings. She herself was a "toy"—being petite, slender, fresh-coloured, small, and pretty-handed, and invariably gay and well-dressed. The ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... the hall is occupied by the other dancers, who later in the evening find their way into the diplomatic set. The dancing in the quadrilles and Lancers is of a rather stately and ceremonious sort. In waltz or galop the English always dance the same step, the deux temps, and the aim of the dancing couple is to go as much like a spinning-top as possible. They make occasional efforts to introduce puzzling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... them," cried the lively Mrs. Rothesay: "I long to show them a quadrille—even that new dance that all the world is shocked at Oh! I should dearly like a waltz." ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Strauss's "Blue Danube" waltz, and the ballet music from Gounod's opera "The Queen of Sheba," given by Theodore Thomas, in ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... the bar. With the advent of Burning Daylight the whole place became suddenly brighter and cheerier. The barkeepers were active. Voices were raised. Somebody laughed. And when the fiddler, peering into the front room, remarked to the pianist, "It's Burning Daylight," the waltz-time perceptibly quickened, and the dancers, catching the contagion, began to whirl about as if they really enjoyed it. It was known to them of old time that nothing languished when Burning ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Sanine's curious gaze was riveted on her white silhouette in the moonlight. Sarudine now came from the lighted drawing-room on to the veranda. Sanine distinctly heard the faint jingling of his-spurs. In the drawing-room Tanaroff was playing an old-fashioned, mournful waltz whose languorous cadences floated on the air. Approaching Lida, Sarudine gently and deftly placed his arm round her waist. Sanine could perceive that both figures became merged into one that swayed ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... were ranged rows of tables and wooden chairs, which were occupied by men and women, all busily occupied in disposing of the villainous liquids which were dispensed to them by so-called pretty waiter girls, who had evidently long since become strangers to modesty and morality. The band was playing a waltz, and the floor was filled with a motley gathering of both sexes, who were whirling about the room, with the greatest abandonment, dancing madly to the harsh and discordant music. The scene was ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... partner to the hymeneal bargain is fat and full of content, happiness fairly oozing out of every oily pore. And is not happiness the goal of human endeavour, whether a man seeks it amid the electric lights, subtle perfumes, and dreamy waltz-music of a New York ballroom, or finds it seated with his community wives on a hummock ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... his two hands on the marble rail he looked down into the room below. The music of a waltz was just beginning, and some of the more enthusiastic spirits had already begun dancing, moving in and out among the uniforms ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... Yvon would cry. "You are exquisite this morning! Your eyes are like stars on the sea. Come, then, angelic Rock, Rocher des Anges, and waltz with your Ste. Valerie!" And he would take Abby by the waist, and try to waltz with her, till she reached for the broomstick. I have told you, Melody, that Abby was the homeliest woman the Lord ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... heart, and willing to be chaste, What virtue can withstand the waltz's whirl? Tom, Jack, or Harry's arm about my waist, Belly to belly throbbing, ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... the poor widow could formulate her fears as to the reception of "round dances," Brooks had darted to the piano, and the next moment she heard with a "fearful joy" the opening bars of a waltz. It was an old Julien waltz, fresh still in the fifties, daring, provocative to foot, swamping to intellect, arresting to judgment, irresistible, supreme! Before Mrs. Wade could protest, Brooks's arm had gathered up her slim figure, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Sibylla, in a little spirit of mischief. And, in the bright prospect of the future, she forgot past and present grievances, turned her laughing blue eyes upon her sisters, and, to their great scandal, began to waltz round and round ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... anything you say. Don't you dare cry, Connie! I'll never forgive you if you make your nose red. Listen! The musicians are tuning up! May I have the first waltz, madam?" and seizing Mrs. Sequin by her plump gloved hands, she danced that august person down ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... or her—why quest we which?—the shepherd of the dale, contemptuous of gender, except in his own species, has called, and as long as they two coexist will call, the "Yellow Sally." A fly that does not waste the day in giddy dances and the fervid waltz, but undergoes family incidents with decorum and discretion. He or she, as the case may be,—for the natural history of the river bank is a book to come hereafter, and of fifty men who make flies not one knows the name of the fly he is ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... moored Behemoth to a tree. I then took my rifle, and sent a ball through the center of her head, and she was numbered with the dead." There is nothing in "Waterton's Wanderings," or in the "Adventures of Baron Munchausen" more startling than this "Waltz with a Hippopotamus!" ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... the greatest enthusiasm; but its very character was a temptation to put music to another use, and indeed it was Mozart himself who gave the signal, as he left the piano, to ask Franziska for a waltz, while Max took up his violin. The Count was not slow in doing the honors for Madame Mozart, and one after another joined in the dance. Even Franziska's aunt became young again as she trod the minuet with the gallant Lieutenant. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... away from her brother impatiently, and seated herself at her piano. She played a few bars of a waltz with a listless air, while the captain lighted a cigar, and stepped out upon the little balcony, overhanging the dull, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... marriage-bell, and—I would not be understood to complain, but it had been a sad occasion. Now the deceitful strains rose and fell again upon the salt sea wind. The many lights glowed and twinkled from the near shore. We are all at play, come and play with us, screamed the soft waltz music. It is summer, and the days are long, and trouble is not, and care is banished. If the waves sigh, it is with bliss. Our voyage is ended. It is sad that you did not sail with us, but we will invite you again to-morrow, and the band ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... her fingers wander into a waltz and raised her eyebrows. "Do I look so much like Alice that you can ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton |
