"Waltz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... varied by skating at the rink and assemblies in the town-hall, where we meet a medley of ball goers and givers, each indulging his or her favourite style of dancing—from the old fashioned "three-step" waltz preferred by the elders, to the breathless "German," the simple deux temps, and the graceful "Boston" dance, peculiar as yet to Americans and Canadians. The band was composed of trained musicians who had belonged to various regiments, and, on receiving their discharge, remained in ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... to think, then, of the delicacy which shrinks from the reading-room frequented by men; which discovers so suddenly that magazines are more embarrassing than mazourkas; that to read in a cloak and hat before a man is more indelicate than to waltz in his presence half denuded ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... never seen any one dance more beautifully than she; she fluttered above the floor, and could make the waltz more agreeable than any one else before or after her. That was my favorite dance. I was exclusively by her side at such times, and we could not gaze except into each other's eyes. I did not like the quadrille so well: in that one is always taking the hands of different persons, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... in the ears of Flemming, who, though he never danced, yet, like Henry of Ofterdingen, in the Romance of Novalis, thought to music. The wheeling waltz set the wheels of his fancy going. And thus the moments glided on, and the footsteps of Time were not heard amid the sound ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... one might enter under the permission of the Court Marshal. All this I must notice here, because Sidonia afterwards caused much scandal by these means. The music now rejoiced her greatly, and she began to move her little feet, not in a pilgrim, but in a waltz measure, and to beat time with them, as one could easily perceive by ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... was over. The City Band was just beginning to play a waltz. Annixter assuring himself that everything was going all right, was picking his way across the floor, when he came upon Hilma Tree quite alone, and looking anxiously among the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... when you talk reason to him Ah! how sweet to waltz through life with the right partner And not any of your grand ladies can match my wife at home Any man is in love with any woman Believed in her love, and judged it by the strength of his own Eating, ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... never have I seen it danced with the abandonment of those young peasants in that little kitchen on the Achensee. They were all beautiful dancers. The young "shipmaster" seized our pretty Rosa around the waist, and they began to waltz. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, they fell apart, with a yell from the boy which curdled the blood in our veins. Rosa continued waltzing alone, with her hands on her hips, while her partner did a series ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... and step dancing, we teach the buck and wing dance, the waltz clog, the straight clog (which is like an English clog or a Lancashier clog), jigs, reels, and the old form of what we call step dancing, which was popular forty years ago in the old "variety" days. They did the jigs, reels and clogs then, and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... nex' waltz!" A moment of preliminary scraping, then the tune, and finally the muffled scuffling of feet fell upon his ears. Then it all came back to him, and turning hurriedly, he walked away from the house to the far end of the garden. Resting his arms on the fence, he stood bathed in ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... very bright and learns rapidly, but a few weeks have passed before she is able to waltz well, and is surrounded by the handsomest and most gallant men in the room, who flatter her until her head is quite turned. She has entirely overcome her delicacy about being embraced in public for half an hour by strange men. In fact she rather likes it now. She wonders ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... Lydia. "Well, I don't think there's any one in the world has nicer things happen to them than I do! Oh, Billy, just this waltz!" ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... alike, had partaken of an "eye-opener," Baptiste gave the signal, and the fiddler struck up his plaintive wail. The reedy strings of his instrument shrieked out the long-drawn measure of a miserable waltz, the company paired off, and the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... men are not of the kind of whom the metropolitan ass writes as saying "youbetcherlife," and calling everybody "pardner." They are many of them college graduates, who can brand a wild Maverick or furnish the easy gestures for a Strauss waltz. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Majesty, a numerous and brilliant company was soon assembled at the Prefecture. The hall was elegantly decorated; the emblems and mottoes recalled the object of the festivity. After a square dance and a waltz. Her Majesty passed through the company, addressing a kind word to every lady present." The next day, January 28, at seven in the morning, the Empress started, amid cries of "Long live Josephine!" She reached ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... It aims at being colossal, and mainly achieves emptiness. The motifs are more than familiar. After a funeral march of commonplace character and boisterous movement, where Beethoven seems to be taking lessons from Mendelssohn, there comes a scherzo, or rather a Viennese waltz, where Chabrier gives old Bach a helping hand. The adagietto has a rather sweet sentimentality. The rondo at the end is presented rather like an idea of Franck's, and is the best part of the composition; it is carried out in a spirit of mad intoxication ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... the music in the ball-room, on went the shuffling of feet, the swish of garments, the gay talk and laughter of the young people; and on and on talked Mr. Stevens and Mr. Turner, until one familiar strain of music penetrated into Sam's inner consciousness; the Home Sweet Home waltz! ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... began when the singing was over: A Dotterel first open'd the ball with the Plover; Baron Stork in a waltz was allow'd to excel, With his beautiful partner, the fair Demoiselle;[12] And a newly-fledged Gosling, so fair and genteel, A minuet swam with the spruce Mr. Teal. A London-bred Sparrow—a pert forward Cit! ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... or sweet potatoes to eat with their Christmas feast of roast ox or a fat sheep. Afterwards we danced till morning came, or sang to the sweet tinkle of the guitars. Well do I remember, children, when the good Padres, or priests, at the Mission forbade us to waltz, that new dance the Gringos had taught us to like. I recall, also, that the governor only laughed and said that the young folks could waltz if they wished. So at my wedding, soon after, when we danced from Tuesday noon till Thursday ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... mechanical sense of rhythm, the ability to count three or four to a measure, and to group the notes of a piece correctly, can be taught to any person, if one has the patience; but for those delicate rhythmic nuances required by a Chopin mazurka or a Viennese waltz, a specific rhythmic gift must ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... Francisco had drifted into the huge court of that luxurious caravansary, and was ebbing and eddying among the multitudes of white and shining columns that support the six galleries under the crystal roof. The band reveled in the last popular waltz, the hum of the spectators was hushed, but among the galleries might be seen pairs of adolescent youths and maidens swaying to the rhythmical melody. We were taking wine and cigarettes with the Colonel. He was always at home to us on Monday nights, and even our boisterous chat ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... idea who Dai-Butsu might be, but he gladly agreed. She fluttered on beside him with her long kimono sleeves like a big moth. Geoffrey's head was full of wine and waltz tunes. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... as good as that waltz of yours you played us when we were rehearthing 'Mind How You Go?' You remember. The one ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Montezuma, but they were rather modernized by the necessity of wearing various articles of dress which would have been superfluous in old times. They stationed themselves in the middle of the church, opposite the high altar, and, to our unspeakable astonishment, began to dance the polka. Then came a waltz, then a schottisch, then another waltz, and finally a quadrille, set to unmitigated English tunes. They danced exceedingly well, and behaved as though they had been used to European ball-rooms all their lives. The spectators looked on as though it were all a matter of course ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... and now, without looking,—indeed, he looked everywhere but at me, while we talked,—made a bow as if just seating me from a waltz, and, with his eyes and his smile on Louise all the way down the room, went out. Did ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... end of an hour and a half the odious waltz of the steamer slowed down. The fog-horn was silent: the Empress moved alongside the ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... where the people seated themselves as they came, and conversed sociably over their coffee and wine. The orchestra was placed in a little ornamental temple in the garden, in front of which I stationed myself, for I was anxious to see the world's waltz-king, whose magic tones can set the heels of half Christendom in motion. After the band had finished tuning their instruments, a middle-sized, handsome man stepped forward with long strides, with a violin in one ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... soldiers had been of your dancing sort. How far would I have got if every time the band played a two-step my grenadiers had dropped their guns to pirouette over those snow-white wastes? Let the diplomats do the dancing. For soldiers give me men to whom the polka is a closed book and the waltz ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... birds, up the open street into the clear space under the old-fashioned gas lamp at the corner. All the lights were out in the neighbouring houses, but from a boarding-house down the block there floated suddenly the gay snatch of a waltz played on a banjo with a broken string. Then the music stopped, the policeman passed, and Gabriella and the wind were alone in the street. Overhead the stars shone dimly through a web of mist; and it seemed to her that the sadness of the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... in the short interval between his seeing Jael and her seeing him, the quadrilles had been succeeded by a waltz, and Grace Carden's head and shoulders were now flitting at intervals, past the window in close proximity to the head of her partner. What with her snowy, glossy shoulders, her lovely face, and her exquisite head and brow encircled with a coronet of pearls, her beauty seemed half-regal, half-angelic; ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... feet, excepting that magical slipper named before, which they managed to admiration, never allowing it to lose its position, or to touch the floor at any other part but the toe, to which it adhered with singular tenacity, through the most difficult steps of the whirling waltz or puzzling polka. ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... in the smallest village, and the young people dance old-fashioned cotillons or danses rondos. The priests, however, do not encourage reckless gaieties or extravagance in dress. Now and then the bishop issues a Pastoral in which the waltz and other fast dances, and certain fashionable modes of dress, are expressly forbidden, and though his mandates are no doubt soon forgotten in the cities and towns, they are, on the whole, religiously observed in the rural communities. The feasts ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... came in from somewhere at the back, a big blooming girl by the name of Sadie, and a small red-head, tragically faded, with soft brown eyes that should never have looked upon Bullard's. Two men rose and took them as the tune, an old-fashioned waltz, began to ripple under the fingers of the fiddler, who was a born musician, and the four swung down between the tables and the bar. The Golden Cloud was in full swing, running free for the night, though ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... another. For a while the sounds were not wholly unpleasing, but suddenly something seemed to go wrong, for a mazurka started, to be followed by "Marlborough has gone to the war," and to this, again, there succeeded an antiquated waltz. Also, long after Nozdrev had ceased to turn the handle, one particularly shrill-pitched pipe which had, throughout, refused to harmonise with the rest kept up a protracted whistling on its own account. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... street. Four girls, walking two by two, their arms waist-encircling, their voices mingling in rapid talk, punctuated with rippling laughter—and, now and then, as their happy spirits fairly bubbled and overflowed, breaking into a few waltz steps to the melody of a dreamy song hummed by one of their number. The sun, shining through the trees, cast patches of golden light on the stone sidewalk, and, as the girls passed from sunshine to shadow, they made a bright, and sometimes a dimmer, picture on the street, whereon ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... there. She makes me sing with her, ride with her, walk with her, at her will, and as if that was not enough for one day, to test her power over me, to-night she made me dance with her. And now I feel like a fool as I think of Etty playing a waltz for us, at Flora's request, and giving me a long, serious look as I approached the piano to compliment her playing. I could not utter a word. I answered her gaze with one as sober, and more sad, and came away ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... dazzling contrast with the tempered light of the 'Winter Garden.' The conservatory opened into a library, and from the library you reach the antechamber, thus completing the 'giro' of one of the prettiest houses in St. Petersburg. I waltzed one waltz and quadrilled one quadrille, but it was hard work; and as the sole occupation of these parties is dancing and card-playing—conversation apparently not being customary—they are to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... breath, or bust, hadn't you?" cried her disrespectful son, catching the portly matron about the spot where her waist should have been and hilariously whirling her about in a waltz which his own lameness rendered the more grotesque. "And where can you cook 'em? Why, right square in them old ovens at the mission. Full now of saddles and truck, but Samson and me'll clear 'em out lively. I'll make you a fire in 'em, and they'll see cookin' like they haven't since the padres put ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... There was a waltz in progress and Joan stood for a little with her back to a pillar of one of the boxes, bewildered by the noise and moving colours. Standing opposite her, in the shadow of the other looped-up curtain, was a man. A Pierrot to her Pierrette, only his costume was carried out in white, and on ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... a sigh of relief when the "rigodon" ended, and mustered fresh courage for social conquests in the waltz that was now breathing forth from the trembling strings. My companion in the first dance had been the young lady by whose side I had sat at dinner. But it now became necessary to search for another, so ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... courage, to look Dorothy in the face. When the moment came she was flushed with dancing and looked beautiful. Ordinarily she was a little pale, but not even Gilbertine, with her sumptuous colouring, showed a warmer cheek than she, as, resting from the waltz, she leaned against the rose-tinted wall, and let her eyes for the first time rise slowly to where I stood talking ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... always, but always decorous. In those days people did not think it necessary to the pleasures of dancing that any stranger should have liberty to snatch a shy, innocent girl round the waist, and whirl her about in mad waltz or awkward polka, till she stops, giddy and breathless, with burning cheek and tossed hair, looking,—as I would not have liked to see our pretty ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... piano and behind a fan, and he dedicated her a little waltz, and she drew his portrait. As usual, the different biographers tell different stories, but from them the chief biographer of all, Frederick Neicks, decides that Chopin proposed and Maria deposed. And here endeth the second of Chopin's three romances. So this brings ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... an end, and the smooth earth which constituted the floor of the enclosure was vacated for an instant. Then the musicians began a favorite Mexican waltz, and there was a scurrying of young men and women for places. There was an eager movement along the rows of seats by young fellows who sought partners for the waltz. Custom permitted any man to seek any disengaged woman and invite her ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... of three pieces began a waltz, and the dancers swung around the tobacco-fogged room. Stuart rose in disgust to go, when he stopped near the door suddenly frozen to the spot. A fat beastly Negro swept by encircling the frail figure of a while girl. Her dress ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... These verses are used in many parts of the West as a dance song. Sung to waltz music the song takes the place of "Home, Sweet Home" at the conclusion of a cowboy ball. The "fiddle" is silenced and the entire company sing as ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... they sat came bursts of boisterous laughter and of the waltz-music of the pianola in the hall, for in the shooting season the echoes of the fine mansion were awakened by the merriment of as gay a crowd as any who assembled ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... perhaps always living with him you wouldn't realize how important he was, would you? (Distant music begins again, a waltz tune.) ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... aroused the greatest enthusiasm; but its very character was a temptation to put music to another use, and indeed it was Mozart himself who gave the signal, as he left the piano, to ask Franziska for a waltz, while Max took up his violin. The Count was not slow in doing the honors for Madame Mozart, and one after another joined in the dance. Even Franziska's aunt became young again as she trod the minuet with the gallant ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the gorgeousness of the immense theater, the glitter of the lights, the brilliancy and variety of the costumes, the enlivening strains of music, the mirth of the browd, and, above all, the the untiring velocity with which the dancers whirl themselves through the mazes of the waltz, polka and mazourka, present an appearance of bewindering gayety not to be described. * * * * On some occasions of special enthusiasm the crowd take up the leader of the orchestra with the most frantic ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... her feet in the air in a way that endangers every hat in the box. The men about the hall are all craning their necks to get a sight of what is going on in the box, as they hear the cries of 'Hoop-la' from the girls there. There is a waltz going on down on the floor. I look over the female faces. There is one little girl, who looks as innocent as a babe. She has a pretty face, and I remark to a companion that she seems out of place among the other poor wretches—for there is not an honest woman in the hall. Before we leave the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... go," he said. And to Mackenzie: "Don't try to throw any tricks on me, bud, but waltz around and get me ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... beside the despondent Butch on the Senior Fence. "I am not a fatalist, old man, but it does seem that fate hasn't destined Thor to play football for old Bannister this season! Here, after he won the Ham game, and we expected him to waltz off with Ballard's scalp and the Championship, he has to tumble downstairs! ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... royalty? Unfortunately Quebec had then no Court Journal, so that following generations will have but faint ideas of all the witchery, the stunning head-dresses, the decolletees, high-waisted robes of their stately grandmothers, whirled round in the giddy waltz by whiskered, epauletted cavaliers, or else courtesying in the demure menuet ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... He certainly liked Mrs. Smith; but then, as he had begun to find out of himself he liked women's society generally. He was almost jealous of the doctor, because the doctor was allowed to talk to Miss Green and waltz with Miss Green, whereas he could not approach her. Then he thought of Maria Shand and that kiss in the little back parlour,—the kiss which had not meant much, but which had meant something; and then of Julia Babington, to whom he was not quite sure that he ought not to feel himself ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the tall, gaunt man, who has now come up to her. "So much I have seen. Too warm? Eh? You show reason, I think. And yet, if I might dare to hope that you would give me this waltz——" ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... if he had not heard and strolled to the door. He opened it, and at once the room was filled with the plaintive alluring strains of waltz-music. He stood and looked back. Dinah met the look, and suddenly ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... from a dance at Viceregal Lodge where he had But only the Haverley girl knows what Bobby had said, or how many waltzes he had claimed for the next ball. Six in the morning saw Bobby at the Tonga Office in the drenching rain, the whirl of the last waltz still in his ears, and an intoxication due neither to wine nor waltzing in ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... There were two girls engaged by the management to dance amongst the tables while people had supper—one dressed as a page in blue satin, and the other as a Spanish dancer. Both girls were kind. They spoke to Celia between their dances. They let her waltz with them. Still no one noticed her. She had no jewels, no fine clothes, no chic—the three indispensable things. She had only youth ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... of this foetid and malodorous cave, gazing in rapture upon the blandly beaming idol, their sensibilities tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from "La Forza del Destino" or the Waltz out of Boito's "Mefistofele"... for sure, it must be a foretaste of Heaven! And likely enough, these are "the poor in heart" for whom that ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... cornets; Limpy-toes brought his flute, Wiggle his fife, Scamper the alto horn, and Nimble-toes his beloved drum. At a signal from Uncle Squeaky, the little band began to play Silvy's Waltz. ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... the serenity of her brow. I could see her dancing-partners surprised at her frequent absence of mind; she still followed the whirl, but she no longer led it. Under pretext of fatigue, she would leave suddenly and abruptly her partner's arm, in the midst of a waltz, to go and sit in some corner with a pensive and even a pouting look. If there happened to be a vacant seat next to mine, she threw herself into it, and began from behind her fan some whimsical and disjointed ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... to the dancers. It was a pretty scene. To the rhythm of a particularly seductive waltz, the guests were gliding about the floor. I noted the gay colors of the ladies' gowns, the flowers, ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... event is the ship's belle in her pink chiffon. It makes you almost wish you were a dancing-man, to see her. But there are dancing-men enough—among them the ship's doctor. He leads her in the mazes of the waltz and, while dancing, is given an anaesthetic, in shape of a languishing glance or two. Before he comes to, his partner has performed a minor operation on him—the ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... up again, and played a waltz—a dance new to our country, but older than the heptarchy. Jansen, with his pipe in his mouth, took one of the women by the waist, and steered round the room about as leisurely as a capstern heaving up. Dick Short also took another, made four turns, reeled up against a Dutchman who was doing it ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... envelopes and others without. She cast her eye over them at random. There were letters from old friends, a few from her cousin, and here was one from the doctor who had courted her in the old days. In it he asked her to reserve for him the first waltz at the medical students' dance. Here—what was it? Why, it was that anonymous letter which some one had addressed to her at the Conservatoire. She picked ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... English are eminently a nation of vagabonds. The sun paints English faces with all the colours of his climes. The Englishman is ubiquitous. He shakes with fever and ague in the swampy valley of the Mississippi; he is drowned in the sand pillars as they waltz across the desert on the purple breath of the simoom; he stands on the icy scalp of Mont Blanc; his fly falls in the sullen Norwegian fiords; he invades the solitude of the Cape lion; he rides on his donkey through the uncausewayed Cairo ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... light step on the stair, a girl's low laughter, Rustle of silks, shy knuckles tapping the oak, Dinner and mirth upsetting my rooms, and, after, Music, waltz upon waltz, till the June ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... ball was quietness itself, until near the end, when the wind-instruments were suddenly seized with a fit of economy, the time they were paid for having probably expired, and stopped short in the midst of a waltz; upon which the gentlemen waltzers shouted "Viento! Viento!" at the full extent of their voices, clapping their hands, refusing to dance, and entirely drowning the sound of some little jingling guitars, which ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... to draw off her attention! I was weaving futile plans of escape, when suddenly a radiant creature in blue and white gauze, the swirl of whose long skirts I had watched as I listened to Mrs. Dwight, paused in the waltz close beside me, turned, looked me in the face and patted my arm with her fan. "Floyd!" she cried, "Floyd Randolph! ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... night in Bourcelles, and the spirit of pandemonium was abroad. Neither parent could say no to anything, and mere conversation in corners was out of the question. The door was opened into the corridor, and while Mother played her only waltz, Jimbo and Monkey danced on the splintery boards as though it were a parquet floor, and Rogers pirouetted somewhat solemnly with Jane Anne. She enjoyed it immensely, yet rested her hand very gingerly upon ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... nearest the door, was sitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing. Another, the red, stout Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his arms under his head, laughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on the clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkonski was not there. None of these gentlemen changed his position on seeing Boris. The one who was writing and whom Boris addressed turned ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz—the clocks began to strike the hour of three ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... the door waiting for five or six couples, who were pirouetting to the strains of a waltz, to pass him, whilst his pale lips wreathed into a smile as sweet ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... "I must waltz with some one," cried Madge, and before I could offer she took hold of Albert and the two went whirling about, much to my envy. The Cullens were about the most jubilant road agents I had ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... person of Skye, Who waltz'd with a Bluebottle fly: They buzz'd a sweet tune, to the light of the moon, And entranced all the ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... and most of the children had been weeded out to be replaced by children of a larger growth. Mark came up to Mabel as she stood by the doorway while the musicians were playing the first few bars of a waltz, and each couple was waiting for some other to begin before them. 'You promised me a dance,' he said, 'in reward for my agility as an elephant. Aren't your duties ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... first a march, then a quadrille, a polka, a waltz, a galop, and so on, with two or three round dances to each quadrille, until fourteen dances are completed, when another march announces supper. Seven to ten dances may follow supper. Each guest must be provided with a ball-card with a printed programme ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... important personage present amongst the ladies, and then danced with all the other women in turn, according to rank. How Fanny trembled, and how her heart began to beat, when she saw him approaching her. Lady Szentirmay had just been carried off by some young cavalier for a waltz, and she ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Sarah Vixen—[I'm beginning now]—Her name was Sarah Vixen. She was a horrid old maid. One morning she went and played her organ in Euston Square. She played 'Wait till the clouds roll by,' and 'Sweethearts' waltz', and the 'Marseillaise,' one after the other, after which she paused and watched a tennis match which was going on in ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... the strains of the lovesick waltz beat in the girl's veins to-night. For this present there was no hope even of connected conversation. In the midst of the gay company the invasions ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... neighbor's windows the gas lights flare As the dancers swing in a waltz from Strauss; And I wonder now could I fit that air To the song ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... This would not look well in a picture, above all if the lady were a professional beauty. But there was nothing wrong in it, any more than in Amaryllis clinging to the embrace of Strephon in the whirling of a waltz. Custom reconciles to everything. On stepping into the small boat I had my first difficulty with Albert. I trod on his tail. The dog looked reproachfully, but did not moan. His mistress scowled, and warned me ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz,—the clocks began to strike the hour of ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... was playing "Auf Wiedersehen," and the waltz carried with it the sadness that had made people call the man who wrote it the waltz king. Swanson listened gratefully. He was glad that before he went out, his last mood had been of regret and gentleness. ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... so afraid Robert Hazlewood was going to ask me to waltz," said Angila; "and he waltzes so abominably that I did not know what I should do. But, to my delight, he asked me only for a cotillion, and I fortunately was engaged. I was so glad it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... the displays of female beauty at such places with the calm indifference of the more accustomed native of Frankistan. He is willing, however, to commingle with the females of his European neighbors' household, even to embrace them in the mysteries of the mazy polka or waltz; but he hesitates admitting that such are the advantages or benefits of civilization. Indeed, it may be doubted whether his own wife and daughters would suffer such, were they told that they might do so without ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... you a waltz, I believe," she said, striving to speak naturally; but her pulses had begun to stir again; the same inexplicable sense of exhilaration and insecurity ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... a waltz with the Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, while the Sultan of Turkey basked in the smiles of a Chicago heiress ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... bells arouse feelings of reverence and devotion. To many of us a brass band awakens pleasant memories of circus day. Scots Wha Hae fills the Scotchman with love for his native heather. The odor of certain flowers is offensive because we associate it with a sad occasion. The beauty of a waltz is due not only to its composition but also to our having danced to it under ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... promenade or waltz round inside the figure. The four ladies advance, join hands round, and retire—then the gentlemen perform the same—all set and turn partners. Chain figure of eight half round, and set. All promenade ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... horse and gig With promises to pay; And he pawned his horns for a spruce new wig, To redeem as he came away: And he whistled some tune, a waltz or a jig, And drove off at the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Pasinkov only smiled and shook his head. Old Zlotnitsky took no part in our games, and even looked at us rather disapprovingly from the door of his study. Only once, utterly unexpectedly, he came in to us, and proposed that whoever had next to pay a forfeit should waltz with him; we, of course, agreed. It happened to be Tatiana Vassilievna who had to pay the forfeit. She crimsoned all over, and was confused and abashed like a girl of fifteen; but her husband at once told Sophia to go to the piano, while he went up ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... that she was not true to these hopes. She was taken into what is called "the world," froth and scum as it mostly is on the social caldron. There, she saw fair Woman carried in the waltz close to the heart of a being who appeared to her a Satyr. Being warned by a male friend that he was in fact of that class, and not fit for such familiar nearness to a chaste being, the advised replied that "women should know nothing about such things." She saw one ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... a waltz, while the plait kept up an accompanying polka. Certainly Peter Klausson did press her too ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... The water splashed into the basin, the music came throbbing in through the flower-hung doorways. It seemed to Penelope that she could almost hear her heart beat. The blood in her veins was dancing to the one perfect waltz. The moments passed. She drew a little breath and ventured to look at him. His face was still and white, as though, indeed, it had been carved out of marble, but the fire in his eyes ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the children stopped to look at her. And presently the grown-up people were nodding to one another, and a circle of men and women was formed around Amrei. Farmer Rodel, in particular, who on this day was eating and drinking with double relish, snapped his fingers and whistled the waltz the musicians were playing, while Amrei went on dancing and seemed to know no weariness. When at last the music ceased, Farmer Rodel took Amrei by ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... said Gaston, sitting down to the piano and playing a waltz. "I hadn't a notion of it, but I did notice she hasn't ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... only too thankful to go. A waltz was being played, and Dan passed them, dancing with Bertha Petterick. They glided over the floor together with the gentle voluptuous swing, dreamy eyes, and smiling lips of two perfect dancers, conscious of nothing but the ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... delightful at first, palling and growing monotonous. The monotony he somewhat relieved by frequently kissing her, now on one velvet cheek, now on the other, and again her lips; slowly, one two, three, in waltz measure; and rapidly, one, two three, four, in two-step measure, when all at once in the midst of a sustained half note there came to him the reflection that this was no time of night for him to be there in the dark in a deserted house kissing a woman with whose social standing, whose very ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... ladies to be initiated. There might easily be an accident, even with the best of drivers such as we had in Terry, and I was sure that he was having all he could do to keep on the crown of the road. At any moment, slowly as we were going, the heavily laden car might become skittish and begin to waltz, a feat which would certainly first surprise and then alarm the ladies, even if it had no ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... marry miss Quoltz. For of all the dear angels that live near the Weser, Miss Quoltz is the stoutest and tallest; Tho' of all German barons ambitious to please her, I know I'm the shortest and smallest." How I should like the marriage waltz To dance with thee, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... (I say it with reverence) would have tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step, singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball, bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other hand with a gesture of resolute determination, at the same time uttering, through closed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... chorus, fluttering their fans. The first notes of a Hungarian waltz floated in from the next room. The gentlemen came to claim their partners. At last Andrea was able to offer Elena his ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... irony: The phonograph was shrieking, "Waltz me around again, Willie." I am sure I love that beautiful song. The taste of the people who attend these cheap theaters is deplorable. [The three sentences should be ironical throughout, or not ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... The waltz time ended in a soft chord and the dancers began trooping through the doorway to the big punch-bowl of lemonade in one corner of the hall. They were just in time to see a lithe figure in pink spring out, catlike, from behind the palm-screened alcove and hear a furious voice cry out, ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... from the moment she had appeared on the scene that evening. His father, noticing his abstraction, rallied him on not joining his companions, and making merry with the rest in the most inviting waltz that was ever played. M. le Prefet, on learning his son's wishes, at once offered to assist him in the accomplishment of his desire. Alas for Julien Matou's hopes! Mrs. Wright answered him as well as M. Fargis in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... spanking-machine, to be emblazoned as 'The Purple Slipper' on the cheapest black bills ever run off in New York. Give Hugh Willings a thousand advance for the music of 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' but make him write as many as six waltz songs even if you are sure the first is a hit; it is good to make people, specially any kind of artists, work for the money you pay 'em. The other fifteen hundred you had better put off by itself as a starter ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... likewise singled out certain strangers of distinction. In this way she sent for a United States senator, who was making a short visit in Rome, and kept him talking with her for a considerable time. Her Majesty sat through the first waltz and quadrille. Then she and the King promenaded slowly through the assemblage, speaking to many people as they passed. Some careless foot went through Nina's dress, tearing a great rent, just as she made her reverence to their Majesties, who ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... gentlemen waltz with the ladies; I said, you know, that Sir Theodore wished me to do it, but ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... partner to the hymeneal bargain is fat and full of content, happiness fairly oozing out of every oily pore. And is not happiness the goal of human endeavour, whether a man seeks it amid the electric lights, subtle perfumes, and dreamy waltz-music of a New York ballroom, or finds it seated with his community wives on a hummock of ice under ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... asking one another where this new arrival had come from, and to be saying to one another that she would take their lovers from them. Young women who were walking about the hall in pairs, with their arms about one another's waists as if for a waltz, made her lower her eyes as they passed in front of her, and then went on with a contemptuous shrug, turning their heads to ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... wife, she drew my attention to a circumstance which I had not noticed at the time. 'Julian,' she said, 'look round among the lades, and tell me if you see anything strange.' As I looked round the band began playing a waltz. I observed that a few people only passed by us to the dancing-room. I noticed next that of those few fewer still were young. At last it burst upon me. With certain exceptions (so rare as to prove the rule), there were no young ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... The notes of a waltz rang out, and away whirled the happy boys and girls. Anne and David, who did not dance, retired to a sofa in the library to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... that flooded her. Formally his kiss had meant only a recognition of the day. Actually it had held for both of them a more personal significance, the swift outreach of youth to youth. But the dance was an escape. She had learned at Winnipeg the waltz of the white race. No other girl at Faraway knew the step. She chose to think that the constable had asked her because this stressed the predominance of her father's blood in her. It was a symbol to all present that the ways of ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... unlikely that any member of that audience recognized the fact, the boy was a musician by the divine right of gift, a gift bestowed at birth. A wheezy old piano, and yet he drew from it sweet and thrilling notes; a hackneyed, cheap waltz measure, and yet he invested it ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... its awful work at the rate of more than sixty miles an hour; while that which swept through Frankfort, Kansas, on May 17, 1896, was fully a half-hour in crossing a half-mile stretch of bottom-land adjoining the Vermillion River, pausing in its dizzy waltz upon a single spot for long minutes at ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... in the voice, a kindly light in the eye, which made Philammon promise to obey. He glanced one look back through the gateway as he fled, and just saw a wild whirl of Goths and girls, spinning madly round the court in the world-old Teutonic waltz; while, high above their heads, in the uplifted arms of the mighty Amal, was tossing the beautiful figure of Pelagia, tearing the garland from her floating hair to pelt the dancers with its roses. And that might be his sister! He hid his face and fled, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... of me at the house of my friendly hosts the Rieslers, whose villa will remain most pleasantly in my remembrance. Felix Mottl conducted the Liszt concert in Baden-Baden with "Mazeppa," the "Mephisto- Waltz," the "Hunnenschlacht," and three pieces from the Oratorio "Christus" in a most praiseworthy manner. Bulow's Liszt-evening in Berlin glorious ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... calculations, and the almanacs are wrong, and the eclipse shall not come off? Would it be strange? Would it not be stranger if it were not so? How can a being, standing on one little ball, spinning forever around and around among millions of other balls larger and smaller, breathlessly the same endless waltz,—how can he trace out their paths, and foretell their conjunctions? How can a puny creature fastened down to one