"Donna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lives—the ancient Donna Abreguardo. He now has his second wife, has the good don. By his first he has two daughters and a son. Young Don Ricardo is married and is at the Hacienda del Norte. The two se[n]oritas are of the marriageable age—oh, yes! But in these troubled ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... point the two trails divided, one going up the Truckey by the Donna lake route and the other up Long Canyon by Honey lake, the latter being considered ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... for you in my next programme," he said, when the champagne and cigars had been discussed. "This is that I have secured Donna Lola, a Spanish dancer, direct from Seville. She is, I assure you, deliciously beautiful and remarkably accomplished. I pledge you my word, gentlemen, she will create ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... do. Gaspare is terrible, a regular donna[1] of a boy in spite of all his mischief and fun. You should hear him talk of you. He'd die for ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... letto vi fan tener' erbette, Ch'invitano a posar chi s' appresenta. La bella donna in mezo a quel si mette; Ivi si ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... what M. Anatole France says in his apostrophe to the sex: 'Pour faire de vous la terrible merveille que vous etes aujourd'hui, pour devenir la cause indifferente et souveraine des sacrifices et des crimes, il vous a fallu deux choses: la civilisation qui vous donna des voiles, et la religion qui vous donna des scrupules.' The translation of which is (please take note of it, my dear young ladies with 'les epaules qui ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... to quarrel with any measures which minds so enlightened as its present sovereigns may deem requisite. But this is but a grave theme for thee, love. Knowest thou that her Grace reproached me with not bringing thee to join the Arragonese festivities? When Donna Emilie spoke of thee, and thy gentle worth and feminine loveliness, as being such as indeed her Grace would love, my Sovereign banished me her presence as a disloyal cavalier for so deserting thee; and when I marked how pale and thin thou art, I feel that she ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... possessed extraordinary activity, and a capacity of enduring great fatigue. Indulgent to those under his command, and self-denying in all that regarded himself personally, his enthusiasm for the cause he served was such, that during nearly two years that he had been the accepted lover of Donna Gertrudis Olana, this was only the second time he had left his regiment for a few days' visit to his affianced bride. He had arrived at Logrono the preceding day from a town lower down the Ebro, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... serpents. That's what ailed Adam and Eve. They kept intoxicated with their own primordial sweetness until they got the jimmies and saw a talking snake prancing around the evergreen aisles of Eden with legs like unto a prima donna. At least I suppose the Edenic serpent was built that way, for the Lord cursed it and compelled it to go on its belly all the days of its life. Hence the Lord must have pulled its leg. So to speak, or words to that effect. As an intoxicant love affects one differently from liquor. ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... had a rough, blustering manner, once got from a witness more than he gave. In a trial of a right of fishery, he asked the witness: "Dost thou love fish?"—"Aye," replied the witness, with a grin, "but I donna like cockle sauce with it." The learned serjeant was not pleased with the roar of ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the table and standing about in groups, waiting to make their bows till the President had gone through that ceremony. I was curious to hear if anything passed between him and the signorina, but I was pounced upon by Donna Antonia, the daughter of the minister of finance, who happened to be present, notwithstanding the late hour, as a guest of the signorina's for the night. She was a handsome young lady, a Spanish brunette ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... of the body was retold, though more scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His book, "Criminals I Have Caught," passed from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was quite recent. The door ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... nature donna la naissance aux dieux, la connaissance de la nature est faite pour les detruire. A mesure que l'homme s'instruit, ses forces at ses ressources augmentent avec ses lumieres; les sciences, les arts conservateurs, l'industrie, lui fournissent des secours; l'experience ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... his income was mortgaged for a number of years to pay off the costs of certain Italian escapades which are inconceivable in Paris. He had ruined himself in supporting a theatre at Milan in order to force upon a public a very inferior prima donna, whom he was said to love madly. A fine future was therefore before him, and he did not care to risk it for the paltry distinction of a bit of red ribbon. He was not a brave man, but he was certainly a philosopher; and he had precedents, if we may use so parliamentary an expression. Did not ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... have been less humiliating," replied Mrs. Kirby, with a masterly change of front. "I was indignant! Christian, with her charming voice, only playing accompaniments and singing in the glees, and that unendurable Mangan girl posing as the Prima Donna, and oh! her clothes!" ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... success roused her young sister's ambition to become a great artist. Her parents were well to do, her father having a large army furnishing store in Florence, and they did not encourage her in her determination to become a prima donna. One prima donna, said her father, was enough for ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... for two years, singing in Mozart's "Don Giovanni," in "Tancred," "Romeo and Juliet," and two of her father's operas. Here she married a French merchant, Malibran. After her separation from him she returned to Paris, where she was engaged as prima donna at a salary of 50,000 francs. Thereafter she sang at every season in Paris, London, Milan, Rome and Naples. For one engagement of forty nights in Naples she received 100,000 francs. Both as a singer and woman she exercised an extraordinary ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... instituteur, mais qui d'une nature mecontente et orgueilleuse, se croyait au-dessus de sa sphere, et faisait sentir a sa pauvre femme, qui l'aimait d'un devouement admirable, toutes les tortures que l'egoisme peut inventer. Elle se donna a peine le necessaire pour procurer a son seigneur et maitre tous les soins que sa superiorite imaginaire pouvait exiger, et pourtant il ne fut jamais content, et un beau jour disparut, sans qu'on put retrouver ses traces. La pauvre Catherine fut inconsolable, mais ne perdit ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... ah! We were waiting alongside the ship, with her lower chain-plates not a foot above water, for the donna to be hoisted over the rail, since she would not permit any of her attendants to precede her—though Heaven knows they were anxious enough to do so. By this time, too, after my men had left the deck of the ship, the crew had somehow got hold of ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... for such it appeared to be, was already under way. The lady, the Chinese equivalent of a prima-donna—dressed in silks emblazoned with gold spangles, tinsel and glass jewels, with a strange head-dress, three feet high, consisting of feathers and pom-pons—was holding forth in what was intended ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... entertainment particularly brilliant is the fact that it is to be graced by the dazzling presence of the peerless Donna Velvetina Peeleretta, who, as every one knows, is shortly to wear the diamond tiara of the house ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... my head. Then, realizing that my throat was modeled on the foghorn plan, I said, "If I can't sing a note, I'll surely roast the folks who can!" I go to concerts and look wise, and shudder as in misery; in vain the prima donna tries to win approving smiles from me; in vain the tenor or the bass, to gain from me admiring looks, pours floods of music through his face—I squirm as though on tenderhooks. And people watch my curves and sigh; "He has ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... was agreeable. Clotilde and Ermengarde had wits as sparkling as their eyes. There was a manager of the Opera, a great friend of Villebecque, and his wife, a splendid lady, who had been a prima donna of celebrity, and still had a commanding voice for a chamber; a Carlist nobleman who lived upon his traditions, and who, though without a sou, could tell of a festival given by his family, before the revolution, which had cost a million of francs; and a Neapolitan ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... and lamentable is the decay of stage beauty since the days of George IV. Think of Sontag! I remember her in Otello and the Donna del Lago in '28. I remember being behind the scenes at the opera (where numbers of us young fellows of fashion used to go), and seeing Sontag let her hair fall down over her shoulders previous to her murder by Donzelli. Young fellows have never ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... exceedingly swift: and soft women who have been betrayed are rapid beyond measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she pronounced distinctly and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion is—married or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up—she's nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant she forthwith registered the lady in the botanical note-book of her brain. It would have astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person so accurately ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his thin bony hand, poured out her pity, he answered, 'I've had rather a jolly time of it of late; Mettie is so delicious, you can't think how her very voice and eyes seemed to do me good. I'm sure that the bella-donna lily, cold hard painted thing, was a mistake; she must have been something much sweeter. What do you think of a honeysuckle? That's bright red and white, and its leaves come out ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these rooms to suit her fancy. He was a scientific man, and much more devoted to making curious experiments than he was to the ordinary practice of medicine and surgery. In a small room on this floor, at the very back of the house, was Donna Paltravi, in a box." ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... was never a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna. And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there—Luciano Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest man who had ever been in the city! For a wonder, he wasn't a tenor, only a basso, but they adored ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... t' behave, we'll say no more about the vanishin' leddy." And with this the policeman strolled off into the fog, his suspicions in nowise removed. He knew many rich young bachelors like Hillard. If it wasn't a chorus lady, it was a prima donna, which was not far in these degenerate days from being the ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... and spectacles—the one decidedly prosaic appearance in the pomp of war and the glitter of royal state. Victor Emmanuel said good-humouredly that when driving with his great subject, he felt just like the tenor who leads the prima donna ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... had reached a high degree of perfection. Already the singer sought to astonish the hearer by covering an air with a bewildering variety of ornaments. The time was not far off when the opera prima donna was to become the incarnation of the artistic sensuousness which had beguiled Italy with a dream of Grecian resurrection. The way had been well built, for the attention of the fathers of the Roman church ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... was bound direct, With wine and oil for cargo, Her crew of men some nine or ten, The captain's name was Jago; A good and gallant bark she was, La Donna (call'd) del Lago. ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... cried Breschia, and the man obeyed at once. "Behold a man," cried the lieutenant, turning upon me and speaking in his customary French, "who has been in the English army, and who is as incapable of an idea of discipline as if he were a popular prima donna." ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Pope Julius II gave Donna Lucrezia della Rovere, the daughter of his sister Lucchina, in marriage to the youthful Marcantonio Colonna, who, like his brothers Prospero and Fabrizio, became one of the most famous Captains ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... said of the siege of Troy, "All of which I saw, and some of which I was." Manuel Garcia was a son of the Manuel del Popolo Vicente Garcia, who brought the institution to our shores; he was a brother of our first prima donna, she who then was only the Signorina Garcia, but within a lustrum afterward was the great Malibran; and he sang in the first performance, on November 29, 1825, and probably in all the performances given between that date and August of the next year, when the elder Garcia departed, leaving ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... vivoit du tems de Galeas Marie, duc de Milan, qui fut tue l'an 1476, et du Pape Sixte IV., qui mourut en 1484. Il s'etoit deja fait regarder comme grammairien, poete, orateur et philosopohe par divers ouvrages, mais aucun ne lui fit tant d'honneur que son 'Sanctuaire', qui est le titre qu'il donna a son recueil d'actes des Saints dedie a Simonete, secretaire des ducs de Milan." — ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... "What then? 'Da cattiva Donna guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente.'—[From the bad woman, guard thyself; to the good woman trust nothing.]—And if you must trust," added the abominable man, "trust her with anything but ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Valencia, who was to go to Naples to-morrow as papal legate, yet dressed tonight in cloth of gold, with no trace of his churchly dignity about him; there was their younger brother Giuffredo, Prince of Squillace, a handsome stripling, flanked by his wife, the free-and-easy Donna Sancia of Aragon, swarthy, coarse-featured, and fleshy, despite her youth; there was Giovanni's sometime wife; the lovely, golden-headed Lucrezia, the innocent cause of all this hate that festered in the Lord of Pesaro's soul; there was their mother, the nobly handsome ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... eighteenth century, and introduces us to individuals taken from life and cleverly drawn. We have Comte Zustiniani, the dilettante, a wealthy patron of the fine arts; Porpora, the old master, who looks upon his art as something sacred; Corilla, the prima donna, annoyed at seeing a new star appear; Anzoleto, the tenor, who is jealous because he gets less applause than his friend; and above and beyond all the others Consuelo, good kind Consuelo, the ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... and Mrs. Delano read aloud "The Lady of the Lake," stopping now and then to explain its connection with Scottish history, or to tell what scenes Rossini had introduced in La Donna del Lago, which she had heard performed in Paris. The scenes of the opera were eagerly imbibed, but the historical lessons rolled off her memory, like water from a duck's back. It continued to rain and ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... Donna Elvira's ranch, three miles out." He jerked his head in a westerly direction, then looked round at his mates. "Do you think there's ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... me, senor, who lives in the castle now? The Donna Isabella is alone there, now, the only survivor of the noble race, except—except senor," (he laid a peculiar emphasis on the word,) "except a wilful son, whom she has disowned and driven from her house. He is a handsome lad, and married, here in Alcala, the beauty of the town, in ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... you've been 'expanding your mind.' Buy a second-hand copy of Longfellow's, poems, and tell her that it has been your constant companion in all your wanderings among vicious cannibals, and she'll just decorate your cabin like a prima-donna's boudoir, darn your socks, and make you read some ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... Florentine Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement the Eighth, bought it from the Dukes of Urbino for twelve thousand measures of grain, furnished them for the purpose by their uncle, and finally, when it had fallen in inheritance to Donna Olimpia Aldobrandini, Innocent the Tenth married her to his nephew, Camillo Pamfili, from whom, by the fusion of the two families, it at last came into the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... she possessed a particularly sympathetic voice, the development of which was so premature and remarkable that, under the tuition of Mieksch, her singing master, who was famous at that time, she was apparently ready for the role of a prima donna as early as her sixteenth year, and made her debut at Dresden in Italian opera as 'Cenerentola' in Rossini's opera of that name. Incidentally I may remark that this premature development proved injurious to Clara's voice, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... che amava uno sparviero; amaval tanto ch'io me ne moria: a lo richiamo ben m'era maniero ed unque troppo pascer no' l dovia. or e montato e salito si altero, assai piu altero che far non solia; ed e assiso dentro a un verziero, e un'altra donna l'avera in balia. isparvier mio, ch'io t'avea nodrito; sonaglio d'oro ti facea portare, perche nell'uccellar fossi piu ardito. or sei salito siccome lo mare, ed hai rotti li getti, e sei fuggito quando eri ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... education, and secure me a debut at the opera.—They say now that my voice isn't nearly big enough for great parts. But at that time, I never knew this. I planned all sorts of splendid things that I was to do as a prima-donna; and I never dreamed that I couldn't ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... Hubert, apotre des Ardennes, fut son protecteur et lui donna son nom. Il lui obtint les plus heureuses dispositions pour la vertu. Lui aussi herita du pouvoir ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... said Eleanor heartily. "Bug's on your shoulder, Bishop! For de Lawd's sake!" she squealed excitedly, in delicious high notes that a prima donna might envy; then caught the fat grasshopper from the black clerical coat, and stood holding it, lips compressed and the joy of adventure dancing in her eyes. The Bishop took out his watch and looked at it, as Eleanor, her soul on the grasshopper, opened her fist ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... his party were entertained by a jaguar hunter, half-naked, and as brown as a Zambo, who prided himself on being of the European race; and called his wife and daughter, who were as slightly clothed as himself, Donna Isabella and Donna Manuela. As this aspiring personage had neither home nor hut, he invited the strangers to swing their hammocks near his own between two trees, but, as ill-luck would have it, a thunder storm ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... no inconsiderable proportion of her people. These wretches flocked together from all quarters, and were formed into twelve companies." The Corsican chiefs called a general assembly, in which "On donna la Corse a la Vierge Marie, qui ne parut pas accepter cette couronne."[66] They were not, however, to be left long without a king, for the following year one of the strangest adventurers whom the world has ever seen made a bid for the crown. He promised the islanders the support of the ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... Come—Mothers of the soil! Italian dames! Turn the dead over!—try your battle luck! (Bearded or smooth, to her that gave him suck The man is always child)—Stay, here's a brow Split by the Zouaves' bullets! This one, now, With the bright curly hair soaked so in blood, Was yours, ma donna!—sweet ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale. (With Guglielmo Ferrero.) New Edition. ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... before he reached the door he caught the glance of a little, round, elderly woman at a table close to him, and he stopped. She had a faded, showy bonnet, and she carried her worn clothes with an air. He recognised the companion and friend of a famous prima donna whom he had not ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... by the dawn of a new day, the Triton sent his bass voice booming across the maritime silence, several times intoning sentimental melodies that in his youth he had heard sung by a vaudeville prima donna dressed as a ship's boy, at other times caroling in Valencian the chanteys of the coast—fishermen's songs invented as they drew in their nets, in which most shameless words were flung together on the chance of making them rhyme. In certain windings of ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... memorandum—in red: "Cest psaultier fu saint loys. Et le dona la royne Iehanne deureux au roy Charles filz du roy Iehan, lan de nres' mil troys cens soissante et neuf. Et le roy charles pnt filz du dit Roy charles le donna a madame Marie de frace sa fille religieuse a poissi. le iour saint michel lan mil iiij^c." This hand writing is undoubtedly of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Stephanoumenos. Where's your configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D: sua donna. Gia: di lui. gelindo risolve di non amare ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... called Donna Rafaela Mora," answered the girl, simply. "I am daughter of the Commandant of Fort San Carlos. I am no Nicaraguan, but a Spaniard And, senor, what ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... is essential that your wife be unable to change, at pleasure, this theatre of married happiness. The base should be plain and massive and admit of no treacherous interval between it and the floor; and bear in mind always that the Donna Julia of Byron hid Don Juan under her pillow. But it would be ridiculous to treat lightly ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... to be absolutely untroubled by any thoughts beyond the immediate present. The fact that she could not be Margaret Anstruther for ever never seemed as much as to enter her head. She gave no thought to the future at all. And of course, Margaret reflected, if she expected to be a celebrated Prima Donna by the end of the summer holidays, that was all right, but if not, did she intend to stay on at Windy Gap indefinitely and send her, the real Margaret, back to the school in her place? If such a thing were possible, Margaret felt sure that Eleanor would despatch her there with the utmost ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... May, 1527, and was now therefore twenty-eight years of age. At the age of sixteen he had been united to his cousin, Maria of Portugal, daughter of John III. and of the Emperor's sister, Donna Catalina. In the following year (1544) he became father of the celebrated and ill-starred Don Carlos, and a widower. The princess owed her death, it was said, to her own imprudence and to the negligence or bigotry of her attendants. The Duchess ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... could soothe the passions of the savage (Alphonso III.) was that of an amiable and virtuous wife, the sole object of his love; the voice of Donna Isabella, the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, and the grand-daughter of Philip II. King of Spain. Her dying words sunk deep into his memory [A.D. 1626, August 22]; his fierce spirit melted into tears; and, after the last ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... in the impenetrable shades, Claudius concluded to follow the advice of the variety theatre's prima donna. While a stranger to the City of Breweries, he knew that its predestination toward thirst was due to its being the site of an ancient rock-salt mine. In other cities, subterraneans were melodramatic; here, a labyrinth under the surface and at the level of the dancing and drinking cellars was ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... marked him to speak for him. Looking for him shortly afterward, the man was gone. 'Off to the Opera, if he's not too late for the drop,' a neighbour said, smiling queerly, as though he ought to know; and then Redworth recollected current stories of Raiser's fantastical devotion to the popular prima donna of the angelical voice.—He hurried to the Opera and met the vomit, and heard in the crushroom how divine she had been that night. A fellow member of the House, tolerably intimate with Raiser, informed him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had yet to make me known to three others who sat there, beside the little sloe-eyed lady. This last was a cousin of her own—Donna Leocadia degli Allogati, whom I saw now for ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... of Donna Serafina; then are my doubts confirmed. Treacherous sex!