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Choir   Listen
noun
Choir  n.  
1.
A band or organized company of singers, especially in church service. (Formerly written also quire)
2.
That part of a church appropriated to the singers.
3.
(Arch.) The chancel.
Choir organ (Mus.), one of the three or five distinct organs included in the full organ, each separable from the rest, but all controlled by one performer; a portion of the full organ, complete in itself, and more practicable for ordinary service and in the accompanying of the vocal choir.
Choir screen, Choir wall (Arch.), a screen or low wall separating the choir from the aisles.
Choir service, the service of singing performed by the choir.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Choir" Quotes from Famous Books



... was laid in St. Pancras' Church, Lord Lovel was laid in the choir; And out of her bosom there grew a red rose, And out ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... moments there where they could get away from it all, instead of shaking dice at the Owl cigar store, like they used to. And Oswald Cummings of the Elite Bootery, was another. Oswald is a big fair-haired lummox that sings tenor in the Presbyterian choir and has the young men's Bible class in the Sabbath School. Vernabelle lost no time in telling him that he was oh, so frankly a pagan creature, born for splendid sins; and Otto seemed to believe it for a couple of weeks, going round absent like as if trying to think up some ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... choir and apse we found ourselves in the midst of complexity. The ownership of the different altars with their gilt ornaments, of the swinging lamps, of the separate doorways of the Greeks and the Armenians and the Latins, was bewildering. Dark, winding steps, slippery with the drippings from ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... Cousin Tom was not too drowsy after his day and his ale, the three would sing and I would listen; for my Cousin Tom sang a plump bass very well when he was in the mood for it. As for me, I had but a monk's voice, that is very well when all the choir is a-cry together, but not of much use under other circumstances. In this way then I made acquaintance with a number of songs—such as Mr. Wise's "It is not that I love you less" and his duet "Go, perjured man!" of which the words are taken from Herrick's "Hesperides," and of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... short suspense The plumy people streak their wings with oil, To throw the lucid moisture trickling off, And wait the approaching sign to strike at once Into the general choir.' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... some words to her attendants, who Composed a choir of girls, ten or a dozen, And were all clad alike; like Juan, too, Who wore their uniform, by Baba chosen: They formed a very nymph-like looking crew,[300] Which might have called Diana's chorus "cousin," As far as outward ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... rule itself to you shall bend. Our Abbess, too, now far in age, Doth your succession near presage. How soft the yoke on us would lie, Might such fair hands as yours it tie! Your voice, the sweetest of the choir, Shall draw heaven nearer, raise us higher, And your example, if our head, Will soon us to perfection lead. Those virtues to us all so dear, Will straight grow sanctity when here; And that, once sprung, increase so fast, Till ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... monk initiated me into all the charms of Pisan society. He had organized a little choir of ladies of rank, remarkable for their intelligence and beauty, and had taught them to sing extempore to the guitar. He had had them instructed by the famous Gorilla, who was crowned poetess-laureate at the capitol by night, six ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... performed in England. Though widely different in form and treatment from "The Messiah," it shares equally with that work in the enjoyment of popular favor. Its numbers are almost as familiar as household words, through constant repetition not only upon the oratorio stage, but in the concert-room and choir-loft. In the presentation of the personalities concerned in the progress of the work, in descriptive power, in the portrayal of emotion and passion, and in genuine lyrical force, "Elijah" has many of the attributes ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... see me now, he would believe in me,' thought she to herself, as she daily went to the cathedral. She took classes at school, helped to train the St. Jude's choir, played Handel for Dr. Prendergast, and felt absolutely without heart or inclination to show that self-satisfied young curate that a governess was not a subject for such distant perplexed courtesy. Sad at heart, and glad to distract her mind by what was new yet innocent, she took up the duties of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... support, while her arms hold him firm. A band of infant angels play on the flower-strewn grass in the open space in front. With joined hands they circle about as in the figure of a dance or game. The music for their sport is furnished by a heavenly choir, hovering in the upper air and singing the score from ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... his frame, renewed In eloquence of attitude, Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher; Then swept his kindling glance of fire From startled pew to breathless choir; When suddenly his mantle wide His hands impatient flung aside, And, lo! he met their wondering eyes Complete ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... aspiring tyros of the present age. Our difficulties arise, not from musical complexity, but from want of suitableness, adaptation, and characterization, together with the ever-increasing feud between choir and congregational singing. In some churches on the Continent of Europe, these two latter modes are happily blended, certain services or portions of services being left to the choir, and the remainder ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... instruments. Tambourines to the foreground.] The hosts were sandalled, and their wings were fire! (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir. (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) O, shout Salvation! It was good to see Kings and Princes by the Lamb set free. The banjos rattled and the tambourines Jing-jing-jingled ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... the beautiful screen of open brass-work, with its base of dark wood, on which brightly-painted, mystic beasts disport themselves among the coats-of-arms of divers ancient towns; and the carved choir-stalls. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... melodious companies is a dry list of names, in spite of which the dead owners of them are nameless. But the chronicler's description of them may carry some lessons for us, for is not the Church of Christ a choir, chosen to 'shew forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvellous light'? We take a permissible liberty with this fragment, when we use it to point lessons that may help that great band of choristers who are charged ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... gentlemen are rare in England, though it is suspected that one or two may be found among the reviewers on the staff of certain newspapers; otherwise how shall we account for the solitary falsetto voices in the choir of our daily and weekly press, shouting abstinence from the housetops? But with the exception of these few critics every one will find pleasure in this narrative; even in aged men and women enough sex is left to allow them to take an ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... yellow-green light which returned on the afternoon of the great wind) he had lain upon the grass somewhere, and heard the hum of the honey-gatherers in thistle and clover. The hum was like the far singing of a child-choir, and the dreamings it started then were altogether too big for the memory mechanism of a little boy's head; but the vastness and wonder of those dreamings left a kind of bushed beauty far back in his mind. He had loved the bees as he had loved the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... furnishing designs for Christmas and Easter cards, and occasionally (not often), by selling drawings used for decorating china, and wallpaper. At one time, I had regular pay for singing in a choir, but diphtheria injured my throat, and when I partly recovered my voice, the situation had been given to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... of my friends, where daughters ripple well-dusted piano keys and display expensive voices, yield only treacle and honey. Why should I mind the supercilious smile of my neighbor next door when he occasionally catches me at my unidigital performance, he who is a soloist in a noted church choir, but who, I very well know, prefers The Palms or Over There to Purcell's I'll sail upon the Dog Star, if, indeed, he ever heard the madly melodious boast ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... flatter you, most firm of warders, For sandbags suppliant, and do no good, And high Staff officers and priests in orders In vain beleaguer you for bits of wood, While I, who have nor signature nor chit, But badly want a bit, I only talk to you of these high themes, Nor stoop to join the sycophantic choir, Seeing (I trust) my wicked batman, Jeames, Has meanwhile pinched enough ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various

... roses on their shoes. The chief means of disguise were false hair and beards, and occasionally also masks. The female parts were played by boys so long as their voice allowed it. Two companies of actors in London consisted entirely of boys, namely, the choir of the Queen's Chapel and that of St. Paul's. Betwixt the acts it was not customary to have music, but in the pieces themselves marches, dances, solo songs, and the like, were introduced on fitting occasions, and trumpet flourishes at the entrance ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... beseem them not All the worst half of women. Thus we stoop To pick up hectic apples from the ground, Pierc'd by the canker or the unseen worm, And tasting deem none other grow but they, Whilst on the topmost branches of life's tree Hangs fruitage worthy of the virgin choir Of bright Hesperides. Soft! Who comes here? Surely my rascal is not yet return'd— The times are full of plotting. I ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... ended his melodious song, An host of angels flew the cloud among, And rapt this swan from his attentive mates To make him one of their associates In heaven's faire choir. ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales

... from Paris and several of the most docile inmates of the asylum. I was struck with the bearing of the latter, and asked my friend to repeat the experiment, and extend the number of invitations. The result was so favorable, that we were soon able to form a choir from among the patients, of both sexes, who rehearsed on Saturdays the hymns and chants they were to sing on Sunday at mass. A raving lunatic, a priest, who was getting more and more intractable every day, and who often had to be put in a strait-jacket, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... sweet atmosphere of melody And coolness falls upon the troubled heart, Like oil upon the wave. Dance on—dance on— Ye couriers of the sun—full-throated choir; And sky-ward fling your sobbing psalmody— A sunrise offering to the coming day. On—on: still higher! Still rolls the torrent down, Bearing the soul up in a cloud of sprays, The world seems deluged with a golden shower: Myriads of larks trill out their morning psalm, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... in a perfect foam with the exertion. I sat upon a stone, gazing upon this valley, calmed, soothed, charmed with its beauty, and was speculating upon the cause of the ruddy purplish hue which I still noticed in the landscape, as I had the day before, when I heard a choir of half a dozen voices, apparently on the nearest cliff, joining in a Haydn-like hymn of praise. I drew nearer to the spot, and soon satisfied myself that all the sounds proceeded from one man sitting alone on a projecting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... sweet music. By his watch he saw that it was eleven o'clock and remembered that it was Sunday. Also, the music was that of a familiar hymn, played upon a fine piano, which was taken up and sung by a choir of mixed voices, from the childish treble of the two little lads to the stentorian bass of ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... that tune o' his, It crawled on scalp and skin, Till sudden—'long o' choir-practice— The belfry bells swung in; The piping cove he turned and passed, Till through the golden broom A mile along we saw him last Go lone-like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... though it was impossible to resist some pangs of homesickness, she was still interested and impressed. The little building was tastefully decorated, and the beautiful hymns were sung with delightful heartiness and feeling. The O'Shaughnessys themselves would have constituted a creditable choir, for Pat's still unbroken voice was a joy to hear as he joined in the air with Bridgie and Pixie, the Major rolled out a sonorous bass, Jack sang tenor, while Esmeralda's alto was rich and full as an organ stop. ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... apple so tasteless, so juiceless, so hard, Is, sure, good for nought but to bowl in the yard; The choir-boys may have it." But choir-boys soon found It was worthless—the tree that ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock

... but at length, by fagging very hard with one or two boys in the school-room, and getting one of the ushers, who generally performed a second in all the musical efforts in the school, to make some kind of bass, Louis presented his choir one evening in the playground, and made them sing, to the great rapture of ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... a motley crowd of farmers, labourers and visitors, with a Welsh choir from a neighbouring village, singing hymns and patriotic songs. The bonfire was to be fired on the stroke of ten, by a neighbouring landowner, whose white head and beard flashed hither and thither through the crowd and the mist, as he gave ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in the choir. They had come to this innovation, though they drew the line at instrumental music. He had a really fine tenor voice. Mr. Leverett sang in a sort of natural, untrained tone, very sweet. Mrs. Hollis couldn't sing at all, but she was very proud to have the children take after their father. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... He was struck by the wealth of flowers massed all over the chancel, and wondered if that was its regular state. The pulpit and the lectern; the altar, which he easily identified; the stained-glass windows with their obviously symbolic pictures; the bronze pipes of the little organ; the unvested choir, whose function he vaguely made out—over all these his intelligent eye swept, curiously; and lastly it went out of the open window and lost itself in the quiet sunny ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Christ had stood. All about him blazed a host of tall candles; the air quivered in the radiant light. The worthy Abbot of San-Lucar, in pontifical robes, with his mitre set with precious stones, his rochet and golden crosier, sat enthroned in imperial state among his clergy in the choir. Rows of impassive aged faces, silver-haired old men clad in fine linen albs, were grouped about him, as the saints who confessed Christ on earth are set by painters, each in his place, about the throne of God in heaven. The precentor and the dignitaries ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac

... poet's happy choice of a metre. Of all the varied lyric rhythms none, at least to our ears, lends itself so readily to a musical setting as the Sapphic; and the many melodies attached to odes in this metre by the monks of the Middle Ages attest its special adaptability to choir-singing. Augustus was highly pleased with the poet's performance, and two years' afterwards he commanded him to celebrate the victory of his step-sons Drusus and Tiberius over the Rhaeti and Vindelici. [37] This circumstance turned his attention once more to lyric poetry, which ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... wounds more and more deadly on expiring Paganism. Are the gods of Olympus agitated with apprehension at the birth of this new enemy? They are introduced as rejoicing at his appearance, and promising long years of glory. The whole prophetic choir of Paganism, all the oracles throughout the world, are summoned to predict the felicity of his reign. His birth is compared to that of Apollo, but the narrow limits of an island must not ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... wooden roof masked by a false stucco vaulting. A few relics, spared by the eighteenth century Vandals, show that the church was once rich in antique curiosities. A marble knight in armour lies on his back, half hidden by the pulpit stairs. And in the choir are half a dozen rarely beautiful panels of tarsia, executed in a bold style and on a large scale. One design—a man throwing his face back, and singing, while he plays a mandoline; with long thick hair ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... intimately acquainted with Mr. Hardy as a moralist most frequently recurs. We notice here more than elsewhere in his poems Mr. Hardy's sympathy with the local music of Wessex, and especially with its expression by the village choir, which he uses as a spiritual symbol. Quite a large section of Time's Laughingstocks takes us to the old-fashioned gallery of some church, where the minstrels are bowing "New Sabbath" or "Mount Ephraim," or to a later scene where the ghosts, in whose ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... towards his people, walking-stick in hand, to leap upon a stone where he could be well seen by the choral singers on either side of the vale, and there for about a minute he stood, waving his baton-like stick, conducting his strange double choir, who sang more loudly their cheery mill-song, and at their best, till in an instant, like a thunderclap, there was a sharp report, the song became a wail of agony, and the voice of the master ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn

... her father practised hard through the dark, wet evenings. She was to sing 'Harps in Heaven,' a song her mother had taught her. He was to accompany the choir, or glee-party, that met together at different places, coming from the villages and hillsides of a wide ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... songsters of spring, occasionally tuning his voice before the arrival of the multitudinous choir, is the Crimson Finch or American Linnet (Fringilla purpurea). I have frequently heard his notes on warm days in March, and once, in a very mild season, I heard one warbling cheerily on the 18th ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... vaulting is reckoned an excellent piece of workmanship. It is an ellipsis, supported by lofty pillars, whose ribs and groins sustain the whole roof, every part of which has some different device well finished, as the arms of several of our kings, great families, &c. On each side of the choir are the stalls of the Sovereign and Knights of the Garter, with the helmet, mantling, crest, and sword of each knight, set up over his stall, on a canopy of ancient carving curiously wrought. Over ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various

... men belonging to the Battalion. The "Dead March in Saul" was played at the commencement, and the service was most impressive throughout. The preacher was the Rev. A. Herbert Gray, one time Chaplain of the Battalion, and the service included the anthem, "What are these?" sung by the choir. ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various

... columns, forming aisles and supporting the flat roof. At one end of the hall was a semicircular recess—the apse—where the judges held court. This arrangement of the interior bears a close resemblance to the plan of the early Christian church with its nave, choir (or chancel) and columned aisles. The Christians, in fact, seem to have taken the familiar basilicas as the models for their ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... iv. p. 119, 120) compares this supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral honors of Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir of angels.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... her mind full of her duties and her heart tender with thoughts of her children, she thought she saw a dusky little object crouching in the angle made by the towers; but she was already late, and had no time to linger. Up she went to the choir, which was full of light, but the body of the church was dark. Without any words, she took up her sheet of music and began to sing. Never had the carols and anthems seemed so sweet to her, and her voice ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... hot with steam on the windows. The wooden pews, set on steps which rose evenly to the window-sill at the back of the tiny building, seemed to precipitate themselves upon the mean wooden pulpit. Three benches set endwise to the platform served for the choir, and there was a small harmonium. The girl (a daughter of a prosperous farmer) who played it was already in her place, and a group of children had taken possession of the front pew. These were playing under the book-rest and frequent giggles burst from their number. At last one of ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... his childhood are scanty. We know but little except that his parents were poor peasants, and that he learned the rudiments of literature and music as a choir-singer, a starting-point so common in the lives of great composers. In 1540 he went to Rome and studied in the school of Goudimel, a stern Huguenot Fleming, tolerated in the papal capital on account of ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... yet mild and exceptionally dry evening at Christmas- time (according to the testimony of William Dewy of Mellstock, Michael Mail, and others), that the choir of Chalk-Newton—a large parish situate about half-way between the towns of Ivel and Casterbridge, and now a railway station—left their homes just before midnight to repeat their annual harmonies under ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... I counted an hundred and fifty steps from the house to the bottom of the garden, which is on a level with the road. The cloisters are paved with marble, and the church neat and beautiful beyond description. The iron work of the choir imitates flowers and foliage with so much taste and delicacy, that (but for the colour) one would rather suppose it to be soil, than any durable material.—The monks still remain, and although the decree has passed for their ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... shew others how to praise the Lord. It is well to notice that the people, led by their ministers, stood up to praise the Lord, and on the next day, before the victory, they praised the Lord. What a scene it must have been! How the angels would keep time with their harps, as the choir sang the anthem, "Praise the Lord! for His ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... with thunder Of many winds as one, To where the keen sea-current grinds and frets The black bright sheer twin flameless Altarlets That lack no live blood-sacrifice they crave Of shipwreck and the shrine-subservient wave, Having for priest the storm-wind, and for choir Lightnings and clouds whose prayer and praise are fire, All the isle acclaimed him coming; she, the least Of all things loveliest that the sea's love hides From strange men's insult, walled about with tides That bid strange guests back from her flower-strewn feast, ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... said Hippolita, entering the choir. "Good Father, art thou at leisure?—but why this kneeling youth? what means the horror imprinted on each countenance? why at this venerable tomb—alas! ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... just in time for a mass which a pilgrim priest was about to say, and they were all admitted to the small nave of the little chapel, beyond which a screen shut off the choir of nuns. After this the ladies were received into the refectory to break their fast, the men folk being served in an outside building for the purpose. It was not sumptuous fare, chiefly consisting of barley bannocks and very salt and dry fish, ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... individual on the day after the visit of the deputation to Egremont. The sun, though in his summer heaven he had still a long course, had passed his meridian by many hours, the service was performing in the choir, and a few persons entering by the door into that part of the Abbey Church which is so well known by the name of Poet's Corner, proceeded through the unseemly stockade which the chapter have erected, and took their seats. One only, a female, declined to pass, notwithstanding ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... proportion of feathers, tufts, and flowers. On their dark dresses were pinned rosettes of different-coloured ribbon, to show to which parish they belonged. There was a bright, short service, in which the clear, high voices of the multitudinous maidens quite overcame those of the choir boys, and then an address, respecting which Constance pronounced that 'Canon Fremont was always so sweet,' and Dolores assented, without in the least knowing what ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in the evil times that followed the Queen of Saxony spoke of this occasion, I am told, with peculiar emotion, as the fairest day of her life. After Reissiger had wielded his baton with great dignity, and I had sung with the tenors in the choir, we two conductors were summoned to the presence of the royal family. The King warmly expressed his thanks, while the Queen paid us the high compliment of saying that I composed very well and that Reissiger conducted very well. His Majesty asked us to repeat the last three stanzas only, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... Sunday services, but in the local judgment they were no fit garment for the Lord's house. Local judgment, I may add, was not so drastic in its strictures on boudoir caps. Some very pretty ones came to service on the heads of the choir, but the verdict was a unanimously favourable one. A nomadic Ladies' Home Journal was ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... No choir celestial sang at Lincoln's birth, No transient star illumined the midnight sky In honor of some ancient prophecy, No augury was given ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... Church of Raymond believed in having the best music that money could buy, and its quartet choir this morning was a source of great pleasure to the congregation. The anthem was inspiring. All the music was in keeping with the subject of the sermon. And the anthem was an elaborate adaptation to the most modern ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon

... wouldn't he give you a row." So the root of the matter seems to be in the youth of our country and the sweetness and willingness of their sacrifices is very fragrant. They sing about saving bread and saving pennies, and to hear a choir of Welsh children sing these songs, with a vigour and enjoyment that ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... the face of the earth, that have no complaints to make of their government, in any instance whatever. Theirs must be something superior to the government of angels; for I verily believe, that, if one out of the choir of the heavenly angels were sent to govern the earth, such is the nature of man, that many would be found discontented with it. But these people have no complaint, they feel no hardships, no sorrow; Mr. Hastings has realized ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... the choir for years before my marriage to Josiah Allen, and havin' married a man ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... clever process of the reduction to the absurd, which seldom failed to tell, while it never gave offence. As to the Ladies' Committee, though there had been expressions of dismay, when the tidings of the appointment first went abroad, not one of the whole "Aonian choir" liked to dissent from Dr. Spencer, and he talked them over, individually, into a most conformable state, merely by taking their compliance for granted, and showing that he deemed it only the natural state of things, that the vicar should reign over ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... cordial an "Amen," Followed from either choir, as plainly spoke Desire of their dead bodies; yet perchance Not for themselves, but for their kindred dear, Mothers and sires, and those whom best they lov'd, Ere ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... engraver, or a printer, will discover errors in painting or printing, which wholly escape ordinary readers or observers; and how quick the ear of a good musician will discover the existence and origin of a discordant sound in his choir. ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... Methodist Church choir and they say he can throw his voice anywhere. I wish he'd throw it in the ash barrel, I know that. He always wears his belt-axe to troop meetings, in case the Germans should invade Bridgeboro, I suppose. He's the troop mascot and if you walk around him three times ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... IV. did not himself add anything to royal musical literature, as did his predecessors on the throne, he devoted much attention to ecclesiastical melody and song. The Berlin cathedral choir of men and boys—trained to sing without musical accompaniments—owes its origin to his ambition for having a choir in his own Protestant basilica at Berlin, corresponding more or less to the Pope's in the Sistine Chapel of Rome. It was he ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... her fingers in his hand and holding them fast. 'A great deal better. Jerrie's baby has done me good, and you, too, Dolly. You don't knew how nice it seems to have you smooth my hair; it is like the old days at Langley, when we sang in the choir together, and you were fond ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... the case, it is said, in France and Germany, during the ninth century. Earlier changes had been made by Gregory the Great, partly from Eastern sources. [Sidenote: The fifth century.] At the middle of the fifth century the rite, in words and action alike, was a simple one. The choir sang an introit, the priest a collect, epistle and gospel were read, and a psalm was sung: the gifts were offered, the prayer or "preface" of the day was followed by the Sanctus, as in the East, and ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... were winning a strong hold upon J.C.'s affections, and still he had never seriously thought of making her his wife. He only, knew that he liked her, that he felt very comfortable where she was, and very uncomfortable where she was not; that the sound of her voice singing in the choir was the only music he heard on the Sabbath day, and though Nellie in her character of soprano ofttimes warbled like a bird, filling the old church with melody, he did not heed it, so intent was he in listening to the deeper, richer ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... her dream of love Irised by the strange ecstasy of Art? Is not Eros a terrible lord enough That she must bear both Hunters of the heart, The Golden Archer and the Scarlet too? Then bitter anomalies annul her choir Of puissant and subtle instincts, rended through By gorgeous dualisms of vain-desire. For Love outrages Art's clear disciplines, And Art lures Love to guilt of cryptic treason: The spirit of imagination pines, Captive in webs of exquisite unreason. ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor

... herself, by the united voices of the choir, Betty invariably advanced and complied literally with the request contained in the chorus, to the infinite delight of the singers, and with no small participation in the satisfaction on her account. The hostess was provided with a beverage more suited to the high seasoning ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... work at the library the first thing and has been off and on ever since, and is now going to do it permanently, besides teaching a class in the Sunday-school, looking after the choir-boys, running errands ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... The white robed choir marched out, and the music of "Onward Christian Soldiers" faded away, and Peter and his lady went out from the Church of the Divine Compassion, and strolled on the avenue again, and when they had sufficiently filled their nostrils with the sweet odors ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... jovial spectres chaunt, Our old refectory still we haunt. The traveller hears our midnight mirth: "Oh list," he cries, "the haunted choir! The merriest ghost that walks the earth Is now the ghost of a ghostly friar." Three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts—three merry ghosts are we: Let the ocean be port and we'll think it good sport To be ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... last night; the lights in the chapel of the abbey were still flickering, and the monks were chanting the complines. The mellow music of a drizzle seemed to respond sombrely to the melancholy echo of the choir. About midnight the rain beat heavily on the pine roof of the forest, and the thunder must have struck very near, between me and the monks. But rising very early this morning to commune for the last time ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... was there, sitting alone in his long, empty pew near the top of the building; and Neil Gordon sang in the choir which occupied the front pew of the gallery. He had a powerful and melodious, though untrained voice, which dominated the singing and took the colour out of the weaker, more commonplace tones of the other singers. He was well-dressed in a suit of dark blue serge, with a white collar and ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... it, so complex that no written description could even faintly indicate its character. The quadruple theme of the sulphur-yellow truth is sung almost uninterruptedly, first by the wood-wind, then by the strings and then by the full brass choir, with the glockenspiel and cymbals added. Into it are woven all of the other themes in inextricable whirls and whorls of sound, and in most amazing combinations and permutations of tonalities. Moreover, there is a constantly rising complexity ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken

... from the cliffs. The ceiling here is sixty three feet high, and the church itself, including the recess, cannot be less than one hundred feet in diameter. Eight or ten feet above and immediately behind the pulpit, is the organ loft, which is sufficiently capacious for an. organ and choir of the largest size. There would appear to be something like design in all this;—here is a church large enough to accomodate thousands, a solid projection of the wall of the Cave to serve as a pulpit, ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt

... anybody to take anything from it. His Excellency, however, took two pieces of it, of which he kept one, and sent the other to Duke Sigismund of Austria, and there was a great deal of talk about the stone, which was suspended in the choir, where it still is, and a great many people ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... Light began to dawn In Eden on the humid Flowers, that breathed Their Morning Incense, when all things that breathe From th' Earth's great Altar send up silent Praise To the Creator, and his Nostrils fill With grateful Smell; forth came the human Pair, And join'd their vocal Worship to the Choir ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... no one except that I curtsied my thanks to the Abbess before kneeling down by the grating looking into the choir. My grief had always been too deep for tears, and on that day I was blessed in a certain exaltation of thoughts which bore me onward amid the sweet chants to follow my Philippe, my brave, pure- hearted, loving warrior, onto his rest in Paradise, and to think of the worship that ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... approaching Session, and also that they had waited long. The consent, notwithstanding the hurry of preparations, it involved, besides the annihilation of her desire to meditate on so solemn a change in her life and savour the congratulations of her friends and have the choir of St. Catherine's rigorously drilled in her favourite anthems was beautifully yielded ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and maidens singing the sacred chants, one choir answering the other, and then unitedly sending forth a ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... Angear, in charge of a Chinese Sunday-school in the First Congregational Church, Chicago, spoke of her work, her Chinese choir singing "Stand up for Jesus," and later a verse of "Sweet By and By," in both English ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various

... that Jasmin may have obtained his first insight into poetic art during his solitary evening walks along the banks of the Garonne, or from the nightingales singing overhead, or from his chanting in the choir when a child. Perhaps the 'Fables of Florian' kindled the poetic fire within him; at all events they may have acted as the first stimulus to his art of rhyming. They opened his mind to the love of nature, to the pleasures of country life, and the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... Vision, but heard only a sound as of a great multitude crying, 'Alleluia'; and suddenly the winds came about him again, and lo! he found himself in bed in the dormitory, and it was midnight, for the bell was ringing to Matins; and he rose and went down with the rest; but when the Brethren left the choir, Brother Ambrose stayed fast in his place, hearing and seeing nothing because of the Vision of God; and at Lauds they found him and told ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... The village choir were practicing in the church—their voices, somewhat harsh and uncultivated, were sending forth volumes of sound into the summer air. The church doors were thrown open, and a young man dressed in cricketing-flannels was leaning against the porch. He was tall, and square-shouldered, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... the New World met in 1619. It was opened by prayer. Its first enactment was to protect the Indians from oppression. Its next was to found a university. In the first legislative assembly which met in the choir of the Church in Jamestown, more than one year before the Mayflower left the shores of England, was the foundation of popular government in America. Time would fail me to tell the story inwrought in the lives of men like Rev. William Clayton of Philadelphia, the Rev. Atkin Williamson of South ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple

... placed herself by the side of Paulina, and they walked down one of the long side-aisles together. The saintly memorials about them, the records of everlasting peace which lay sculptured at their feet, and the strains which still ascended to heaven from the organ and the white-robed choir,—all speaking of a rest from trouble so little to be found on earth, and so powerfully contrasting with the desolations of poor, harassed Germany,—affected them deeply, and both burst into tears. At ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... known she was upset.... Yet was it thinkable? In the fiercest denouncing of the yellowest Huns, who had ever dreamed anything so base of them as this? Lying? With that face like all the angels, that voice like a heavenly choir?... ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... called Issachar; it would not be surprising to meet with a Naphtali Cebi, or Judah b. Jacob. Jeduthun is, properly speaking, the name of a tune or musical mode (Psalm xxxix. 1, lxii. 1, [xxvii. 1), whence also of a choir trained in that. Particularly interesting are a few pagan names, as for example Henadad, Bakbuk, and some others, which, originally borne by the temple servitors (Nehemiah vii. 46 seq.), were doubtless transferred along with these ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... it more beautiful than ever. The verdure has taken on fresh vigor during the night; it is revealed with its brilliant net-work of dew-drops, reflecting light and color to the eye, in the first golden rays of the new-born day. The full choir of birds, none silent, salute in concert the Father of life. Their warbling, still faint with the languor of a peaceful awakening, is now more lingering and sweet than at other hours of the day. All this fills the senses with a charm and freshness which seems to touch our inmost soul. ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... dinner bell of a boarding house, and in that yellow mist, which deepened with every minute, the white flames of the candles lost nearly all their starlike brightness. There seemed to be depression and resentment in the deep voices of the choir rumbling and rolling behind the screen; there seemed to be haste, a desire to get it over, in the nasal voice of the priest praying almost ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... now the exteriors received much attention, and the portals or entrances to the churches were richly decorated with statues and other sculptured ornaments, and the exterior decoration soon extended to many portions of the edifices. In the interiors, too, the altars, fonts, choir-screens, and other objects were made of carved stone or of stucco, which hardened like stone, and were all richly ornamented with sculpture. A completely new spirit seemed to possess the artists, who thus found a satisfactory field for their labors, and the ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... a deep breath and sailing away on perfumed clouds to an invisible choir. "I want to make this something terrific; it's the most important you know. I promise for the space of one year,—so long as you care enough to answer my letters, that's only fair you know—I promise never to touch a ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... well. He meditates, his head upon his hand. What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull? 'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, It fascinates, and is intolerable. His mien is noble, most majestical! Then most so, when the distant choir is heard At morn or eve—nor fail thou to attend On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there; When all, propitiating with solemn songs, Visit the Dead. Then wilt ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... thrasher breaks into a melody from the top of a wild cherry, and then it is as if a famous operatic coloratura soprano had joined the village choir. For power and continuity of song he is without a peer. With head erect and long tail pendant he pours forth such a flood of melody, so varied and so sweet that we forget the exquisite hymn-like notes of the wood-thrush and yield ourselves wholly to the spell of his rich recital. Make the ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... more than 900 workmen, and 75 horses. The trumpet sounded, and in an instant, men, horses, windlasses, cranes, and levers were all in motion. The ground trembled, the castle cracked, all the planks bent from the enormous weight, and the pyramid, which inclined a foot towards the choir of St. Peter, was raised perpendicularly. The commencement having prospered so well, the bell sounded a rest. In twelve more movements the pyramid was raised almost two feet from the ground, in such a situation ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... to dance a measure, Nodding as the notes inspire— And their branches, as with pleasure, Add their music to the choir. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... born at a little village in the County of Essex. Having a good voice, he came early in life to be installed as singer at Wallingford College; and showing here a great proficiency, he was shortly after impressed for the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral. Afterward he was for some time at Eton, where he had the ill-luck to receive some fifty-four stripes for his shortcomings in Latin; thence he goes to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lives "in clover." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... contained hymns; the Book of Collects, prayers, collects and chapters; the Martyrology contained the names with brief lives of the martyrs; the Rubrics, the rules to be followed in the recitation of the Office. To-day, we have traces of this ancient custom in our different choir books, the Psalter, the Gradual, the Antiphonarium. There were not standard editions of these old books, and great diversities of use ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... members of the conspiracy, Frati Antonio and Stefano, were entrusted with the grim duty. The appointment was quite the best that could be made, because, at the Cathedral, Lorenzo and his immediate entourage would be placed with the clergy, within the choir, whereas to the Pazzi and the other confederates places would be assigned outside the screen, among the ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... mass with the King in the tribune, facing the grand altar and the choir, with the exception of the days of high ceremony, when their chairs were placed below upon velvet carpets fringed with gold. These days were marked by the name ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... of standing in the centre of the church, where, upon all former occasions, it had been accustomed during the week succeeding the ceremony to receive congratulatory, visits, was now ignominiously placed behind an iron railing within the choir. It had been deemed imprudent to leave it exposed to sacrilegious hands. The precaution excited derision. Many vagabonds of dangerous appearance, many idle apprentices and ragged urchins were hanging for a long time about the imprisoned image, peeping through ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... last there was a great Festival at St. Peter's; the only one I have seen. The Church was decorated with crimson hangings, and the choir fitted up with seats and galleries, and a throne for the Pope. There were perhaps a couple of hundred guards of different kinds; and three or four hundred English ladies, and not so many foreign male spectators; so that the place looked empty. The ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... substance, their affections are kindred, and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry[2] sheds no tears 'such as Angels weep,' but natural and human tears; she can boast of no celestial choir that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... a volunteer choir of fifty voices?" he said. "It was Stairs's idea, and he has carried it out alone. The choir consists entirely of bluejackets, soldiers, volunteers, Red Cross nurses, and ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... for a dinner, about which last there was no hanging back. Yea, also, they have hired from Carcarrow Church-town, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music; for Frank has put down the old choir band at Aberalva,—another of his mistakes,—and there is but one fiddle and a clarionet now left in all the town. So the said town waits all the day on tiptoe, ready to worship, till out of the soft brown haze the stately ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... Exeter, supreme in beauty, spoilt by a monstrous organ in the wrong place. That wood and metal giant, standing as a stone bridge to mock the eyes' efforts to dodge past it and have sight of the exquisite choir beyond, and of an east window through which the humble worshipper in the nave might hope, in some rare mystical moment, to catch a glimpse of the ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... late that it was done to the accompaniment, strangely purified and beautified by the intervening church walls and graveyard, of Mrs. Morrison's organ playing and the chanting of the village choir. Their door stood wide open, for the street was empty. Everybody was in church. The service was, as Mrs. Morrison afterwards remarked, unusually well attended. The voluntaries she played that day were Dead Marches, and the vicar preached a conscience-shattering ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... him back, saying, "Art thou a thief, or a gambler with dice, that thou fearest the daylight?" At that moment appeared many different hosts of angels, and they called unto Michael: "Ascend, O Michael, the time of song hath come, and if thou art not in heaven to lead the choir, none will sing." And Michael entreated Jacob with supplications to let him go, for he feared the angels of 'Arabot would consume him with fire, if he were not there to start the songs of praise at the proper time. Jacob said, "I will ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... the money in sweets. How matters stood with me spiritually was revealed to me, almost to my horror, at the Communion service, when I walked in procession with my fellow- communicants to the altar to the sound of organ and choir. The shudder with which I received the Bread and Wine was so ineffaceably stamped on my memory, that I never again partook of the Communion, lest I should do so with levity. To avoid this was all the easier for me, seeing that among ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... victim laid, Strong Thrasymed discharged the speeding blow Full on his neck, and cut the nerves in two. Down sunk the heavy beast; the females round Maids, wives, and matrons, mix a shrilling sound. Nor scorned the queen the holy choir to join (The first born she, of old Clymenus' line: In youth by Nestor loved, of spotless fame. And loved in age, Eurydice her name). From earth they rear him, struggling now with death; And Nestor's youngest ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... sensibility to its depths. Such works, gazed on day after day, while multitudes were kneeling beneath in the shadowy aisles, and clouds of incense were floating above, and the organ was pealing and the choir chanting in full accord, must produce lasting effects on the imagination, and thus contribute in return to the faith and fear ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... was just over. The people had begun moving and were trooping out of church. The only one who did not move was Andrey Andreyitch, a shopkeeper and old inhabitant of Verhny Zaprudy. He stood waiting, with his elbows on the railing of the right choir. His fat and shaven face, covered with indentations left by pimples, expressed on this occasion two contradictory feelings: resignation in the face of inevitable destiny, and stupid, unbounded disdain for the smocks and striped kerchiefs passing by him. As it was Sunday, he ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... looked on a small inner green, the last resting-place of the Benedictines, the room itself seemed at first sight no more than the last resting-place of worn-out odds and ends. Piles of thin sheepskin folios, dog's-eared and dirty, the rejected of the choir, stood against the walls; here and there among them lay a large brass-bound tome on which the chains that had fettered it to desk or lectern still rusted. A broken altar cumbered one corner: a stand bearing a curious—and rotting—map ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... of Sarthia and Nu-nah were removed to another part of the Temple. The Priestesses and Vestals, with the choir and musicians, were dismissed as the first part of the solemn and sacred Rites was over, but the Priests remained, never stopping in their magical work, for yet the vibrations of the new-born souls were not of sufficient strength and power to remain ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner

... account of the elaborate musical preparations, were held in the evening this year. The missionary, aided by his musical family, had been for weeks diligently employed in teaching the Indians to sing Christmas carols and other appropriate songs for this joyous occasion. The native choir acquitted themselves admirably, and everything passed off to the pleasure and ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... all the circumstances, are totally different. Here, in the vast unwalled church of nature, with the leafy tree-tops for a ceiling, their massy stems for columns; with the endless mysterious cadences of the forest for a choir; with the distant or nearer music and murmur of streams, and the ever-returning voice of birds, sounding in their ears for the made-up music of a picked band of exclusive singers: here stand men whose ears are trained to catch the faintest foot-fall of the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... farther room the choir-boys were standing in their surplices, whispering and giggling. The sound of the bell was suddenly emphatic. Canon Rogers stood, his hands folded motionless, gazing in front of him. Dobell, smiling so that a dimple appeared ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a bend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on ground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic buildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church, the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely beautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the present time, and it is probable that services have been held in the building practically without ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... whistling stormcloud; on Zephyrus wing, The Spirit-choir loud the World-anthems sing Hark! Lis't to their voice "we have passed through death's door There's no ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... established. On the afternoon of every Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridge journeymen—steady churchgoers and sedate characters—having attended service, filed from the church doors across the way to the Three Mariners Inn. The rear was usually brought up by the choir, with their bass-viols, fiddles, and ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... said nothing was ever like it in Fairyland, which was very true. And then the little Pthah set to work to put fine fairings in it; and he painted the Nineveh bulls afresh, with the blackest eyes he could paint (because he had none himself), and he got the angels down from Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like his gingerbread of old times; and he sent for everything else he could think of, and put it in his booth. There are the casts of Niobe and her children; and the Chimpanzee; and the wooden Caffres and New-Zealanders; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... and the pipe, have been the roots of every other demoralization of the filthiest and literally 'scurviest' sort among all classes;—the dirty pack of cards; the church pavement running with human saliva,—(I have seen the spittings in ponds half an inch deep, in the choir of Rouen cathedral); and the entirely infernal atmosphere of the common cafes and gambling-houses of European festivity, infecting every condition of what they call 'aesthesis,' left in the bodies of men, until they cannot be happy with the pines and pansies of the Alps, until ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... holding their naked swords aloft. On Whitsunday, Helen rose early, bathed the little fellow, who was twelve weeks old that day, and dressed him. He was then carried in her arms to the church, beside his mother. According to the old Hungarian customs the choir door was closed,—the burghers were within, and would not open till the new monarch should have taken the great coronation oath to respect the Hungarian liberties ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... where the Prince Archbishop of Vienna, accompanied by the clergy, met them at the door and presented them with holy water; that done, he proceeded with his bishops to the foot of the altar, on the gospel-side. The Imperial family took their place in the choir. The Archduke Charles, as Napoleon's representative, and the Archduchess Marie Louise, kneeled at the prayer-desks before the altar. When the Archbishop had blessed the wedding-ring, which was presented to him in a cup, the Archduke Charles and the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... remained—the continued and obvious displeasure of his tutor, and one or two of Mr Paton's chief friends among the masters. One of these was Mr Edwards, who, among other duties, had the management of the chapel choir. But at length Mr Edwards gave him a distinguished proof of his returning respect. He sat near Walter in chapel, and the hymn happened to be one which came closely home to Walter's heart after his recent troubles. This made ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... pettiness that threatened to overwhelm them, against the all-pervading asceticism of their home, they flung themselves into the difficulties of the musical art, and spent themselves upon it. Melody, harmony, and composition, three daughters of heaven, whose choir was led by an old Catholic faun drunk with music, were to these poor girls the compensation of their trials; they made them, as it were, a rampart against their daily lives. Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Paesiello, Cimarosa, Haydn, and certain secondary geniuses, developed in their ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... of temperance proved the fulcrum that had been wanting to the lever of improvement. Schools of art, concerts, lectures, choir preparation, recreation, occupation, and interests of all sorts were vigorously devised by the two Yollands; and, moreover, the "New Dragon's Head" and the "Genuine Dragon's Head," with sundry of their congeners, died a natural death by inanition; so that when ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with a certain crude and idle skill. He endured a monopoly of what little business the locality provided in this line, and sat superior on the music-stool at all the dances. He had once sung tenor in Bishop Methuen's choir, but, offended by a word of wise and kindly advice, was seen no more in surplice or in church. It will be perceived that Oswald Melvin had all the aggressive independence of Young Australia without the virility which ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... home the exception. It is not usually, however, the social affairs of the school alone which cause the girl to develop the habit of too many evenings away from home. It is the school party plus the church social, plus the moving pictures, plus the girls' club, plus the theater, plus choir practice, plus the informal evening at her chum's, plus a dozen other dissipations, that in the course of a few years change a quiet, home-loving little schoolgirl into ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... if she have either sense or ear, nothing would so predispose her to be cross as the squeaking of Mr. Touchett's penny-whistle choir." ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... which brought the penitents shouting down the tan-bark trail to the mourner's bench, it was the harmonious croonings of Prof. Fringe as he conducted the introductory program—now rendering as a solo his celebrated original composition, "The Satan Blues," now leading the special choir—which psychologically paved the way for the greater scene to follow after. There was distress in the devil's glebe-lands when this pair struck their proper stride—first the Fringian outpourings harmoniously exalting the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... outset I may mention it's my sovereign intention To revive the classic memories of Athens at its best, For my company possesses all the necessary dresses, And a course of quiet cramming will supply us with the rest. We've a choir hyporchematic (that is, ballet-operatic) Who respond to the CHOREUTAE of that cultivated age, And our clever chorus-master, all but captious criticaster, Would accept as the CHOREGUS of the early Attic stage. This return to classic ages is considered in their wages, Which are always calculated ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... furniture became more and more beautiful, for in the midst of the religious fervor nothing seemed too much to do for the Church. Slowly it died out, and a secular attitude crept into decoration. One finds grotesque carvings appearing on the choir stalls and other parts of churches and cathedrals and the ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop

... are full of larks' nests, and the larks possess the sky, Like a choir of happy spirits, melodiously debating, All is ready for your coming, dear Ritchie—yes, and I, Dear Ritchie, ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... earlier arms of the See of York were the same as on that of Canterbury, the colours of their fields differed; for in a north window of the choir of York Minster is a shield of arms, bearing the arms of Archbishop Bowett, who held the see from 1407 to 1423, impaled by the pall and pastoral staff, on a field gules. The glass is to all appearance of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various

... last degree dependable; a large grave individual who took a serious interest in the welfare of his fellows and supported established customs and institutions. He sang in a resounding barytone with the Methodist Church choir; his dignified bearing gave weight to the school board; and he accumulated a steadily growing capital at the Greenstream bank. An admirable individual, Calvin thought, and extended to him the wide hospitality ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... she did not forget Euphrosyne, as she was led to her seat by L'Ouverture, at whose entrance there was a half-suppressed murmur throughout the vast congregation—a murmur which sank into silence at the first breathing of solemn music from the choir. The signs of gratulation for the escape of the Deliverer, first heard in the streets, and now witnessed amidst the worshipping crowd, were too much for the self-command of the conspirators. Their attitude became every moment more downcast—their countenances more ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... could not now be discerned, and the architectural incongruities which, seen in the broad glare of day, would have offended the eye of taste, were lost in the general grand effect. On the left ran the magnificent pointed windows of the choir, divided by massive buttresses,—the latter ornamented with crocketed pinnacles. On the right, the building had been new-faced, and its original character, in a great measure, destroyed by the tasteless manner in which the repairs had been executed. On this side, the lower windows ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... preparations for his departure. He got measured for a burial-suit, he drew up his will, he picked out a nice lot in the cemetery and had it fenced in, he joined the church and selected six of the deacons as his pall-bearers; he also requested the choir to sing at the funeral, and he got them to run over a favorite hymn of his to see how it would sound. Then he got Toombs, the undertaker, to knock together a burial-casket with silver-plated handles, and cushions inside, and he instructed the undertaker to use his ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... Psalm and Anthem will be understood from the example quoted above—the half choir which sang the Psalm was continually interrupted by {150} the half choir which sang the Anthem. The following illustration is quoted (by Martene) as of the 11th century. In this case a verse of Magnificat was sung after each verse of ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... Missouri, preached a striking sermon from the text "A horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man;" and in the evening to participate in the grand missionary service in Salt Lake Theatre, where the congregation was led by a choir of sixty voices, and stirring addresses were made by Bishop Leonard of Salt Lake, Bishop Gailor of Tennessee, Bishop Jacob, of Newcastle, England, Bishop Dudley, of Kentucky, and Bishop Tuttle, who was formerly Bishop here, before ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... home of prayer in which now no one was praying. But I had yet to receive another and a deeper impression of solemnity and heavy silence. By a staircase I descended to the crypt, which lies beneath the choir of the church, and there, surrounded by columns of venerable marble, beside an altar, I stood on the very spot where, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary soothed the Christ Child to sleep in the dark night. And, as I stood ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... pushing age, that they could almost throw their minds back through the centuries, and imagine they heard the vesper bell tolling from the tower overhead, and the slow footfalls of the monks pacing round the cloister to those carved seats in the choir of which the very remains were ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... sung responsively by the choir, but before the end of the tenth century they were put into the mouths of monks or clergy representing the Maries and the angel. By this time the dialogue had been removed to the first services of Easter morning, and had been connected ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... there was a story of a boy who had a beautiful voice, and who with a great many other boys sang in the choir of Christ Church. The story was somewhat sad, for the boy, who loved dearly to sing, lost his sweet voice one day and never found it again; but the memory of the music as it floated up to the Gothic arches, and of the sunlight from the great stained window falling a shaft of crimson ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard



Words linked to "Choir" :   chorister, chancel, choir loft, choir school, area, consort, sanctuary, chorus, sing, choral, music, set, bema



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