"Prelude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... menacing attitude in the following year kept Don Juan in Sicilian waters, and made his victory barren for Christendom. Encouraged by French protection, Venice withdrew from the League. Even in Corsica there was a movement which men interpreted as a prelude to the storm that France was raising against the empire of Spain. Rome trembled in expectation of a Huguenot invasion of Italy; for Charles was active in conciliating the Protestants both abroad and at home. He married a daughter of the tolerant ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... was only a prelude to real disaster: the fleet arrived safe at Panormus, where they remained a short time. On their departure for Italy, the wind and weather were favourable till they reached Cape Palinurus; here a dreadful ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... of the wounded and the unburied dead. Such an experience was full of painful contrast to the quiet scenes of home and school life to which he had hitherto been accustomed. In his history, as with thousands of other brave boys who missed death through many battles, this period was the sharp prelude to a long experience of successive conflicts, of weary marches seasoned with hunger, of prison starvation and the many privations which fall to the lot of the soldier, all glorified when given freely in the defence ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... whose footsteps were heard approaching it. The person stopped on their challenge, and presently after was heard the sound of a rote, (a small species of lute,) the strings of which were managed by means of a small wheel. After a short prelude, a manly voice, of good compass, sung verses, which, translated into modern ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... he rejoined; "you must not look at it like that. There is always some happiness to be got out of married life. You are not very happy in your old home—you will like to have one of your own—a wedding is only the prelude to ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... harmless look on the Printed Page, but when pulled at the Psychological turn of the Road, they become the Funeral Knell of Bachelor Freedom and a Prelude to cutting the String on ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... silence, crept the first dew-clear notes of Chopin's F Sharp Major Nocturne. The liquid beauty of the last bars had scarcely died away, when the unseen piano gave forth, tragically exultant, the glorious chords of the Twentieth Prelude—climbing higher and higher in a mournful triumph of minor chords and sinking at last into the final solemn splendor of the closing measures. The old gentleman turned on the piano-stool to find Kirk weeping passionately and silently ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... broken by the sound of a few chords struck very lightly and softly upon a guitar. The sound came from the clump of trees, the shadows of which Agnes had just been admiring; and she supposed they were the prelude to a serenade. Her heart whispered to her who the musician might be, for though she had never heard him, with whom her thoughts had been busy, touch the guitar, yet with his ardent love for music, she did not doubt that he might if ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... him, indoors and out of doors. She weaned him from the embittering brawl of politics, and warded away the sourness and despair, which, at one time, seriously threatened to possess him. In the "Prelude," ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... smiled, but this time it was by way of encouragement, and he at once began a little prelude on ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... had an idea where to go, and that his questioning was really a prelude to its announcement. "Where do you think ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... to what rude remarks, and unkind remarks and untrue remarks such words as these commonly form the prelude, and how very few of these plain speakers enjoy being plainly ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... had started, Abdu left his companions and came and sat beside him. Helmar knew this was the prelude to some fiendish cruelty, but what he did not know. He was not long left ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... if nothing very good comes from this impulse, for the purpose to "tell the world" that my vision of America is startlingly different from what I have read about America is identical with that break with the past which has again and again been prelude to a new era. I do not wish to discuss the alleged new era. Like the younger generation, it has been discussed too much and is becoming evidently self-conscious. But if the autobiographical novel is to be regarded as its literary herald (and they are all prophetic Declarations of ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... companions; they are full of repentance (IV.). Good-will is different from friendship; it is a sudden impulse of feeling towards some distinguished or likeable quality, as in an antagonist. It has not the test of longing in absence. It may be the prelude to friendship (V.). Unanimity, or agreement of opinion, is a part of friendship. Not as regards mere speculation, as about the heavenly bodies; but in practical matters, where interests are at stake, such as the politics of the day. This unanimity cannot occur in the bad, from ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... With this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-course narrative which we all know by heart. How, after interminable attendance and correspondence, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... strains, however, 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 ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... epicure in beauty. He insisted on our closing our eyes till we came to just the spot where the view was most perfect, and then he drew in his horses, gave the word, and we looked on a valley as lovely as a dream. I am glad that we saw it as we did, after a long prelude of shaded roads and sentinel trees. Nowadays you rush to it madly by train and motor. Then it was a dear secret hidden away in the heart ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... in response, wrote that he believed the Creeks and Cherokees sincerely desired peace. This was followed forthwith by new outrages, and Blount wrote to Robertson: "It does really seem as if assurances from Mr. Seagrove of the peaceful disposition of the Creeks was the prelude to their murdering and plundering the inhabitants of your district." [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793; Blount to James Seagrove, Jan. 9, 1794; Seagrove to Blount, Feb. 10, 1794; Blount to Robertson, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... not wish one's life to have been untroubled! Halcyon calm, heedless innocence, childish joy, was not after all the point—pretty things enough, but only as a change and a relief, or perhaps rather as a prelude to more serious business! I was, as a boy, afraid of life, hated its noise and scent, suspected it of cruelty and coarseness, wanted to keep it at arm's length. I feel very differently about life now; it's a boisterous business enough, ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... natives use their arms against the wild animals of the forest. The dangers and difficulties they encounter in overcoming them form a kind of prelude to war, and perfect them in the use of their weapons. The rifle of the North American Indian would never be so much dreaded did he not depend upon its produce for his subsistence. I have myself (during my travels through North America) had many opportunities ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... you alone," answered Verdant. The great stumbling-block of his doubts was now removed, and his way lay clear before him. Then, after a momentary pause to nerve his determination, and without further prelude, or beating about the bush, he said, "Patty - my dear Miss Honeywood - I love you! do ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... of vast importance, and was, moreover, but a prelude to things still more far-reaching. But, critical as it was, Maxwell was prepared for it. During the later years of his friend Hallin's life the two men had constantly discussed the industrial consequences of democracy with unflagging eagerness and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... such courage as I had; and the instant I set eyes on the man I knew that he was Colonel Corkran. He was born to be a retired colonel. What came before the retiring could have been but a prelude. A stout figure of middle height; red face, veined on cheeks and nose; pale blue eyes which looked as if they had faded in the wash; purple moustache and eyebrows; close-cropped gray hair; a double chin clamouring for extra collar space; and a bridge-player's expression. This was the rival whose ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... sooner left him than he came to Louisa, thinking it his duty to give her warning of the count's design, and that it would be a proper prelude to something else he had to say. As the servants knew she was not perfectly well, they told him, they believed she would see no company; but on his entreating it, and saying he had something of moment to impart, one of them went in and repeated what he ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... standard, where shall we find an example so impressive as Abraham Lincoln, whose career might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at once the prelude and the epilogue of the most imperial theme of ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... first your hand: I do not dare, like an old friend, to shake it. I kiss it as a prelude to that privilege When you shall know ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... forgotten; if they herald a new birth of power, they are fixed in the memory of a world which, however slow and cold, loves to feel the fresh impulse of the awakening human spirit. The wild days at Weimar were the prelude to a long life of sustained energy and of the highest productivity; "The Robbers" was soon distanced and eclipsed by the noble works of one of the noblest of modern spirits; and to the extravagance of the ardent French Romanticists ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... wife and the kiddies. Here he could be truly himself, a man's man, loving the simple things of life. Here, in his library, surrounded by his books, or in the music room playing over some little Chopin prelude, or on the lawn romping with the giant police dog, he could forget the public that would not let him rest. Nor had he been spoiled in the least, said the interviewer, by the adulation poured out upon him by admiring women ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... her practise but got out his violin, tuned it carefully, opened a book of music before her and waited for her to play the prelude. Then, tucking the violin under his chin with an eager caressing gesture, ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... 