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Prelude   /prˈeɪlˌud/   Listen
Prelude

verb
(past & past part. preluded; pres. part. preluding)
1.
Serve as a prelude or opening to.
2.
Play as a prelude.



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"Prelude" Quotes from Famous Books



... that some study of an age must ever prelude and accompany the study of its individuals, if comprehension is to wait upon our labours. To proceed otherwise is to judge an individual Hottentot or South Sea Islander by the code of manners that obtains ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... in the trench and caused thirty-five casualties, including all the sergeants of the company. On the eve of an attack such an occurrence was calculated to affect the morale of any troops. That the company afterwards did well was specially creditable in view of this demoralising prelude. ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... winter camp of 1778-'79 forms a fitting prelude to another feat performed by Old Put, this time a physical one, which, while not so worthy of renown, perhaps, as the great moral victory he achieved over his men, has brought him greater fame. Both taken together ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... take us too far out of our track, we should prelude this inquiry by illustrating at some length a certain general law of progress;—the law that alike in occupations, sciences, arts, the divisions that had a common root, but by continual divergence have become distinct, and are now being separately developed, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... remembrance of its higher calling. The elements of a far deeper change were seething; a change, not in the disposition of outward authority, but in the beliefs and convictions which touched the life of the soul. This was yet to come; and the work so far was but the initial step or prelude leading up to the more solemn struggle. Yet where the enemy who is to be conquered is strong, not in vital force, but in the prestige of authority, and in the enchanted defences of superstition, those truly win the battle who ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... that fell in a cascade and formed a lake beneath the castle walls. On the surface of the lake were little boats, painted and gilt, so pretty and dainty that the princess challenged the ambassadors to a voyage. None hesitated to do so, for they thought it was all a gay pastime, and a merry prelude to the marriage festivities. But no sooner had they embarked than boats, fountains, and lake vanished, and the frogs ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... went into the well warmed and lighted crimson drawing room. And Claudia sat down before her grand piano, and tried its keys. From long disuse it was somewhat out of tune, certainly; but her fingers evoked from those keys a beautiful prelude, and her voice rose in that simple, but soul-stirring ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... of Hencastle" is not mine. It is a free translation from the German of Victor Bluethgen, by Major Yeatman-Biggs, R.A., to whom I am indebted for permission to include it in my volume, as a necessary prelude to "Flaps." The story took my fancy greatly, but the ending seemed to me imperfect and unsatisfactory, especially in reference to so charming a character as the old watch dog, and I wrote "Flaps" as ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... result of which was a bastard style of painting, still inferior to the first, childish, stiff in design, crude in color, and completely wanting in chiaroscuro, but at least not a servile imitation, and becoming, as it were, a faint prelude of the true Dutch ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... medias res" has doubtless the charm of ease. "Certainly, when I threw her from the garret window to the stony pavement below, I did not anticipate that she would fall so far without injury to life or limb." When a story has been begun after this fashion, without any prelude, without description of the garret or of the pavement, or of the lady thrown, or of the speaker, a great amount of trouble seems to have been saved. The mind of the reader fills up the blanks,—if erroneously, still satisfactorily. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... whether to believe in his sincerity or no. It was difficult for me to refrain from some softening towards him as he thus spoke, and yet I asked myself whether these fair words were not the prelude to some new piece of knavery or treachery, for which he stood in need ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... years of my life, I shall have frequently to record circumstances that have occurred between the Baronet and myself; it is, therefore, but justice to myself, as well as to the reader, to make the above declaration, as a prelude to that part of my Memoirs, as it may save the Rump the trouble of circulating a great number of falsehoods, of which they will ultimately, with many other base transactions, stand convicted. When I say I was never indebted to or solicited any loan from the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... you can do is to get back to town," he said kindly to that young man; "you need a little sleep. It is not a pleasant prelude to your marriage. By the way, that is to-morrow, is it ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace

... Dick, sharply, and the Nilghai opened his eyes. The old chanty whereof he, among a very few, possessed all the words was not a pretty one, but Dick had heard it many times before without wincing. Without prelude he launched into that stately tune that calls together and troubles the hearts of ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... politics are utterly vain." It is a sad commentary for such a man to have made on such a career, but it fitly represents Mr. Webster's feelings as the end of life approached. His last years were not his most fortunate, and still less his best years. Domestic sorrows had been the prelude to a change of policy, which had aroused a bitter opposition, and to the pangs of disappointed ambition. A sense of mistake and failure hung heavily upon his spirits, and the cry of "vanity, vanity, all is vanity," came readily to his lips. There is an infinite pathos in those melancholy words ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... over, M. le Duc d'Orleans, rising a little in his seat, said to the company, in a tone more firm, and more like that of a master than before, that there was another matter now to attend to, much more important than the one just heard. This prelude increased the general astonishment, and rendered everybody motionless. After a moment of silence the Regent said, that the peers had had for some time good grounds of complaint against certain persons, who by unaccustomed favour, had been allowed to assume ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... hospital was a haven of comfort. Hundreds of cooing doves, stumbling over the roof of the barn, helped to fill the air with their peaceful murmur. It was a strange overture to a battle, but in time I learned to not listen for any more martial prelude. The Boer does not make a business of war, and when he is not actually fighting he pretends that he is camping out for pleasure. In his laager there are no warlike sounds, no sentries challenge, no bugles call. He has no duties to perform, for his ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... his hand down upon the keys as he spoke. That was the strangest prelude ever heard. In their different ways Doctor Levillier and Julian were both intensely fond of music, both quickly stirred by it when it was good, not merely classical, but extravagant, violent, and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... to fulfil them. Probably he is the elect of Fortune, because of that notable faculty of being intent upon his own business: "Which is," says The Pilgrim's Scrip, "with men to be valued equal to that force which in water makes a stream." This prelude was necessary to the present ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... life appears to have been irregular, and to the end he was a weak, vain, discontented man. His chief work is De Regimine Principum or Governail of Princes, written 1411-12. The best part of this is an autobiographical prelude Mal Regle de T. Hoccleve, in which he holds up his youthful follies as a warning. It is also interesting as containing, in the MS. in the British Museum, a drawing of Chaucer, from which all subsequent portraits ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... with an incredible quickness; and though the noise seemed to bear on the water, yet without agitating it, or discovering any more wind on the river than before. This frightful noise was only the prelude of a most violent tempest. The hurricane, the most furious ever felt in the province, lasted three days. As it arose from the south-west and north-east, it reached all the settlements which were along the Missisippi; and was felt for some leagues more or less strong, in ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... Scoffer! so the Scriptures tell us, But awful was the silence at that time; A prelude of the wrath of God most jealous, Expressed in dreadful ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... another—that would be five—and I shall think of two more during dinner. But now I must be moving on; the day has ended; Paris is defining itself upon a straw-coloured sky. I must go, the day is done; and hearing the last notes trickle out—somebody has been playing the prelude to "Tristan"—I say: "Another pretty day passed, a day of meditation on art and women—and what else is there to meditate about? To-morrow will happily be the same as to-day, and to-morrow I shall again meditate on art and women, and the day after I shall be occupied ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... explained by Professor Ziegler in a letter to Professor Groos: "Among all animals a highly excited condition of the nervous system is necessary for the act of pairing, and consequently we find an exciting playful prelude is very generally indulged in" (Groos, loc. cit., p. 242); and Professor Groos thinks that the sexual hesitancy of the female is of advantage to the species, as preventing "too early and too frequent yielding to the sexual impulse" ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... gentleman at this moment fell forward with such weight, that Tamar ran from behind him, and dropping down on her knees, received his head on her shoulder, then, putting one arm round him, she was glad to hear a long, deep sigh, the prelude of his returning to partial consciousness; and as he opened his eyes, he said,—"Ah, Rachel, is it you? You have been gone ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]

... Wallace,[22] "that at this time I had not the least idea of the nature of Darwin's proposed work nor of the definite conclusions he had arrived at, nor had I myself any expectations of a complete solution of the great problem to which my paper was merely the prelude. Yet less than two months later that solution flashed upon me, and to a large extent marked out a different line of work from that which I had up to this time anticipated.... In other parts of this letter I refer ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... from robust, and in particular that he could not write without intolerable physical uneasiness. We should probably not be wrong in connecting his physical weakness with his rule of waiting for favorable moments. His next start with "The Prelude," in the spring of 1804, was more prosperous; he dropped it for several months, but, resuming again in the spring of 1805, he completed it in the summer of that year. But still the composition of the great work to which it was intended ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... God, I do, noble lady," said he. "Ah, how wonderfully has everything fallen out! How thoughtlessly have we sipped joys and sorrows from the full cup now drained to the last drop; and we might fancy the past a mere prelude to the real scene for which we now wait armed by experience. How different has been the reality! Yet let us not regret the past, but rather rejoice that we have not lived in vain. As respects our old friend also, I have a firm hope that it is now ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.

... he bore it unflinchingly and determinedly, the enterprise seemed doomed to failure for lack of funds. At this juncture, he resolved to make the financial news of the day a special feature of "The Herald." The monetary affairs of the country were in great confusion—a confusion which was but the prelude to the crash of 1837; and Wall Street was the vortex of the financial whirlpool whose eddies were troubling the whole land. Every body was anxious to get the first news from the street, and to get it as full and reliable as possible. At this time, too, our relations with France were exceedingly critical—a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... weary the time might be before she could again see that one beloved face or hear the dear familiar voice! The brightest hope she had in these midsummer holidays was the hope of a letter from him; and even that might be the prelude of disappointment. She wrestled with herself, and tried to exorcise those ghosts of memory which haunted her by day and wove themselves into her dreams by night; but they were not to be laid at rest. She hated her folly; but her folly was ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... the Countess, less capable of looking a situation in the face and of advancing to it, such an evening would have marked the prelude to one of those nights of insomnia when the mind exhausts in advance all the agonies of probable danger. Countess Steno did not know what weakness ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... for Pronunciation of Proper Names Prologue Act First Act Second Prelude to Act Third Act Third Prelude to Act Fourth Act Fourth Act Fifth Prelude to Act Sixth Act ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... front of the beautiful palace, and straightway a rosy bengal light lit up the carvings of the fairy-like facade with a magical effect. The band, lurking melodramatically under the gleaming arches of the barge, struck up a prelude, and presently a soprano voice rose high and strong above the wind and stringed instruments, ringing superbly out across the water. The fantastic impression of the scene was so strong that it seemed as if the visible ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller

... as she stepped out to join him, struck a buffet of warm air; a heavy scent of narcissus rose from the flower-boxes on the terrace; and from a garden far below came the sharp thin prelude of a nightingale. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... subsequent care on the part of the doctor and the nurse might have kept him alive long enough to permit his case to be recorded by virtue of his having escaped alive from the operating table, as one of those exasperatingly smug things known to the profession as a "successful operation,"—sardonic prelude to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... the duke, "no matter; stay with me a while. I wish your counsel about some affairs that concern me nearly." He then told Valentine an artful story, as a prelude to draw his secret from him, saying that Valentine knew he wished to match his daughter with Thurio, but that she was stubborn and disobedient to his commands, "neither regarding," said he, "that ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... tradition, and move in a world locally altogether different. Mr. Abbey is still young, he is full of ideas and intentions, and the work he has done may, in view of his time of life, of his opportunities and the singular completeness of his talent, be regarded really as a kind of foretaste and prelude. It can hardly fail that he will do better things still, when everything is so favorable. Life itself is his subject, and that is always at his door. The only obstacle, therefore, that can be imagined in Mr. Abbey's future career is a possible embarrassment ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... wonderful prelude to freedom; many weeks and months he had worked upon these chains to prepare for the moment of freedom. Now these chains had fallen. He was already a free man; he cared not for these dark, damp walls. He did not see them; he was already without, where the sun was shining, the birds were ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... was made by the Phoenician cities. Ochus marched on against Egypt and effected its reconquest.[14343] The Cyprian revolt was put down by the Prince of Caria, Istricus.[14344] A calm, prelude to the coming storm, settled down upon Persia; and Phoenicia participated in the general tranquillity. The various communities, exhausted by their recent efforts, and disappointed with the result, laid aside their political aspirations, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... taking the other. I supposed him to be one of the elders, going to give out the hymns, or to assist in the devotional exercises. At this moment the organ—a fine-toned instrument—struck up, and the choir sang some piece—known, I presume, only to themselves, for no others joined in it. This prelude I have since found is universal in America. In all places of worship provided with an organ, a "voluntary" on that instrument is the first exercise. In the present instance the choir had no sooner ceased than the Doctor stood up, having ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... Crusoe knew his name by this time, for it had been so often used as a prelude to his meals that he naturally expected a feed whenever he heard it. This portal to his brain had already been open for some days; but all the other doors were fast locked, and it required a great deal of careful picking to ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... takes itself out of the way. As I walked homewards I paused midway on the barren ridge to gaze back on the scene I had left, and then the recent adventure began to take a semi-ludicrous aspect in my mind. All that circumstance of preparation, that mysterious prelude to something unheard of, unimaginable, surpassing all fables ancient and modern, and all tragedies—to end at last in a concert of howling monkeys! Certainly the concert was very grand—indeed, one of the most astounding ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... heart rejoice, And with prophetic rapture sing; His song a prelude to that 'Voice'[8] ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney

... in fashioning the great machine is but the prelude to the application of further labour, with still increased returns. With each such application, wages rise, and hence it is that portions of the machine, as it exists, invariably exchange, when brought to market, for far less labour than they have cost. There is thus a steady decline ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... in the direction of the angels, must hear such words. There were mingled with them, nevertheless, life, humanity, all the positiveness of which Marius was capable. It was what is said in the bower, a prelude to what will be said in the chamber; a lyrical effusion, strophe and sonnet intermingled, pleasing hyperboles of cooing, all the refinements of adoration arranged in a bouquet and exhaling a celestial perfume, an ineffable twitter ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... The announced expedient and prelude to an alliance with France and Spain against ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... time than usual at the piano but she neglected her own work in favour of Allison's accompaniments. When she was alone, she could play them creditably, even without the notes, but if, by any chance, he stood beside her, waiting until the prelude was finished, she faltered at the ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... after all, she was a woman, and alone with him in the place. She had sunk back against the altar that was behind her. Her eyes were closed, her face a white mask of anguish; she looked as though about to swoon. Bough hailed the symptoms as favourable. Fainting was the prelude to caving in, with the women he knew. But when he stirred, her eyes were wide and preternaturally bright, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... join the rebel army. Eustace, in an equal degree unwilling to allow any good qualities to a person who was in arms against the King, declared that he suspected the apparent urbanity of the stranger to be only a prelude to some base design. He resolved, that while they continued prisoners, nothing should separate him from his fair charge; and Williams and he agreed that they would sit up alternately every night, in order to be ready at ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... Every one—such is the admirable arrangement—seems to do likewise. In a few minutes about one thousand persons are seated without confusion. The theater is darkened, the footlights are lowered, the prelude begins. ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis

... shortcut to this grasp of affairs. The sack is filled bean by bean. Patient application to one thing at one time is the first rule of success; getting on one's horse and riding off in all directions is the prelude to failure. All specialists like to talk about their work; the interest of any other man is flattering; all men grow in knowledge chiefly by picking other men's brains. Book study of the subject, specialized courses in the service schools, the instructive ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... prelude, which, to his trained ear, revealed her perfect touch, her voice rose with a sweet, resonant power that held those near spellbound, and swelled in volume until people in distant parts of the house ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... the chatter of civilized men and the deliberations of barbarians. With La Hontan, the Baron de Saint-Castin would have led up to his business by a long prelude on other subjects. With Madockawando, he waited until the tobacco had mellowed both their spirits, ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... disturbed by the sound of martial music close below my windows. I went down and stood at the door. A military band was marshalled upon the little square before the exchange. It was preparing to beat the retreat. After the prelude, which was admirably executed, the tall leader gave a flourish with his stick, and strode forward up the street, followed by the whole company of noble looking fellows and a crowd of admiring listeners. The cymbals clashed, the horns screamed, and the kettle-drum ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... figures of the Carlist guerillas were seen racing down the hills, the Christino skirmishers advanced to meet them, and soon a sharp irregular fire of musketry, and the cloud of smoke which spread over the middle ground between the armies, announced that the fight, or at least the prelude to it, had begun. This desultory sort of contest was of short duration. Several Carlist battalions moved forward, a gallant attack was made on the Christino position, and as gallantly repelled: commanded by a brave and skilful officer, and favoured by a judicious choice ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... for Wordsworth just at the psychological moment; and they were not withheld, moreover, until he was full of years and honors. Indeed, we owe this poet to the poet-by-proxy of whom Wordsworth wrote, in "The Prelude": ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, is expressed with much ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... never lectured her attendants, knowing probably that sermons in example are more impressive than sermons in words. In illustration of the freedom they enjoyed in her presence and hearing, one of them, behind the curtain, touched a stringed instrument—a cithern—and followed the prelude with ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... During this prelude the tigress stretched herself out with stoical indifference, pretending to take no interest in the scene—as if she were the only animal of her race in the desert. At intervals she would gaze with delight at the reflected image of ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... the Father will be able to help repenting at last; that no God-born soul will be able to go on trying to satisfy himself with the husks that the swine eat, or to refrain from thinking of his Father's house, and wishing himself within its walls even in the meanest place; or that such a wish is prelude to the best robe and the ring and the fatted calf, when the Father would spend himself in joyous obliteration of his son's past and its misery—having got him back his very own, and better than when he went, because more ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... humorous rather than resentful; yet she realized that it contained a disagreeable sting. Was her long day over at last? Had the sun set on her conquests? Had her adventurous return to power been merely a prelude to the ultimate Waterloo? Lifting her eyes suddenly from her plate she met the deep meditative gaze of John Benham across the marigolds on the table; and the faint flush that kindled her face made her eyes glow like embers. ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... fail in their aims are disappointed and discontented. In this the unmarried and childless woman, and the widow who has lost her treasure, will be agreed; but if we regard our present existence as only a prelude to a better—as an education, a training for a high and happier sphere—then the disappointed may take heart, for they have only come to the beginning of their life, and may surely wait with some degree of patience until a future life expands their happiness. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... knowledge, about the meaning of truth and the value of words, that is to say I found I had to begin by being metaphysical. In writing out these notes now I think it is well that I should state just how important I think this metaphysical prelude is. ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... Beethoven. The structure of his great and characteristic works is based on the symphonic form. The development of the themes of "Tristan" and "Die Meistersinger" and "Parsifal" out of single kernels; the fine logical sequence, the expositions of the thematic material of "Parsifal" in the prelude and in Gurnamanz's narrative, and its subsequent reappearance and adventures and developments, are something like a summit of symphonic art as Beethoven made it to be understood. And his orchestra is scarcely more ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... they chaunt in spirit, not wars of clans: Yea, one day, conscious, they shall sing that song; One day by river clear of south or north, Pagan no more, the laurelled head shall rise, And chaunt the Warfare of the Realm of Souls, The anguish and the cleansing, last the crown - Prelude of songs celestial!" ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... misspent time, wasted talents, lost opportunities, neglect of God's word and ordinances, so that the soul cannot rest. O, my Juliet, this is a hopeful case. I hope you have experienced something of this. It is one of the surest marks of the operation of the Spirit of God, and a prelude to the new birth. It never takes place without it, for the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. Only the weary and heavy laden will prize rest, and Christ is the rest they need; only a convinced sinner will or can prize the Saviour, and now the Lord opens his mind to understand ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... fell on the men. They would not miss one syllable of the delightful remarks of this rarest of all tenderfoots, and the prelude of this coming utterance promised something that would eclipse all that ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... old days together, and warmed their chilled hearts again! Surely Isaka's dream had heralded a measure of restored joy for him that morning, if nothing better and more lasting. He spoke of his dream, and of how it came first as the prelude of that Banquet, and of how his heart had danced on that Banquet morning, and the sun had danced in his sight at the sunrise. His friend was allowed to stay by him, for the transport officer was kindly, and they talked on and on. Isaka knew ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... because of a lack of appreciation of the abstract that the emphasis of this book is on the concrete. It is written as an introduction to the study of the principles of sociology, and it may well be used as a prelude to the various social sciences. It is natural that trained sociologists should prefer to discuss the profound problems of their science, and should plunge their pupils into material for study where they are soon beyond their depth; much of ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... not only official phases of the great crisis, but also the highest significance of liberty and democracy and the reactions of President and people to the great developments of the times. The second Inaugural Address with its sense of solemn responsibility serves as a prophecy as well as prelude to the declaration of war and the message to the people ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson

... miles further on, the railway enters a country of pine and juniper, a stately prelude to the majesties and grandeurs of the Kohonino (Coconino) Forest. Here it seems as if one were suddenly transported to England, and were passing through a succession of landed estates, without, however, finding the accompanying mansions. Aisles of stately trees, nature planted and grown, yet ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... the prelude to many more. Grisell wanted to hear it over again, and then who was the Archbishop martyr, and who were the Virgins in memory of whom the lamps were carried. Both these, and many another history, parable, or legend were told her by Sister Avice, training her soul, throughout the long recovery, ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... personal description of not only the immediate members of the writer's family, but even extended to cousins once or twice removed. He had also much to say about his name of Greeley; sometimes he was proud of it, and sometimes the reverse, according to the company he was in. Passing over all this prelude, we discovered that Greeley Barnum M———'s object in writing was to request a complete outfit for his sister who was about to go to school. "You are a young Lady, Miss greeley," the writer touchingly said, "and know everything that my sister would be likely ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... had fully arranged for the details of the task which lay before him. With the notes he had thrust into his pocket a little handful of business papers involving a knotty and delicate point of business, and he intended that the discussion of the point they raised should act as the prelude to the disclosure and the restitution he desired to make. He could not, even in his newfound heroism, and with whatever hysteric hardihood he was prepared to meet the stroke of fate, he could not as yet encounter Brown, and lay bare before ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... all remember the exquisite use made by Hans Andersen in one of his nursery tales; or the child's own name, at intervals repeated, just as the little watchful boy heard it in far off Judaea, when it was the prelude to a wondrous communication from the unseen world. It came to him as he woke from sleep, before the morning dawned, while the lamp, lighted overnight, was burning still; and still it is so far the same that these occurrences which suggest to us problems ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... would be the opening measures of "Tristan and Isolde" without that upward inflection which comes like a sunbeam through a rift in the cloud; with a downward inflection the effect would be that of unrelieved gloom. In the Prelude to "Lohengrin," Wagner pictures his angels in dazzling white. He uses the highest vibrating sounds at his command. But for the dwarfs who live in the gloom of Niebelheim he chooses deep shades of red, the lowest vibrating colour of the solar spectrum. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... Alas! that all the best is found beyond the grave,— That gate of green which Gimle opens; vile is all, Contaminated all that dwells beneath the stars. And yet there is atonement found in life itself,— A humble prelude to the peace of heaven above. 'Tis like the broken chords the minstrel strikes upon The harp, when he with skillful fingers wakes the song; The tone attuning with a gentle hand, before With firmer touch he grasps the golden strings,— Grand memories of old alluring from their ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... for help. The battle began at nine in the morning—one of the sacred hours of the church. The trumpet sounded, and a flight of arrows from all three Norman divisions—right, centre, and left,—was the prelude to the onslaught of the heavy-armed foot. The real struggle now began. The French infantry had to toil up the hill, and to break down the palisade, while a shower of stones and javelins disordered their approach, and while ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... the half-hour preceding dinner, the dining-room was the scene of another struggle, only a little less desperate than that which had been the prelude to lunch, and again an appeal to the head of the house was found necessary. Muscular activity and a liberal imitation of the jeremiads once more subjugated the rebel—and the same rebellion and its suppression in a like manner took place ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... episode in the history of the Vaudois forms a fitting prelude to the advent of a yet more substantial token of good-will on the part of their sovereign. I mean that edict of emancipation which, while it did justice to the people of the valleys, also, by the circumstances of their inclusion, made the kingdom ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... very dangerous thing when you don't. And there were cynics—not too frivolous—who held that the best course for the Government would be to withdraw from Ireland for the time being and leave Ulster and the Rest to come to an agreement of their own, either with or without a bloody prelude. And there were other critics—not much more frivolous—who replied that, if we walked out of Ireland and left Ulster and the Rest to come to terms, they might get to understand one another to such good purpose that we should never have the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various

... less that a day would come when I should envy the ducks their domestic ease and the unthinking tranquillity of their lives. A little boy may be excused for not realising that Hans Andersen's story is only the prelude to a sadder story that he had not ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... "God forgive you for a gomeral!" And then he stared very sternly at Rixa, who saw the movement of the swollen neck above the 'kerchief, knew that the Paymaster was administering a reproof, and was comforted exceedingly by this prelude ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... kind of prelude and formula was familiar to him. It was usually followed by, "Promise me that you will never swear again," or, "that you will go straight home and wash your face," or some other irrelevant personality. But nobody with that ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... gets him with his back to the wall. He vanishes in the shining cloud of a witty abstraction when cornered. His prose is full of winged neologisms, his poetry heavy with the metaphysics of ennui. Remy de Gourmont speaks of his magnificent work as the prelude to an oratorio achieved in silence. Laforgue, himself, called it an intermezzo, and in truth it is little more. His intellectual sensibility and his elemental soul make for mystifications. As if he knew the frailness of his tenure on life, he sought azure and elliptical routes. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft and Possession,' which, together with Baxter's 'Certainty of the World of Spirits,' a work Mather was careful to distribute and recommend to the people, increased the fever of fear and fanaticism to the highest pitch. The above incidents were the prelude only to the proper drama of the Salem witches. In 1692, two girls, the daughter and niece of Mr. Parvis, minister, suffering from a disease similar to that of the Goodwins, were pronounced to be preternaturally afflicted. Two miserable Indians, man and ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... stranded at the very spot where the pilgrims always said "Ecco Roma," as they caught the first glimpse of St. Peter's dome. This melodramatic entrance into Rome, or rather pretended entrance, was the prelude to days of enchantment, and I returned to Europe two years later in order to spend a winter there and to carry out a great desire to systematically study the Catacombs. In spite of my distrust of "advantages" I was ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... As prelude to the scene, as means to aid Our younger comrades in its construing, Pray spread your scripture, and rehearse in brief The reasonings here of late—to whose effects ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... ago, for a lightsome comedy, and lo! 'tis to be a tragedy instead! Think you, dear Barbara, that death would come easier by means of yonder bed-cord, or of those great scissors dangling at thy waist? Or, perhaps, if thou couldst play Othello to my Desdemona, it might seem a gentler prelude to the grave. How heavy is a lie, good dame? Think you it would drag a soul to hell? If so, I need not to go alone; for if I lied to Melinza, he also lied to me—and Dona Orosia also"—then a strong shudder shook my ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock

... unseemly violences, that I can see or hear each separate incident in its detail, can indeed see or hear little else. So much in this place do men live by pain that my friendship with you, in the way through which I am forced to remember it, appears to me always as a prelude consonant with those varying modes of anguish which each day I have to realise, nay more, to necessitate them even; as though my life, whatever it had seemed to myself and others, had all the while been a real symphony of sorrow, passing through ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... however, and asked very few questions. Nothing fresh was solicited. Mrs. Rickett repeated her story, and the letter from the murdered woman, which the prisoner admitted having lost, was put in evidence. The proceedings being merely a prelude to a higher court, the jurors rendered an undecisive verdict. They found that the deceased had been murdered by a person or persons unknown, but that suspicion strongly pointed to her husband, John Vernon. They advised, moreover, that the police should try to find ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... was the lightening of the pressure, the slight recoil, which could only be a prelude to another assault upon his last stronghold. He clutched his three facts to him as a shield, groping for others which might have ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... inquired about the problems of life, the churchmen pointed to the creeds and the dogmas of the church, which had settled all things. If men were too persistent in inquiring about the nature of this world, they were told that it is of little importance, only a prelude to the world to come; that they should spend their time in preparation for the future. Even as great a man as Gregory of Tours said: "Let us shun the lying fables of the poets and forego the wisdom of the sages at enmity with God, lest we incur the condemnation of endless death by the sentence ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... Knight and the Soldan of Bagdad:" and Phil prepared to obey her commands. He took a small harp in his hand, and sate down in the vacant chair next to Sir Bryan de Bareilles. The rest of the company composed themselves to listen; and, after a short prelude, Lorimer, in a fine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... as the organist gets into the spirit of his theme by means of a dreamy prelude, so the poet by means of this introduction intends to suggest the spirit of ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... preoccupied and disturbed with some local happening and who comes on to the platform with a face imprinted with distress. Before introducing the lecturer he refers in moving tones to the local sorrow, whatever it is. As a prelude to a humorous ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... of ivory keys, Helen started the prelude and every one in the room grew silent and attentive. Then from the side of the instrument there suddenly appeared before the quiet audience a radiant vision, a girl with tawny, glittering curls hanging in ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... each with his clay pistol puffing forth fire and smoke, and slander to his neighbour. At length I was fain to request my guide to permit me to move on; the floor was impure with saliva and spilt drink, and I was apprehensive that certain heavy hiccups which I heard, might be merely the prelude to something ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... eventually at Hymen's feet. And here he found all such theories suddenly reversed. The first moment the idea of marriage was presented to his notice the vision of the only possible bride for him stood out with quite definite distinctness. Instead of Love being a prelude to the thought of Marriage, that thought had been the crashing chords that had opened his mind to Love. But the Love had been already there, unrecognised. He found he could no way now imagine himself as apart from Patricia. To eliminate her presence from his heart was to lose part of his individuality; ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... stubbornness—and not a damn thing to back it up! Where's your coat? Here. Git into it." Without any prelude, any apology, he wrested the stick of wood from her, pulled her coat off a nail near by, and held it outspread, the armholes convenient to her hands. With her chin shivering, Mary Hope obeyed the brute strength of the man. ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... laughable, for example, than the expression of the old dreamer's visage when Marley informed him that he had often sat beside him invisibly! Promised a chance and hope in the fixture—a chance and hope of his dead partner's procuring—Scrooge's "Thank 'ee!"—full of doubt—was a fitting prelude to his acknowledgment of the favour when explained. "You will be haunted," quoth the Ghost, "by three Spirits." The other faltering, "I—I think I'd rather not:" and then quietly hinting afterwards, "Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent

... difference between these two stages. In the first, the deliberate inward retreat and gathering together of your faculties which was effected by recollection, was the prelude to a new coming forth, an outflow from the narrow limits of a merely personal life to the better and truer apprehension of the created world. Now, in the second stage, the disciplined and recollected attention seems to take an opposite course. It is directed towards a plane ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... our ears, because they are harmonized by silence and hallowed by the hour that is sacred to repose—in like manner does the Song-Sparrow delight us in tenfold measure, because he sings the sweet prelude to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... in the kirks, and the beautiful memorial windows of stained glass were not for the purpose of looking out, he did not see a dramatic incident that occurred in the kirkyard after three o'clock in the afternoon. The prelude to it really began with the report of the timegun at one. Bobby had insisted upon being let out of the lodge kitchen, and had spent the morning near Auld Jock's grave and in nosing about neighboring slabs and thorn bushes. When ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... the Diptera, we see the greatest contrast between the larva and the imago that can be found throughout the whole class of the insects. The Bluebottle's eggs, the well-known 'fly blow' laid in summer time on exposed meat, not unnaturally arouse feelings of disgust, yet they are the prelude to one of the most marvellous of all insect life-stories. The fly—with its large globular head, bearing the extensive compound eyes, the highly modified feelers with their exquisitely feathered slender sensory tips, and the ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter

... occurred during the night between the advanced parties, with scarcely any other effect than to discover the situation of the armies, evince the intention of the generals, and serve as a prelude to the events of the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... The first prelude of Sebastian Bach's Wohltemperirte Klavier expresses nothing, and yet that is one of the marvels of music. The Venus de Milo expresses nothing, and it is one of ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... termed the special feature of the last age of feudalism which preceded the Renaissance. It was thus that the necessary milieu was prepared. The organization of the five great nations, and the levelling of political and spiritual interests under political and spiritual despots, formed the prelude to that drama of liberty of which the Renaissance was the first act, the Reformation the second, the Revolution the third, and which we nations of the present are still evolving in the establishment of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... discussions which formed a prelude to the Convention of 1881. In the discussions, however, mention is only made of burgher rights or civil rights, with reference to which all possible equality has continuously existed since the Sand River Convention. To safeguard ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... looked undoubtedly nervous, and just then Oliver began the prelude to Lesley's song. It was certainly English enough. ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... were but the prelude to a harsher sound which interrupted and annihilated them: the Court-house bell clanging out twelve. "All right," said Joe. "It's noon and I'm 'across ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... must also be in the minds of prison officers a serious conviction that they are capable of being reformed, since no man can heartily pursue an object at war with his inward beliefs; no man can earnestly strive to accomplish what in his heart he despairs of accomplishing. Doubt is the prelude of failure; confidence a guaranty of success. Nothing so weakens moral forces as unbelief; nothing imparts to them such vigor as faith. 'Be it unto thee according to thy faith,' is the statement of a fundamental ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... born and highly educated, was perhaps a rudely-minded man. But he was no traitor. If the lovely woman, Theodosia Prevost, whom he married, had lived, there is reason to believe that the whole course and tenor of his career would have been altered. Her death was an irreparable blow, as it were, a prelude to the series of mischances that followed. The death of their daughter, the lovely Theodosia Alston, completed the tragedy ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... guilty of no very bad guess who should assign this stanza—which Scott greatly admired—to one of he Spenserian passages that prelude the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... trebled, with ease. Now, although, from the point of view of those bodies who adopt it, such a policy has many advantages, and is perhaps a tactical necessity, this levelling down of labour to the minimum of individual efficiency is denounced by many critics as a prelude to industrial suicide, and the alarm which these persons feel is doubtless intelligible enough. It is, however, largely superfluous. The levelling process in question must of course involve a certain amount ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... he is burrowing in the shelves of some second-hand book-shop or dreaming in the dome of some Broadway skyscraper. Does not this seem inevitable, however, considering the palingenetic burden within him? And is not loafing a necessary prelude to the travail? Khalid, of course, felt the necessity of this, not knowing the why and wherefor. And from the vast world of paper-bound souls, for he relished but pamphlets at the start—they do not make much smoke in the fire, he would ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... inferior in numbers and skill, with a larger or more experienced force; and that they should, therefore, be ready, when the signal should be given, to fall vigorously on the Romans, as that day would either crown[163] all their labors and victories, or be a prelude to the most grievous calamities. He also addressed himself, individually, to any one whom he had rewarded with money or honors for military desert, reminding him of his favors, and pointing him out as an example to the rest; and finally he excited all his men, some in ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... respectable as Mr. Gunter's father; to which Mr. Gunter replied that his father was to the full as respectable as Mr. Noddy's father, and that his father's son was as good a man as Mr. Noddy, any day in the week. As this announcement seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking and clamoring ensued, in the course of which Mr. Noddy gradually allowed his feelings to overpower him, and profest that he had ever entertained a devoted personal ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... motive, human strength, and earthly destiny. We protest against this narrowing down of life, though it be done with the faultless skill and taste of the most cultured genius. The children of men are not orphaned. Our Creator is still "Emmanuel—God with us." Earthly existence is but the prelude of our life, and even from this the Divine artist can take much of the discord, and give an earnest of ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... Harrowdean in an evil mood. He had been away from her for ten days—ten whole days. No doubt Edith had manoeuvred to keep him. She hadn't! Hadn't she? How was he, poor simple soul! to tell that she hadn't? That was the prelude to ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... that of our arrival at Parnari was very peculiar, the thermometer did not rise higher than 81 degrees, but the barometer fell to 28.730 degrees, and the atmosphere was so light that we could hardly breathe. I had hoped that this would have been a prelude to rain, ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... remembered how at that very moment two swallows shot by the open window, uttering their eager little note; the room swam with him, and he thought he was going to reel and fall. For a moment he saw nothing and knew nothing, except that he had reached the end of the short prelude on the lute, and that he must find voice to sing for his liberty and Ortensia's, if not ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... more are summoned by a wizard's wand from the land of shadows, to march by the central figures of these volumes; to dance, flutter, love, hate, intrigue, and die before our eyes. It is the largest and most varied showbox in all history; a prelude to a series of battle-pieces—Rossbach, Leuthen, Molwitz, Zorndorf—nowhere else, save in the author's own pages, approached in prose, and rarely rivalled ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... by the side of the sofa drawn up close to the high open windows of the Italian villa, and felt that thin white hand laid gently upon his trembling lips, checking in a moment the flood of angry words which in his heart had been but the prelude to a curse. The calm of that death-white face, with its marble passionless pallor and saint-like beauty, lingered still, faithfully treasured up in the rich store-house of his memory. Death alone would wipe it out. It was one of the experiences of his life, written alike into his undying recollection, ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... is certain to the pure and true: success to falsehood and corruption, tyranny and aggression, is only the prelude to a greater and an irremediable fall.—STUBBS, Seventeen Lectures, 20. The Carlylean faith, that the cause we fight for, so far as it is true, is sure of victory, is the necessary basis of all effective activity for good.—CAIRD, Evolution of Religion, ii. 43. It is the property of truth ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... period, when there seems to a man to be a dearth of ideas, a mental drought, acts as a sort of incubation in which a thought is slowly conceived and perfected. Sometimes a long period of repression stores force at high pressure. The lean years are often the prelude, even the cause, of the years of fatness, when the exhausted and overteemed earth has lain fallow and still, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... landing stage the reception was a quiet one, only notabilities and guards of honour occupying the Navy Yard, but this quietness was only the prelude to a day of ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... in scarlet and silver: a French orchestra already playing a delicate prelude: a lively audience—a typical "Moor" audience—agreeably ready to be piqued and ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... first Discourse, delivered to the Academy students on the 10th of December, 1879, the new President took occasion to estimate the modern predicament and general position of Art, as a prelude to the consideration of its special developments, in later Discourses. "I wish in so doing," he said, "to seek the solution of certain perplexities and doubts which will often, in these days of restless self-questioning in which we ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys

... tragedy that is happening under the cover of the cocoon. The flacid and faded larva is the mason bee's. A month ago, in June, having finished its mess of honey, it wove its silken sheath for a bedchamber wherein to take the long sleep which is the prelude to the metamorphosis. Bulging with fat, it is a rich and defenseless morsel for whoever is able to reach it. Then, in spite of apparently insurmountable obstacles, the mortar wall and the tent without an opening, the flesh-eating larvae ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... agility in matching odd rhymes. In dash and originality his rhymes out-rank even those in Butler's Hudibras and Lowell's Fable for Critics. We find in Pacchiarotto, for instance, many rhymes of the gayest, most freakish, most grotesque character—"monkey, one key," "prelude, hell-hued," "stubborn, cub-born," "was hard, hazard," all occur in a single stanza. An example of exceptional facility in rhyming is found in "Through the Metidja," where, without repetition of words and without forcing ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... erect and stiff, with her arms folded. Ina fixed her deep eyes on her, playing a liquid prelude all the time, then swelled her chest and sung the old Venetian cauzonet, "Il pescatore de'll' onda." It is a small thing, but there is no limit to the genius of song. The Klosking sung this trifle with a voice so grand, sonorous, and sweet, and, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... in the little street, resolved to push his fortune in that direction without fear and without hesitation. Mrs. Leslie again took her departure, leaving them together, and Lizzie allowed her friend to go, although the last words that Lopez had spoken had been, as he thought, a fair prelude to the words he intended to speak to-day. "And what do you think of it?" he said, taking ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope



Words linked to "Prelude" :   spiel, origin, inception, play, origination, function, serve, overture, music



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