world, able to lift himself but a few paltry feet above, to dig but a few paltry feet below its surface, utterly unable to divine ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Nikolaevna. We went in almost together; I was also going to make my first call. They were all, that is Liza, her mother, and Mavriky Nikolaevitch, sitting in the big drawing-room, arguing. The mother was asking Liza to play some waltz on the piano, and as soon as Liza began to play the piece asked for, declared it was not the right one. Mavriky Nikolaevitch in the simplicity of his heart took Liza's part, maintaining that it was the right waltz. The elder ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... orchestra played the 'Wopples' Waltz', dedicated to Mr Theodore Wopples by Mr Handel Wopples, and during the performance of this Mr Villiers walked into the theatre. He was a little pale, as was only natural after such an adventure as he had been engaged in, but otherwise seemed all right. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... I stopped him, as we began to dance. "It doesn't matter a bit—unless it should occur to the Duchesse de Melun to ask him questions about me. And I'd rather not think about that possibility, or anything else disagreeable, to spoil this heavenly waltz." ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... standing with his two hands on the marble rail he looked down into the room below. The music of a waltz was just beginning, and some of the more enthusiastic spirits had already begun dancing, moving in and out among ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... observed by either of the actors in the tragedy before me. Mr. S—— was gazing with a wild incredulity at the note he had unfolded; she was gazing at him. From the room beyond rose and swelled the sweet strains of the waltz. ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... times I cared little for polka or varsovienne, and still less for 'Money Musk' or 'Virginia Reel,' and wondered what people could find to admire in these slow dances. But in the soft floating of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difficult to intelligibly describe. The mere anticipation fluttered my pulse, and when my partner approached to claim my promised hand for the dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... crowd of young fellows surrounded her. When the next dance, which was a waltz, began, she moved out upon the floor in ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... scrutiny, said that he took the liberty of an old man in telling them that they were both dressed absolutely without fault. Even the Grand-Duke was struck by Sybil, and made Lord Skye introduce him, after which ceremony he terrified her by asking the pleasure of a waltz. She disappeared from Madeleine's view, not to be brought back again until Dawn ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... for some cave guy to waltz up an' paste me, but no. An' after I had went through them dam' Coquina mountains I realized that there was nary a guy left in this here expirin' race, only women, an' only about a ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... love to tease her now and then. I go to the races, play cards, waltz, talk slang, and read novels. But when I do bow down to her I bow away down. Why, at Montrose, I actually talk ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... is, my dear," agreed her chum. "Why can't he let us do the Boston Dip, at least; or the one-step glide. I hate the continuous waltz." ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... straight at the grey eyes that faced her under the thick honey-coloured hair (Lestrange, though of Huguenot descent, was curiously blonde). "I have not enough beaux—without Mr. Lestrange! Will you have the next waltz, Mr. Lestrange—Mr. ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... height of six feet, "and when you're as old as I am and half as wise, Billy, you'll know that a pretty girl is worth ten times the thought our old frumps of generals demand. My name ain't Gordon if I haven't a mind to waltz over there through the mist and the wind just to tell them I've sent for Squeers. Then I'll get a ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... of an overseer. She bore Addison Colfax's name, spent his fortune, and retained her good looks. On this particular occasion she was enjoying herself quite as much as any young girl in the room, and, while resting from a waltz, was regaling a number of gentlemen with a humorous account of a scandal at the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to the entrance of the green-house, idly watching the dancers as they waltz round the spacious room, we once more see Helen and Gladys in close companionship. What a ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... imagine I shall get through all right. Of course I sha'n't go on the floor and dance—at least, not very much. Perhaps nobody will ask me, anyway; of course I can expect nothing from Theodore Brower, who couldn't waltz any more than he could fly. No; I'll just sit in the box, and then nobody can say that I am giddy, or flighty, or trying to ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... the lamplight's gentle glow, Alone on the winding stair, And the distant strains of a waltz fell low On the fragrance-laden air. I caught from her lips a murmured "yes," And the stately palms amid There came a blissful, sweet caress— I ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... high. The castrato whom they did engage was Carestini, who, though less celebrated, was at any rate a singularly artistic singer. Durastanti came back, and, in place of Montagnana, Handel contented himself with Waltz, a German, who is often described as having been Handel's cook. Burney, at any rate, recorded that he was said to have filled this office, but Burney remembered him chiefly as a popular comic singer. He had sung Polyphemus ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... here, a gradual crescendo there; nothing careless or slapdash from the first bar to the last. She would play the same piece a hundred times without varying the performance by a hair's-breadth. Nor did she affect anything but classical music. She was one of those young ladies who, when asked for a waltz or a polka, freeze the impudent demander by replying that they play no dance music—nothing more frivolous ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon |