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 of ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... "was always accompanied by some instrument. The bard was provided with a harp on which he played a prelude, to elevate and inspire his mind, and with which he accompanied the song when begun. His voice probably preserved a medium between singing and recitation; the words, and not the melody were regarded by the listeners, hence it was necessary for him to remain intelligible ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... of light which announced the bursting of a fifteen-hundred-pound shell that had gone hurtling through the air with its hoarse, ponderous scream. All the slope up to the Ridge was merged in the blanket of night. Out of it came the regular flashes of guns for a while as the prelude to the unloosing of the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... a theoretical exception to this in the fact that a violation of the rules of a demilitarized zone is equivalent to a resort to war; but this exception is more apparent than real for the violation of a demilitarized zone would be only a brief prelude to hostilities. ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... prelude to the disasters that were to befall the Spaniards. The Mexicans made desperate assaults upon the Spanish quarters, in which both sides suffered severely. At last Montezuma, at the request of Cortes, tried to interpose. But his subjects, in fury at what they ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... not sat down during the conversation. Now, Somerled took a step toward the door. "I'm obliged to you for receiving me, madam," he said as a prelude to departure. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was doing so. Some members cried "Yes! Yes!"; others shouted "No! he is establishing the fact." The wrangling was at last brought to an end by the Speaker's declaration, that the petition must lie over for the present. But the scene had been only the prelude to one much longer, fiercer, and more exciting. No sooner was the document thus temporarily disposed of than Mr. Adams rose and presented the petition of forty-five citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying the House ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... the town we saw neither any of our troops nor those of the enemy, and heard no firing. Although there was complete absence of the usual prelude to battle, still the apprehension came over us that something serious in that line was not very remote, either in time or place. The commanders of both armies were conscious of the importance ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind; an Autobiographical Poem. By William Wordsworth. London, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... Park, carving his name on the bench, 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 say—from ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... painting, or the depth of his thoughtful humor, we find the same airy grace, tenderness, simple strength, and exquisite felicities of description. Nor are twinkles of sly humor wanting. The Interludes, and above all the Prelude, are masterly examples of that perfect ease of style which is, of all things, the hardest to attain. The verse flows clear and sweet as honey, and with a faint fragrance that tells, but not too plainly, of flowers that grew in many fields. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... meant to Wordsworth may best be seen in "The Prelude: or, Growth of a Poet's Mind," Wordsworth's greatest long poem, written some years afterwards and addressed ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... In the first prelude is Lowell describing a landscape of New England or Old England? Where is the story laid? What comment have you to make ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... little way from the arm of Ione, still cast round her, as if that soft embrace embarrassed; and placing her light and graceful instrument on her knee, after a short prelude, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... played his prelude through and was about to stop, when he saw from the glass that hung over the keys that Mr. Strong had not yet appeared. He began again at a certain measure, repeating it, and played very slowly. By this time the church was entirely filled. There was ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... prize, past summer's prime, When other throats have ceased to chime, Thy faithful tree-top strain; No brilliant bursts our ears enthrall— A prelude with a "dying fall," That ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... man what to do to become an orator, I can tell him a few things not to do. There should be no introduction to an oration. The orator should commence with his subject. There should be no prelude, no flourish, no apology, no explanation. He should say nothing about himself. Like a sculptor, he stands by his block of stone. Every stroke is for a purpose. As he works the form begins to appear. When ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... no explanation can yet be given. It was of course at once observed that between Mars and Jupiter one place is vacant, and it has now been ascertained that this is occupied by a zone of Minor Planets, the first of which was discovered by Piazzi on January 1, 1801, a worthy prelude to the succession of scientific discoveries which form the glory of our century. At present over 300 are known, but certainly these are merely the larger among an immense number, some of ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... was stormy. We stayed quietly under shelter, preparing for our real journey after so much prelude. The Isaac Newton's steam-whistle had sent up the curtain; the overture had followed with strains Der-Frei-schutzy in the Adirondacks, pastoral in the valleys of Vermont and New Hampshire, funebral and andante in the fogs of Mollychunkamug; now it was to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... happier than once at Concord. Our host had invited us for a day and had prepared a programme that only Concord could furnish. The prelude was a performance of the Andante to a Sonata of Rubinstein, Opus 12, rendered exquisitely by the daughter of our host. I saw the great frame of my fellow-guest heave with emotion while his breath came almost in sobs as his spirit ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... of fear, and after observing them more closely, we should ourselves risk a communication. Such seemed to have been the conduct of these Australians;* and I am persuaded that their appearance on the morning when the tents were struck was a prelude to their coming down; and that, had we remained a few days longer, a friendly communication would have ensued. The way was, however, prepared for the next ship which may visit this port, as it was to us in King George's Sound by Captain Vancouver and the ship Elligood; ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... however, it is principally subjective. In the first part of the work the music depicts, now the sadness, now the rage of the monarch. The opening is worthy of Bach, and presents, indeed, a foreshadowing of the opening of the 16th Prelude of the "Well-tempered Clavier." Spitta mentions the fine fugue, with the subject standing for the melancholy, the counter-subject for the madness of the king; and he justly remarks that these two images of Saul "contain the poetical germ of a truly musical development." ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... some party or entertainment by the charm of which we imagine it is that we are attracted. Then I observed the rare, almost archaic phrases which he liked to employ at certain points, where a hidden flow of harmony, a prelude contained and concealed in the work itself would animate and elevate his style; and it was at such points as these, too, that he would begin to speak of the "vain dream of life," of the "inexhaustible torrent ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... picture, unmatched in English verse, of the sun sinking to rest amid the splendours gathered round him in his fall. The poem is charged with mystic symbolism, the main thought of which is that human life, ending apparently in death, is but the prelude of preparation for a more ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... speech in Macbeth will explain our meaning. James Stockwell may have had a glass, but if he was really drunk, in the sense of not knowing what he was about, we believe it was simply impossible for him to make outrage the prelude to murder. If he had merely drunk enough to bring out the beast in him, without deranging the motor nerves, he was certainly not drunk in the proper sense of the word. He knew what he was doing, and both in the crime ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... of him; but occasionally, sitting by the fire here when a storm was heavy outside, for the coming of storms was always the prelude of these moods in him, he would begin to mutter to himself, and to talk to his dog of days long gone; of men and women he had once hated or loved, or who loved or hated him—God knows which—and of deeds he had once done, but which were now ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... dunce of more renown than they, Was sent before but to prepare thy way; And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget, came To teach the nations in thy greater name. My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung, When to king John of Portugal I sung, Was but the prelude to that glorious day, When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way, With well-timed oars before the royal barge, Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge; 40 And big with hymn, commander of an host, The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets toss'd. Methinks I see the new Arion sail, The lute ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the soprano is the principal part, and that the other voices, while somewhat melodic, tend rather to support and follow the melody than to be independent. If, now, we play a piece of counterpoint like the G-Minor Prelude by Bach,[47] we shall have quite a good piece of counterpoint, as far as separate melodies being combined is concerned. Let us play the voice-parts separately. We shall find equal melodic interest in each. The chords grow out of ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... De Quincey somewhat wistfully remarked, were always being found 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
... good he can do it," said Bob, with no small amount of pride; and Leander, with his head held so high that it was almost impossible to see his instrument, struck one or two notes as a prelude, while Joe took his station at a point about as far distant from the ring as the door of the tent ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... besides, there were now no police. Moreover, Vera and Bohun and the others were surely capable of watching Markovitch. Nevertheless something in my heart insisted that it was I who was to figure in this.... Through the dusk of the streets, in the pale ghostly shadows that prelude the coming of the white nights, I seemed to see three pursuing figures, Semyonov, Markovitch, and myself. I was pursuing, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... their science, of which the Church of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie was so complete a hieroglyph. Thus, the Roman abbey, the philosophers' church, the Gothic art, Saxon art, the heavy, round pillar, which recalls Gregory VII., the hermetic symbolism, with which Nicolas Flamel played the prelude to Luther, papal unity, schism, Saint-Germain des Pres, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie,—all are mingled, combined, amalgamated in Notre-Dame. This central mother church is, among the ancient churches of Paris, a sort of chimera; ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... to give an answer inconsistent with the first, thus showing that the definition was too narrow or too wide, or defective in some essential condition. The respondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to other questions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with the amendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentangle himself, was obliged to plead guilty to his inconsistencies, with an admission ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... Marriage-Consort, and give great Offence; they seem to insinuate, that the Joys of this State are short, and that Jars and Discord soon ensue. I fear they have been ominous to many Matches, and sometimes proved a Prelude to a Battel in the Honey-Moon. A Nod from you may hush them; therefore pray, Sir, let them be silenced, that for the future none but soft Airs may usher in the Morning of a Bridal Night, which will be a Favour not only to those who come after, but to me, who can ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... 1-88) he tears from its present place and puts it before the Fifth Book, where it serves as the prelude to the Calypso tale. The rest of the Telemachiad is the work of another poet. Indeed the rest of the First Book (after the Introduction) is not by the same man who produced the Second Book. Then the Second Book is certainly older than the First, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... of Edinburgh was but the prelude to greater glories. Cope was rallying his forces at Dunbar—was marching to the relief of Edinburgh. Charles, acting on the advice of his generals, marched out to meet him. Cope's capacity for ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... account, even to himself; all the inmates of hell shook with terror, and vented their rage by endeavouring to stimulate the enemies of Jesus to still greater fury and brutality; the souls in Limbo were filled with joy and hope, for the sound was to them a harbinger of happiness, the prelude to the appearance of their Deliverer. Thus was the blessed cross of our Lord planted for the first time on the earth; and well might it be compared to the tree of life in Paradise, for the wounds of Jesus were as sacred ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... hissing of shells in the streets we awoke to a sense of what was real. In the blackness of the early morning it was hard to connect the booming of cannon with reality. The shells were falling and bursting in rapid succession. It was the inauguration of a nerve-ordeal; the prelude to a terrible day; the beginning of a bombardment long-sustained ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... Richard Geyer to know his Bach so well! Yet the resemblance is far fetched, is only a hazy similarity. The triad of E-flat minor is common property, but something told me Wagner had been browsing on Bach; on this particular prelude had, in fact, got a starting point for the Norn music. The more I studied Wagner, the more I found Bach, and the more Bach, the better the music. Chopin knew his Bach backwards, hence the surprisingly fresh, vital quality of his music, despite its pessimistic coloring. Schumann loved ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... until great banners of colour lined the banks of the swiftly flowing Little Big Horn; the camp of the last Great Indian Council lifted cones of white on the edge of these radiant trees. Sombre winds uttered a melancholy note through the dying reeds on the river bank, and all of it seemed a prelude to an opening grave, and significant of the closing words uttered to me ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... the shadows and gold into the greens: the night-dews gleamed upon the firs and grasses, while a luminous haze dimmed the dark glint of the waters to pearly gray, softened the grimness of the mountain-faces and wrapped them—sea and mountains, as soul and body in a vision of mystery, a prelude to the blaze of golden glory that was suddenly outpoured on land ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... blue over the house; but in the distance, coming rapidly nearer and nearer, was a terrible black cloud—a cloud almost as black as ink—and already there were murmurs in the trees and cawings among the birds, the breeze growing stronger and stronger—the prelude to a great agitation ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... thing 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 not?" ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... States despatched to their assistance. Between these and the Imperialists, several battles were fought, far indeed from decisive, but only on that account the more destructive, which served as the prelude to a more serious war. To check the vigour of his military operations, a negotiation was entered into with the Emperor, and a disposition was shown to accept the proffered mediation of Saxony. But before the event could prove how little sincerity there ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... beyond the first mission of Lord Arundel and his forces, yet it is impossible not to suspect (as the French at the time anticipated) that this decided interference, on the part of England, with the affairs of France, may have been a prelude to the enterprise of the next reign. Who can say that the battle and victory at St. Cloud passed away without any influence on the course of events which made Henry V. heir to the King ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... presents for each other, in memory of the day," suggested Dick; and began by offering Pilar a pair of splendid hatpins. She retaliated with sleeve-links; so, emboldened by this prelude, I begged Monica to accept a brooch shaped like a shield. "Now I shall never lack protection," said she, with gentle emphasis; and it was well for me that the Cherub was showing Lady Vale-Avon some marvellous sword passes. "Let me see," the girl went on, when she had defiantly ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... make the realization of the divine presence not only a satisfaction, but the indispensable "staff of life" for certain human beings. In their unfaltering faith in God's enduring and proximate actuality lies their sole source of security and trust. For such persons a lapse or a lack of faith is the prelude to utter collapse. A vague general assurance of the dependability of the future is, for most people, a prerequisite for a sane and untroubled existence. Even those who live in unreflective satisfaction ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... of 1761 the Earl of Bute, then Secretary of State, gave vent to an outburst of unaccustomed profanity. Mr. Robert Calverley, who represented England at the Court of St. Petersburg, had resigned his office without prelude or any word of explanation. This infuriated Bute, since his pet scheme was to make peace with Russia and thereby end the Continental War. Now all was to do again; the minister raged, shrugged, furnished ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... 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 ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... eyes and rested his head on the frame of the harp. His fingers gently touched the strings while he was thinking. In a few minutes he lifted his head, looked at me, and struck the first notes—the prelude to the song. It was wild, barbaric, monotonous music, utterly unlike any modern composition. Sometimes it suggested a slow and undulating Oriental dance. Sometimes it modulated into tones which reminded me of the severer harmonies of the old Gregorian chants. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... delight," they were less remarkable than those of the two preceding, and the three following years. Wordsworth's poetical activity in 1804 is not recorded, however, in Lyrical Ballads or Sonnets, but in 'The Prelude', much of which was thought out, and afterwards dictated to Dorothy or Mary Wordsworth, on the terrace walk of Lancrigg during that year; while the 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality' was altered and added to, although it did not receive ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... hurry; but I was thinking how I could best begin without startling you. But I may as well get it out without any prelude. Miss Challoner, to Mrs. Williams I am only Mr. Dancy; but my real ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... horse customs of the day after Christmas, it is pretty plain that they are of non-Christian origin. Mannhardt has suggested that the race which is their most prominent feature once formed the prelude to a ceremony of lustration of houses and fields with a sacred tree. Somewhat similar "ridings" are found in various parts of Europe in spring, and are connected with a procession that appears to be an ecclesiastical adaptation of a pre-Christian ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... long closeted together, and at the proper, ceremonious hour for visitors they repaired to the house of Capulet, who did not hide his sense of the honor done him by the prince. With scarcely any prelude Hamlet unfolded the motive of his visit, and was listened to with rapt attention by old Capulet, who inwardly blessed his stars that he had not given his daughter's hand to the County Paris, as he was on the point ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... great lord, who is driven by idleness and ennui to deceive a poor drunkard, can make no better use of his situation than the latter, who every moment relapses into his vulgar habits. The last half of this prelude, that in which the tinker, in his new state, again drinks himself out of his senses, and is transformed in his sleep into his former condition, is from some accident or other, lost. It ought to have followed at the end of the larger ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... and sceptres, what is it? Vide Napoleon's last twelve-month. It has completely upset my system of fatalism. I thought, if crushed, he would have fallen, when 'fractus illabitur orbis,' and not have been pared away to gradual insignificance; that all this was not a mere jeu of the gods, but a prelude to greater changes and mightier events. But men never advance beyond a certain point; and here we are, retrograding to the dull, stupid old system,—balance of Europe—poising straws upon kings' noses, instead of wringing them off! Give me a republic, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... scattered French forces must have been crushed in detail. Augereau's words are those of a mere fighter, not of a strategist; and the timidity which he ungenerously attributed to Bonaparte was nothing but the caution which a superior intellect saw to be a necessary prelude to a ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... 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 his cloak ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... obedience of a man-of-war's man, Hockins went off, and, without prelude, began. Dead silence was the instant result, for the small bird-like pipe seemed to charm the very soul of every one who heard it. We know not whether it was accident or a spice of humour in the seaman, ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... is devoted to the voyage. Mr. Pratt has here endeavored to picture in a symphonic prelude "the peaceful progress upon the waters, the jubilant feeling of Columbus, and a flight of birds"—subjects dissimilar enough certainly to lend variety to any orchestral composition. The part, in addition to this prelude, contains the recitation by a sailor of "The Legend ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... 