—but I'll be revenged! Did you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... along filled him was now greater than ever. He well knew under what circumstances even an ordinarily good house is collected together. There must either be undoubted fame in the prima donna, or else the most wide-spread and comprehensive efforts on the part of a skillful impresario. His efforts had been great, but not such as to insure any thing like this. To account for the prodigious crowd which filled every part of the large ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... was the saddest part of leaving Crompton, and for a moment hot tears rolled down her cheeks,—tears which, if Jack could have seen and known their cause, would have brought him back from Worcester and the prima donna who that night was entrancing a crowded house with her song. Dashing her tears away, Eloise's thoughts reverted to Amy, who had been so ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... dining-room, the adornment of the walls being completed by a series of French engravings representing the exploits of the conqueror of Mexico, with prolix explanations at the foot of each concerning a Ferdinand Cortez, and a Donna Marine, as little true to nature as were the figures delineated by the ignorant artist. In the space between the two glass doors which communicated with the garden was an apparatus of brass, which it is not necessary ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... incubator baby. The town seemed to be running over with celebrities. Norberg, the city editor, adores celebrities. He never allows one to escape uninterviewed. On Friday there fell to my lot a world-famous prima donna, an infamous prize-fighter, and a charming old maid. Norberg cared not whether the celebrity in question was noted for a magnificent high C, or a left half-scissors hook, so long as the interview was dished up hot and juicy, with plenty of quotation marks, a liberal sprinkling of adjectives ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the hopeless passion between Donna Mercedes de Lara and Captain Dominique Alvarado, the Commandante of La ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... now," said the Don, "relate to you, sir, for the information of yourself and friend, the causes which produced this scene of violence, which you so opportunely defeated. But first, as it must be very tedious to your friend, I will send for Donna Clara and my daughter Agnes to talk to him; my wife understands a little Spanish, and my daughter, as I said before, has but just left the country, where, from circumstances, she ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to shake down a little change as prima donna with a turkey show. What do you know about that? I played with one last Thanksgiving, and—excuse these tears—it was a college town and the show was on the blink. 'Nough said. The ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... Donna, se' tanto grande e tanto vali, Che qual vuol grazia e a te non ricorre Sua disianza vuol volar ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... since you have been informed he previously loved another, your mind ought to be at rest. Before he loved you, Donna Inez had received the homage of his heart. As she is your most intimate friend, and has told you this secret, you are free to bestow your love upon whom you wish, and cover your refusal to listen to him under the guise of friendship ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... and her nymphs—bearing fruit of all descriptions. This goddess was the daughter of Donna Beatrix Pacheco, Countess d'Autremont, lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor, and was but nine years old. She was now Madame l'Admirale de Chastillon, whom the Admiral married for his second wife. Approaching with her companions, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... stories were all palpitating with sensibility, although that name had not yet been invented to describe their condition. When they received a letter beginning "To the divine Lassellia," or "To the incomparable Donna Emanuella," they were thrown into the most violent disorder; "a thousand different Passions succeeded one another in their turns," and as a rule "'twas all too sudden to admit disguise." When a lady in Eliza Haywood's ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... thus finally obscures whatever of technical originality there might still have been preserved after the cleaning. The extent of injury European galleries have thus received is incalculable. One instance will suffice as an example of many. Some years gone by, the Titian's Bella Donna of the Pitti was intact. Unluckily it got into the hands of a professional cleaner. A celebrated dealer happened to be standing by when it was rehung. Looking at it, he exclaimed,—"Two weeks ago I would have given the Grand Duke two thousand pounds for that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... for Greybeards, produced at Drury Lane, 25 November, 1786. It owes much of its business to The Lucky Chance. See the Theatrical History of that comedy (Vol. iii, p. 180). Miss Farren acted Donna Seraphina, second wife of Don Alexis, one of the Greybeards. She also spoke ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... The quaintly phrased deed added that if it were taken to one Reuben Zana, a Jew in the Jewry at the sign of the Golden Horn, he would dispose of it for a large sum to the French king. The crucifix had been brought from Florence in the dower of his wife Donna Vittoria Tornabuoni, now dead. If his son Timothy should secure it, he was advised not to keep it, as its possession ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... attempt it, but if ever I fall in with a suitable frame of mind for so bold an experiment, I will remember you and the rocks of St. Helena. "My lady" (an Italian portrait on which I had written some verses) "Mia Donna," or "Madonna," more properly to speak, was a most beautiful Italian portrait that I saw, not in Augustin's gallery, but in a small collection of pictures belonging to Mr. Day, and exhibited at the Egyptian Hall. Sir Thomas Lawrence ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... especially at the opera, the next best thing to having a good company is to have a good claque. Such, at least, is the theory of the actors and managers of the present day. The more rusty the tenor, the more wrinkled the prima donna, the greater the need of an army of iron-fisted, brazen-visaged hirelings to get artificial applause, and inoculate the public with their factitious enthusiasm. In this latter respect they now rarely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... she said, had determined to devote her to the stage, and already had taken steps to sell her—she said she used the word advisedly—for so many years to the impresario of the 'Fenice' at Venice, her voice and musical skill being such as to give hope of her becoming a prima donna. She had, she said, frequently sung at private parties at Rome, but only knew within the last few days that she had been, not a guest, but a paid performer. Overwhelmed with the shame and indignity of this false position, she implored her mother's brother to compassionate ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... and subdued. She curtseyed again and again, not indeed with the timid simplicity of her first obeisance (so familiar already was she with the thought of the crowd's doom), but rather in the manner of a prima donna—chin up, eyelids down, all teeth manifest, and hands from the bosom flung ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... from me," said Jacks, "you ain't in the prima donna class. I've heard 'em warble in every city in the United States; and I tell you your vocal output don't go. Otherwise, you've got the grand opera bunch sent to the soap factory—in looks, I mean; for the high screechers generally look like Mary Ann ...
— Options • O. Henry
... opportunity that evening, however. A certain Madame Valentini, a former prima donna who had been a famous soprano in the early days of "Pinafore," and who came to Miss Peacock's each year for opera, had arrived during the day, and she and Miss Pritchard being old friends, the evening was devoted to her. Madame Valentini was ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... into it with an emphasis that shook the floor. Devon, fastening his tie before the full-length mirror set in the door leading to their common bath-room, started at the sound, like a high-strung prima donna. This was ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... Wiry Ben, "y' are a down-right good-hearted chap, panels or no panels; an' ye donna set up your bristles at every bit o' fun, like some o' your kin, as ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... particular advice how to subside our passions. In his treatise on the Audi filia, or on those words of the Holy Ghost, Psa. xliv, Hear me, daughter, bend thine ear, forget thy house, &c. The occasion upon which he composed this book was as follows: Donna Soncha Carilla, daughter of Don Lewis Fernandez of Cordoba, lord of Guadalcazar, a young lady of great beauty and accomplishments, was called to court to serve in quality of lady of honor to the queen. Her father furnished her with an equipage, and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... narrowly escaped the fate prepared for them by Alexander VI and his terrible son. Beautiful Sermoneta and all the great fiefs in the Maremma fell into the maw of the Borgias, and your ancestors either found death at their hands or were driven into exile. Donna Lucretia became mistress of Sermoneta, and eventually her son, Rodrigo of Aragon, inherited the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... were a Donna of old Castile And a Troubadour were I, I'd sing at night beneath your room And weave you dreams in a minstrel's loom With rainbow tears and the roses' bloom And star-shine out of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... Donna Felipa Munnis Perestrelo Wife of Christopher Columbus. Daughter of the first governor of Porto Santo. ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... made to address Beatrice—O donna di virtu—as "bright fair," as if she were one of the belles in "The Rape of the Lock." In this same year a version of the "Inferno" was printed privately and anonymously by Charles Rogers, a book and art collector and a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds. But the first complete translation of the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... regardant, je me tins longtemps douter, m'tonner et craindre, rver des rves qu'aucun mortel n'avait os rver encore; mais le silence ne se rompit point et la quitude ne donna de signe: et le seul mot qui se dit, fut le mot chuchot Lnore! Je le chuchotai—et un cho murmura de retour le mot Lnore!—purement cela et ...
— Le Corbeau • Edgar Allan Poe
... l'altre donne mia vista gabbate, E non pensate, donna, onde si mova Ch'io vi rassembri si figura nova, Quando riguardo la vostra ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... was he with his chagrin and annoyance that he stamped heavily upon the pet corn of a retired rear admiral, rudely bumped a Roumanian duchess, kicked the pink poodle of a famous prima donna and brought up with a thud against the heroic brawn and muscle of the house detective, who stood as solidly in the middle of the lobby as if he had taken root ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... greater part of Lope, So that if any actor miss'd his part She could have served him for the prompter's copy; For her Feinagle's were an useless art, And he himself obliged to shut up shop—he Could never make a memory so fine as That which adorn'd the brain of Donna Inez. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... decidedly. In this our grave forefathers did more than justice to the home-bird they missed on Plymouth Rock. In this generous treatment of their affection for it, they perhaps condoned for mating the English lark so incongruously; but it was true their choice was very limited. To match the prima donna carissima of English field and sky, it was necessary to select a meadow bird, with some other features of resemblance. It would never do to give the cherished name and association to one that lived in the ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... winter to appoint rendezvous with Guilia Rezzonico without awakening the jealousy of Ugolino.... But it is nothing. I have almost quarrelled with Fanny for having revealed to her that the Holy Father repeated his benediction in Chapel Sixtine, with a singing master, like a prima donna...." ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... feeling against the prima donna was that day of excessive bitterness, and every one agreed with ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... p. 234. Larrey in his History of England seems to have given currency to the legend that Cardan foretold the Archbishop's death. "S'il en faut croire ce que l'Histoire nous dit de ce fameux Astrologe, il donna une terrible preuve de sa science a l'Archeveque qu'il avoit gueri, lorsque prenait conge de lire, il lui tint ce discours: 'Qu'il avoit bien pu le guerir de sa maladie; mais qu'il n'etoit pas en son pouvoir de changer sa destinee, ni d'empecher qu'il ne fut ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... ground, so as to be at a sufficient elevation during the higher floods which occasionally inundate the larger portion of that region. None of the inmates of the house were idle. Senhor Pimento was constantly out, superintending his labourers; while Donna Josefa, his wife, was engaged in household matters. The young ladies, it must be owned, were the ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... that crime should be set to music, and that one should have to see abduction, treachery, vice, and a murder brutally committed in full view of the audience, while the tenor sang the lightest of all his lyrics: "La donna e mobile." ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... peek-a-boo behind one of them big stone pillars, but I guess she had got so interested that she forgot and stepped out into the open. She was a native, all right; but say, she wasn't any back-row dago girl. She was in the prima donna class, she was. Ever see Melba made up for the "Carmen" act? Well, this one was about half Melba's size, but for shape and color she had her stung to a whisper; and as for wardrobe, she had it all on. Gold hoops in her ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... the remainder of Del Ferice's speech, for at the mention of Donna Tullia—now commonly called Madame Mayer—she instinctively turned and looked at Giovanni. He, too, had caught the name, though he was not listening in the least to Ugo's chatter; and as he met Corona's eyes he moved uneasily, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... howling, and "Mahomet! Mahomet!" issuing out of their mouths, as they called on him in their burning agonies;—you could almost hear them scream. At the upper end of the room, under a splendid estrade, over which was an image of the blessed Virgin, sat Donna Isabella de Cardoza, mother to the bride, and near her Donna Ines, the bride, on rich almohadas; the bridegroom sat opposite to her, and though they never spoke to each other, their eyes, slowly raised, but suddenly withdrawn (those eyes that blushed), told to each other the delicious ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... now her costume was richer and more chastened. It was her line, her condition, part of her expression. If at Miss Birdseye's, and afterwards in Charles Street, she might have been a rope-dancer, to-day she made a "scene" of the mean little room in Monadnoc Place, such a scene as a prima donna makes of daubed canvas and dusty boards. She addressed Basil Ransom as if she had seen him the other week and his merits were fresh to her, though she let him, while she sat smiling at him, explain in his own rather ceremonious way ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... packed night after night, of how one night an Italian tenor had sung five encores to Let me like a Soldier fall, introducing a high C every time, and of how the gallery boys would sometimes in their enthusiasm unyoke the horses from the carriage of some great prima donna and pull her themselves through the streets to her hotel. Why did they never play the grand old operas now, he asked, Dinorah, Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not get the voices to ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... for his sea-faring life, he had enough interest in ordinary pursuits to fall in love most romantically. It happened on account of his being so regular at church. Every day he must attend service, and every day to church came Donna Philippa Palestrello, who lived in a convent near by. Across the seats flitted involuntary glances between the cloistered maiden and the handsome brown sailor—with a dimple in his chin, some pictures have him; something ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... great soprano, the prima donna, appeared and delivered herself of a song for which she was famous with astonishing eclat. Then in a little while the stage grew dark, the orchestration lapsed to a murmur, and the tenor and the soprano reentered. He clasped her in his arms and sang a half-dozen ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... to see offspring o' mine chasing the drums! Look at 'em now! Ruyven hunting about Tryon County for a Hessian to knock him in the head; Cecile sitting in rapture with every cornet or ensign who'll notice her; the children yelling for Lafayette and Washington; Dorothy, here, playing at Donna Quixota, and you starting for Stillwater to teach that fool, Gates, how to catch Burgoyne. Set an ass to catch an ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... beautiful wife to a villa he possessed on the lago di Como, and after sojourning there a few days, went to Naples and forced the King to accept his resignation as minister of police. The Duke was dissatisfied with Naples, for no one would forgive him for marrying the Prima-Donna. The two then came to Paris after a brief mission, during which the Duke had been obliged to leave her alone at the lago di Como. There they purchased the hotel of which we have spoken, and prepared to receive the court, and exhibit all the aristocratic ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... vie, Quant cil quit out peut et maistrie, Veult esprouver pour necessaire, Ne pour quant il ne blasma mie La vie de Marthe sa mie: Mais il lui donna exemplaire D'autrement vivre, et de bien plaire A Dieu; et plut de bien a faire: Pour se conclut-il que Marie Qui estoit a ses piedz sans braire, Et pensait d'entendre et de taire, Estleut la ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... not been in Little Rivers twenty-four hours, and he had played a part in its criminal annals and become subject to all the embarrassment of favors of a royal bride or a prima donna who is about to sail. In a bower, amazed, he was meeting the world of Little Rivers and its wife. Men of all ages; men with foreign accent; men born and bred as farmers; men to whom the effect of indoor occupation clung; men still weak, but with ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... acquainted with the Donna of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo requested her to smother the King of France with kindness, and demonstrate to him the great advantage of the Castilian imagination over the simple movement of the French. To which the Marchesa of Amaesguy consented ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... N. woman, she, her, female, petticoat. feminality^, muliebrity^; womanhood &c (adolescence) 131. womankind; the sex, the fair; fair sex, softer sex; weaker vessel. dame, madam, madame, mistress, Mrs. lady, donna belle [Sp.], matron, dowager, goody, gammer^; Frau [G.], frow^, Vrouw [Du.], rani; good woman, good wife; squaw; wife &c (marriage) 903; matronage, matronhood^. bachelor girl, new woman, feminist, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... quite startled me just now as you passed. I began to think the Pontiac was haunted. I thought you were a ghost. I don't know why such a ghost should FRIGHTEN anybody," he went on with a desperate attempt to recover his position by gallantry. "Let me see—that's Donna Elvira's dress—is ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... rather sing here in August than April!" exclaimed Lady Turnour, with the air of a spoiled prima donna. And then she shivered and wanted to go down to the car without waiting for the sunset, which, after all, could only be like any other mountain sunset, and she could see plenty of better ones next summer in Switzerland. She felt so chilled, she was quite anxious about herself, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... maniacs in abundance; monks with scourges pursuing a naked youth streaming with blood; subterranean Jews surrounded by the skeletons of their wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning; Irish hags, Spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, Donna Claras and Donna Isidoras, all opposed to each other in glaring and violent contrast, and all their adventures narrated with the same undeviating display of turgid, vehement, and painfully elaborated language. Such are the materials, and the style of this expanded ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... non m'accorsi del salire in ella; Ma d'esserv' entro mi fece assai fede La donna mia ch'io vidi far ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... caused me insomnia for months. But now I'm as puzzled as ever, for there are two pictures, one on either side of the leaf, and each has possibilities. Which is it—the society bud or the prima donna?" ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... soon came to be admired for her dressing, as well as her beauty and her voice, and as is usual in such cases, the men regarded her with more favor and less suspicion than the women. The good will of the latter sex was, however, secured to some extent, when it was discovered that the prima donna, who they all perceived was to make their opera a great success and the envy of all sister cities with aspiring musical coteries, was apparently indifferent to the attentions of the men, if not, indeed, embarrassed by them. She never went anywhere, ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... rends l'air de la jeunesse. Du temps tu trompes la lenteur, Par toi chaque heure est une fete Democrite fut ton Docteur Anacreon fut ton Prophete; Tous deux pour sages reconnus, L'un riant des humains abus Te fit sonner dans sa retraite L'autre chantant a la guingette Te donna pour pomme a Venus Apres eux ma simple musette T'offre ses accens ingenus Charmant Grelot, sur ta clochette Je veux moduler tous mes vers, Sois toujours la douce amusette Source de mes plaisirs divers Heureux qui te garde en ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... enchanteur, par les ornamens nouveaux, pleins de magnificence, qu'il y prodigua. On vit alors, pour la premiere fois, des portiques, des berceaux, des grottes, des traillages, des labyrinths, &c. embellir varier le spectacle des jardins. Le Roi, temoin des ces merveilles, lui donna la direction de tous ses parcs. Il embellit par son art, Versailles, Trianon, et il fit a St. Germain cette fameuse terrasse qu'on voit toujours avec une nouvelle admiration. Les jardins de Clagny, de Chantilly, de St. Cloud, de Meudon, de Sceaux, le parterre du Tibre, et les canaux qui ornent ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... I didn't! Hasn't every prima donna a larynx to hid behind?" She lifted off her fur cap, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... sold. At any rate, when she was in her twenty-first year, sold she was to Mr. Wodehouse Chepstow, a rich brewer, to whom she had not even taken a fancy; and as Mrs. Chepstow she made a great fame in London society as a beauty. She was christened Bella Donna. She was photographed, written about, worshipped by important people, until her celebrity spread far over the world, as the celebrity even of a woman who is only beautiful and who does nothing can spread in the era of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... that of corn merchant or speculator in grain; but touched by Franciscan preaching, he had kept only one small garden, which, together with his wife, he cultivated half for the benefit of the poor. One day the wife, known in the legend only as Bona Donna, sickened and knew she must die, and the sacrament was brought to her accordingly. But Lucchesio never thought that it could be God's will that he should remain on earth after his wife had been taken from ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... You've simply got to! I'm not going to run this whole wedding, and then have the prima donna balk in the last act. Now, listen, Christine, you throw it over the banister just as you start downstairs! ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... discovery of the body was retold, though more scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His book, Criminals I have Caught, passed from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was quite recent. The door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... erschlg', toller Wild! was hast du wieder gemacht? Ist Donna Isabella noch? He! willst du ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... further, but slowly passed into the house. Gigue at once began to walk up and down the courtyard, smoking vigorously, and talking volubly concerning the future of his pupil Cicely Bourne, and the triumph she would make some two years hence as a 'prima donna assoluta,' far greater than Patti ever was in her palmiest days,—and Roxmouth was perforce compelled, out of civility, as well as immediate diplomacy, to listen to him with some show ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli |
