"Dancer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soul on earth, to sell himself for a shilling a day to murder any man, right or wrong—even his own brother or his own father—just because such a whiskered, profligate jackanapes as that officer, without learning, without any god except his own looking-glass and his opera-dancer—a fellow who, just because he is born a gentleman, is set to command grey-headed men before he can command his own meanest passions. Good heavens! that the lives of free men should be entrusted ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... on no account that one! Let us seek among a less distinguished class of young persons, but without scars. And how about those on the other side of the screen, in those fine gold-embroidered dresses? For instance, the dancer with the spectre mask, Monsieur Kangourou? or again she who sings in so dulcet a strain and has such a charming ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir, With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire! Where shading elms along the margin grew, 245 And freshen'd from the wave the Zephyr flew; And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring still, But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill; Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour. 250 Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... introduce a bad dancer to a good one, because she has no right to punish one friend ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Brian had youth, charm, and pleasing appearance. He was an unusually good singer and an expert dancer. He was equipped to give distinction to the musical play Frohman wanted to present. He had watched the interest of his audiences, and saw that young Brian was a distinct favorite with women as well as men, and his success as star justified all ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Silvia Holland. What a superb dancer, and how democratic! The man she is dancing with is at the head of one of the labor organizations that is championing woman's suffrage. Come, Jack, let us have a whirl, as of old, and I will then bring your 'Mystery' over to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... began to pull loose from the thongs, and in some cases where it was evident that they would not be able to do so a medicine man would seize them by the shoulders and help pull. In no case did a dancer give up, although they often fell in a faint when loosed. Then they were carried away to be revived, but for three days and three nights not a single neophyte could touch food, water, or any other kind of drink. They were also compelled, as soon as they recovered ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... dancer, who made him an excellent wife. By his own exertions he won a highly respectable social position, and an easy fortune of L140,000, upon which he retired from the stage. He died in London ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... chief dancer and banging it upon her head, he held his arm about her heaving breast, as she turned to him with a serpentine movement of ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... let it grow, that, as a comic mask, he might always keep the company laughing. For the rest, he was neat and nimble, but insisted that he had bandy legs, which everybody granted, since he was bent on having it so, but about which many a joke arose; for, since he was in request as a very good dancer, he reckoned it among the peculiarities of the fair sex, that they always liked to see bandy legs on the floor. His cheerfulness was indestructible, and his presence at every meeting indispensable. We two kept more together because he was to follow me to the university; and he well deserves that ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... hall—for the moon did not reach it, but looking up I beheld the walls fretted in great panels into the utmost splendour of sculpture, encircling the stories of the Gods amid a twining and under-weaving of leaves and flowers. It was more like a temple than a dwelling. Siva, as Nataraja the Cosmic Dancer, the Rhythm of the Universe, danced before me, flinging out his arms in the passion of creation. Kama, the Indian Eros, bore his bow strung with honey-sweet black bees that typify the heart's desire. Krishna the Beloved smiled above the herd-maidens adoring at his feet. Ganesha ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... girls in the bevy had charge of this African piano, and was said to be renowned for uncommon skill. Her feet, hands, wrists, elbows, ankles, and knees, were strung with small silvery bells; and, as the gay damsel was dancer and singer as well as musician, she seemed to reek with sound from every pore. Many of her attitudes would probably have been, at least, more picturesque and decent for drapery; but, in Jallica, MADOO, the ayah, was considered ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... effulgent star In dripping robes that elves intrigue To bear beneath the nenuphar Their dancer ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... played for him on the harmonica—Rosemary wondered how many other treasures Sarah's blouse could hold—and though Richard said that no pig, no matter how highly educated, could hope to identify that tune, it was admitted that Bony was a graceful dancer. ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... companionship with any but his wedded wives, and usury. That wretched Brahmana who falls away from his duties and whose behaviour becomes wicked, becomes, O king, a Sudra. The Brahmana who weds a Sudra woman, who becomes vile in conduct or a dancer or a village servant or does other improper acts, becomes a Sudra. Whether he recites the Vedas or not, O king, if he does such improper acts, he becomes equal to a Sudra and on occasions of feeding he should ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Those eyes No beam the less around them shed, Albeit in that red scarf there lies The Dancer's ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... [Footnote: 'Pantomime' has been chosen as the most natural translation of orchaesis, which in this dialogue has reference for the most part to the ballet-dancer (pantomimus) of imperial times. On the other hand, Lycinus, in order to establish the antiquity and the universality of an art that for all practical purposes dates only from the Augustan era, and (despite the Greek artists) is Roman in origin, avails himself of the wider ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... mother; whether {328} these teeth would likewise fail in the infant could not be told. Here is another case communicated to me by Mr. Wallace on the authority of Dr. Purland, a dentist: Julia Pastrana, a Spanish dancer, was a remarkably fine woman, but she had a thick masculine beard and a hairy forehead; she was photographed, and her stuffed skin was exhibited as a show; but what concerns us is, that she had in both the upper and lower jaw an irregular double set of teeth, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... combinations of white and blues, pinks and white, browns and pale yellows, which somehow suggested her own soul, and topped them with great sashes of silky brown (or even red) ribbon tied about her waist, and large, soft-brimmed, face-haloing hats. She was a graceful dancer, could sing a little, could play feelingly—sometimes brilliantly—and could draw. Her art was a makeshift, however; she was no artist. The most significant thing about her was her moods and her thoughts, which were ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... a farm a mile away. There was no use in going to the doctor's house, but if the boy would follow him there, to the said farm, he might catch him before he went farther away, for there were to be festivities that night, and their good doctor was always in requisition as the best dancer in the place." ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... was horrified to see one of the dancers leap into the air, uttering a mighty shriek. While still clear of the ground the dancer's body turned, then he dove head first into the bed of hot coals. He was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... the torrid zone (sweet heart) I have thought well of you ever since I loved ye, as a man wold say, like a young dancer, out of all measure; if it please you yfaith anything I have promised you ile performe it to a ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... faubourgs, its hammal is the market-porter, its lazzarone is the pegre, its cockney is the native of Ghent. Everything that exists elsewhere exists at Paris. The fishwoman of Dumarsais can retort on the herb-seller of Euripides, the discobols Vejanus lives again in the Forioso, the tight-rope dancer. Therapontigonus Miles could walk arm in arm with Vadeboncoeur the grenadier, Damasippus the second-hand dealer would be happy among bric-a-brac merchants, Vincennes could grasp Socrates in its fist as just as Agora could imprison Diderot, Grimod de la Reyniere discovered ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... never stayed long in one place; for when he got a house of his own afterwards, he had no one that cared anything in particular about him. Whenever any man would hire him, he'd take care to have Easter and Whiss'n Mondays to himself, and one or two of the Christmas Maragahmores.* He was also a great dancer, fond of the dhrop—and used to dress above his station: going about with a shop-cloth coat, cassimoor small-clothes, and a Caroline hat; so that you would little think he was a poor sarvint-man, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... other windows. The walls are artistic triumphs, being finely painted in delicate colours, and on them arranged a fine collection of Indian trophies. The floor is of oak, and kept in such a condition of polish as to be a pitfall and snare to any dancer not in constant practice. More than one or two couples have been known to suddenly subside, even in the most select of the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... " I haven't seen Fly by Night yet, but of course I know that you are the most beautiful dancer on the ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... on the wall crest, whither I had climbed, I beheld strange sights. First, through the dimness of the dusk, I saw a man armed, walking as does a rope-dancer, balancing himself with his spear, across the empty air, for so it seemed, above the broken arch of the bridge. This appeared, in very sooth, to be a miracle; but, gazing longer, I saw that a great beam had been laid by them of Orleans to span the gap, and now other beams were being set, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... pale and morose. When he saw what was going on, he darted a terrible glance at his wife, then quietly put his hand on the shoulder of the strange dancer, and stopped her motion. Sisa, breathing hard, sat down on the floor. He called ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... one Ellen capered about the floor on the tips of her bare toes, while the other, not less happy, stood still for pleasure. The dancer finished by hugging and kissing her with all her heart, declaring she was so glad, she didn't know what ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... had finished luncheon I returned to the Luxembourg, and presently perceived my friend offering his arm ceremoniously to a very old little lady dressed in black, to whom he introduced me. It was La Castris, the great dancer, beloved by princes, beloved by the king, beloved by all that century of gallantry that seems to have left behind it in the world an ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... lady's maid to that of companion. She had just sufficient education to enable her to understand her mistress when Lucy chose to allow herself to run riot in a species of intellectual tarantella, in which her tongue went mad to the sound of its own rattle, as the Spanish dancer at the noise of his castanets. Phoebe knew enough of the French language to be able to dip into the yellow-paper-covered novels which my lady ordered from the Burlington Arcade, and to discourse with her mistress upon the questionable subjects of these romances. The likeness which the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... [At the end of it.] Worse and worse. Could I have dreamed both the music and the dance and the dancer? ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... where those giggling Marwitzes of Wilhelmina's have been contriving a marriage for the old fool. Of which another word soon: if we have time. Time cannot be spent on those dim small objects: but there are two Marriages of a high order, of purport somewhat Historical; there is Barberina the Dancer, throwing a flash through the Operatic and some other provinces: let us restrict ourselves to these, and the like of these, and be brief ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... band of platinum-hunters. In spite of all that Tom and Ned could do, the Falcon was whipped about like a feather in the wind. Sometimes she was pointing her nose to the clouds, and again earthward. Again she would be whirling about in the grip of the hurricane, like some fantastic dancer, and again she would roll dangerously. Had she turned turtle it probably would have been the last of her and of ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... seemed to dwell for a moment upon the Spanish dancer who sat at the table opposite them, a woman whose name had once been a household word, dethroned now, yet still insistent for notice and homage; commanding them, even, with the wreck of her beauty and ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... enormous sabre, the hilt of which was a glittering eagle's beak. A pair of flapped breeches of sky blue moulded the fine muscles of his legs and was braided in rich arabesques of a darker blue on the thighs. He might have been a dancer dressed for some warlike and dashing role, in Achilles at Scyros or Alexander's Wedding-feast, in a costume designed by a pupil of David with the one idea of accentuating every line of ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... chin all a-tremblin', an' flighty as a loon. Wal, after that I used to take her around some, an' her folks objected becuz I was ignorant, an' she learnt me some things, an' bein' strong an' a good dancer an' purty good-lookin' she kind o' forgot about my failin's, an' we was married. Her folks said she'd throwed herself away; but I could buy an' sell the hull set of ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... care for sewing or cooking, so I joined a dancing-club; and even here I was a failure. I had been a very good dancer in Russia, but here I found all the steps different, and I did not have the courage to go out in the middle of the slippery floor and mince it and toe it in front of the teacher. When I retired to a corner and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... one man after another, amid a swarm of dancers, enjoying herself to the utmost and occasionally giving a nod and a smile to her sister as their eyes met. There, too, was Victoria Dare, who never appeared flurried even when waltzing with Lord Dunbeg, whose education as a dancer had been neglected. The fact was now fully recognized that Victoria was carrying on a systematic flirtation with Dunbeg, and had undertaken as her latest duty the task of teaching him to waltz. His struggles and her calmness in assisting them commanded respect. On the opposite ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... short and disjointed sentences, consisting as they often do of detached antitheses. It accords with the amusing comparison of Malebranche, that Seneca's composition, with its perpetual and futile recurrences, calls up to him the image of a dancer who ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!— To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!" As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... higher regions of the air, fall upon the earth only to be broken and cast into the furnace. The precursor of Newton lived in the deserts of the moral world, drank water, and ate locusts and wild honey. It was fortunate that his head also was not lopped off: had a singer asked it, instead of a dancer, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... fish, or"—he gulped the words down that should have followed. "Especially when you see 'em walking a roof-top, right again the sky, when a cat, as is a proper cat, is sure to stick her tail stiff out behind, like a slack-rope dancer a-balancing; but these cats having no tail, cannot stick it out, which captivates some people uncommonly. If yo'll allow me, I'll bring one for Miss there," jerking his head at Margaret. Job assented with grateful curiosity, wishing much to ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... dancers form a ring and, accompanied by drumming, yelling, and rattling, dance until the first exhausted one goes through the pantomime of being shot with the bow and arrow, skinned, and cut up; but the dance does not lag, for another masked dancer takes the place of the fallen one. The dance continues day and night, without cessation, sometimes for two or three weeks, or until a herd of buffaloes appears in sight; then the warriors change ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... The dancer arose, but hung down her flashing coronal. Her blush was enchanting. She stood silent, while the good-humoured king smiled down on her, till Artazostra came from her seat by Mardonius and whispered in her ear. Every neck in the crowded ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... industrious than graceful as a dancer. He exhibits, however, a spryness of legs quite remarkable in a man at his time of life. I didn't see Heber C. Kimball on the floor. I am told he is a loose and reckless dancer, and that many a lily-white toe has felt the crushing weight ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... natural born dancer. There are young men who, after the music has struck up, can start out incredibly enough by saying: "What is this, anyway—waltz or fox trot?" This was inconceivable to Chug. He had never had a dancing lesson in his life, ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... opinion.[42] This is not the place to elaborate the theory of inheritance, as understood by those writers; its essence, however, is that we only inherit the natural faculties of our forebears, and not those faculties which they have acquired by practice and experience. The son of a rope-dancer does not inherit his father's faculties for rope-dancing, nor the son of an orator his father's ready aptitude for public speech, nor the son of a designer his father's acquired skill in the making of ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... "partly, I suppose, because he is as yet in the happy condition of being an interred mummy. Nobody has dug him up, unwound his cerements, or photographed him, and his ornaments have not been stolen. And in the second place I am interested in him because it appears he was in love with the famous dancer of his day whom the Princess represents to-night,—Charmazel. I wish I had heard the story before I came to Cairo; I would have got myself up as Araxes ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... beauty, trusting to his youth, his gallant bearing, his numerous accomplishments and graces, and his quickness and readiness of wit; for I may tell your highnesses, if I am not wearying you, that he played the guitar so as to make it speak, and he was, besides, a poet and a great dancer, and he could make birdcages so well, that by making them alone he might have gained a livelihood, had he found himself reduced to utter poverty; and gifts and graces of this kind are enough to bring down a mountain, not to say a tender young girl. But all his gallantry, wit, and gaiety, all ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with the arts of war, you think that you must therefore excel others in counsel; but you cannot thus claim preeminence in all things. Heaven has made one man an excellent soldier; of another it has made a dancer or a singer and player on the lyre; while yet in another Jove has implanted a wise understanding of which men reap fruit to the saving of many, and he himself knows more about it than any one; therefore I will say what I think will be best. The fight ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... and Improvement. It has been a common Question, whether a Man be born a Poet or made one? but both must concur. Nature and Art must contribute their Shares to compleat the Character. Limbs alone will not make a Dancer, or a Wrestler. Nor will Genius alone make a good Poet; nor the meer Strength of natural Abilities make a considerable Artist of any kind. Good Rules, and these reduc'd to Practice, are necessary to this End. And Use and Exercise in this, ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... eager did the spectators become, that they pressed closer and closer upon the dancer, and Mammy Otello had to rush in and shove them back with her stout arms to prevent ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... delicate little enamelled studs, with sleeve-buttons to match. Altogether he was a wonderful lion, considering his size. Even Benson had not the courage to stop and introduce his friend until he passed the great dancer more than once, in silent admiration, and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... different tale. We have our balls regularly, for instance; and there are artists on board this ship, who, though they cannot, perhaps, make as accurate a right angle with their legs as the first dancer of a leaping ballet, can go through their figures in a gale of wind; which is more than can be said of the highest jumper of them ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... bush for each dancer; in each bush a nest, made to resemble a cormorant's nest; and outside the ring is an Indian metamorphosed for the occasion into a wolf—that is, he has the skin of a wolf drawn over him, and hoops fixed to his hands to enable ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... over until near midnight. Then the dancer must change her dress, fold her stage dress carefully away, make up her bundle, and set out for home. The principal dancers, such as Bonafanti, and Morlacchi, of course, have an easier time than the ordinary ballet ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... was the meaning of the monotonous song that had accompanied the opening dance I had seen at the He-dhu'-shka Society, where the dancer, with body bent and with short rhythmic steps, had kept time to the dramatic laugh of the song,—a song that had seemed so aimless to me only the ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... the tension of the motor apparatus and produces a feeling of personal comfort. The power to do this is a valuable asset, when so much emotional poverty is around us. The dance makes life smooth in the midst of hardship and drudgery. For the dancer the cup is always overflowing, even though it may be small. There is an element of relaxation and of joyfulness in the rhythm of the music and the twinkling of the feet, which comes as a blessing into the dulness and monotony of life. The overworked factory ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... you approve of it?" I said, with a faint smile; "if I were in love with a housemaid or a ballet dancer I could understand your objection, but a girl in our own rank, educated, pretty, clever—what ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... the dance, but as used here) is called Congedium by Anthoine Arena. Arbeau thinks because the dancer appears about to take leave of his partner—i.e., prendre conge. See Hen. VIII., IV. ii. l. ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... things Harmony was spared, much of the talk being in dialect. But a great deal of it she understood, and she learned much that was not spoken. They talked freely of the women, their clothes, and they talked a great deal about a newcomer, an American dancer, for whom Monia was making an elaborate outfit. The American's name was Lillian Le Grande. She was dancing at ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... list and divide up. Archie Holmes is such a delightful dancer, and Allie is so full of fun, and so many of us were ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Royal Artillery Mess was the Garrison Theatre. At regular intervals the Royal Artillery officers gave performances at this theatre. Let me tell you that it is seldom that an Engineer or Artillery officer was not a first-rate dancer; for, at the "Shop," two or three nights a week dancing took place in the gymnasium to the delightful music of the Royal Artillery band. On these nights ladies were not allowed to attend, so the cadets ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... festive decorations that made the corporate home of Dink and the Tennessee Shad a place to visit and admire was, as has been related, a smashing poster of a ballet dancer in the costume of an amazon parader. Up to now Dink had shared the just pride of the Tennessee Shad in this rakish exhibit that somehow gave the possessor the reputation of having an acquaintance with ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... no better exercises than sawing wood and pitching hay and such farm work. 'Lihu was clumsy in moving, but Joel graceful and light; you'd as soon have thought of the old church tower taking to dancing as of 'Lihu trying his hand at it; but Joel, of course, he were the finest dancer anyone had ever ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... hands. Each gentleman rushes toward the lady wearing a rosette matching his ribbon. Nera rises. Already she is encircled by Nobili's arm. He draws her to him; she makes one step forward. Nera is a bold, firm dancer, but, unknown to her, the ribbons in falling have become entangled about her feet; she, is bound, she cannot stir; she gives a little scream. Nobili, startled, suddenly loosens his hold upon her waist. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... the family an' goes to live in London, where he's a leftenant. Richard Cleighton, his cousin, who is the heir presumptive, once removed, sneaks down there an' comes back with the report that James is married to Alice LeMoyne, a music-hall dancer." ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... more. He had been a very indifferent musical amateur in his better days; and when he fell with his brother, resorted for support to playing a clarionet as dirty as himself in a small Theatre Orchestra. It was the theatre in which his niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture there a long time when she took her poor station in it; and he accepted the task of serving as her escort and guardian, just as he would have accepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, starvation—anything ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... window,—the two comely damsels, picking their way through the light, fresh-fallen snow of March. Going possibly to teach the catechism; he sneers at this thought, for he is awake now. Has the world no richer gift in store for him? That Sophie Bowrigg is a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of a woman. What if they were to join their fortunes and come back some day to dazzle these quiet townsfolk with the splendor of their life? His visits in Ashfield grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there again until we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... later that he met Jane Lampton; whose mother was a Casey—a Montgomery-Casey whose father was of the Lamptons (Lambtons) of Durham, England, and who on her own account was reputed to be the handsomest girl and the wittiest, as well as the best dancer, in all Kentucky. The Montgomeries and the Caseys of Kentucky had been Indian fighters in the Daniel Boone period, and grandmother Casey, who had been Jane Montgomery, had worn moccasins in her girlhood, and once saved her life by jumping a fence and out-running a redskin pursuer. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... commandments, and self-idolators; it was their nature. In Lady Cashel's thoughts on the education of young men, these evils were ranked with the measles and hooping cough; it was well that they should be gone through and be done with early in life. She had a kind of hazy idea that an opera-dancer and a gambling club were indispensable in fitting a young aristocrat for his future career; and I doubt whether she would not have agreed to the expediency of inoculating a son of hers with these ailments in a mild degree—vaccinating him as it were with dissipation, in order that he might ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... pantomime differed somewhat from the mime. It was a ballet of action, performed by a single dancer, who not only exhibited the human figure in its most graceful attitudes, but represented every passion and emotion with such truth that the spectators could, without difficulty, understand the story. The pantomime ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the part of scapegoat by diverting to themselves the evils that threaten others. When a Cingalese is dangerously ill, and the physicians can do nothing, a devil-dancer is called in, who by making offerings to the devils, and dancing in the masks appropriate to them, conjures these demons of disease, one after the other, out of the sick man's body and into his own. Having thus successfully extracted the cause of the malady, the artful dancer lies down on a bier, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... on Ceylon, Sir J. Emerson Tennent gives some interesting details about the consecration of trees to different demons to insure their safety, and of the ceremonies performed by the kattadias or devil-priests. It appears that whenever the assistance of a devil-dancer is required in extreme cases of sickness, various formalities are observed after the following fashion. An altar is erected, profusely adorned with garlands and flowers, within sight of the dying man, who is ordered to touch and dedicate ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... dance, and my Ma was sho' one grand dancer in all de breakdown's. Dey give 'em plenty of toddy and Niggers is dancers f'um way back yonder while ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... looking I could see That scarcely any dancer here could free His eyes from off the mirrors, but would gaze Upon himself or others, till a craze Shone in his eyes thus to anticipate The hand that took each dancer soon or late. Some analyzed themselves, some only glanced, Some ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... betweene us two is nothing. I know a hundred Leverets[240], things that will Bound like a dancer on the rope and kiss thee Into thy naturall complexion: A sinner that shall clime ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... such a good dancer," Bess whispered to Jack, "but then Cora is good at most everything." There was no sarcasm ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... Socialists or Suffragists, but for breaking the peace. Why, goodness me, if we didn't, we should have every malefactor in Britain claiming preferential treatment because he was a Christian Scientist or a Pentecostal Dancer." ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... dancer, who hardly danced at all, only just struck attitudes. She had hardly any clothes, and was not at all pretty. The children were rather bored by her, but everyone else was ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... was just as she was that she liked her; she was so strange, so different from the girls one usually met, seemed to belong to some queer gipsy-land or transcendental Bohemia. With her bright, vulgar clothes, her salient appearance, she might have been a rope-dancer or a fortune-teller; and this had the immense merit, for Olive, that it appeared to make her belong to the "people," threw her into the social dusk of that mysterious democracy which Miss Chancellor held that the fortunate classes know so little about, and with which (in a future possibly very ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... spindle and the distaff, neither understanding nor doing any other thing than spinning, eating and drinking, and wallowing in all manner of infamous pleasure. Accordingly, a statue was erected to him, after his death, which represented him in the posture of a dancer, with an inscription upon it, in which he addressed himself to the spectator in these words: Eat, drink, and be merry; every thing else is nothing: an inscription very suitable to the epitaph he himself had ordered to ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... dancer of the island, got up after a while and displayed the salmon leap—lying flat on his face and then springing up, horizontally, high in the air—and some other feats of extraordinary agility, but he is not young and we could not get him ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... man in the front row with the iron-grey eyes and iron-hard mouth made no movement or sound of any sort. He merely watched with unchanging intentness the face that gleamed, ashen-white, above the shimmering metallic green tights that clothed the dancer's slim body. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... has a wide compass; but what else are all these fantastic warblings and flourishes, these preposterous runs, these never-ending shakes, but delusive artifices of style, which people admire in the same way that they admire the foolhardy agility of a rope-dancer? Do you imagine that such things can make any deep impression upon us and stir the heart? The 'harmonic shake' which you spoilt I cannot tolerate; I always feel anxious and pained when she attempts it. And then this scaling up into the region of the third line ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... imitate elegant manners. Mad Moll and her husband were another pair who flourished in tawdry, gay-colored rags, and tatters, he brandishing a sweep's broom and she a ladle. Jim Crow and a fancifully bedizened ballet-dancer in white muslin, often swelled the ranks, and the rest of the party rigged out in a profusion of gilt paper, flowers, tinsel and gewgaws, their faces and legs colored with brick-dust, made up a comical crowd. But even these mild remains ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... she was a dancer of fame and could twist her lithe body into enticing shapes. She might have married again, but she was so scornful of common men that none dare ask for her. Also the incident of the iron pot was not forgotten, and D'riti went swaying through the village—she ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... as it came, I listened to it; and as I listened to it, the sudden satisfaction that had filled me as suddenly died away; for, if that were the step of old Jean, may I see no difference between the footfalls of an elephant and of a ballet-dancer! And then, before I had time to form any plan, or to do anything save stand staring in the middle of the floor, the latch was lifted again, the door opened, and in walked—the Duke ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... "Why, you're a bully dancer," he declared. "What girl are you going to have for the Virginia reel? We always end with ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... from what country Hop-Frog originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no person ever heard of—a vast distance from the court of our king. Hop-Frog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself (although of exquisite proportions, and a marvellous dancer), had been forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces, and sent as presents to the king, by one of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... always men of rank and station or of high talents, but she was caught once by the dazzle of a famous dancer named Pecour, who pleased her exceedingly, and who became the fortunate rival of the Duc de Choiseul, afterward a marshal of France. It happened that Choiseul was more remarkable for his valor than for his probity and solid virtues, and could not inspire in ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... ever so miraculous as Denry's. Ten per cent. per week, compound interest, mounts up; it ascends, and it lifts. Denry never talked precisely. But the town soon began to comprehend that he was a rising man, a man to watch. The town admitted that, so far, he had lived up to his reputation as a dancer with countesses. The town felt that there was something indefinable ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... walking gentleman, amoroso[obs3], heavy father, ingenue[French], jeune veuve[French]. mummer, guiser[obs3], guisard[obs3], gysart |, masque. mountebank, Jack Pudding; tumbler, posture master, acrobat; contortionist; ballet dancer, ballet girl; chorus singer; coryphee danseuse[Fr]. property man, costumier, machinist; prompter, call boy; manager; director, stage manager, acting manager. producer, entrepreneur, impresario; backer, investor, angel[fig]. dramatic author, dramatic writer; play writer, playwright; dramatist, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... steam-engine within him. And the iron seemed to be afraid of him this time; he flattened it more easily than if it had been a quid of tobacco. And it was a sight to see how Dedele waltzed! She cut such capers, with her tootsies in the air, just like a little dancer at the Elysee Montmartre, who exhibits her fine underclothes; for it would never do to dawdle, iron is so deceitful, it cools at once, just to spite the hammer. With thirty blows, Salted-Mouth, otherwise ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... told what a tall, upright, gracious person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer,—here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted,—the best dancer, I was saying, in the country, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain, but it could ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... representations of the evils he had suffered on board on account of his being a Catholic, that the clergy, and, in fact, all Monterey, interfered. Roche soon became a valuable acquisition to the community; he was an indefatigable dancer, and a good fiddler. Besides, he had already accustomed himself to the Mexican manners and language, and in a horse or buffalo hunt none were more successful. He would tell long stories to the old women about the wonders of Erin, the miracles of St. Patrick, and about the stone at Blarney. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... a kind of Ham Peggotty, lounges out of the Conventicle, which, as these persons seem to leave and enter just when it suits them, ought rather to be called a Chapel-of-Ease,—and, like the clown that he is, says in effect, "I'm a-looking at yer! I've caught yer at it!" Dismay of Dook and Dancer!! then Curtain on a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... most unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the principal favourite. It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young Jewess, it makes her ashamed of the young Jew. The young Jew marries an opera dancer, or if the dancer will not have him, as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the Honourable Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native Infantry; or if such a person does not come forward, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... most men, for he was alone in the world, without kith or kin, and might be fairly allowed to please himself, and pleasing himself in this case meant leading to the altar, or rather to the Registry Office, Miss Bella Blackall, music-hall singer and step dancer. ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were reproduced in miniature in the broker's offices. Maxwell shoved his chair against the wall and transacted business after the manner of a toe dancer. He jumped from ticker to 'phone, from desk to door with the trained ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... burning lust? what so violent an oppugner? Not without good cause therefore so many general councils condemn it, so many fathers abhor it, so many grave men speak against it; "Use not the company of a woman," saith Siracides, 8. 4. "that is a singer, or a dancer; neither hear, lest thou be taken in her craftiness." In circo non tam cernitur quam discitur libido. [5151]Haedus holds, lust in theatres is not seen, but learned. Gregory Nazianzen that eloquent divine, ([5152]as he ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the ground of a man's joy is often hard to hit. It may hinge at times upon a mere accessory, like the lantern; it may reside, like Dancer's in the mysterious inwards of psychology. It may consist with perpetual failure, and find exercise in the continued chase. It has so little bond with externals (such as the observer scribbles in his notebook) that it may even touch ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and imitated the movements of rowers in a boat as we sang in chorus, "Down our mother stream the Volga;" also that I conceived this procedure on our part to be uncalled for; also that, as I lay prone upon the floor, I crossed my legs and began wriggling about like a tsigane; [Gipsy dancer.] also that I ricked some one's neck, and came to the conclusion that I should never have done such a thing if I had not been drunk; also that we had some supper and another kind of liquor, and that I then went to the ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... was not all right. In the evening, when I led my wife out on the floor of the cabin, where the passengers were dancing, every dancer immediately walked off the floor, the men scowling and the women with their noses in the air. All that night my wife wept while ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... and letting go of his companions, he spun round like a ballet-dancer. "Ladies! Let me introduce to you my friend, Dr. Richard Townshend-Mahony, F.R.C.S., M.D., Edinburgh, at present proprietor of the 'Diggers' Emporium,' Dead Dog Hill, Ballarat. —Dick, my hearty, Miss Tilly Beamish, world-famed for her sauce; Miss Jinny, renowned for her skill ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... youth from confronting her; the youth, while attempting to gain his position, must beware lest the maiden present her back to him. Fast and furiously they whirled and dodged, and a shout went up from the bystanders as each unfortunate dancer was compelled to retire. Finally there were only three contestants left; Papita, Piang, and Sicto. Gracefully the little slave girl eluded the boys; slyly she circumvented their attacks. Her little bare feet twinkled daintily about on the sand; her brass anklets jingled ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... gushing tenderness of her wild, yet shrinking glance, seemed the twin of Alfred. The little Carlotta, more than two years older than Michel, was the miniature of her mother, and had a piquant coquettish air, mixed with an expression of repose in one so young quite droll, like a little opera dancer. The father clapped his hands, and all, except himself, turned round, bowed to the audience, and retired, leaving Baroni and his two elder children. Then commenced a variety of feats of strength. Baroni stretched forth his right arm, and Josephine, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... ball. The ravishing music of the orchestra charmed from the street a red nosed old knight of the demijohn, and uninvited he staggered into the brilliant assemblage and made an effort to get a partner for the next set. Failing in this, he concluded to exhibit his powers as a dancer; and galloped around the hall till he galloped into the arms of a strong man who quickly ushered him to the head of the stairs, and gave him a kick and a push; he went revolving down to the street below and fell flat ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... tailor known to give a dance, or to be himself a good dancer, or to perform exquisitely on the tight-rope, or to shine in any such light and airy pastimes? to sing, or play on ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... an unusually social mood. So of course Roy must submit to being bowled round in the new dog-cart and introduced to special friends, in cantonments and Lahore, including the Deputy Commissioner's wife and good-looking eldest daughter; the best dancer in the station and an extra special friend, he gathered from Lance's best ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... a member of the battery procured and turned loose a pig, well greased, said porker to become the property of the one that could catch and hold him; prizes were offered for the champion wrestler and clog dancer, respectively, both of which were captured by members of Company F, notwithstanding they had to compete with picked men from both regiments. James Markham took the clog dancer prize, and John H. ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... carried his musket across his shoulder as a marching soldier should, kept his eyes straight to the front, and stood very firmly upon his one foot. In the fire he lost the tinsel and the color from his uniform, and when the Dancer joined him he melted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... a creature alive, it sobbed and laughed; and when it sobbed, the little figure of the dancer swayed slowly, languidly, like a flower blown to and fro by the breeze; and when it laughed, the rhythm quickened suddenly in a rush like an avalanche falling, and the figure sprang out into the air, turning, twisting, pirouetting; every movement graceful, ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... a great success, and Uncle Phil, aged seventy-two, upheld his reputation as the gayest dancer ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... flowers, interspersed with birds and butterflies. In one corner a statuette of Flora looked down upon a geranium covered with a profusion of rich blossoms. In the opposite corner, ivy was trained to form a dark background for Canova's "Dancer in Repose," over whose arm was thrown a wreath of interwoven vines and orange-blossoms. On brackets and tables were a variety of natural flowers in vases of Sevres china, whereon the best artists of France had painted ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... they do spin! when they truly begin; Each dancer as airy and bright as a doll; While the music complete, keeps time to their feet, With its fiddle-dee-diddle ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... of improvement she added others. Her sister Fanny, having a great desire to learn dancing, the Child of the Marshalsea persuaded a dancing-master, detained for a short time, to teach her. And Fanny became a dancer. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... know that I detest your principles and your person alike," said she. "It shall never be said, Sir, that my person was at the control of a heathenish man of Belial—a dangler among the daughters of women—a promiscuous dancer—and a player of unlawful games. Forgo your rudeness, Sir, I say, and depart away from my presence and that of ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... discovered that the chief dancer, a celebrated foreigner, who had been announced for this evening, was absent. The uproar was tremendous, and it was whispered that the house would be pulled down; because, as Popanilla was informed, the Vraibleusians are the most particular and ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... One day Molina had been present at one of these. It seems incredible, but there was a bank clerk in a gray coat, a three-cornered hat upon his head and a brass buckler on his arm, who sacrificed to Venus in the interval between his two occupations, dancing with the coryphees; a dancer by night and a receiver of money by day. A girl was rehearsing beside him, in black bands and skirt. Then Molina, astonished, inquired who she might be. He was told that it was a girl in mourning, whose mother had just died. The Opera is a fine ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... up." And indeed, the young fellow had not had a cap for a long time, nor a belt to his caftan, nor an embroidered neckerchief: all had gone the proper road. The throng increased; more folk joined the dancer: and it was impossible to observe without emotion how all yielded to the impulse of the dance, the freest, the wildest, the world has ever seen, still called from its mighty ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... accomplished by the active savages in safety. The only one of the party likely to be left behind was Grampus; whom his master, after much entreaty in dumb-show, was permitted to carry over by tying him firmly to his shoulders. Marmoset crossed over walking, like a tight-rope dancer, being quite au fait at such work. Soon after they came to another curious bridge over a ravine. It had been constructed by simply felling two tall trees on the edge of it in such a manner that they fell across. They were bound together with the supple vines that ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... perfection whence these activities are gaining their equilibrium every moment in absolute fitness and harmony. We lose all joy in thus contemplating existence, because we miss the truth. We see the gesticulations of the dancer, and we imagine these are directed by a ruthless tyranny of chance, while we are deaf to the eternal music which makes every one of these gestures inevitably spontaneous and beautiful. These motions are ever growing into ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... a great dancer at any time," he protested; "and to-night my heart would be particularly out of it. I came ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... music, and some more young ladies seemed ready to follow, but, alas! there was a lack of gentlemen acquainted with the new-fashioned dance. One of the stewards bethought him of young Wilkins, only just returned from the Continent. Edward was a beautiful dancer, and waltzed to admiration. For his next partner he had one of the Lady —-s; for the duchess, to whom the—shire squires and their little county politics and contempts were alike unknown, saw no reason ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... dated from St. Petersburg on April 24th, but there was no mention of any Princess in either. Seeking for an explanation, he came to the conclusion that James, who had a slight weakness for the society of ladies connected with the stage, had made the acquaintance of some actress or other, ballet-dancer, singer, artiste, and had given ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... calling for wine and song. The next morning they were all to set out in search of some new Kingdom, and they were peering between the houses and up the long grey street to see for the last time the palace of King Ebalon; and Pattering Leaves, the dancer, cried: ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... difficult movement to perform gracefully. It consists of a step forward, a pause during which the dancer balances on one foot, holding the other suspended forward for a moment, then another step, followed by a bow on the gentleman's part and a deep courtesy ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... directs. "Perhaps the officer is not good natured enough; he makes an ungraceful bow, or does it left leg foremost; this is unbecoming in a great officer at the President's levee. Now, because he is so unfortunate as not to be so good a dancer as he is a worthy officer, he must be removed." These rhetorical flourishes, which are significant of the undercurrent of sentiment, hardly do justice to the general quality of the debate which was ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... the dancing began again with new spirit. An iron hook was driven into the beam in the middle of the roof, and the dancer who, during the whirl of the Halling-polska, succeeded in striking it with his heel, so that it was bent, obtained the prize for dancing this evening. Observing the break-neck efforts of the competitors, Susanna seated herself ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer |