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 ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the pulse, this alteration of strain, this change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music? Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered chaos ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... these form a hesitating prelude to an expression of opinion on a controverted question. They will serve, however, to indicate the limits within which the said opinion is supposed to be hazarded. And in fact, neither in this nor in any historical ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... began to become sensible of certain correlative duties; the impeachment of Warren Hastings showed that we had scruples about treating India simply as a place where 'nabobs' are to accumulate fortunes; and the slave-trade suggested questions of conscience which at the end of the period were to prelude an agitation ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... us how, on one occasion, she had gone out at night for a storm-walk, and Chopin, being too ill, or disinclined to go, remained at home. Upon her return she found him in a conniption, he having composed a prelude to ward off an attack of cold feet, and was now ready to scream through fear that something had happened to her. As she entered the door he arose, staggered and fell before her ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... his accustomed judgment, Shakspeare has begun by placing before us a lively picture of all the impulses of the play; and, as nature ever presents two sides, one for Heraclitus, and one for Democritus, he has, by way of prelude, shown the laughable absurdity of the evil by the contagion of it reaching the servants, who have so little to do with it, but who are under the necessity of letting the superfluity of sensoreal power fly off through the escape-valve of wit-combats, and of quarrelling with weapons of sharper ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... spectators were all required to move away on either side, and range themselves close to the walls. As Fabio among others complied with this necessity, he looked down a row of dancers waiting during the performance of the orchestral prelude; and there, watching him again, from the opposite end of the lane formed by the gentlemen on one side and the ladies on the other, he saw ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... yourself. I've been cunning with you many times... you smile; I'm very glad of that smile as a prelude to our explanation. I provoked that smile on purpose by using the word 'cunning,' so that you might get cross directly at my daring to think I could be cunning, so that I might have a chance of explaining myself at once. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "proceed. You have as yet spoken of yourself only—an important and worthy subject doubtless, but which, perhaps, does not altogether so deeply concern me that I should postpone my repose to hear it. Spare me further prelude, sir, and speak to the purpose if indeed you have aught to say that concerns me. When you have done, I, in my turn, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... first placed before the House of Commons awoke feelings of astonishment mingled with joy or with consternation according to the temper of the hearers. 'Some, perhaps many, thought that the measure was a prelude to civil war, which, in point of fact, it averted. But incredulity was the prevailing feeling, both among the moderate Whigs and the great mass of the Tories. The Radicals alone were delighted and triumphant. Joseph Hume, whom I met in the streets a day or two ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... such a crowd was forming; getting ready to think its own thoughts and act and feel, and so many houses, little and big, had emptied themselves to contribute to it, so many family discussions like the Saxons' had gone on as a prelude to it, that you might fairly say the crowd up there ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... and Miss Nora, they could not understand why the breaking of half-a-dozen hearts should not be the prelude to every marriage. That, they said with much conviction, was always the case in America, and a girl was thought all the more ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... boy did n't understand this harangue at all, but he appreciated it because he recognized it as the prelude to a story. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... no second invitation, and a moment later had forgotten everything in the delightful prelude to the "break-down." He did not even observe that Mr Armstrong had not ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... glorious act of his life. No one could imagine, from the calm and subdued conversation, and the quiet appetite with which these distinguished men partook of the entertainment, that this was their last repast, and but the prelude to a violent death. But when the cloth was removed, and the fruits, the wines, and the flowers alone remained, the conversation became animated, gay, and at times rose to hilarity. Several of the youngest men of the party, in sallies of wit and outbursts of laughter, endeavored ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Russians, in their camps below the precipitous rocks, above which stood the aoul, 'heard the melancholy, long-drawn notes of the death-chant rising from behind its wall as from an open grave,' the sure prelude to a stubborn and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... stool is a kettle of water with a board over it. A stream of water comes from the organ. There is a horse near which kicks or bites me. Again:—I play on the piano to a friend who is a German scholar the opening theme of the Tristan and Isolde Prelude. My friend tells me the pronunciation of the title of the opera and it sounds to me like Froebel. That the name of the world-famous music drama, the apotheosis of passion, should be transformed to that of the notable ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... arms had attracted the widest attention in Europe. Public opinion in most of the capitals of the world assigned the future hegemony of the Balkan Peninsula to the Bulgarian nation. But all this fair-seeming prospect was the prelude to one of the greatest national ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict between the parties, which have ever since contended, and are still contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the twenty-second of November, 1641. It was moved by the opposition, that the House of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it all is.... A mere matter of form.... I pray you do not look upon it with terror, but only as the prelude to that general amnesty and free pardon, which I feel sure will satisfy the philanthropic heart of the noble Scarlet Pimpernel, since three score at least of the inhabitants of Boulogne will owe their life and freedom ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... I replied. "Why, when I was a child just able to walk, did I shrink away from the first dog I saw who barked at me? I could not have known, at that age, either by experience or teaching, that a dog's bark is sometimes the prelude to a dog's bite. My terror, on that occasion, was ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... after the God of David his father'—at the critical age of sixteen, when Easterns are older than we, in the flush of early manhood, he awoke to deeper experiences and felt the need for a closer touch of God. A career thus begun will generally prelude a life pure, strenuous, and blessed with a clearer and clearer vision of the God who is always found of them that seek Him. Such a childhood, blossoming into such a boyhood, and flowering in such a manhood, is possible to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... continual practice of the German armies, pillaging is only a prelude to incendiarism, the sub-officer Hermann Levith (160th Regiment of Infantry, Eighth ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... no bones, and to quarter-deck language, as such, the sailor entertained no rooted objection. What he did object to, and object to with all the dogged insistence of his nature, was the fact that this habitual flow of profane scurrility was only the prelude to what, with grim pleasantry, he was accustomed to describe as "serving out slops." Anything intended to cover his back was "slops" to the sailor, and the punishments meted out to him ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... at the comparative rarity of one species with another, and yet to call in some extraordinary agent and to marvel greatly when a species ceases to exist, appears to me much the same as to admit that sickness in the individual is the prelude to death — to feel no surprise at sickness — but when the sick man dies to wonder, and to believe ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... and then judge. Come, darling, while I play your favorite song;" and he commenced the prelude to a low, sweet air. She began at first tremulously, but gained confidence at each word, until at length her sweet, childish tones rose pure and clear above the voice of her father, who hummed rather than sang the song in his ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... and through you the Legislature of our State, on the success of our arms at the southward. Cornwallis surrendered his army on the 17th of October. Count de Grasse was employed on the 18th in taking his marines on board, which I hope, by the blessing of Heaven, will be the prelude to a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... signature "C. Alberto" after all,—not written indeed in the king's usually beautiful character, but betraying rather a trembling hand, which nevertheless registered a great because a permanent fact. This was not the prelude to perjury and expulsion. Around the Sardinian statute were united the scattered limbs of Italy, and after fifty years Charles Albert's grandson commemorated its promulgation at ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... 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 principle of success in all human enterprises, especially when ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... forward, and after a prelude, the beauty of which astonished all those around the queen's person, for they had no idea that he could play in tune, sang in a clear ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... We accordingly did so; and this was the signal for the commencement of a scene in the interior of the inn, which was probably never equalled in the annals of matrimonial dissension. The landlady first gave a kind of prefatory yell, which was only a prelude of war-whoop, introductory to that which was to follow. She then began to tear her hair in handfuls; and kept alternately brandishing knives, forks, pots, logs of wood, in short, whatever her hand fell upon in the course of her fury, at her poor passive help-mate, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... me thou part not." Straight I heard Voices, and each one seemed to pray for peace, And for compassion to the Lamb of God That taketh sins away. The prelude still Was "Agnus Dei;" and, through all the choir, One voice, one measure ran, that perfect seemed The concord of their song. "Are these I hear Spirits, O Master?" I exclaimed; and he, "Thou aim'st aright: these loose the bonds of ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier |
