"Minuet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... belabor these primitive instruments, and made a sort of rhythmic strumming, which kept time to a monotonous chant. Two other girls executed a dance to this, which, for its slowness, might be considered an African minuet. The dancing children were bright-looking, and not ungraceful. Work stops at noon for a recess; and the mothers run from the field to visit the imprisoned babies, whom they carry to their own homes and keep till ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... touches are strongly confirmatory of this description. For instance, her grace gives a ball, orders every one to come at six, to sup at twelve, and go away directly after: opens the ball herself with a minuet. To this ball she sends strange invitations; 'yet,' says Horace, 'except these flights, the only extraordinary thing the duchess did was to do nothing extraordinary, for I do not call it very mad that some pique happening between her and the Duchess of Bedford, the latter had this ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... daylight fades and night draws near. Ten choristers and dancers, indiscriminately termed Siexes, appear before the altar clad in the costume of Seventeenth-Century pages, and reverently and with great earnestness sing and dance an old-time minuet, with castanet accompaniment, of course. The opening song is in honor of ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... indeed my own Misfortunes do not make less impression on me than they ever did, yet now I never feel for those of an other. My accomplishments too, begin to fade—I can neither sing so well nor Dance so gracefully as I once did—and I have entirely forgot the MINUET DELA COUR. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and pretty muddy poodle, very wretched looking, and a critic, no doubt, who barked out something about forgetting sound tradition, all the spectators proclaimed Zamore the Vestris of dogs and the god of dancing. Our artist had performed a minuet, a jig, and a deux temps waltz. A large number of two-footed spectators had joined the four-footed ones, and Zamore enjoyed the honour of ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... have passed away from thee, my native State! Forever have they gone, and the times when over waxed floors thy sons and daughters gracefully performed the minuet. The stately bow, the graceful curtsey are seen no more; there is hospitality yet lingering in thy halls, but fashion is making its way there too. The day when there was a tie between master and slave,—is ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... she was docility itself—and once on the other bank, where the road begins to mount through pine woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her former minuet. Another application had the same effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over from head to foot; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... besides the minuet and quadrilles, teaches us to walk and courtesy gracefully. To tell the truth, I was so ignorant when I came, that I knew but one mode of making a salutation; but there are several kinds, which must be employed toward personages of different ranks; one for the king, another for the princes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... synonymous words;' and when his sister marries, she complains that her brother 'has long made all other men indifferent to her. Such an infinite difference!' In the evening, according to custom, she dances a minuet with her bridegroom, but whispers a friend that she would have performed better had she ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... man of his word; otherwise one suspects he already saw his Siege of Glogau to be impossible. Russians are not very skilful at the War-minuet: fancy what it will be dancing to such a partner! Friedrich, finding they are for Glogau, whisks across the Oder, gets there before them: "No Glogau for you!" They stand agape for some time; then think "Well then Breslau!" Friedrich again ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... never idle, these legs: there was no sitting cross-legged in a chair for St. George: he was not constructed along those lines. Hardly a week had passed before he had them across Spitfire's mate; had ridden to hounds; danced a minuet with Harry and Kate; walked half-way to Kennedy Square and back—they thought he was going to walk all the way and headed him off just in time; and best of all—(and this is worthy of special mention)—had slipped them into the lower section of a suit of clothes—and ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Heemskirk and Mr. Neil Semple will now hab de honour of 'bliging de company wid de French minuet." ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... three-bar rhythm may be found in the Scherzo of Beethoven's Tenth Sonata and in the Minuet of Mozart's G minor Symphony—the latter, one of the ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... of civilization have engaged Mr. Tom Matthews to teach the Hottentots the minuet-de-la-Cour and tumbling. He departs with the other missionaries when the hot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... came to set forth the exposition of the opening movement, leading to a free development, with various episodes, and an assured return to the original statement. The prevailing character being thus defined, the story readily unfolds, aided by related keys, in a slow movement and perhaps a minuet or scherzo, and gains its denouement in a stirring finale, written in the original key. Each movement has its own subjects, its individual development, with harmony of plan and idea ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... to drink away her Senses; and that is the best Excuse for her. Ah! how often hath she cast a jealous Eye on some Heifer! and cried out, Why should that vixen please my Love? Behold, says she, how the Slut dances a Minuet on the Grass before him: Let me die, but she is silly enough to think her Airs become her in my Love's Eyes. At length she resolved to punish her Rivals. One Heifer she ordered barbarously to be yoked to ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... life, its meetings, its passions, its partings. A student of Shakspere, I had learned something of every dance alluded to in his plays, and hence partially understood several of those I now saw—the minuet, the pavin, the hey, the coranto, the lavolta. The dancers were attired in fashion as ancient ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... be my poison, if my Bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes, 'Water-parted,' or 'The Minuet in Ariadne.'" She Stoops ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... sort of dignified air, which from a child I had acquired, effectually shielded me from the attacks of impertinence or curiosity. Garrick was delighted with everything I did. He would sometimes dance a minuet with me, sometimes request me to sing the favourite ballads of the day; but the circumstance which most pleased him was my tone of voice, which he frequently told me closely resembled that of his ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... unjust that it not only aroused the Raritans, but all neighboring tribes, and they prepared for war. The hitherto peaceful Raritans killed the whites whenever they found them alone in the forest. Fifteen years before some of Minuet's men murdered an Indian belonging to a tribe seated beyond the Harlem River. His nephew, then a boy, who saw the outrage and made a vow of vengeance, had now grown to be a lusty man. He executed his vow by murdering a wheelwright while he was ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... countries at war. The ladies indeed may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh; but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, the lady directress, or intendant, or what you will, pitches on a gentleman and lady to walk a minuet; which they perform with a formality that approaches to despondence. After five or six couple have thus walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country dances; each gentleman furnished with a partner from the aforesaid lady directress; so they dance ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... open thrown, The oak beams festooned with the garlands gay; The red dais where the fiddlers sit alone, Where, flushed with pride, the good old tunes they play. Strike, fiddlers, strike! we're ready for the set; The young folks' feet are eager for the dance; We'll trip Sir Roger and the minuet, And revel in ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... into service, providing suitable care is taken to avoid unpleasant side effects on the state of the processor: while the special-purpose register is being used to hold an intermediate value, a delicate minuet is required in which the previous value of the register is saved and then restored just before the official function (and value) of the special-purpose register ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... before the evening was out. Bella Barnes played the piano middling, and Maddie could sing first-rate, and all of them could dance. The last thing I recollect was Starlight showing Maddie what he called a minuet step, and Jonathan and the old woman sitting on the sofa as ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... her tongue, namely, la Belle Guillotine, who blithely led the quadrille d'honneur, with a Robespierre for consort, to music furnished gratis by the raucous throats of ragged sans- culottes. Instead of lords and ladies treading the stately minuet in Versailles saloons adorned with beauty roses, the bare feet of hungry men beat time to the fierce Carmagnole ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... throwing back her head, suddenly flung herself into the coon dance which, in its way, was as wild and erratic as the minuet had been stately and methodical. Wilder and wilder grew her gyrations—head, feet, legs, shoulders, hair, hands, arms, were in seemingly perpetual motion. The audience grew wildly excited. They jumped up, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... daughter knows just how to hold her hands in company, just how and when to smile, just how to enter a room or gracefully leave it. Easy, indeed, must lie the head of that mother who is secure in the knowledge that her daughter will never make a false step in the stately minuet of etiquette, or strike a discordant note in the festival of life; that she will never laugh too loud, nor turn her head in the street, even when the gay and glittering "king of the cannibal isles" rides by, nor do anything odd or ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... such a question; but we know no way of answering it but by asking in return why an Esquimaux Indian should not compose an overture equal to any of Handel's, or a Dutch boor dance a pas seul as well as Vestris, or a minuet as well as the prince ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... out the air of a minuet, and swept a low curtsy, coming up to the recover with the prettiest little foot in the world pointed out. Her mother came in as she was in this attitude; my lady had been in her closet, having taken poor Frank's conversion in a very serious way; the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... step and air, both of them too are beautiful, as Nova Scotia girls generally are. The first is young and delicate, and as blooming as a little blush-rose. She holds out with each hand a portion of her silk dress, as if she was walking a minuet, and it discloses a snow-white petticoat, and such a dear little foot and ankle—lick! Her step is short and mincing. She has a new bonnet on, just imported by the last English steamer. It has a horrid name, it is called a kiss-me-quick. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... to his judgment (for a hasty sketch in that big pocket-book he carries) on the soft slope of one of those fresh spaces in the wood, where the trees unclose a little, while Jean-Baptiste and my youngest sister danced a minuet on the grass, to the notes of some strolling lutanist who had found us out. He is visibly cheerful at the thought of his return to Paris, and became for a moment freer and more animated than I have ever yet seen him, as he discoursed to us about the paintings of Peter ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... light of the matter, my young friend; but you will not find the task before you so easy an affair as dancing a gavotte or a minuet, I can tell you. Do you know that Chambly is some seventy leagues distant? How do you mean to find ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... a minuet by Mozart; then the Cesar Franck sonata; and when he came back to make his bow, he was holding in his hand a Gloire de Dijon and a La France rose. Involuntarily, Gyp raised her hand to her own roses. His eyes met hers; he bowed just a little lower. Then, quite naturally, put the roses to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... command "Left, wheel into line!" He heard the calls that followed—"Eyes front!" "Steady," "Quick march," "Halt, dress "—and felt, rather than saw, the whole elaborate manoeuvre; the rear ranks locking up, the covering sergeants jigging about like dancers in a minuet—pace to the rear, side step to the right—the pivot men with stiff arms extended, the companies wheeling up and dressing; all happening precisely as ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... consists in associating two different—though somewhat related—Song-Forms. The practice was so common in certain of the older dances, particularly in the minuet, that this design is also known as ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... her the fourth lesson to-day, and, as far as the rules of composition go, am tolerably satisfied with her; she put the bass to the first minuet which I placed before her, very correctly. We now commenced writing in three parts. She tried it, and fatigued herself in attempts, but it was impossible to help her; nor can we move on a step further, for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... so for your Majesty's service.'—'Well, then, Truchsess and you are for England; the day after to-morrow you go. Speak to M. de Podewils!'—This was said like a flash of lightning. His Majesty passed into another apartment; and I, I went to finish my minuet with the Lady; who had been not less astonished to see me disappear from her eyes, in the middle of the dance, than I was at what the King said to me." [Bielfeld, i. 167, 168.] ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... A minuet was already in progress on the floor, and for a few moments Kate watched the stately, graceful dance, while Darrell, having adjusted her wrap lightly about her, seated himself beside her and silently watched her ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... ceremony was performed in pantomime and the bride and groom received the congratulations of their friends. The groom bowed low over the bride's hand and led her to the center of the hall. The other couples formed in line behind them and a stately minuet was danced. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... mount through pine-woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her former minuet. [Footnote: Minuet: a slow, stately dance.] Another application had the same effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over from head to foot; ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the surface again, and began a conversation of which, on both our parts, the first few steps were taken on the tiptoes of an archaic politeness; we trod convention like a polished French floor; you might have expected us, after such deliberate and graceful preliminaries, to dance a verbal minuet. ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... powdered hair, on fresh young faces laughing behind their masks; on white shoulders and jewelled throats, on fan and brooch and spur and lacquered heel. There was a scent of old-time perfume in the air, and, as Duane adjusted his mask and drew near, he saw that sets were already forming for the minuet. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Fear Anadyomene Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens To an Aeolian Harp To Erinna To Cleis Paris in Spring Madeira from the Sea City Vignettes By the Sea On the Death of Swinburne Triolets Vox Corporis A Ballad of Two Knights Christmas Carol The Faery Forest A Fantasy A Minuet of Mozart's Twilight The Prayer ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... greatest thing in it seemed to be this hateful, miscalled love that preceded sorrow and shame and death. Was love always loathsome to look upon? Not in pictures or on the stage, where it was represented as a kind of minuet in which the man makes graceful advances to a woman who smiles as she draws away, ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... of Canada," said he. "I have no friends yet to offer you, though you shall have some young dogs like yourself very soon. What do you like?—riding, hunting, a quiet minuet on the terrace, eh? Ah me, the coquettes of ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... especially for the young people, as dancing was one of their special features. Just before the close of her second social season Mrs. Halliday gave a fancy-dress ball, which was a happy inspiration, varying as it did the monotony of germans, receptions and teas. On this occasion the minuet was danced by the younger guests dressed in Louis ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... jig with mirth than a minuet with melancholy," laughed the girl; "and yet it would take a great deal to make me miserable if I were with you, and you loved me, my dear aunt. Still, I own I like to be rich, so as to have everything I want, and give everybody what they want; ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... serious authors of a generation—and Macaulay was nothing less than this—affects style coupe or style soutenu. The critic of style is not the dancing-master, declaiming on the deep ineffable things that lie in a minuet. He is not the virtuoso of supines and gerundives. The morality of style goes deeper 'than dull fools suppose.' When Comte took pains to prevent any sentence from exceeding two lines of his manuscript or five of print; to restrict ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... grin! But if you're billed to mingle in the merry throng at a dance fest, you ain't goin' to trot out on the floor with any such antique act as last season's Boston dip, are you? Might as well spring the minuet. And specially when I'd had word that among others was to be a certain party. Uh-huh! You can play it both ways too that Vee would be up on the very latest, and if it was in me I meant to be ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... Foster," said Helen, welcoming a tall boy who was not a member of the U. S. C. but who had helped at the Club entertainment by taking part in the minuet. He shook hands with Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Smith and then submitted to having his eyes bandaged. He was followed by Gregory Patton, another high school lad, and to the great joy of everybody, James, after all, came on his crutches ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... When sixteen he grew ahead,[202] and was so feeble that he could scarcely drag himself upstairs. Attempts to teach him dancing failed from the extreme weakness of his knees.[203] He showed a taste for music, and could scrape a minuet on the fiddle at six years of age. He read all such books as came in his way. His parents objected to light literature, and he was crammed with such solid works as Rapin, Burnet's Theory of the Earth, and Cave's Lives of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... memory of the good old days, Whose ways to them were modern ways, Congenial ghosts across Rock Creek, With formal bows and steps antique, Rehearse a spectral minuet Where once in bright assemblies met— Beruffled belles looked love to beaus In powdered wigs and faultless hose; Or merchant ghosts survey the skies And venture guesses weatherwise Regarding winds that will prevail To speed their ships ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... ballet, cotillion, quadrille, waltz, reel, fandango, polka, two-step, polonaise, mazurka, schottische, allemande cancan, minuet, courant, bolero, gavot. Associated Words: terpsichorean, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... proportions and regular system of European encampments, with the glitter and finish of their appointments; instead of feather-trimmed hats and violet-colored facings, with marching and countermarching in the precision and grace of a minuet, he saw a small army of eleven thousand men, poorly clad, with nothing that could by the utmost courtesy be called a uniform, and woefully lacking in knowledge of ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... hold of the buttercups. I lay down at full length and looked off through the stems, and then I saw for the first time how close they were, and that they constantly swayed and touched, and sometimes locked fast together for a second. Stately as a minuet it looked, but joyous and loving as the wildest waltz I ever danced in your arms, my darling. Oh, how dare we presume to be so sure that the flowers are not glad as we are glad! On such a day as to-day I never doubt it; and I picked one as reverently ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... word about me, if you dare; one whisper only, and my Spahis shall cut your throat from ear to ear. Off! Or you shall have a bullet to quicken your steps; misers dance well when pistols play the minuet!" ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... pictures can be turned into tableaux-vivants, or even acted. There was "Pattikin's House;" I am sure we had the greatest fun with those pictures, we being so many girls: and "The man all tattered and torn that married the maiden all forlorn;" that was on p. 652 of the volume for 1876: "The Minuet," in January, 1877: "Hagar in the Desert," in June, 1877; my aunty did that, and it was lovely: the little girl in "The Owl That Stared," in November, 1876; and "Leap-Year," in the same number. All these we had at our own home, but there are lots of others ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... year 1681. Lewis Mitchelbourne was young in those days, and esteemed as a gentleman of refinement and sensibility, with a queer taste for escapades, pardonable by reason of his youth. It was his pride to bear his part in the graceful tactics of a minuet, while a saddled horse waited for him at the door. He delighted to vanish of a sudden from the lighted circle of his friends into the byways where none knew him, or held him of account, not that it was all vanity with Mitchelbourne though ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... his toes to be tender.) But, really, at my time of life and at Jarber's, it is too much of a good thing. There is an orchestra still standing in the open air at the Wells, before which, in the presence of a throng of fine company, I have walked a minuet with Jarber. But, there is a house still standing, in which I have worn a pinafore, and had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread to the tooth and the door-handle, and toddling away from the door. And how should I look ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... Columbine into the bedroom, sweeps the clothes together into a neat pile and stands waiting by the door. There enters Lord Eglantine, the Beau. A trifle pale, disordered, calm. He has been gambling all night. To the rhythm of a minuet Harlequin takes his cloak, hat, and cane, takes off his coat and gets him into a gorgeous dressing-gown, and so into his chair. And there he sits looking for all the world like the bundle of clothes come ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... apartment, we found a select few, surrounded by a crowd of spectators, busily performing a minuet, with all the congees and flourishes which belonged to that courtly dance; and my companion, infected by the contagion of example, was soon, as I had anticipated, waving his chapeau bras, and gracefully bowing before one of the prettiest girls in the room. I had neither skill nor spirits to qualify ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, tho' I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes. 'Water parted'*, or the minuet in 'Ariadne'.' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... of etiquette and maintain a dignity befitting His Majesty's chosen representative. How did the seigneurs rank among themselves and with the leading English-speaking people? Who were to dance in the state minuet? Should dancing cease when the bishops came in, and for how long? Was that curtsy dropped quite low enough to her viceregal self, and did that debutante offer her blushing cheek in quite the proper way to Carleton when he graciously gave her the presentation kiss? How immeasurably ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... seemed to show considerable aptitude for the work. The business prospered, and Uncle Thomas was very proud of his handsome ward, who was quite in demand at parties and balls and in a general social way, while the uncle could not dance a minuet to save him. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... run away, my dear,' said Signor Billsmethi, 'this is Mr. Cooper—Mr. Cooper, of Fetter-lane. Mr. Cooper, my daughter, sir—Miss Billsmethi, sir, who I hope will have the pleasure of dancing many a quadrille, minuet, gavotte, country-dance, fandango, double-hornpipe, and farinagholkajingo with you, sir. She dances them all, sir; and so shall you, sir, before you're a ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... young girls on coming into an assembly room, where they expect their dress, and steps, and manner to be examined, as in dancing a minuet, may have another origin; and may be considered as a hot fit of returning confidence, after a previous cold ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... spokesman. But they found the ladies in England of a far different taste from those who had rendered them famous in France: the rhetoric of the one had no effect on the fair sex, and the fine mien of the other distinguished him only in a minuet, which he first introduced into England, and which he danced with tolerable success. The English court had been too long accustomed to the solid wit of Saint Evremond, and the natural and singular charms of his hero, to be seduced by appearances; ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... of which is usually in beer and syrups. Some conversation on the weather, the appearance of the crops, the fine condition of the gardens, the care of flowers, and especially of tulips; a slow and measured dance, from time to time, perhaps a minuet; sometimes a waltz, but one of those German waltzes which achieve a turn and a half per minute, and during which the dancers hold each other as far apart as their arms will permit,—such is the usual fashion of the balls attended by ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... I have hit it?" he went on, quizzing the Chamberlain. "See that you give me fair warning, and I'll practise the accustomed and essential reel. Upon my soul, I haven't danced since Lady Mary left, unless you call it so that foolish minuet. You should have seen her Grace at St. James's last month. Gad! she footed it like an angel; there's not a better dancer in London town. See that your wife's a dancer, whoever she may be, Sim; let her dance and sing and play the harpsichord ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the classic style, accurate, evenly balanced, and supple. Fifine, in his hands, did not cut capers, like at a dance-hall, but made steady, certain progress; she rose and fell in cadence, like a lady of quality solemnly leading some ancient minuet. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... received the fair— Order and elegance presided there— Each gay Right Honourable had her place, To walk a minuet with becoming grace. No racing to the dance with rival hurry, Such was thy sway, O ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... than I as a young man was prepared to stand. "My dear father," I answered, "what did he do? He could draw a little, but could he to save his life have got a picture into the Royal Academy exhibition? He built two organs and could play the Minuet in Samson on one and the March in Scipio on the other; he was a good carpenter and a bit of a wag; he was a good old fellow enough, but why make him out so ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Ellis drew Mary Philipse aside and told her the tale that grew passionate in the telling. Fortune was kind, for he told it to the soft accompaniment of wine glasses ringing, and the slow music of the stately minuet. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... to walk ceremoniously in pairs round the room. Three of the ladies placed their arms under those of their attendant gentlemen. On seats being resumed, the master of the ceremonies and the lady who came in the sedan-chair arose; he led her to the centre of the room; Foote's minuet struck up; the pair commenced the movements with an attention to time; they performed the crossings and turnings, the advancings, retreatings, and obeisances, during which there was a perfect silence, and they concluded amid thunders of applause. What ultimately became of the ingenious manager with ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... able to dance a minuet; b certain that he is well fitted out; c contemptible; d having 3 rows of teeth; e heavy; h kind to ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... viii. 131) talks of some one 'riding on three elephants at once like Astley.' On p. 406 he says:—'I can almost believe that I could dance a minuet on a horse galloping full ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... alone, approached her partner, with the rosy, laughing face of a plump little fairy, and taking her skirt in her two fingers as if to suggest a minuet. "Ballir... dantsir... very choli..." remarked the good lady. Was this a memory that she evoked, or a temptation that she offered? At any rate, as she did not let go of him, Tartarin, to escape her pertinacity, went ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... there was a pretty boy who could do things to the piano, a funeral-faced duck that could tell funny stories, and a bunch of six or eight likely-lookin' ladies and gents who'd laid themselves out to prance through what they called a minuet. Lastly there was me ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... describe the pleasure which this assurance gave the Baron, who, with an air of gallantry half appertaining to the stiff Scottish laird, and half to the officer in the French service, offered his arm to the fair speaker, and led the way, in something between a stride and a minuet step, into the large dining parlour, followed