"Opera" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no other sound, the note of a muffled Burmese gong, struck in the dim incensed cavern of a temple. A Burmese gong: briefly and magically the stage, the audience, the amazing gleam and scintillation of the Opera, faded. He heard only the voice and saw only the purple shadows in the temple at Rangoon, the oriental sunset splashing the golden dome, the wavering lights of the dripping candles, the dead flowers, the kneeling devotees, the yellow-robed priests, the tatters of gold-leaf, fresh and old, upon ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... him with eager, pleasant faces. John lifted his hat and said good morning and a shout of welcome greeted him. Then at some signal the looms resumed their noisy work and the women lifted the chorus from some opera which they had been singing at John's entrance, and "t' master's ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... is no external evidence for placing the pseudo-Clementine writings in the second century. The oldest witness is Origen (IV. p. 401, Lommatzsch); but the quotation: "Quoniam opera bona, quae fiunt ab infidelibus, in hoc saeculo iis prosunt," etc., is not found in our Clementines, so that Origen appears to have used a still older version. The internal evidence all points to the third century (canon, composition, ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... exasperated him. A paroxysm of courage, a thirst for human blood, took possession of him. A battalion could not have made him retreat. When this feverish excitement had cooled down, he was overjoyed to feel that his nerves were perfectly steady. In order to divert his thoughts, he went to the opera, where a ballet was being performed. He listened to the music, looked at the danseuses through his opera-glass, and drank a glass of punch between the acts. But when he got home again, the sight of his study, ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... worth while to come to a sympathetic understanding of the place of the drama and the opera, to see what they have meant in the education of the race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact of the strong dramatic instinct in childhood. Naturally the subject can only be mentioned here and the suggestion ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... their lodgings, and she and her cousin were escorted to afternoon service at Magdalen, in achieving which last feat they had to encounter a crush only to be equaled by that at the pit entrance to the opera on a Jenny Lind night. But what will not a delicately nurtured British lady go through when her mind is bent either ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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 drizzle for three days; and Flora, who was very atmospheric, began to yield to the dismal influence of the weather. Her watchful friend ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... very nimbly and boldly, and planted it on the other gunwale; and there he was in a moment, headache and all, in an attitude as large and inspired as the boldest gesture antiquity has committed to marble—he had even the advantage in stature over most of the sculptured forms of Greece. But a double opera-glass at his eye "spoiled the lot," as Mr. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... hour. At the first quarter they strike up a verse of the stirring "Watch on the Rhine;" at the half-hour the familiar notes of "God save the Queen" fall upon the listener's ear; at the third quarter an air from the well-known opera of the "Marriage of Figaro," enlivens the palace; while the hour is hailed with the bridal ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... night of Monday and Tuesday, that is to say, the 2d and 3d of June. On the evening of Thursday, the 5th of June, the Grand Opera at Paris was crowded for the second presentation of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... he roared as he wrenched his body free of the snug opera chair in which he sat. "And turn on the lights in this room—quick! And let ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... with its electric lights from the projecting open-air platform of his own day, or than those which separate the dramas of Ibsen, Shaw, and Barrie from those of Marlowe and Fletcher, or the cinematograph and comic opera from the bear-baiting and jugglery which rivaled the Globe. The visitor who scans, in the Stratford Museum, the curious collection of portraits of actors and actresses in Shakespearean parts may wonder what peculiarities of costume, manner, and expression ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... Eliph', looking down the street to where the raw brick of the opera house glowed ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... establishment of civil administration. Scores of nobodies before the rebellion became somebodies during the four or five years of social turmoil. Some of them influenced the final issue, others were mere show-figures, really not more important than the beau sabreur in comic opera. Yet one and all claimed compensation for laying aside their weapons, and in changing the play from anarchy to civil life these actors had to be included in the new cast to keep them from ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... I returned after three months' absence, I was shocked at the change: she was dying of their family disease. 'It is better, so,' she said, 'dear Father. It was only the bullet that saved Harry from it, and it would have been sure to come to me at last, after some opera or ball.' She died last winter—so patient and pure, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... valiant efforts to learn to spin before I played Margaret. My instructor was Mr. Albert Fleming, who, at the suggestion of Ruskin, had recently revived hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the North of England. I had always hated that obviously "property" spinning-wheel in the opera, and Margaret's unmarketable thread. My thread always broke, and at last I had to "fake" my spinning to a certain extent; but at least I worked my wheel right, and gave an impression that I could spin my pound of thread a ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... fired back. "And what do I care—what does anybody care—so long as it's legal! Ha! the courts would be with me! Moreover, it's the way you get the clothes you wear and the food you eat, and all those jewels that you hang on yourself when you undress and go to the opera!" ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... Macao is a piece of sixteenth and seventeenth century Portugal transplanted into China. It is wonderful to find a southern European town complete with cathedral, "pracas," fountains, and statues, dumped down in the Far East. The place, too, is as picturesque as a scene from an opera, and China is the last spot where one would expect to find lingering traces of Gothic influence in carved doorways and other architectural details. As far as externals went Camoens, the great Portuguese poet, can scarcely have realised his exile ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... illness; of his first speech, his impressions of the House of Commons; of music, Barbara, Courtier, the river. He told her of his health, and described his days down by the sea. She, as ever, spoke little of herself, persuaded that it could not interest even him; but she described a visit to the opera; and how she had found a picture in the National Gallery which reminded her of him. To all these trivial things and countless others, the tone of their voices—soft, almost murmuring, with a sort of delighted gentleness—gave a high, sweet importance, a halo that neither for the world would have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... manner. Out of the City he never spoke of the City. He was devoted to the arts, and especially to music, of which he had a really considerable knowledge. All prominent musicians knew him. He was the friend of prime donne, a pillar of the opera, an ardent frequenter of all the important concerts. Where Threadneedle Street came into his life nobody seemed to know. Nevertheless, his numerous clients trusted him completely as a business man. And ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... lightly, "slow to make up his mind, but as obstinate as the Urals themselves, and you have described him. Now tell me what you think of a young woman who rings you up without the slightest encouragement and invites you to come to the Opera purposely ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tickets are to Milan, and no stop-overs are allowed. Therefore, do not as yet relax your efforts. Milan is an imperial city. The guide-books tell us that its cathedral is a beauty, the place is full of pictures, and the opera-house finished in 1779 is the largest in the world. It can be done in two days, and the hotels are good. Can ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... multoties interrogatus ubi esset, cum risu respondere solitus erat: 'Job, Johannes, et Zacharias vel vobis vel posteris indicabunt'; idemque aliquando adiicere se inventuris minime invisurum. Inter alia huius Abbatis opera, hoc memoria praecipue dignum indico quod fenestram magnam in orientali parte alae australis in ecclesia sua imaginibus optime in vitro depictis impleverit: id quod et ipsius effigies et insignia ibidem posita ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... chairmen who introduced him, he mentioned one of them who said: "Ladies and gentlemen, next week we will have in our course the most famous magician there is in the world, and the week after, I am happy to say, we shall be honored by the presence of a great opera-singer, a wonderful artist. For this evening it is my pleasure to introduce to you that distinguished English journalist Mr. Edwin Arnold." Mr. Arnold began his lecture with a vigorous denial that he was Edwin Arnold, whom I judged he did ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... cars, and the power-house is right by the Old Swimming-hole above the dam. The meeting-house, where we attended Sabbath-school, and marveled at the Greek temple frescoed on the wall behind the pulpit, is now a church with a big organ, and stained-glass windows, and folding opera-chairs on a slanting floor. There isn't any "Amen Corner," any more, and in these calm and well-bred times ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... not abashed: she seems to have made up her mind to get all she could out of royal friendliness. She accepted a seat in the King's box at the opera; nay, she accepted a seat at the foot of the throne ("the throne she might once have expected to mount," remarks Hannah More), on the occasion of the King's speech in the House of Lords. It was the 10th of June, the birthday of Prince Charlie; and the woman who sat there ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... I have no evening gown, no evening wrap, so I couldn't join the box party to which one of Virginia's friends invited us. I meant to stay at home and not break up the party, but Royal insisted upon buying two tickets in a section of the opera house where a plainer dress would do. In the end I allowed myself to be persuaded by him and we two went to the recital alone. When that tenor voice sounded through the place I forgot all about my limited wardrobe. I could hear him sing if I were dressed in calico ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... were most anxious to promote Elsie's happiness, and in order to that to win her to forgetfulness of her unworthy suitor. Being Christians they did not take her to the ball-room, the Opera, or the theater (nor would she have consented to go had they proposed it), but they provided for her every sort of suitable amusement within their reach. She was allowed to entertain as much company and to pay as many visits to neighbors and ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... they were obliged to conform to his views and wishes; but after that event, they unreservedly participated in all the aristocratic pleasures of the 'upper ten': and their evenings were very frequently devoted to attendance at balls, parties, theatres, the opera, and other entertainments of the gay and wealthy ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... telegrams, one of which he filled in every now and then, and scribbled a hasty letter to the same address. He was a sharp-faced middle-aged man of business; Joseph Ashmead, operatic and theatrical agent—at his wits' end; a female singer at the Homburg Opera had fallen really ill; he was commissioned to replace her, and had only thirty hours to do it in. So he was hunting a singer. What the lady was hunting can never be known, unless she ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... suspected, even by her enemies, of giving any other man reason to tax her with a thought that was not strictly virtuous: and she had engaged his pity and esteem, for the sake of her other fine qualities, though she could not his love. Before she saw him (which, it seems, was at the opera at Florence for the first time, when he had an opportunity to pay her some slight civilities) she set all men ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... she said; "they're not meant for tennis tournaments or the opera, but for the campaigner whose lodging is on the cold bare ground. In fact when once he gets it on he never wants to take ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... the world. Then look what you are expected to know. You are never out, but they seem to think you regularly attend everywhere. "What's this, Christopher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train? How are they doing at the Italian Opera, Christopher?" "Christopher, what are the real particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank?" Similarly a ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen. As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing connection into which I have been brought with his lordship during the last ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... airs, opera bits—all delivered in' a resounding barytone and accompanied by thumping chords improvised by the performer. Out through the open windows they floated, and one astonished villages driving by to take the early train caught ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... 1834 Adam suddenly bought a house in the rue de la Pepiniere. Six months later his style of living was second to none in Paris. About the time when he thus began to take himself seriously he had seen Clementine du Rouvre at the Opera and had fallen in love with her. A year later the marriage took place. The salon of Madame d'Espard was the first to sound his praises. Mothers of daughters then learned too late that as far back as the year 900 the family of the Laginski was ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... Among the prisoners were some merchants of great note. Every man who was obnoxious to the Court went in fear. A general gloom overhung the capital. Business languished on the Exchange; and the theatres were so generally deserted that a new opera, written by Dryden, and set off by decorations of unprecedented magnificence, was withdrawn, because the receipts would not cover the expenses of the performance. [391] The magistrates and clergy were everywhere active, the Dissenters were everywhere closely ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Theol., 1a 2ae, disp. 5, qu. 8, p. 1: "Dona Spiritus S. potentias animae perficiunt ad actiones quasdam heroicas, ... qua ratione peculiariter procedunt ex divino quodam Spiritus S. instinctu, quo mens nostra plerumque mirabiliter solet agi et impelli ad quaedam opera praestantia et rara.... Atque ita in usu donorum homo potius agitur, in usu autem virtuturn se habet potius ut agens." Cfr. Simar, Dogmatik, Vol. II, 4th ed., pp. 641 sqq., Freiburg 1899; Van Noort, De Gratia Christi, ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... "And the opera, and Madame Tussaud, and the Horticultural Gardens, and the new conjuror who makes a woman lie upon nothing. The idea of my going to London! And then I suppose I shall be one of the bridesmaids. I declare a new vista of life ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... should any insolent slanderer dare to hint there was a smirch on her virtue. Being deaf to all reports, he seemed one of those men expressly framed by heaven to be the consolation of fallen women; such a man as in our times a retired opera-dancer or a superannuated professional beauty would welcome with open arms. He had only one fault—he was married. It is true he neglected his wife, according to the custom of the time, and it is probably also true that his wife cared very ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... could. When he went away he soon commenced to go down to ruin. When he gets down to that part of the country he suddenly becomes very popular with a certain class of men. Perhaps he was very popular with the men who hung around the opera house, or the theatre, or the billiard halls. A great many courted his company. Perhaps he was a good talker, perhaps he was a good singer and could sing a comic song; perhaps he was a literary man, and entertained them with his wit, and all were delighted with him. But as ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... imagined that my art could exorcise from the house. I did not immediately go down, but when I did the group which presented itself—arranged as it was by accident—though not very elaborate, took hold of my fancy and my eye in a way that none of the statuesque attitudes exhibited in the ballets at the opera-house, though so ostentatiously complex, had ever done. In a cottage kitchen, but panelled on the wall with dark wood that from age and rubbing resembled oak, and looking more like a rustic hall of entrance than a kitchen, ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... by his private matadors, after which he spent about three hours in the society of the Queen. He then devoted the same length of time to the conduct of public business with the King; and the day ended with dinner, fetes, the opera, or the consideration of requests for patronage. This function of State generally occupied three evenings in the week; and on these occasions a crowd of some 250 suitors filled his meanly lit ante-room with jealous ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... discharged an arrow. He lacked the precision of Robin Hood. The shaft only grazed the bull's shoulder, but that was enough. A Vesuvian explosion seemed to heave in his capacious bosom, and found vent in a furious roar. Round he went like an opera-dancer on one leg, and lowered his shaggy head. The horse's chest went slap against it as might an ocean-billow against a black rock, and the rider, describing a curve with a high trajectory, came heavily down upon ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... my singer," was the message I flung back next morning, as, opera-glass in hand, I started down the orchard towards the woods. I followed the path under the apple-trees, passed the daisy field, white from fence to fence with beauty,—despair of the farmer, but delight of the cottagers,—hurried across ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... see her, were somewhat bewildered by the obtrusive distribution of her wardrobe. There were India shawls suspended, curtain-wise, in the parlor door, and curious fabrics, corresponding to Gertrude's metaphysical vision of an opera-cloak, tumbled about in the sitting-places. There were pink silk blinds in the windows, by which the room was strangely bedimmed; and along the chimney-piece was disposed a remarkable band of velvet, ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... the Son said: "Father, you can stay only a Little While and I want to give you a Good Time while you are here. Come with us. We are going down to the Opera House to put a Show on the Bum. One of the first things we learn at College is to kid the Troupers. It is considered Great Sport in these Parts. Then, if any one gets Pinched, we tear down the Jail, thereby preserving the Traditions of ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... inclosing stamps for books, our men readers who will join the "Union" mentioned on page 36 will so state. No names attached to such communications will be published. The partial description of the Grand Opera "Die Walkure" in this book is given precisely as it occurred; and although the up-to-date slang used might suggest exaggeration, such is really not the case. Again we ask that your name be written plainly. This caution is not addressed ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... fight a duel?" she inquired, smilingly, for her heart was still singing Grand Opera and ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... familiar with the rival motifs that run through operas. In an earlier paragraph I have indicated one such motif, and if in this opera of war a curtain be lifted to shew the future act which this motif dominates, you would see the German staff busy with maps over its retreat, planning the time-table of explosion and burning, and designating the several duties of fouling ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... fighting. They said in effect, "You have given us 3s. in the pound, to which we had no claim; now we want 2s. more, to enable us to smash the landlord combination, of which you are the leader." This occurred in the proceedings of a business deputation, and not in a comic opera. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... are better than the "Ode to Blue-Eyed Ann," probably Mrs. Smollett. But the courageous author of "The Tears of Scotland," had manifestly broken with patrons. He also broke with Rich, the manager at Covent Garden, for whom he had written an opera libretto. He had failed as doctor, and as dramatist; nor, as satirist, had he succeeded. Yet he managed to wear wig and sword, and to be seen in good men's company. Perhaps his wife's little fortune supported him, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... creature among the ballad-singers known to the world by no other title than Clara, who drew much attention at this time by the sweetness and pathos of her tones. She was the original singer of "Black-eyed Susan," and one or two songs which were afterwards introduced into the "Beggar's Opera;" but her recommendation to particular notice was the circumstance of her being for many years the object of Bolingbroke's enthusiastic affection. The poor girl strayed for some time, during which his Lordship had not seen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... in order to explain that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine unless she would be his bride, and she saved herself by promising to be his bride and telling him that she lived in the Avenue de l'Opera; as soon as the cab reached a populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed and was rescued; she had let the driver go free because ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... that which is called ANDENA. This is less known among the Latin nations. Its special character is that like silver it is malleable and ductile under a very low degree of heat. In other properties it is intermediate between iron and steel." (Fr. R. Baconis Opera Inedita, 1859, pp. 382-383.) The same passage, apparently, of Avicenna is quoted by Vincent of Beauvais, but with considerable differences. (See Speculum Naturale, VII. ch. lii. lx., and Specul. Doctrinale, XV. ch. lxiii.) The latter author writes Alidena, and I have not been able to refer ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the backs of trotting camels, while bands of chattering Rajputs on foot are omnipresent—every grouping reminds of something witnessed on the stage, and the tout ensemble might be the great scene of a realistic opera intended to glorify the people and the institutions ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... the odds are twenty to one against the success of the individuals collected; and yet, for every horseman and every horsewoman there, not less than L5 a head will have been spent for this one day's amusement. When we give a guinea for a stall at the opera we think that we pay a large sum; but we are fairly sure of having our music. When you go to Copperhouse Cross you are by no means ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... government and prosperity of Venice, and boasted of its decided superiority over all the other Italian states. He then turned to the ladies, and talked with the same eloquence, of Parisian fashions, the French opera, and French manners; and on the latter subject he did not fail to mingle what is so particularly agreeable to French taste. The flattery was not detected by those to whom it was addressed, though its effect, in producing submissive attention, did not ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... carboni, e cadde, come e facile ad imaginarselo, tutta in pezzi quando si tocco. Alcuni di questi rotoli di papiri si trovarono involti insieme con carta piu grossolana, di quella qualita che gli antichi chiamavano emporetica, e questi probabilmente formavano le parti ed i libri d' un' opera intiera[57].... ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... and play with ability, she will remain cold and impassible. But let your execution exhibit the slightest defect, and you will have her instantly showing her teeth, whisking her tail, yelping, barking, and growling. At the present time, there is not a concert or an opera at Darmstadt to which Mr. S—— and his wonderful dog are not invited; or, at least, the dog. The voice of the prima donna, the instruments of the band—whether violin, clarionet, hautbois, or bugle—all of them must execute ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... without any abilities; and are quite different from the Italian magician. King James says in his Daemonology, 'Magicians command the devils: witches are their servants. The Italian magicians are elegant beings.' RAMSAY. 'Opera witches, not Drury-lane witches.' Johnson observed, that abilities might be employed in a narrow sphere, as in getting money, which he said he believed no man could do, without vigorous parts, though concentrated to a point[1162]. RAMSAY. 'Yes, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... dramatist, he began by presenting A Trip to Scarborough, which was altered from Vanbrugh's Relapse; but his fame was at once assured by his production, in 1775, of The Duenna and The Rivals. The former is called an opera, but is really a comedy containing many songs: the plot is varied and entertaining; but it is far inferior to The Rivals, which is based upon his own adventures, and is brimming with wit and humor. Mrs. Malaprop, Bob Acres, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, and the Absolutes, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... let what I say scare you, though, Kitty. You 've got a good chance, and maybe you 'll have more sense than I 've got, and at least save money—while you 're in it. But let 's get off that. It makes me sick. All you 've got to do is to come to the opera-house to-morrow and I 'll introduce you to the manager. He 's a fool, but I think we can make him ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... moment," declared Lady Thurwell, shaking hands. "No, we won't sit down, thanks! You know why we've called? It's about the opera to-night. You got ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one who had travelled much and observed much; of one whose correspondents kept him au courant with all the chief topics of the day. He knew, and could tell you, the secret history of the last new opera; how much had been paid for it, what it had cost to produce, and all about the great green-room cabal against the new prima donna. He knew what amount of originality could be safely claimed for the last new drama that was taking the town by storm, and how many times the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... Joaquin Miller in reply to a letter, dated February 9, 1882, in reference to the behaviour of a section of the audience at Wilde's lecture on the English Renaissance at the Grand Opera House, Rochester, New York State, on February 7. It was first published in a volume called Decorative Art in America, containing unauthorised reprints of certain reviews and letters contributed by Wilde to English newspapers. ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... had our occupations; for we had the attendance on the court days—a business of as much formality, as if the fate of mankind depended on it. Then we had the attendance on the opera at night, a matter nearly as tiresome. The post from England reached Naples but once a-week, and scarcely once a month conveyed any intelligence that was worth the postage. But, if politics were out of the question, we had negotiation in abundance; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... see, and their action is tacitly approved by the community. This survival of the barbarous instinct to kill is condoned as "sport." If these people were to spend this time in following the birds with opera glass and notebook to study them, they might not be so readily understood—they might even be taken for mild lunatics, so utterly is public sentiment ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... introduce Billy, both Lu and her husband were much changed. They had gained a great deal in width of view and liberality of judgment. They read Dickens, and Thackeray with avidity; went now and then to the opera; proposed to let Billy take a quarter at Dodworth's; had statues in their parlor without any thought of shame at their lack of petticoats, and did multitudes of things which, in their early married life, they would have considered shocking.... They would greatly have ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... home lateish to-night from the opera, we found the following, written in what Mrs. MALAPROP would term 'rather ineligible characters,' as if hastily reduced to paper. Howbeit, we knew it at once for the 'hand-write' of our favorite, facile and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... made up our minds. The driver, unfortunately, could not understand a word of English, that being the trouble with half of the beggars one encounters in a strange land, and so as we drove down by the Grand Hotel and French Opera House and came to a palatial-looking building, with brilliantly lighted grounds and colored awnings extending down to the sidewalk, and looking the sort of a place that we were in search of, I stopped the carriage and tried to find ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... was certainly a strange one—as strange as if taken from a comic opera. The fishing-sloop rocking on the long swell, the dog cowed and uncertain, one deaf man doubtingly flashing the lantern in the face of Bart Hodge, and the other swaying unsteadily on his feet, as if he contemplated making a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... experienced astronomer, furnished with every modern refinement of appliances and means of observation, to the humbler, but perhaps no less zealous beginner, furnished only with a good pair of natural eyes, aided, on occasion, by the common opera-glass. Such an observer, if he goes the right way to work, will make sure of a high degree of entertainment and instruction, and may reasonably hope to light on a discovery or two, worthy, even in the present ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... DEAR SIR:—The comic opera by your friends Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, which you have submitted to me, as sole lessee and manager of the Savoy Theatre, is now returned to you unread. The little piece, judged from its title-page, is bright and pleasing, but I ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... favourable. One night we went to the opera to hear a celebrated prima donna. When we returned home Miriam and I were sitting in her room, chatting over ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and even nowadays to those who know very little, and that little at second hand, Miss Lee's travesty of it in The Recess is impossible and intolerable. When Mrs. Radcliffe, at the date definitely given of 1584, talks about "the Parisian opera," represents a French girl of the sixteenth century as being "instructed in the English poets," and talks about driving in a "landau," the individual blunders are, perhaps, not more violent than those ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... the description of shawls I suppose you include the cloaks which are made?-Yes; opera-[Page 42] cloaks, mantles, and squares. There is a great variety of them made, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... church, where the service commences at a late hour, for the accommodation of such members of the congregation— and they are not a few—as may happen to have lingered at the Opera far into the morning of the Sabbath; an excellent contrivance for poising the balance between God and Mammon, and illustrating the ease with which a man's duties to both, may be accommodated and adjusted. How ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... music, yet here seems a good place to say that he never learned either to play the piano or to sing. He had to trust the "details" to others. Yet at twenty he led an orchestra. Soon after he became conductor of the opera at Magdeburg. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... was a meadow enclosed in an amphitheatre of rocks, with grassy ledges projecting from the cliff like tiers of opera-boxes. These points of vantage were partly occupied by interested spectators and partly by ruminating cattle; on the lowest slope, the rank and fashion of the neighbourhood was ranged on a semi-circle of chairs, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... made a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the Puritan way with the native, which converted them to a little Hebraism and a great deal of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me (as most of them will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,—a much better weapon than a gun. I would not, if I could, convert them from their pretty pagan ways. The only one I sometimes have savage doubts about, is the red squirrel. I think he ooelogizes; I know he eats cherries, (we counted five of them at one time in a single ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... frivolous as simpletons imagine. Frivolity is an excellent, because an unsuspected mask, under which serious and important designs may be safely concealed. I would explain myself further, but must now go to the opera to see the new ballet. Let me know, my interesting, my sublime Olivia, when you are positively determined on your voyage to Petersburg; and then you shall become acquainted with your friend as a politician. Her friendship for you will not be confined to a mere intercourse ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the Prince of Orange;(444) she said, it was extraordinary to quote that precedent to her in one case, which had been followed in no other. I could tell you ten more of these stories, but one shall suffice. The Royal Family went to the Opera on Saturday: the crowd not to be described: the Duchess of Leeds, ]lady Denbigh, Lady Scarborough, and others, sat on chairs between the scenes; the doors of the front boxes were thrown open, and the passages ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... part which I'm glad of anyway as I'm giving it to a gentleman, and he'll never see the others besides. And this is two boxes of writing paper; aren't they huge! awful cheap with a lovely picture of an actress on top—Lillian Russell in Mice and Men, I think, on one, and Jean Duresk the Opera Singer in Lonegrind on the other. The boxes 'av got false bottoms—so there ain't very much writing material, but the rich effect's there all ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... We have done our whole duty by it. We have seen the Tuileries, the Napoleon Column, the Madeleine, that wonder of wonders the tomb of Napoleon, all the great churches and museums, libraries, imperial palaces, and sculpture and picture galleries, the Pantheon, Jardin des Plantes, the opera, the circus, the legislative body, the billiard ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that as it may, here is the negotiation intrusted to you. You are desired by my Lord Gower to apply to the gentilhomme de la chambre for leave for Doberval(694) the dancer, who was here last year, to return and dance at our Opera forthwith. If the court of France -will comply with this request, we will send them a discharge in full, for the Canada bills and the ransom of their prisoners, and we will permit Monsieur D'Estain to command in the West Indies, whether we will or not. The city of London must not know a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... sipping. And many a time he has driven me out of a flower-bed. This summer, by the way, a pair of these winged emeralds fastened their mossy acorn-cup upon a bough of the same elm which the orioles had enlivened the year before. We watched all their proceedings from the window through an opera-glass, and saw their two nestlings grow from black needles with a tuft of down at the lower end, till they whirled away on their first short experimental flights. They became strong of wing in a ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... clatter, giant puppet troops, Marshalled in your proudly childish groups, Like the juggler on the opera scene?— Though the sound may please the vulgar ear, Yet the skilful, filled with sadness, jeer Powers so ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... therefore, after watching the operations of the other robbers for some moments, turned on his heel, and remained humming an opera tune with dignified indifference until the pair had finished rifling the carriage, and seizing ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pavillion to be built for Saint Berold's Hospital, and the various states of the various charities each was interested in, and the chances of something new at the opera, and the impossibility of saving Fifth Avenue from truck traffic, and the increasing importance of Washington as a social centre, and the bad manners of a foreign ambassador, and the better manners of another diplomat, and the lack of discrimination betrayed by our ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... will remain long enough, everybody in this world, worth knowing, will pass by you; crowned heads, diplomats, financiers, the demimonde; you may meet them all. They tell me that the same thing happens to the occupant of the corner table of the Cafe de la Paix—the table next to the Avenue de l'Opera; if he waits long enough, ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
... eligibility of citizens. For of what use would this precaution be, if there were nothing to gain by it? No one would think of ordaining that none but astronomers and geographers should be pilots, nor of prohibiting stutterers from acting at the theatre and the opera. The nation was still aping the kings: like them it wished to award the lucrative positions to its friends and flatterers. Unfortunately, and this last feature completes the resemblance, the nation did not control the list of ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... a hurry. He first took from Wych Hazel her little bundle of the opera cloak, shook it out, and put it around her shoulders, drawing the fastening button at the throat; then taking the little cold hand in his clasp again, and with the other arm lingering lightly round her shoulders, he asked her "what ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... process lasted until about the tenth. For Raymundus and his Pugio Fidei, see G. L. Bauer, Prolegomena to his revision of Glassius's Philologia Sacra, Leipsic, 1795,—see especially pp. 8-14, in tome ii of the work. For Zwingli, see Praef. in Apol. comp. Isaiae (Opera, iii). See also Morinus, De Lingua primaeva, p.447. For Marini, see his Arca Noe: Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae, Venet., 1593, and especially the preface. For general account of Capellus, see G. L. Bauer, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... ottoman, was no other than Clarence Delwood, who arose as she entered, taking her proffered hand with some little embarrassment, which was soon dispelled by the adroit Winnie, who took a seat at the piano, and with a rich full voice sang the last opera. "Your friend, Miss Santon, has an enviable voice," remarked Delwood to Natalie, regarding the lily buds which he recognized as of the bouquet which he had ordered his servant to place in the hands of her attendant, giving no name of the donor. "Yes, I love to listen to her voice, it ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... which are to be seen on Egyptian monuments are still employed by thousands of French, peasant-women, but the wheel invented in the sixteenth century is rarely used now, unless it be by Martha in the opera. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... beating drums, and so on—making a horrible din. Sometimes, in the midst of all this wild confusion, a kind of French courtier would come mincing along, in old-fashioned costume, leading a lady, also in antique attire, and, gazing on the right hand and the left through an immense opera-glass, making, in the meantime, the most polite bows. However much he might be pushed about, or powdered, it mattered not; he only gazed through his opera-glass, and bowed all the more, and never lost his self-possession. In the midst of all this whirl ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... mind in time for next year's meeting. A race interests every one, which is more than can be said for the opera or the Academy." ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... reached London on the 10th. So important was it considered, that Lord Chatham carried the account of it to the opera, and just after the second act it was made known to the house. A burst of transport interrupted the opera, and never was any scene of emotion so rapturous as the audience exhibited when the band struck up "Rule Britannia!" ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... sober. What ever possessed you to get yourself up like an Italian opera villain and go round the town with a wild ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... geographical proximity. The history of the Greek peninsula and the Greek people, because of their location at the threshold of the Orient, has contained a constantly recurring Asiatic element. This comes out most often as a note of warning; like the motif of Ortrud in the opera of "Lohengrin," it mingles ominously in every chorus of Hellenic enterprise or paean of Hellenic victory, and finally swells into a national dirge at the Turkish conquest of the peninsula. It comes out in the legendary history of the Argonautic Expedition and the Trojan War; in the arrival of Phoenician ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Beethoven's conducting-stick. Moreover, it should be observed, that conducting a symphony, an overture, or any other composition whose movements remain continual, vary little, and contain few nice gradations, is child's play in comparison with conducting an opera, or like work, where there are recitatives, airs, and numerous orchestral designs preceded ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... and the price of the statue paid off the young couple's debts. Steinbock had acquired fashionable habits; he went to the play, to the opera; he talked admirably about art; and in the eyes of the world he maintained his reputation as a great artist by his powers of conversation and criticism. There are many clever men in Paris who spend their lives in talking themselves out, and are ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... there is a world of mellifluousness. A dancing dervish, who has been patiently awaiting at the inner gate, now receives a nod of permission from the priest, and, after laying aside an outer garment, waltzes nimbly into the room, and straightway begins spinning round like a ballet-dancer in Italian opera, his arms extended, his long skirt forming a complete circle around him as he revolves, and his eyes fixed with a determined gaze into vacancy. Among the howlers is a negro, who is six feet three at least, not in his socks, but in the finest pair of under-shoes ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... have not been able to procure a complete catalogue: he published, Quintilianus, 2 vols. 4to; Valerius Flaccus; Ovidius, 4 vols. 4to; Poetae Latini Minores, 2 vols. 4to; cum notis variorum. Buchanani Opera, 2 vols. 4to [51]. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Backfisch may be a person of finish and wide culture. You may find that she insists on her cold tub every morning, and is scandalised by your offer of hot water in it. She has seen Salome as a play and heard Salome as an opera. She has seen plays by G.B.S. both in Berlin and London. She does not care to see Shakespeare in London, because, as she tells you, the English know nothing about him. Besides, he could not sound as well in English as in German. She has read Carlyle, and is now reading Ruskin. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Wilberforce at a summer party at the Hammersmiths. To my amazement, my wife, who scarcely can play "The Fisher's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wilberforce if she could give her the idea of an air in "The Butcher of Turin." Mrs. Wilberforce had never heard that opera,—indeed, had never heard of it. My angel-wife was surprised,—stood thrumming at the piano,—wondered she could not catch this very odd bit of discordant accord at all,—but checked herself in her effort, as soon as I observed that her long notes and short notes, in their tum-tee, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... When Davenant before the Restoration obtained Cromwell's permission to reintroduce dramatic entertainments, if not plays, music necessarily formed the chief part of the performance. It was in fact an opera, and operatic peculiarities remained after all restriction had been taken off. Scott assigns on the whole far too much influence to the French drama and to the personal predilection of Charles. The subject is a large one, and has never been fully handled, but readers may be referred ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Shebagog County: there The summer idlers take their yearly stare, Dress to see Nature In a well-bred way, As 'twere Italian opera, or play, Encore the sunrise (if they're out of bed). And pat the Mighty Mother on the head: These have I seen,—all things are good to see.— And wondered much at their complacency. 120 This world's great show, that took in getting-up Millions of years, they finish ere they sup; Sights that God ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Geometry; the herdsman Mangia Melo, manipulating figures, when five years old, as rapidly as a calculating machine; Mozart, executing a sonata on the pianoforte with four-years-old fingers, and composing an opera at the age of eight; Theresa Milanollo, playing the violin at four years, with such eminent skill that Baillot said she must have played it before she was born; Rembrandt, drawing with masterly power before he could read." The same authority says, in reference to the fact that some of these ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... Cagnolo says, ended the dramatic performances we are forced to conclude that they were exceedingly dull and spiritless. The moresca partook of the character of both the opera and ballet. It was the only new form of spectacle offered during all the festivities. Compared with those which were given in Rome on the occasion of Lucretia's betrothal, they were much inferior. Among the former we noticed several pastoral comedies with allegorical allusions ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... box was surrounded, as may be imagined, by all the fops of the neighborhood, each of whom passed several times before her in the gallery, totally unable to enter the box, of which her father filled more than three-fourths. Croisilles noticed further that she was not using her opera-glasses, nor was she listening to the play. Her elbows resting on the balustrade, her chin in her hand, with her far-away look, she seemed, in all her sumptuous apparel, like some statue of Venus ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the handmaid of Poetry; and in our modern languages, even, which are so artificial and removed from primitive enthusiasm and naturalness, no composer of opera would consent to adapt his inspirations to a prose libretto. It was far more so in primitive times; and it maybe said that in those days poetry was never composed unless to be sung or played on instruments. But what ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... regaled at various times with comic opera (with scenery painted for the occasion), readings and recitations; and at one of the annual dinners an illustrated history of the club and its members was given on an ingeniously contrived ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various
... her tortoiseshell opera-glasses, which were fastened to her waist, but already the young girl, over whose shoulders an attentive servant had flung a wrapper—a 'peignoir-eponge'—had run along the boardwalk and stopped before her, with ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... and she made no reply. Her head drooped slightly, as if she were considering. But the moment he put his arms about her they began to talk, both at once, as people do in an opera. The instant avowal brought out a flood of trivial admissions. Hedger confessed his crime, was reproached and forgiven, and now Eden knew what it was in his look that she had ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Ried, settling back into the cushions. "A large public that will be. I thought at the very least she was going to the opera. If the child finds any comfort in such an atmosphere, where's the harm? ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... of ballad-writers, ode-makers, translators, farce-compounders, opera-mongers, biographers, pamphleteers, and journalists, would appear crowding to the hospital; not unlike the brutes resorting to the ark before the deluge! And what an universal satisfaction would such a sight afford to all, except pastry-cooks, grocers, chandlers, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... two fourth-magnitude stars form a little triangle with Vega. Both are interesting objects for the telescope, and the northern one, epsilon, has few rivals in this respect. Let us first look at it with an opera glass. The slight magnifying power of such an instrument divides the star into two twinkling points. They are about two and a quarter minutes of arc apart, and exceptionally sharp-sighted persons are able to see them divided with the naked ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... a hustler," he remarked with a smile. "For all that, you got a nasty knock, and your quitting for a time is justified. Well, if you feel lonesome, come along and dine at our hotel. Then we'll go and see the American opera. I'm told the show ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... her plan, I wish Maud to take lessons of her; Fanny can do as she likes, but it would please me very much to have one of my girls sing as Polly sings. It suits old people better than your opera things, and mother used to ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... her shoulders and turned her back, was now startled. She turned around—listened. Claudia was a most fastidious connoisseur of music, and she recognized in this performer an artiste of the highest order. Claudia had heard such music as this only from the best opera ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... at a Converted Rink known as the Grand Opera House, a flock of intrepid Amateurs put on ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... returned followed by Maitre Cure, a florid-faced, brisk-moving, bushy-haired man in tight frock coat, who suggested an opera impresario. He seemed amused when told that the prisoner rejected his services, and established himself comfortably in a corner of the room as an ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... "drawing-room entertainment" of one of the followers of John Parry. Indeed, in these days of adaptations, it is to be wondered at that no enterprising librettist has attempted to build a children's comic opera out of the materials supplied in the four books with which we are now concerned. The first of these, originally published in 1846, and brought out in an enlarged form in 1863, is exclusively devoted to nonsense-verses of one type. ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... returning from the Opera, was assailed by the populace and by women in great numbers crying, "Bread! Bread!" so that he was afraid, even in the midst of his guards, who did not dare to disperse the crowd for fear of worse happening. He got away by throwing money to the people, and promising ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... accomplice, Fanny, and the vicious waggoner, all standing in a row, across the stage. The Curate, in a burst of amiability, had just lifted up his hands to bless the company, when Colonel Chartress (dressed in an old naval uniform, with an opera-hat of the year 1800), suddenly rushed in, followed by the Highwayman, who having relapsed from penitence to guilt, had, as a necessary consequence, determined to supplant Chartress in the favour of Miss Fanny. These two promptly seized each other by ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... alphabet, then summon her to her career; and though men, ignorant and prejudiced, may oppose its beginnings, there is no danger but they will at last fling around her conquering footsteps more lavish praises than ever greeted the opera's idol,—more perfumed flowers than ever wooed, with intoxicating fragrance, the fairest butterfly of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... on him that she wished as much as possible to dispense with state and show on this occasion, the indefatigable old man had been at the trouble and expense of erecting a theatre, and bringing down from Paris the whole of the Opera Comique to play before her, and thus increase the gaiety of the single evening of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... with its grand ladies and its grand opera, with his vineyard and his nightingales. "Paris," he says, "has fine flowers and lawns, but she is too much of the grande dame. She is unhappy, sleepy. Here, a thousand hamlets laugh by the river's side. ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... as at a conscientious study, the laboriousness of which was one of its chief qualities. Neither the Contessa nor Bice had been much impressed by that fine view of the performance. Madame di Forno-Populo, indeed, had swept the audience with her opera-glass, and paid very little attention to the stage. She had yawned at the most important moments. When the curtain fell she had woke up, looking with interest for visitors, as it appeared, though very few visitors had come. Bice was put into the ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... if you will believe me, this woman has just been called out of bed to a London audience, who, instead of paying a guinea or half a guinea to hear her in opera, are paying only 2s. 6d. a head to hear her let off "God shave the King!" like a roll of musical thunder. She appears "in dish-abille" as they call it here, and in tears. And why is she summoned? Because the sufferin' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... institutes with the same name hold their sessions all over the land. Music, art, and the drama, sometimes the same organized group of artists, appeal to appreciative audiences in Boston, New Orleans, Chicago, and San Francisco. Popular songs from the opera, popular dances from the music-halls sweep the country with a wave of imitative enthusiasm. There are national whims and national tastes that chase each other from ocean to ocean, almost as fast as the sun moves from ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... expression on your face I see that you don't make me out, and I can't blame you for thinking me insane; but, my dear boy, such an assumption does me a cruel wrong. Briefly, I'm a hobo with a weakness for good society, and yet a friend of the under dog. I confess to a passion for grand opera and lobster in all its forms. ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... what pleasure and improvement may I not propose to myself, with so polite a companion, when we are carried by Mr. B. to the play, the opera, and other of the town diversions! We will work, visit, read, and sing together, and improve one another; you me, in every word you shall speak, in every thing you shall do; I you, by my questions, and desire of information, which will make you open all your breast to me: ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... All this is not opera bouffe, but serious history. It must have taxed Lincoln's sense of humor and strained his sense of the fitness of things to treat such nonsense with the tactful forbearance which he showed and to relegate it to the pigeonhole without making Seward angry. Yet this he contrived to do; ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... looked up the green aisle of the Champs-Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, dimly visible in the moonlight. The Baron entered for one last glance over the preparations for his petit souper for Rosa and her sister of the ballet at the Opera. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Justice Darling never raised heartier laughter than in an action some years ago where the issue was whether the plaintiff, who had been engaged by the defendant to sing in "potted opera" at a music-hall, was competent to ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... humiliating experiences, he took good care not to show the card to any one at the hotel where he now established himself,—a comfortable little place near the Grand Opera House. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... so best," most Englishmen will say. Very likely; and, therefore, let no Englishman try it. But my Spaniard did not look at like a hog in armour. He walked slowly down the plank into the boat, whistling lowly but very clearly a few bars from a opera tune. It was plain to see that he was master of himself, of his ornaments, and of his limbs. He had no appearance of thinking that men were looking at him, or of feeling that he was beauteous in his attire;—nothing could be more natural than his foot-fall, or the quiet glance of ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... bustling Caterina, Friend Fritz's housekeeper, who, as she has to provide all the food for their breakfast, and set it on the table, might be distinguished as Catering Caterina. No one now cares to see an Opera without Mlle. BAUERMEISTER in it, whether she appear as a dashing lady of the Court, probably in a riding-habit, or as a middle-class German housekeeper, or as Cupid God of Love, or as Juliet's ancient nurse, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... give you this story in his own words, or any idea of his extraordinary, joyous naturalness, and his air of preposterous good faith—as if he had done the only thing conceivable in the case. It was as convincing as a scene in comic opera. ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... outward-bound, off Cape Horn, looked at Hermit Island through an opera-glass? Was it you, who thought of proposing to the Captain that, when the sails were furled in a gale, a few drops of lavender should be dropped in their "bunts," so that when the canvas was set again, your nostrils might not be offended by its musty smell? I do not say it was you, Selvagee; ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... meeting with this old maid might very well take her for a kindly woman. She owned the house on shares with her brother. The brother, by-the-bye, was sleeping so tranquilly in his own chamber that the orchestra of the Opera-house could not have awakened him, wonderful as its ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... George Tavern in Whitefriars." These concerts began in 1672, and continued till near his death, which occurred in 1679. He too, was buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbey. His son, also, was an excellent performer on the violin, and played first violin in the Italian opera when it was first introduced into England. He was one of the musicians of Charles II., James II., William and ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... admire your art," says Esmond to Addison; "the murder of the campaign is done to military music, like a battle at the opera, and the virgins shriek in harmony, as our victorious grenadiers march into their villages. Do you know what a scene it was? what a triumph you are celebrating, what scenes of shame and horror were enacted, over ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... flashing the best product of his genius beneath the artificial and murderous light of the lustres, and presenting his personages in life-like size, heedless of the optical illusion of the modern stage, of the dimness of opera-glass and ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... nerves I speak of, many apply themselves to drink; some rush to drugs; for myself, I take to music. It was midwinter, and grand opera was here. This was fortunate. I buried myself in a box, and opened my very pores to those nerve-healthful harmonies. In a week thereafter I might call myself recovered. My soul was cool, my eye bright, my mind clear and sensibly elate. Life and ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... entered a box at the P—-Theatre, in company with a friend, Mr. Talbot. It was an opera night, and the bills presented a very rare attraction, so that the house was excessively crowded. We were in time, however, to obtain the front seats which had been reserved for us, and into which, with some little difficulty, we elbowed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a year or so ago to Annette Oakleigh, a Broadway comic opera singer, who was his second wife. By his first marriage he had had two children, a son, Warner, and a ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... A danseuse from the opera is on her way to Paris. Followed by her bonne and her little dog, she paces the deck, stepping out, in the real dancer fashion, and ogling all around. How happy the two young Englishmen are, who can speak French, and make up to her: and how all criticise her points and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said Stefan impatiently, "don't you begin to talk obligations. I came to France to get away from all that. Have a little imagination, Adolph. It would be the best thing that could happen to you to get shaken out of that groove at the Opera—be the making ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... father proposed that I should take the character of Cupid, in the opera of Telemaque. To this my mother strongly objected, declaring that I never should go upon the stage; and this created a disunion which was daily embittered by my father's unkind treatment both of my mother and myself. I never left her side ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... but in respect of the changes of key, the changes of time, the changes of timbre of the voice, and the many other modifications of expression. While between the old monotonous dance-chant and a grand opera of our own day, with its endless orchestral complexities and vocal combinations, the contrast in heterogeneity is so extreme that it seems scarcely credible that the one should have been the ancestor of ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... Archie Inspects an Opera Bouffe Dungeon Jail, Where He Makes the Acquaintance of Dust, Dry Rot and Deschamps. In Which, Also, Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay Is Advised to Howl Until ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... thaws every day; it is a most singular winter. Good by, my dear. I think of you, and am anxious to hear that you are contented, cheerful, and happy. Ever yours." February 22: "I have your letter of the 8th. I am glad to hear that you have been to the Opera, and that you mean to receive every week. Go to the theatre occasionally, and always sit in the grand box. I am pleased with the festivities given to you. I am very well. The weather continues unsettled, freezing and thawing. I have put the army into winter quarters to rest ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... this point, and for two days I heard nothing from him. On the morning of the third day he telephoned me to meet him at the stage-door of the Metropolitan Opera-House at four o'clock. "Bring your voice with you," said he, enigmatically, "we may need it." An immediate explanation of his meaning was impossible, for hardly were the words out of his mouth when he hung up the receiver and ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... looked at Little White Barbara through an eye-glass and a magnifying glass and an opera-glass and a telescope, and then he said to Aunt Dosy and Aunt Posy: "You must go to London and buy her some Laughing Medicine. I will send her something to do her good ...
— Little White Barbara • Eleanor S. March
... looked severely at Alda under the impression that she was Wilmet very improperly tricked out, and pressed Fernando's hand before going on to her own place. Then came the low swell of the organ, another new sensation to one who had only heard opera music; then the approaching sound of the voices. Geraldine gave him the book open at the processional psalm, and the white-clad choir passed by, one of the first pair of choristers being Lance, singing with ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... help, he found it was out of order. So he rushed again into the hall toward the elevator with the idea of getting Dr. Avery, who lived below on the second floor. The elevator door was open also, and a man's opera-hat lay near it on the floor; he saw, just in time, that the car was at the bottom of the shaft, almost stepping inside, in his excitement, before he noticed this. Then he ran down the stairs with Jack's hat in his hand, and got Dr. Avery, and they found Jack at the ...
— The Lifted Bandage • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... street nowadays I actually pity the crowds of people I see, because, forsooth, they know nothing of the great joy I have acquired in that blessed house. Alice made me take her to hear a Mme. Melba in Italian opera last month at the Auditorium. As we came away Alice asked: "Was n't ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... the lobby," she said when I had placed the opera-glasses and the programme on the edge of her box and adjusted ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... of a trial that was one of the features of the present Sessions. The Counsel for the Prisoner made no pretence of hiding his emotion, and freely used his pocket-handkerchief. Many ladies who had until now been occupied in using opera-glasses, at this point relinquished those assistants to the eyesight, to fall back upon the restorative properties of bottles filled with smelling-salts. Even his Lordship on the Bench was seemingly touched to the very quick by the Prisoner's dignified appeal for mercy. Before passing sentence, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various |
