"Diva" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rising. Seen from my window, it had an indescribably unreal and theatrical effect. It was the full moon of NORMA—that remarkable celestial phenomenon which rises so palpably to a hushed audience and a sublime andante chorus, until the CASTA DIVA is sung—the "inconstant moon" that then and thereafter remains fixed in the heavens as though it were a part of the solar system inaugurated by Joshua. Again the white-robed Druids filed past me, again I saw that improbable mistletoe cut from that impossible oak, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... in the Arabian Gulf, and in India; and is often expressed Dive, and Diva; as in Lacdive, Serandive, Maldive. Before Goa is an island called Diu ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... diva luco jussit ire myrteo: It puer comes puellis. Nee tamen credi potest Esse Amorem feriatum, si sagittas vexerit. 30 Ite, nymphae, posuit arma, feriatus est Amor; Jussus est inermis ire, nudus ire jussus est, Neu quid arcu, neu sagitta, neu quid igne Iaederet; ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... concerts. That of a young Pole pianiste whom I knew was good, Maurice Strakosch (perhaps he will come to America). But the great gem of music was the singer Adelaide Kemble. You know she has left the stage and the public, but this was an amateur concert for the Irish. Her singing of "Casta Diva" was by far the finest gem heard. Such richness and volume, such possession and depth and passion, such purity and firmness and ease, I did not believe possible. Although a single song in a concert it seemed to embrace the whole spirit of the opera. She sang also the moon song from "Der ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... with the image of Aphrodite." Zeune cf. Lucr. i. 24, addressing Venus, "te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse," "I would have thee for a helpmate in writing the verses..."; and below, 28, "quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem," "Wherefore all the more, O lady, lend my lays an ever-living charm" ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... Winterman, of a fascinating blonde, with very bare white shoulders, holding in her hands a scroll, on which were inscribed some notes of music, under the title Giulia Petrucci. In short, the private parlour of an elderly and respectable diva of the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... the Aquila waited to carry the master aboard. As he reached the top of the stairs, Mrs. Feversham appeared, seated near the invalid in the center of the hall, and finally, as he came to the first landing, there was the diva herself, acknowledging the applause, sweeping backward with charming exaggeration from the ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... gremium qui saepe tuum se reicit aeterno devictus volnere amoris, atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta pascit amore avidos inhians in te, dea, visus, eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore. hunc tu, diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto circumfusa super, suavis ex ore loquelas funde petens ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... our thanks and joy; but we would have been better pleased if Ileen had remained in her low rocking-chair face to face with us and let us gaze upon her. For she was no Adelina Patti— not even on the farewellest of the diva's farewell tours. She had a cooing little voice like that of a turtle-dove that could almost fill the parlor when the windows and doors were closed, and Betty was not rattling the lids of the stove ...
— Options • O. Henry
... obtained, he fulfilled his promise of a long-wished-for visit to his relations in Ireland; from whence his safe return finibus Atticis is desired by his friends here, with all the classical ardour of Sic te Diva potens Cypri[64]; for there is no man in whom more elegant and worthy qualities are united; and whose society, therefore, is more valued by those ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... murder. It was like coursing a hare, for hare-like in his pains, he began to scream—not very loudly; a wretched, wrung and wiry appeal, like some bad woman's, was all he could muster. Between the obelisks he fell on his knees, and when I reached him was praying, "Sancta Mater! Diva Mater! Ab hostium incidiis libera me!" I saw a head at a window, a head in a night-cap—a man's. Over it peeped another—a woman's. But I knew my Florence: there would be no interference in a duel. I said, "Get up, Palamone, and fight ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... you know, and be able to say at home that you knew Madame la Marquise So-and-so, and Madame la Comtesse So-and-so, and describe their dresses, why, we can manage it well enough; for we are engaged to a little party at the opera this evening with the Countess de Papillon and Madame Casta Diva, two of the best known ladies in Paris. ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... girls because folks say, Yonder boy is like a girl." For the superior physical beauty of the human male compared with the female, see The Nights, vol. iv. 15; and the boy's voice before it breaks excels that of any diva. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... succeeded by Emma Eames, and the great lost diva by Farrar and Scotti. Then, the concert over, a yawning party stumbled upstairs to bed and not a sound was heard from them until the first bell rang at seven ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the way of truth and humanity. See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xiv. c. l, where he alludes to the fact which he had more fully related under the reign of the Gordians. We may collect from the medals, that Paullina was the name of this benevolent empress; and from the title of Diva, that she died before Maximin. (Valesius ad loc. cit. Ammian.) Spanheim de U. et P. N. tom. ii. p. 300. Note: If we may believe Syrcellus and Zonaras, in was Maximin himself who ordered ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... in forma di Ninfa o d' altra Diva, Che del piu chiaro fondo di Sorga esca, E pongasi a seder in sulla ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Frangipanni home in a carriage. The poor old singer's bosom was thrilled with a sunset glow of departing greatness, as she lingered tearfully that night over the memories of the halcyon days when the officers of Francis Joseph's bodyguard had fought for the honors of the carriage courtesies of the Diva. Eheu fugaces! ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... declaring that the time has not yet come for shaking off the yoke of Rome, and that when it does she will give the signal from the altar of the Druids. After cutting the sacred mistletoe, she comes forward and invokes peace from the moon in that exquisite prayer, "Casta Diva," which electrified the world with its beauty and tenderness, and still holds its place in popular favor, not alone by the grace of its embellishments, but by the pathos of its melody. It is followed by another cavatina of ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... huddled hour in some smaller public place, some very minor hall, under dim lamps and again in my mother's company, where we were so near the improvised platform that my nose was brushed by the petticoats of the distinguished amateur who sang "Casta Diva," a very fine fair woman with a great heaving of bosom and flirt of crinoline, and that the ringletted Italian gentleman in black velvet and a romantic voluminous cloak who represented, or rather who professionally and uncontrollably was, an Improvisatore, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... middle of the room, and strikes her attitude for song, and positively, almost with the Sanfredini's voice—illusion of it, you know,—trills us out more than I could have believed credible to be recollected by a child. But I've told you the story. We called her Fredi from that day. I sent the diva, with excuses and compliments, a nuptial present-necklace, Roman goldwork, locket-pendant, containing sunny curl, and below a fine pearl; really pretty; telling her our grounds for the liberty. She replied, accepting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