by all the rest of the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... punishment be not so long delayed as to involve a great and innocent family, who, though they share not the guilt, will most likely participate in the atonement." Sir George Saville followed, and in his speech likened the crown and parliament to dancers in a minuet, to a tune composed by the cabinet—the crown led off one way, the parliament to the opposite corner; and they then joined hands, when the dance ended as it began. He also compared ministers to the Spartan, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... vocalism^; chaunt, chant; psalm, psalmody; hymn; song &c (poem) 597; canticle, canzonet^, cantata, bravura, lay, ballad, ditty, carol, pastoral, recitative, recitativo^, solfeggio^. Lydian measures; slow music, slow movement; adagio &c adv.; minuet; siren strains, soft music, lullaby; dump; dirge &c (lament) 839; pibroch^; martial music, march; dance music; waltz &c (dance) 840. solo, duet, duo, trio; quartet, quartett^; septett^; part song, descant, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... wonder at the reason of so late a visit. "I should indeed," answered he, "have made some apology for disturbing you at this hour, had not my finding you in company assured me I do not break in upon your repose." Bellarmine rose from his chair, traversed the room in a minuet step, and hummed an opera tune, while Horatio, advancing to Leonora, asked her in a whisper if that gentleman was not a relation of hers; to which she answered with a smile, or rather sneer, "No, he is no ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... the addition of two more Gentlemen to-night. A Doctor Harrington—a handsome man, I think—and an elderly Gentleman, Captain Grigg; the most laughable creature I ever saw. They tell me I shall be highly diverted at the minuet he dances; and we intend to ...
— Journal of a Young Lady of Virginia, 1782 • Lucinda Lee Orr
... and angry across his cheek, he stepped back a pace, and without a word, without a retaliatory movement, without even a change of facial expression he executed the most elaborately courteous bow, as of one treading a minuet, recovered the upright and walked away bareheaded. The old clergyman was left planted there, the cane still jigging up and down ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... that zone of glowing firelight where she stood. A white flame passed over his face and lighted his eyes with that burning, incandescent glow that only those cold, blue eyes can show. Primeval, all preliminary bowing and scraping in the minuet of wooing ignored, he saw his heart's desire and seized it, lifting the Pearl in his arms, crushing her against his breast, until she, dazed for the ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... the prettiest and deservedly popular little works in the modern repertory is the Paderewski "Minuet," Op. 14, No. 1. Modern minuets are echoes of the classical period. Compositions of this kind are to be found in the sonatas and symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and even further back in the suites of Bach. Accordingly ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... awaking of a sweet desire through the warmer and warmer courtship to the raptures of sensual delight. Civilized society has more or less covered the naked passion, but from the graceful play of the minuet to the graceless movements of the turkey trot the sensual, not to say the sexual, element can easily be recognized by the sociologist. Here again cause and effect move in a circle. Love excitement expresses itself in ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... Prompter, I expect to dance first goddess; I will not dance under Miss Minuet; I am sure I shew more to the audience than any ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... hand and arm gracefully high, in the old minuet pose, and laughed up at Clarence. He wasn't supposed to be her lover, and yet he saw ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... if breath of the lips can uphold it, it should rise, indeed! Up! above the wall! over Mrs. Richardson's elm, over the topmost branch—hurrah! out of sight! Margaret adds her voice to the acclamations. Beat that if you can, Mary! That doubtful wind keeps yours suspended in a graceful minuet; its pace is accelerated—but earthwards! it has committed self-destruction by running foul of a rose-bush. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... his feet," as we called it, three times before he came down. Well, at the end of each term there was what they called an "exhibition ball," in which the scholars danced cotillons and country-dances; also something called a "gavotte," and I think one or more walked a minuet. But all this is not what—I wanted to say. At this exhibition ball he used to bring out a number of hoops wreathed with roses, of the perennial kind, by the aid of which a number of amazingly complicated and startling evolutions were exhibited; and also his two daughters, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Dorry's outstretched hand with nonsensical grace, and so dancing to the fireplace together, in a sort of burlesque minuet, they brought back with them two little mahogany and hair-cloth foot-benches, placing them at ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... ball-room dancing; which, however, has been divested of much of its cold formality, and improved in various other respects since the time of that singular person. It is, nevertheless, a matter of regret, that the graceful and stately Minuet has been entirely abandoned in favour of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various
... early evening, Roosevelt would stop and listen for many minutes to the weird, strange music, or steal upon the cocks where they were gathered holding their dancing rings, and watch them posturing and strutting about as they paced through their minuet. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... over details as to the "bevy of beauty", daughters of "the Thirty-four", and the church of waiting ladies, the carpeted path between palms and exotics, and how the ticket- holders heard the organ tell the Cantilenet Nuptiale and Bennett's Minuet; and then the multitudinous stir: behold the bridegroom cometh!—the little necessary bridegroom of no importance, and then the white entry of bride and bridal train, while the choir knelt ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... dictated treaties. She had subjugated great cities and provinces. She had forced the Castilian pride to yield her the precedence. She had summoned Italian princes to prostrate themselves at her footstool. Her authority was supreme in all matters of good breeding, from a duel to a minuet. She determined how a gentleman's coat must be cut, how long his peruke must be, whether his heels must be high or low, and whether the lace on his hat must be broad or narrow. In literature she gave law to the world. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... continue in this way with you for two weeks, but every day with some slight change. After a short time, I would combine with this practice the study of two or three pieces, suitably arranged for the piano; for example, Mozart's minuet in E flat, arranged by Schulhoff, and his drinking-song, or similar pieces. We will, at present, have nothing to do with Beethoven. You are, perhaps, afraid that all this might be tedious; but I have ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... minuet and frolicsome country-dance has been trod in those now dark and empty rooms by the Philadelphia belles and beaux of 1780, when, the rich furniture all set back against the walls, the general's blacks were had up from the negro quarters with blaring horns and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... making a minuet bow, and off I went to the farm-house. Such a pretty walk it was, too! through a thicket of birches, down a little hill-side into a hollow full of hoary chestnut-trees, across a bubbling, dancing brook, and you came out upon the tiniest orchard in the world, a one-storied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... epicycles taken from the history of art need only look at the School of Sculpture which flourished in the last century under Bernini, and especially at its further cultivation in France. This school represented commonplace nature instead of antique beauty, and the manners of a French minuet instead of antique simplicity and grace. It became bankrupt when, under Winckelmann's direction, a return was made to the antique school. Another example is supplied in the painting belonging to the first quarter of this ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... essays,—the statesman, the ambassador no more; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene; where in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall with the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... took but three Leaps, and was soon out of Sight, Then chirp'd his own Praises the rest of the Night. With Step so majestic the Snail did advance, And promis'd the Gazers a Minuet to dance. ...
— The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast • Mr. Roscoe
... opera-dancers. Not at all. And not like Madame Anybody's finished pupils. Not the least. It was not quadrille dancing, nor minuet dancing, nor even country-dance dancing. It was neither in the old style, nor the new style, nor the French style, nor the English style: though it may have been, by accident, a trifle in the Spanish style, which is a free and joyous ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... one red riband matched against another, one garter balanced against a rival fragment of blue; the whole a court-ball, in which the nation had no more share than if it had been danced in the saloon of Windsor; a masquerade in which the political minuet was gravely danced by the peerage in character, and of which the nation heard scarcely even the fiddles. But those times have passed away, and, for the honour of common sense, they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... of it when I was an infant; and I was the only officer in the regiment, when we were at Athlone, that was prevented going to the race ball—and I would not for a hundred pounds. I was to dance the first minuet, and the first country dance, with that beautiful creature, Miss Rose Cox. I was makin' a glass of brandy punch—not feelin' quite myself—and I dhressed and all, in our room, when Ensign Higgins, a most thoughtless young man, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... quaintly decorated with garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig, minuet, song, air, ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... said the elderly ally of the nobleman, "you could not drag the young ladies from cotillion or minuet. And the men would stay till the dawn to ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... did. Sometime since I wrote all the invitation cards. There was a large company assembled in a large handsome upper room in the new end of the house. We had two fiddles and I had the honor to open the diversion of the evening in a minuet with Miss Soley. Here follows a list of the company as we form'd for country-dancing. Miss Soley and Miss Anna Green Winslow; Miss Calif and Miss Scott; Miss Williams and Miss McLarth; Miss Codman and Miss Winslow; Miss Ives and Miss ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... was the country-dance, small of taste; And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist; And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp, Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp; And the high-stepping minuet, face to face, Mutual worship of conscious grace; And all the shapes in which beauty goes ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... always make connexions for one, and not a creature thinks of our principles, till they find them out by our conduct: and nobody can possibly do that till we are married, for they give us no power beforehand. The men know nothing of us in the world while we are single, but how we can dance a minuet, or play a ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... dab-chick's." A lady has left a description of him entering a room, "knees bent, and feet on tiptoe as if afraid of a wet floor." When his feet were not swollen with the gout, they were so slender, he said, that he "could dance a minuet on a silver penny." He was ridiculously lean, and his hands were crooked with his unmerited disease. An invalid, a caricature of the birds, and not particularly well dressed in spite of his lavender suit and partridge silk stockings, he has nevertheless ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... was in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that he spoke, growing every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the constitution, and Queens Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that he danced his pathetic minuet. She was adamant; but he, too, through all his embarrassment, showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left her nothing had been decided—the whole formation of the Government was hanging in the ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... that you and I were cast in different moulds? No, my Minorite Sister, I should not love it—never a whit. I want my sunshine for mine own life—not to brighten sick maids and polish up poor childre. Go your ways, O best of Pandoras, and let me be. I'll try over the step of that new minuet ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... the movement of a lady in a minuet, when you rein him in a little. I drove those cattle, Corny, across the pine-plains, to Schenectady, in one hour and twenty-six minutes;—sixteen miles, as the crow flies—and nearer sixty, if you follow all the turnings ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... poetry were inseparable. Dancing is the poetry of motion, and its connection with music, as the poetry of sound, occurs at all times. In our own day musical themes are marked by forms originally dance times, as waltz time, gavotte time, minuet time, etc. ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous
... are surely the most awkward people in the world," she said. "You know Lord Fawn, who was talking to Miss Effingham just now. You should have heard him trying to pay me a compliment before dinner. It was like a donkey walking a minuet, and yet they say he is a clever man and can make speeches." Could it be possible that Madame Max Goesler's ears were so sharp that she had heard the things which Lord ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Camelot, unspoiled, unchanged. The high mountains still wore their invisibility masks, but the lower mountains, not too proud to show themselves to motoring mortals, grouped as graciously together as if they were lovely ladies and gay knights, turned to stone just when they had assembled to tread a minuet. And the fair Glaslyn flowed past their feet with a swing and sweep, as though the crystal flood kept time to dance music which our ears ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... cabin and here Sir John says, "I was convinced of an error into which I had before fallen. For I had fancied, that for the freezing of the sound, it was necessary for it to be wrapped up, and, as it were, preserved in breath. But I found my mistake, when I heard the sound of a kit playing a minuet over our heads." ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... splendid ball at the Abbey of Holyrood-house, on the Queen's birthday, given by Colonel Graeme. I exhibited my existence in a minuet, and as I was dressed in a full chocolate suit, and wore my most solemn countenance, I looked as you used to tell me, like the fifth act of a deep Tragedy. Lord K—— danced with Miss C——, by the fire of whose eyes, his melodious ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... will the king throw his handkerchief? With which of the two will he converse most? Will he feel at ease as he treads the minuet under the eyes of the devotee? Or will he venture to recognize HER ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... touch of a too daring hand or foot, or a whisper behind a fan, which was in truth a furtive kiss, with a hundred other trifling liberties, were permitted. Frivolity enveloped the company as with a silken veil, and yet everything moved as politely and as sedately as a minuet. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... jobs. The victory was duly celebrated with dinners, garden parties and balls at which the new and very shocking "waltz" was danced to the great scandal of the ladies and gentlemen who remembered the minuet of ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... Wesley did not get very far with the savages who, it may be imagined, were more responsive to the kind of "conversion" attempted in South Carolina, by a French dancing-master, who went out from Charleston in the early days and taught them the steps of the stately minuet. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... writers are, to my mind, those whose mastery of their art grows as the initial impulse declines. But my young friend appeared to me to value only prodigal and fantastic vigour, and to prefer the sword-dance to the minuet. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... were two minuets to take in all the party. Cynthia and Mr. Jordan were in the head one, with the bride. He was a little stiff and excused himself, as he wasn't much given to dancing. It didn't matter so much in the minuet. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... After a minuet had been paced to the gentle music of the lute and clavichord, a schottische succeeded to the ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... manners. She returns his tenderness, as it is extremely natural a young person so educated and brought up would return that of a criminal, who has made an impression on her heart by shooting her servants, rifling her trunks, and forcing her to dance a minuet with him on a deserted heath ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... in every sentence there is an argument. No man in England influenced his time more than Bolingbroke. He was the inspirer of writers. Burke devoured Bolingbroke, and when he took up his pen, wrote with the same magnificent, stately minuet step. Finally he was full of the essence of Bolingbroke to the point of saturation, and then he began to criticize him. Had Bolingbroke been alive Burke would have quarreled with him—they were so much alike. As it was, Burke contented himself by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... highness condescended to honour a ball in the evening; and often did young Saumarez hear his aunt (a sister of his mother, married to Major Brabazon of the 65th regiment,) relate her having opened the ball in a minuet with his royal highness. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... And I wonder where they're off to. Step-step-stepping to the beating of the drums. But the rhythm changes as though a mist Were curling and twisting Over the landscape. For a moment a rhythmless, tuneless fog Encompasses her. Then her senses jog To the breath of a stately minuet. Herr Altgelt's violin is set In tune to the slow, sweeping bows, and retreats and advances, To curtsies brushing the waxen floor as the Court dances. Long and peaceful like warm Summer nights When stars shine ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... beauties of nature; and skies of sunny brightness, that mocked the golden hues of even an American sun. The experience of Miss Emmerson went no further than the simple evolutions of the country dance, or the deliberate and dignified procession of the minuet. No wonder, therefore, that her faculties were bewildered by the complex movements of the cotillion: and, in short, as the good lady daily contemplated the improvements of the female youth around her, she became ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... purpose of the Academy was to fit young gentlemen for the army or the court; to give them the chance of sweating a shirt every morning with the fencing-master and of learning to thread the intricacies of the court minuet. They modelled themselves on the dress and bearing of the pages, who were always ruffling it about the quadrangle in court dress and sword, or booted and spurred for a day's hunting at the King's chase ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... in which the dance had just been opened by Lady Grebe with a minuet—it being now seven o'clock, according to the tradition—he was received with a welcome befitting his rank, and looked round for Barbara. She was not dancing, and seemed to be preoccupied—almost, indeed, as though ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... Don Diego walked a minuet with Madam Clement; for whom, by this time, he had contracted an extraordinary degree of affection. Valentine had the honour to dance with the incomparable Serafina, whose beauty and attractions dazzled the eyes of the new-comers, and struck her bashful partner ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... rubbish," the German would cry, after spending an hour in going through some trashy modern Italian music. "Now, my child, you shall hear something worth listening to;" and with a sigh of relief he would turn to some old piece by Mozart or Bach, some minuet of Haydn's, some romance of Beethoven's, which he would play with no great power of execution, indeed, but with a rare sweetness and delicacy of touch and expression, and with an intense absorption in the music, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... The Minuet's cold and modish grace, Delirium of the Carmagnole, Fair France has known. How will she pace This frantic dance, and to what goal? Beginning in triumphant sport, She's tremulous now, with terror cold. The whirl so dizzies, she breathes short; The serpent spirals ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... neither of us had any exact notions on the subject. Ashatea sometimes joined us, and moved about very gracefully, performing figures of her own invention, which I have since discovered greatly resemble those of the minuet of Europe. ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... re-learnt twenty times the Eclogues of Virgil, but not a single word remained with him.[88] He was absolutely without verbal memory, and he pronounces himself wholly incapable of learning anything from masters. Madame de Warens tried to have him taught both dancing and fencing; he could never achieve a minuet, and after three months of instruction he was as clumsy and helpless with his foil as he had been on the first day. He resolved to become a master at the chessboard; he shut himself up in his room, and worked night and day over the books with indescribable efforts which covered many weeks. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... danced a minuet with her at Bury that very night, before I lost my poor leg. And I quarreled with your ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... dancing was an art to be acquired only with long study. It was a necessity that a gentleman should dance, and dance well, and the stately minuet required accuracy, grace, and dignity. Dancing in those days was an art; it has fallen grievously ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... Alcina, followed by Atalanta. Three more new operas were ready, or nearly so; Handel seems to have prepared himself for the winter in better time than usual. But neither Arminio (January 12, 1737), nor Giustino (February 16), nor even Berenice, with its famous minuet (May 18), could save Handel from ruin. The rival opera-house was in no better case. Handel was obliged to close Covent Garden on June 1, and the Haymarket followed suit ten days later. Opera at both houses had been killed, mainly by the ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... mature deliberation, wore the green suit with yellow ribbons, since there was a ball that night in honor of his nearing marriage, and a confluence of gentry to attend it. Miss Vining and he walked through a minuet to some applause; the two were heartily acclaimed a striking couple, and congratulations beat about their ears as thick as sugar-plums in a carnival. And at nine you might have found the handsome ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... that wonderful progress was made. Indeed the dancing-master was so proud of it, and so wishful to display it before he left to a few select friends among the collegians, that at six o'clock on a certain fine morning, a minuet de la cour came off in the yard—the college-rooms being of too confined proportions for the purpose—in which so much ground was covered, and the steps were so conscientiously executed, that the dancing-master, having to play the kit besides, was ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Robert, with his face now crimson, as he too sprang to his feet, and catching up another of the filled cups. "But he shall drink it, boys, or I'll slit his miserable ears. Do you understand plain English, you minuet-dancing puppy?" ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... Benjamin Franklin comes: about him hung Symbols of trade and hope—kite, candles, book. The crystal gazer enters, bids him look At all the guerdon that the years will bring. The Vision next: Trianon in the Spring, And Franklin honored by the Queen of France With courtly minuet and festal dance. Lastly, a cabin clearing in the West, Where on a holiday with mirth and zest Lincoln's companions take their simple cheer. These are the scenes to be enacted here, Shown to you straightway in a simple guise. Youthful the scenes ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... admiringly on. Inspired by the moment, Patty indulged in some fancy steps, which were quickly understood and repeated by Henri, and depending on a whispered word now and then for direction, they advanced and retreated, bowed and chasseed in an elaborate and exquisite minuet. ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... powers, tried to teach him some minuets which to his perfect astonishment, Wolfgang played after him in a most extraordinary manner, not merely striking the notes correctly, but marking the rhythm with accurate expression, and to learn and play each minuet the little fellow ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... wicked nuns whom Bertram and Robert le Diable evoke from their sepulchres whilst the bassoon performs a diabolical incantation. The Brighton Pavilion was tenanted; Ranelagh and the Pantheon swarmed with dancers and masks; Perdita was found again, and walked a minuet with the Prince of Wales. Mrs. Clarke and the Duke of York danced together—a pretty dance. The old Duke wore a jabot and ailes-de-pigeon, the old Countess a hoop, and a cushion on her head. If haply the young ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... adorned in the extreme of fashion. Everything was suitably provided for the little company; a low table, small plates, little glasses; in short, all was dwindled down to their own standard. Dancing followed the dinner, and the ball was opened with a minuet by the bride and bridegroom, the latter of whom was exactly three feet two inches high, and the day closed more ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... drew about them a needy tribe of poets and philosophers, that filled their heads with wild notions of content, and contemplation, and virtuous obscurity. She therefore enjoined me to improve my minuet-step with a new French dancing-master, and wait the event of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... "quality"-loving Mr. Walpole calls "the second Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original (!);" but whose prints to "Tristram Shandy," are nevertheless completely forgotten, while, if he be remembered at all, it is by the plate of "The Long Minuet," and the vulgar "Directions to Bad Horsemen." With the first years of the century, however, appears the great master of modern humorists, whose long life ended only a few years since, "the veteran George Cruikshank"—as his admirers were wont to style him. He indeed ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... slowly at Nunsmere—from the grasping of an idea to the pace of the church choir over the hymns. Life there is no vulgar, tearing two-step, as it is in Godalming, London, and other vortices of human passions, but the stately measure of a minuet. Delights are deliberate and have lingering ends. A hen would scorn to hatch a chicken with the indecent haste of her sister ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... that she glided into harmony with that tragical undertone, and, with seemingly a perfect unconsciousness of it—whether prattling to the old nurse, or moving, sweetly grave and softly demure, through the stately figures of the minuet—was already marked off from among the living, already overshadowed by a terrible fate, already alone in the bleak loneliness of the broken heart. Striking the keynote thus, the rest followed in easy ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Monsieur de Provence was cultivating l'eloquence du billet and studying his favorite Horace. It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a minuet or syllabub, poor Antoinette was unrivalled; and Charles, on the tight-rope, was so graceful and so gentil, that Madame Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grown-up dances," said Dorothy, "only the two-step and minuet. I think the minuet is the prettiest ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... La Belle Assemblee, or Sketches of Characteristic Dancing, miscellaneous groups, comprising in all thirty figures (exclusive of the orchestra), engaged in a country dance, a Scotch reel, an Irish jig, a minuet, the German waltz, a French quadrille, the Spanish bolero, and a ballet "Italienne." The walls are hung with pictures of dancing dogs, a dancing bear, a dancing horse, rope dancing, the dance of St. Vitus, and "Dancing Mad." Besides this, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... them with as much assurance as though it had been a masterpiece of harmony. Then, what will scarcely be believed, but which yet is gospel truth, worthily to crown this sublime production, I tacked to the end thereof a pretty minuet which was then having a run on the streets.... I gave it as my own just as resolutely as though I had been speaking to ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... was writing that Jane Brown had a sort of mental picture—the shabby piano at home, kicked below by many childish feet, but mellow and sweet, like an old violin, and herself sitting practising, over and over, that part of Paderewski's Minuet where, as every one knows, the fingering is rather difficult, and outside the open window, leaning on his broom, worthless Johnny Fraser, staring in with friendly eyes and an extremely dirty face. To Twenty-two's unbounded amazement she flung down the cushion and made for the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
