"Prima" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... di Fiandra, i. 9 (Opere, Parigi, 1648), gives a different report, which ends with a distinct promise on the part of the King to dismiss the troops as soon as possible: "—in segno di the spetialmente havrebbe quanto prima, a fatti uscire i presidij stranieri dalle fortezze a levata ogn' insolita contributione al paese." It is almost superfluous to state that the Cardinal is no authority for speeches, except, indeed, for those which were never made. Long orations by generals ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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, ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... The prima-donna was standing before the pier-glass, still in costume; her soft, white robes trailed over the floor, and her red-blonde hair hung to her waist. The helmet glittered on her head, and she held ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... prima-donna appeared on the stage, and again Beulah forgot everything but the witching strains. In the midst of one of the songs she felt her guardian start violently; and the hand which rested on his knee was clinched spasmodically. She looked at him; the wonted pale face was flushed to the edge of ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... suddenly appeared on the scene; and for a time she was privileged to slip into the background. Charlie had been to hear the choral, and Col. Baker was very anxious to know as to its success. You would have supposed them to be talking about a prima donna concert. At last Charlie turned to Flossy with the ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... a great chorus of trained voices lift the voice of the prima donna as if it soared with easy grace above the whole melodious sound? It does not seem to come from the single throat that produces it. It seems as if it were the perfect accent and crown of the great chorus. So it ought to be with the statesman. So it ought to be with every man who tries to guide ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... these colored people do, and can't strike their level. People who have heard Kellogg, and Marie Roze, and Gerster, are sick when a black cat with a long red dress comes out and murders the same pieces the prima donnas have sung. We have seen a colored girl attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... Carlotta was my choice. Adelina was the most advertised, for she was a money-maker and demanded just so much notoriety when she engaged and signed her contracts. Her power was supreme and no one dared to say her nay. Woe be to the poor prima donna who sang better or had more applause or favors than she did. She was the only queen of song as long as her reign lasted. Emma Nevada and Madam Etelka Gersta were her especial victims when they sang the same season with her. I am stating facts which will stand. ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... Jam prima Oceani pars est praeterita nostri. Imparibus restat danda secunda modis. Quam si praestiterit mentem Daemon malus addam, Cum ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the girl would feel that anything had been missing, but Marna seemed to be basking in the happiness of the hour. The great German prima donna had kissed her with tears in her eyes; the French baritone had spoken his compliments with convincing ardor; dozens had crowded about her with congratulations; and now, at the head of the glittering table in an opulent room, the little descendant of minstrels sat and smiled upon her ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... and of what divine harmonies and profound emotions it is capable when played upon by any adequate power. To expect to maintain this exaltation with our present nature is like requiring of the athlete that he never relax his muscles, or of the prima donna that she never cease the exquisite trill which is but the momentary proof of what her present organization is capable. And yet it would appear that many, like poor Haldane, are tempted on one hand to entertain no Christian hope because they cannot produce these deep and happy emotions; ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... she sat, she could see her reflection in the mirror, and she looked at herself with frowning distaste. Jacqueline's beauty was oddly under eclipse just then. "I'm getting ugly—and whoever heard of an ugly prima donna?" she ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... beast. He's not a beast that you ought to treat in that way. You'll be a beast too if you come to rise high in your profession. It is a kind of work which sharpens the intellect, but is apt to make men and women beasts. Did you ever hear of a prima donna who thought that another prima donna sang better ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... the more impressive because it was solemn 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
... called from its luxuriant pine forests, little of which now remain. Various origins are attributed to the settlement; one of them is commemorated in the inscription on the Porta Marina: "Hic Antenoridae Corcyrae prima Melanae fundamenta locant." The early Greek geographers include it in the territory of Narenta or Liburnia. From Augustus to Heraclius (642 A.D.) it was Roman or Byzantine, and from that date till 998 ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... principal stars of the improvised dramatic company, the leader of the orchestra, a young Belgian officer, and the prima donna, an "American girl from Paris," as the Mexican papers had it, being brought in only as necessary adjuncts. Another important female part was taken by Albert Bazaine, who was turned into ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... will sing, nothing can be better; if not, very well, I will go the queen and say, 'It is impossible to have my opera performed;' then I will take my seat in my carriage and return to Vienna." Doubtless this result would have been much to the prima donna's liking, but she had ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... she had never been in anything before in her life, and no prima donna was ever more excited over her debut than she at the thought of this little recitation; but her pleasure met with a sudden check upon the discovery that a white dress would be necessary. She hadn't a white dress, ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... wonderful child violinist, divided honors with the prima donna. Of the same age and country as Paul Julian, whose masterly performance on the violin attracted so much attention here, this new candidate for public favor promises to be a powerful competitor with him. Her execution of the ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... first. But as usual he wouldn't say a thing. That old boy is certainly the mildest mannered hero of the day I ever went up against. The way he does dodge the spot-light!—it's enough to make one of your prima donna politicians die of heart failure. To do a great piece of work, and then be as modest about it as he is—well, Arn, I sure am for ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... got a move on in the last hour and a quarter, haven't they? I mean to say, at five o'clock you found a stranger in your taxi. Five minutes later you were smashed up. Now you're in a prima donna's room at the Opera House, eating a cold collation. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... until they were stacked half as high as the piano, and the petals fell and scattered, making crimson splotches on the floor. Down this crimson pathway came Adriance with his youthful step, leading his prima donna by the hand; a dark woman this time, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... hic lux prima Columbo; Orbe viro majori heu nimis arcta domus! Unus erat mundus. Duo ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... perhaps to one man in Europe in the course of two or three centuries. But because you cannot be Handel and Mozart—is it any reason why you should not learn to sing "God save the Queen" properly, when you have a mind to? Because a girl cannot be prima donna in the Italian Opera, is it any reason that she should not learn to play a jig for her brothers and sisters in good time, or a soft little tune for her tired mother, or that she should not sing to please herself, among the dew, on a May morning? Believe me, joy, humility, and usefulness, ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... was a moment's silence. From a distant room, dimly seen through a vista of curved and pillared archways, a woman's voice came pealing out to them, the passionate climax of an Italian love song, the voice of a prima donna of world-wide fame. A storm of applause was echoed through the near rooms, a buzz of appreciative criticism followed. Drexley rose up from the seat ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... fancy dictated, that of one of "my" operas. I retreated behind the scenes, to encounter very nearly as much, and at closer quarters, too, as that lately sustained before the audience. After an embrace of two minutes duration from the manager, I ran the gauntlet from the prima donna to the last triangle of the orchestra, who cut away a back button of my coat as a "souvenir." During all this, I must confess, very little acting was needed on my part. They were so perfectly contented with their ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... first, entitled "Epistolae duae; prima de fugiendis impiorum illicitis sacris et puritate Christianae religionis; secunda de Christiani hominis officio in sacerdotiis papalis ecclesiae vel administrandis vel abjiciendis," 1537. The second, "Contre la secte fantastique et furieuse des ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... which the melody was fully worthy. But the most successful of all the tunes were two with a sad motive. The one repeated incessantly 'Ohime! mia madre mori;' the other was a girl's love lament: 'Perche tradirmi, perche lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri cosi!' Even the children joined in these; and Catina, who took the solo part in the second, was inspired to a great dramatic effort. All these were purely popular songs. The people of Venice, however, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... veluti cum prima in praelia taurus Terrificos ciet, atque irasci in cornua tentat, Arboris obnixus trunco, ventospue lacessit Ictibus, et sparsa ad pugnum ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... when the night is fine, we pass it on her balcony.' I don't know whether you have a sweetheart, or whether she has a balcony. But if you are so happy, it's certainly better than trying to find a charm in a third-rate prima donna." ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... the same glow greatly intensified when he strolled up to the pay-box, twirling his walking-stick, to take his stand near by as the future proprietor of the girl inside. Perhaps the young husband of a great prima donna may feel nearly as sophisticated and proud and "in it" when he strolls carelessly into the dressing-room where the bouquets of admirers overflow upon the floor—but this is scarcely likely, for he would not have the morning freshness still on him ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... age once, when he married her; now she had grown old Critical in their first glance at a prima donna Forgetfulness is like a closing sea He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two Her singing struck a note of grateful remembered delight It rarely astonishes our ears. It illumines our souls Madness ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... for work or self-denial was distasteful, and yet it seemed so near. But now she smiled and nodded brightly, "I know what I will do, mama. I'll go on cultivating my voice and work hard, so that I may take a position in some city church, where everything is so elegant and prima-donnas get ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... small musical party, I heard Euphrasia Borghese sing, whom you may have heard, and who is to be Prima Donna at the new Opera-house, which opens on the 25th or 2eth of the present month. They begin with the "Puritani." It will be altogether devoted to Italian music, I suppose, from the tendency of the New York taste and the collection ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Day, in 1497, John Cabot landed somewhere on the coast of America. He called the land Prima Tierra Vista or First Land Seen, and because of the day upon which it was found he called an island near ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... St. Augustine says: "In prima institutione naturA| non quseritur miraculum, sed quid natura rerum habeat." And it is certain that both St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Basil held the same view. And they further held that the animating principle ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... shoes were golden slippers and her rough homespun, silk. Rich! Famous! She saw the opera ablaze with lights, she heard the roll of applause. She saw the horn of plenty pouring its largess from the fair sky. Rainbow dreams! But Gretchen never became a prima donna. There was something different on the knees of ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... or Date. Folio. Prima Edizione. It does the heart good to gaze upon such a copy of so estimable and magnificent a production as the present. This book belonged to Prince Eugene, and is bound in red morocco. It is quite ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... was excited over the announcement of a new prima donna, whose wonderful achievements in Italian opera had set even the exacting critics of Italy wild with ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... do when the good days come— When the prima donna's lips are dumb, And the man who reads us his "little things" Has lost his voice like the girl who sings; When stilled is the breath of the cornet-man, And the shrilling chords of the quartette ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... piano, requisitioned by me for some special purposes of musical caricature, detracted somewhat from the restfulness of the haven. However that may have been, such intrusion was never resented; my Swedish prima donna, or my qualifications as a basso profondo, or a brass-bandsman, were always treated with the greatest indulgence by the ladies, and my high soprano flourished and positively reached unknown altitudes under ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... was described by Henry T. Finck, the distinguished American musical critic, as being of "that splendid kind of virtuosity which makes one forget the technique." MacDowell received a tremendous ovation such as was accorded only to a popular prima donna at the opera, or to a famous virtuoso of international reputation. The musical critics generally agreed that the fine feeling and the power of the concerto was as responsible for his remarkable success before the critical Philharmonic ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... in his accounts exact; but the making of money and its accumulation were things that to him could safely be delegated to second-class minds. A haughty pride of intellect was his, not unmixed with that peculiar quality of the prima donna which causes her to cut fantastic capers and make everybody ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Bless you (the hostess evinces the enthusiasm of a politician), what better evidence of the reputation of my house than is before you, do you want? I've shut up the great Italian opera, with its three squalling prima donnas, which in turn has shut up the poor, silly Empresario, as they call him; and the St. Cecilia I have just used up. I'm a team in my way, you see;—run all these fashionable oppositions right into bankruptcy." Never were words spoken with more truth. Want of patronage found all places ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... men's souls; but Van Bibber passed the stage-door man with as calmly polite a nod as though the piece had been running a hundred nights, and the manager was thinking up souvenirs for the one hundred and fiftieth, and the prima donna had, as usual, began to hint for a new set of costumes. The stage-door keeper hesitated and was lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the unsuppressed excitement of the place with a pleased sniff at the familiar smell of paint and burning gas, and the dusty odor ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... district attorneys and grand juries, throughout the country, were to be admonished to do their duty. If there was a fixity of prices in any commodity or product, or even approximately so, he declared, it would be prima facie evidence of ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... mind and body necessary to constitute a good modern pitcher are rarely combined in a single individual. First-class pitchers are almost as rare as prima donnas, and out of the many thousand professional and amateur ball players of the country not more than a dozen in all are capable of doing the ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... the remedy to be made by it. Quando (sayes he) oleum cinnamomi &c. suo sali alkali miscetur absque omni aqua, trium mensium artificiosa occultaque circulatione, totum in salem volatilem commutatum est, vere essentiam sui simplicis in nobis exprimit, & usque in prima nostri constitutivasese ingerit. A not unlike Processe he delivers in another place; from whence, if we suppose him to say true, I may argue, that since by the Fire there may be produc'd a substance ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... the evening—hard for the mind and body—and she had lately lived on poor fare, and wanted the exercise upon which her physical constitution should support itself. At once these troubles were forgotten. Now was to come the duet with the prima donna. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Besides, they are strong evidences of weakness. We are nothing if not strong and resourceful. Suppose I substituted 'Faust,' for instance, and announced it with Melba as Marguerite, and suppose again that the famous Astralasian prima donna caught an attack of the American grip that same afternoon, it would hardly do to substitute Marie Cahill or May Irwin to take her place, that is, provided we could have induced either of those distinguished artists to become the great diva's ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... Robertson again sinned in this way in the Nightingale: although it had no effect on the plot, although it was entirely unnecessary, he introduced a pretty tableau representing the heroine, a lovely prima-donna, singing under the silver moonbeams in a boat rocked to and fro by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... vary fact of these singular demonstrations was prima facie evidence of the most unquestionable kind; and, after a moment's consultation with himself, he began moving away, just as the sharp crack of several rifles notified him of the fearful ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... efficiet tamen unquam haec Antidicomarianitae fabula, quin credam bene multos ex aurea Dei Genitricis caesarie crines, diversis in locis ecclesiisque religiose servari.... Meae fidei non unum est argumentum; nam a prima aetate ad confectam usque, e Mariana coma non pancos, ut fit, capillos pecten decussit, nisi si forte caesariem B. Virginis impexam semper perstitisse velis, quod numquam (ut inquit de Christo Diva Brigitta) super eam venit vermis, aut perplexitas, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Plautoque dabit Romanus ademptum 55 Vergilio Varioque? ego cur, acquirere pauca si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis et Enni sermonem patrium ditaverit et nova rerum signatum praesente nota producere nomen. ut silvae foliis privos mutantur in annos, 60 prima cadunt ita verborum vetus interit aetas et iuvenum ritu florent ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... this?" Barney demanded. Thank Heavens, Old Jimmie was one person he did not have to treat like a prima donna! ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... admit,—that mediocre musicians always get on very well with Royal persons! I have heard a very great Majesty indeed praise a common little American woman's abominable singing, as though she were a prima-donna, and saw him give a jewelled cigar-case to an amateur pianist, whose fingers rattled on the keyboard like bones on a tom-tom. But then the common little American woman invited his Majesty's 'cheres amies' to her house; and the amateur pianist was content to lose money to him ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... supporting international stars, and of visiting troupes from New York and Chicago in this auditorium provide two spectacles one on the stage and the other in the assemblage itself. The auditorium seats 10,000 persons. To be present when a prima donna awes this audience into silence by her tones, and then to hear a triumphant roar of approval rend the silence, is an unforgettable adventure ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... uxore Zenobia non solum Orientem quem jam in pristinum reformaverat statum, sed omnes omnino totius orbis partes reformasset, vir acer in bellis, et, quantum plerique scriptores loquuntur, venatu memorabili semper inclytus, qui a prima aetate capiendis leonibus et pardis, cervis, caeterisque sylvestribus animalibus, sudorem officii virilis impendit, quique semper in sylvis ac montibus vixit, perferens calorem, pluvias, et omnia ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... del. 1496 negiorni delle feste, finito che hebbe la quaresima: & prima riposatosi circa uno mese ricomincio eldi di Sc Michele Adi. viii di Maggio. ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... andare prima classa—PRIMA CLASSA!" said the woman in the corner, in a very high voice, as if talking to deaf people, and pointing to Aaron's luggage, then along the train to ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... seldom encounter that sensation among the masterpieces of the Renaissance. They welcome you with open arms. That is because we know what the creators were thinking about. They are quite personal and familiar; they had as many moods, one suspects, as a fashionable prima donna. They give pleasure. This Faun gives pleasure and something more—a sense of disquieting intimacy. While intruding upon your reserve with his solemn, stark and almost hostile novelty, he makes at the same time a strange appeal—he touches ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... autographus Codex hic MS. qui fuit percelebris Bibliopolae Basiliensis Coelii Horatii Curionis. Videtur prima conceptio (vulgo l'Esquisse, en termes de Peinture) Libri valde famigerati Mich. Serveti, a Joanne Calvino cum ipso Serveto combusti, cui Titulus, Christianismi Restitutio, hoc est totius Ecclesiae Apostolicae ad sua limina Vocatio, &c. &c., typis mandati ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile Nasee nel core a chi parlar la sente; Ond' e beato chi prima la vide. Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride, Non si pub dicer, ne tener a mente, Si e nuovo miracolo gentile." —DANTE: la ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... his portfolio, his fine paper, his brilliant ink, and his gold sand. Similar facts are related of many. Whenever APOSTOLO ZENO, the predecessor of Metastasio, prepared himself to compose a new drama, he used to say to himself, "Apostolo! recordati che questa e la prima opera che dai in luce."—"Apostolo! remember that this is the first opera you are presenting to the public." We are scarcely aware how we may govern our thoughts by means of our sensations: DE LUC was subject to violent bursts of passion; but he calmed ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... ... why did they want bankers at this institution? Ah, it was not my business to probe into such mysteries of administration. To my limited intelligence it would seem that the mere fact of a man applying at the Munitions was prima facie evidence that banking was not one of his accomplishments. It seemed to me, furthermore, that there was no end to such "ifs"—patriotic or otherwise. If I were a woman, for instance, I would promptly ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... prima-donna the crow would be," he said, looking at her with mock admiration, "if she only had a voice proportional to her ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... peacock had but the nightingale's trill It would make all prima donnas feel ill. If the nightingale had but the peacock's tail It would merit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... on behalf of Codex B: 'Antequam manum de tabula amoveamus, e re fore videtur, si, ipso codice Vaticano inspecto, duos injectos scrupulos eximamus. Cl. Tischendorfius in nuperrima sua editione scribit (Proleg. p. cclxxv), Maium ad Act. xxvii. 14, codici Vaticano tribuisse a prima manu [Greek: euraklydon]; nos vero [Greek: eurakydon]; atque subjungit, "utrumque, ut videtur, male." At, quidquid "videri" possit, certum nobis exploratumque est Vaticanum codicem primo habuisse [Greek: eurakydon], prout expressum fuit tum in tabella qua Maius Birchianas lectiones notavit, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... "Of course, prima facie," he said presently, "you have reasons for your suspicions, but even if your suspicions are true, what can be done? Unless we can prove that she took the knife, unless someone saw her under suspicious circumstances, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... think; and even if you hadn't made me give up trying for light opera, because I received one Insult (with a capital I) while I was Madame Larese's favourite pupil, I mightn't in any case have turned into a great prima donna. I was rather excited and amused by the Insult myself—it made me feel so interesting, and so like a heroine of romance; but you didn't approve of it; and we had some hard times, hadn't we, after all our money was spent in ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... was poor in quality; and Elsie Bartlett scored for St. Elgiva's by reaching high B with the utmost clearness and ease. The Intermediates grinned at one another with satisfaction. Even Gladys Woodham, the acknowledged prima donna of St. Githa's, had never soared in public beyond A sharp. They felt that they had beaten the Seniors ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... was beating fast as she descended the stairway, bright spots of colour flaming in her cheeks and the diamonds sparkling in her ears. A prima donna might have guessed her feelings as she paused, a little breathless on the wide landing under the windows. She heard a footstep. Hugh came out of the library and stood motionless, looking up at her. But even those who have felt the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... distinguishable from the green parrots of the plains by having the head, neck, breast, and upper back dove-coloured. It has none of the aggressive habits of its brethren of the plains. It keeps mainly to dense forests. Jerdon describes its cry as "mellow, subdued, and agreeable." It is the prima donna of ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... Laudat (Varro) et Pasitelen qui plasticen matrem caelatur et statuari sculpturaeque dixit et cum esset in omnibus his summus nihil unquam fecit antequam finxit. Also (xxxiv. 35.): Similitudines exprimendi quae prima fuerit origo, in ea quam plasticen Graeci vocant dici convenientius erit, etenim prior quam statuaria fuit. In both these cases the meaning of "plasticen" is clearly working, that is, moulding, in clay. Pliny, again (xxxv. 152.), tells us of the ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... emperor of Rome, imposed a tax upon urine, and when his son Titus remonstrated with him on the meanness of the act, "Pecuniam," says Suetonius, "ex prima pensione admovit ad nares, suscitans num odore offenderetur? et illo negante, atqui, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... Risley experts at the Hippodrome; Julian Jokes, "in his inimitable Hebrew monologue"; the Seven Sebastians, the world's most marvelous Herculean acrobatic performers; Mlle. Joujou, the popular singing comedienne, Prima Donna and Star, direct from her unusual and most distinguished triumph at the Palace Theater, London; and a dozen more of the younger and more popular people of the stage, all adorned, with adjectives and hyperbole. Down ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... wrote, his music is wonderfully fine. It still retains its vitality, as has been vividly shown in several revivals of his "Orpheus" within recent years, in two of which (in America and in Italy) the American prima donna, Mme. Helene Hastreiter, has nobly ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... crowded house, but the troupe went all to pieces. The next night was to be Wagner's benefit. Fifteen minutes before the curtain rose, he found the audience consisted of his landlady, her husband, and one Polish Jew. A free fight broke out behind the scenes; the prima donna's husband smote the second tenor, her lover, and every one joined in; even that small audience was dismissed. In this company die erste Liebhaberin was Wilhelmine Planer, one of twelve children ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... 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, ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... years past. But 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 ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... fish had been disposed of Ted leaned forward to catch Elinor's eye. "Have you broken the news to the future prima donna?" he asked with interest. "I saw Merton today—you know his sister is living at Venusburg now—and he said it was a dandy place. Receptions every week. Tea-room on the premises. Art mongers and singers and a few ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... erudite Germany, beginning with Abbot Hermannus, who wrote in the twelfth century the history of his own monastery of St. Martin's at Dornick, and ending with Caspar Bruschius, who, in the sixteenth century, wrote an Epitome of the Archbishoprics and Bishoprics of Germany, and the Centuria Prima (as Daniel Nessel in the next century wrote the Centuria Secunda) of the German monasteries. And yet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all kinds of writers quote the Annals about as freely ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Pro Cn. Plancio, ca. xxx.: "Nonne etiam illa testis est oratio quae est a me prima habita in Senatu. * * * Recitetur oratio, quae propter rei magnitudinem dicta de ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... at Home she would suck Lemons and complain about Draughts and tell why she didn't like the Other Girls' Voices. She began to act like a Prima Donna, and her Mother was encouraged a Lot. Lutie certainly had the Artistic Temperament bigger than ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... first to be astonished at the prima donna's absence. He wrote to her at Mme. Valerius' flat and received no reply. His grief increased and he ended by being seriously alarmed at never seeing her name on the program. FAUST was ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... sub-editor's departure for the provinces came up: it was only second in frequency to his "victories." About once a month the preparations for the tour were complete, and he would go about in a heyday of jubilant vocalization; then his comic prima-donna would fall ill or elope, his conductor would get drunk, his chorus would strike, and little Sampson would continue to sub-edit The ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... but at the same moment another door near the orchestra admitted a small white butterfly figure, leading in a tall queenly apparition in black, whom she placed in a chair adjacent to the bejewelled prima donna of the night—a great contrast with her dust-coloured German hair and complexion, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his study fire to his new purchases. First he took up the "Life and Legends." He read the saint's own Confession, and the Letter to Co-roticus, and looked through the translation of the Tripartite Life, with its queer mixture of Latin and English: "Prima feria venit Patricius ad Talleriam, where the regal assembly was, to Cairpre, the son of Niall." "Interrogat autem Patricius qua causa venit Conall, and Conall related the ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... apparuit sub primum adolescentiae meae tempus, anno Domini 1327, die 6 mensis Aprilis, in ecclesia sanctae Clarae Avinioni, hora matutina. Et in eadem civitate, eodem mense Aprilis, eodem die 6, eadem hora prima, anno autem Domini 1348, ab hac luce lux illa subtracta est, cum ego forte Veronae essem, heu fati mei nescius! Rumor autem infelix, per literas Ludovici mei, me Parmae reperit, anno eodem, mense ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... invade the garden, I shall never use a hoe on them. More than this, if only the right weeds settled in the garden, I should grow no other flowers. But shepherd's purse! Compared with it, a cabbage is a posy for a bridesmaid, and sprouting broccoli a bouquet for a prima donna. After all, one ought to be allowed to choose the weeds for one's own garden. But then when one chooses them, one no longer calls them weeds. The periwinkle, the primrose and the mallow—we spare them with our tongue as with our hoe. ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... some time after the enactment of the Act to Regulate Commerce it remained a mooted question whether that act conferred upon the Interstate Commerce Commission the power, after it had found a challenged rate to be unreasonable, to declare what thereafter should, prima facie, be the reasonable maximum rate for the transportation in dispute. The Supreme Court finally resolved that question in the negative, so that as the law now stands the Commission simply possess the bare power to denounce a particular rate as unreasonable. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Mother says we are too young and must wait. Anna acts splendidly. I like tragic plays and shall be a Siddons if I can. We get up harps, dresses, water-falls, and thunder, and have great fun." Both of the sisters wrote many exciting dramas at this period, and one of Louisa's, "The Rival Prima Donnas," was accepted by the manager of the Boston Theatre, who "thought it would have a fine run" and sent the author a free pass to the theatre, which partly compensated for the non-appearance of the play. Some years later, a farce written by Louisa, "Nat Bachelor's Pleasure Trip, or the ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... 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 ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... had sung a solo it would 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! ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... lagrimar mi fanno tristo, e pio. Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri, A che, e come concedette Amore Che conosceste i dubbiosi desiri? Ed ella a me: nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria, e cio sa 'l tuo dottore. Ma se a conoscer la prima radice Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto, Faro come colui che piange, e dice. Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto Di Lancilotto, come Amor lo strinse. Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto. Per piu fiate gli occhi ci sospinse ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... classa—PRIMA CLASSA!" said the woman in the corner, in a very high voice, as if talking to deaf people, and pointing to Aaron's luggage, then along the train ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... 'El Dorado,' and de 'Arcade' saloon, boss," he said, flicking his whip meditatively. "Most gents from de mines prefer de 'Polka,' for dey is dancing wid de gals frown in. But de real prima facie place for gents who go for buckin' agin de tiger and ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... stock. The ice and lighting plants were enlarged, and the city bought a site up the river, built a dam, installed pumping engines and constructed water mains into the city. An opera house was built, which, though its walls never re-echoed to the high soprano notes of a prima donna; had trembled to their foundations at the invectives of E. T. Franks; had shed sections of blistered plaster at the sad wailings of Gus Wilson, and had been moved by the matchless eloquence of A. O. Stanley when telling the tale ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... the 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 ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... thus insulting American manhood; they sent him a handsomely bound copy of Talmage's book! The fact that he has not broken off diplomatic relations with the United States may be accepted, however, as prima facie evidence that he has not yet read it. Perhaps he added insult to injury by sending it to the Siberian exiles. The Czaritza, or Empress, is a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria. She is rather handsome, but her face, like that of all those born to the house of Hanover is expressionless ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... over the marcite is absorbed by the soil of those meadows or evaporated from their surface, and consequently six-sevenths of the supply remain for use on ground at lower levels.] The meteorological effect of irrigation on a large scale, which would seem prima facie most probable, would be an increase of precipitation in the region watered. [Footnote: On the pluviometric effect of irrigation, see Lombardini, Sulle Inondazioni, etc., p. 72, 74; the same author, Essai Hydrologique sur le Nil, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... &c. n.; eagle-eyed, hawk-eyed, lynx-eyed, keen-eyed, Argus-eyed. visible &c. 446. Adv. visibly &c. 446; in sight of, with one's eyes open at sight, at first sight, at a glance, at the first blush; prima facie[Lat]. Int. look! &c. (attention) 457. Phr. the scales falling from one's eyes; "an eye like Mars to threaten or command" [Hamlet]; "her eyes are homes of silent prayer" [Tennyson]; "looking before and after" [Hamlet]; "thy rapt soul sitting in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... night while Rachel was singing that if the world of sinful, diseased, depraved, lost humanity could only have the gospel preached to it by consecrated prima donnas and professional tenors and altos and bassos, he believed it would hasten the coming of the Kingdom quicker than any other one force. "Why, oh why," he cried in his heart as he listened, "has the world's great treasure of song been so often held far from the poor because ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... if they be compared with the people: This proposition following; Hierarchia ecclesiastica constat ex Pontifice, Cardinalibus, Archiepiscopis, Episcopis & Regularibus, was censured by the Facultie of Theologie in the Universitie at Paris, as followeth, Inicta prima propositione enumeratio membrorum hierarchiae ecclesiasticae sen sacri principatus, divina ordinatione instituti est manca & redundaus atque, inducens in errorem contrarium determinationi sacrae Sinodi Tridentinae: The proposition was defective, because it pretermitted the Presbyters and Deacons; ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... p. 32.] E quibus B et P litterae ... dispari inter se oris officio exprimuntur. Nam prima exploso e mediis labiis sono, sequens compresso ore velut ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... parts were as important as the great ones, and deserving equal consideration, as parts of an artistic whole. The hero of the piece would only play in a part containing points likely to bring down the applause of the house. The 'prima donna' would only act when the lights were red, for she declared that a blue light did not suit her complexion. It was like a company of flies in a bottle, and I was in the bottle with them; for I was their ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... habits of thought as an essential feature of the paraphernalia of life. Booty, trophies of the chase or of the raid, come to be prized as evidence of pre-eminent force. Aggression becomes the accredited form of action, and booty serves as prima facie evidence of successful aggression. As accepted at this cultural stage, the accredited, worthy form of self-assertion is contest; and useful articles or services obtained by seizure or compulsion, serve as a conventional evidence of successful contest. Therefore, by contrast, the obtaining of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... will take the furniture and the ghost at a valuation. I have come from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actors and prima-donnas, I reckon that if there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe, we'd have it at home in a very short time in one of our public museums, or on the road ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... against the prima donna was that day of excessive bitterness, and every one agreed ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... will distinctly see," said he, "the ruts of my chariot wheels, 'manifesta rotae vestigia cernes.'" "But," added he, "even suppose you keep on it, and avoid the by-roads, nevertheless, my dear boy, believe me, you will be most sadly put to your shifts; 'ardua prima via est,' the first part of the road is confoundedly steep! 'ultima via prona est,' and after that, it is all down- hill! Moreover, 'per insidias iter est, formasque ferarum,' the road is full of nooses and bull-dogs, 'Haemoniosque arcus,' and spring guns, 'saevaque circuitu, curvantem brachia ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... from among the same a few, so that, while justice is done the subject, the interest of the reader may not be lessened, is far from being an easy task, albeit it is a pleasant one. I find, indeed, that the pages of the public journals fairly teemed with praises of the great prima donna, as she was frequently called by them. The musical world was startled, intensely delighted, electrified, by her notes of sweetest melody. Her magnificent voice, in its great range in both the upper and ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the heroine of an amusing anecdote. She gave her servant, a simple contadina, an order for the opera on a night when she appeared in one of her greatest parts. That evening the great prima donna surpassed herself; she was recalled time and again; the audience were wildly enthusiastic; almost every number was encored. Returning home, she wearily asked her maid how she had enjoyed the play. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... consideration of the faculties and impulses—of the prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Cataneo's part, as he seemed inclined to dispute this order, which was given with an action worthy of Semiramis,—the part in which la Tinti had won her fame,—the prima donna flew at the old ape and put ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... cannot exist without extension and figure, the taking matter to be the name of something really existing under that precision, has no doubt produced those obscure and unintelligible discourses and disputes, which have filled the heads and books of philosophers concerning materia prima; which imperfection or abuse, how far it may concern a great many other general terms I leave to be considered. This, I think, I may at least say, that we should have a great many fewer disputes in the world, if words were taken ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... the aggrieved prima donna, as she threw a hasty glance at her deshabille and snatched up the kimono. "Pretty talk, Fullaway—very, and all intended to benefit Weiss there. Lost, indeed!—I've lost all my jewels, and up to now ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... whose behavior is such as to give rise to suspicion, and any person so arrested by the police would be handed over to the military authorities for trial by court-martial. Only in the event of the military authorities holding that there is no prima facie case of espionage or any other offense triable by military law is a prisoner handed back to the civil authorities to consider whether he should be charged with failing to register or with any other offense under the Aliens ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... continues 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 Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath |
