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Prelude   Listen
verb
Prelude  v. i.  (past & past part. preluded; pres. part. preluding)  To play an introduction or prelude; to give a prefatory performance; to serve as prelude. "The musicians preluded on their instruments." "We are preluding too largely, and must come at once to the point."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prelude" Quotes from Famous Books



... note first, in this passage, the prelude, including verses 1, 2, and 3. We need not discuss the grammatical connection of these verses, nor the relation of verses 2 and 3 to the following section. However that be settled, the result, for our present purpose, is the same. Mark considers that John's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... witness of the first onset, which came in the late afternoon—an immediate shock of massed clouds without throwing forward of skirmishers or any prelude of the vanguard. Our home looked down upon a gentle incline of open grassy land to a broad belt of jungle in the middle distance; here the undergrowth and small trees had been newly cleared away, opening out a dim far view ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... three short tales besides the title story: "The Grand Duke's Riches," an account of an ingenious robbery at the Brevoort, "A Maid of Athens," and "Fausta," a story of love, revenge, and death in Cuba. If the final cadence of the book is a dagger thrust the prelude is a subtle poison, rafflesia, a Sumatran plant, intended for the hero, Tancred Ennever, but consumed with fatal results by his faithful fox terrier, Zut Alors. The story is arresting and, as frequently happens in Saltus romances, a man finds ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... our slumbers by the 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 ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... over. At last, Lambert showing no signs of surrender, Ingoldsby and Streater advanced, Ingoldsby ready to charge with his horse, but Streater marching the foot first with beat of drum to try the effect of a close approach. There was the prelude of a few shots, which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were that the general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should see the pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... largely due. The next year, 83, the Marian party was joined by the Samnites, and the war raged more fiercely than ever. At length, however, Sulla was victorious under the walls of Rome. The city lay at his mercy. His first act, an order for the slaughter of 6,000 Samnite prisoners, was a fit prelude to his conduct in the city. Every effort was made to eradicate the last trace of Marian blood and sympathy from the city. A list of men, declared to be outlaws and public enemies, was exhibited in the Forum, and a succession of wholesale murders ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... themselves what is good for them." Linda was now altogether astray in her thoughts and anticipations. Her aunt had very frequently spoken to her in this strain; nay, a week did not often pass by without such a speech. But then the speeches would come without the solemn prelude which had been made on this occasion, and would be caused generally by some act or word or look or movement on the part of Linda of which Madame Staubach had found herself obliged to express disapprobation. ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... portions which they were supposed to embellish. Harmony was then first struck between the works of the horticulturist—the garden-maker—and those of the architect—the builder in stone and wood. This was the prelude to those majestic ensembles of which Le Notre was ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... he did begin: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am to have the honor of reading to you this evening the trial-scene from Pickwick, and a Christmas Carol in a prelude and three scenes. Scene first, Marley's Ghost. Marley was dead, to begin with." These words, or words very similar, were spoken in a husky voice, not remarkable in any way, and with the English cadence in articulation, a rising inflection at the end of every ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... all I will say is that you are a remarkable young woman," answered Mrs. Zane, who saw plainly that Betty's violent outburst was a prelude to a storm of weeping. "I don't believe a word you have said. I don't believe you hate ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... something singularly appalling in all the circumstances which formed the prelude to this contemplated tragedy. Hitherto the Queen-mother had created dangers for herself—had started at shadows—and distrusted even those who sought to serve her; while her son, silent, saturnine, and inert, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... which sets the bellows going, and then proceeds to take off his shoes. This done, he takes his seat, reaches for the pedals with his stockinged feet, tries an experimental 32-foot CCC, and then wanders gently into a Bach toccata. It is his limbering-up piece: he always plays it as a prelude to a wedding job. It thus goes very smoothly and even brilliantly, but when he comes to the end of it and tackles the ensuing fugue he is quickly in difficulties, and after four or five stumbling repetitions of the subject he hurriedly improvises a crude coda ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken

... probability is that Russia will avoid any appearance of treachery towards her Allies, and will endeavour to find a method which will practically lead to a state of peace between herself and the Central Powers, but outwardly will have the appearance of the union of both parties as a prelude to ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... After school opened next morning Jeff was called up and publicly thrashed for playing truant. As a prelude to the corporal punishment the principal delivered a lecture. He alluded to the details of the fight gravely, with selective discrimination, giving young Farnum to understand that he had reached the end of his rope. If any more such brutal affairs were reported ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... collected our horses readily and set out at an early hour this morning. one of our guides complained of being unwell, a symptom which I did not much like as such complaints with an indian is generally the prelude to his abandoning any enterprize with which he is not well pleased. we left them at our encampment and they promised to pursue us in a few hours. at 11 A.M. we arrived at the branch of hungary creek where we found R. & J. Feilds. they had not killed ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... 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 ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... evening was only the prelude for a horrid day, a day doubly horrid due to the mystery ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... and skirmishes were but the prelude to a far more serious attack. In July the British captains Caldwell and McKee came down from Detroit with a party of rangers, and gathered together a great army of over a thousand Indians [Footnote: Haldimand MSS. Letter from Capt. Caldwell, August 26, 1782; and letter of Captain ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... extinct — to feel no surprise 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 that he ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... subject of language will fitly prelude a consideration of the training in the schools and colleges of Atlantis. During the first map period Toltec was the universal language, not only throughout the continent but in the western islands and that part of the eastern continent ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... roof of the church resounded with their shouts of Hurrah for the king! There was the same welcome on the part of the dwellers in the country when Henry repaired to the valley of Montmorency and to Montmartre to perform his devotions there. Here, then, was religious peace, a prelude to political reconciliation between the monarch and the great ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... evening more fervently than I had prayed since quitting Monte Orsaro. It was as if all the influences of my youth, which lately had been shaken off in the stir of intrigue and of rides that had seemed the prelude to battle, were closing ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... Philip. "I am very grateful. No doubt you are right. It seems to me, now that I am detached from it, as if it were only a sort of prelude to something else." ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... her a set of forget-me-nots to match those which she intended to wear herself, and which had been long ago given to Lady Cecilia by the dear good dean himself. This was irresistible to Helen, and they were accepted. But this was only the prelude to presents of more value, which Helen scrupled ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... thanks and homage of the newly-created noble, Henry descended from the canopy, and passed into an inner room with the Lady Anne, where a collation was prepared for them. Their slight meal over, Anne took up her lute, and playing a lively prelude, sang two or three French songs with so much skill and grace, that Henry, who was passionately fond of music, was quite enraptured. Two delightful hours having passed by, almost imperceptibly, an usher approached the king, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... atomically small. In the ninth Heaven surrounded by the nine orders of pure spirits God is represented "as an indivisible atomic Point radiating light and symbolizing the unity of the Divinity as a fitting prelude to the more intimate vision of the Blessed Trinity which will be vouchsafed in the Empyrean." "A Point I saw that darted light so sharp no lid unclosing may bear up against its keenness. On that Point depend the heavens and the ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... "righteousness exalteth a nation." Relative to this intermingling of former foes, whatever our estimate of the results of human action may be, we cannot unerringly divine impurity of motive; hence respect for honest conviction must be the prelude to that unity of patriotism which is ever the safeguard to ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... The "Prelude" to the first part is beautiful because it contains so much that cannot but touch the heart of every one, however he may dislike poetry. A great poem like this cannot be read hastily, nor must we stop with reading it once. Great poetry must be read so many times that it ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody

... formed two long lines, extending from the gateway of the palace to the water's edge. A thick rayed cloth or carpet was then unfolded, and laid down between them by attendants in the gold-and-crimson liveries of the prince. This done, a flourish of trumpets resounded from within. A lively prelude arose from the musicians on the water; and two ushers with white wands marched with a slow and stately pace from the portal. They were followed by an officer bearing the civic mace, after whom came another carrying the city's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the Parsis to-day regard as the capital event in the history of the world. It was the immediate prelude to the revelation of the Law which ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... Prelude General Summary Army Headquarters Study of an Elevation, in Indian Ink A Legend of the Foreign Office The Story of Uriah The Post that Fitted Public Waste Delilah What Happened Pink Dominoes The Man Who Could Write Municipal A Code of Morals The ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... of apology-explanation in the lines prefixed to the collected edition, and entitled "The Promise in Disturbance." I am not sure that there is any single place where a parallel excuse-defiance musters itself up in the novels: but there are scores (the prelude to The Egoist occurs foremost) where it is scattered about all of them; and it is certainly much more required there. Indeed as far as the narrow sense of "style" goes, the peculiarity, whether they admit it to be a ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... 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

... reader knows well what is coming after this prelude. He is accustomed to the phrases with which the plausible visitor, who has a subscription book in his pocket, prepares his victim for the depressing disclosure of his real errand. He is not unacquainted with the conversational amenities of the cordial and interesting stranger, who, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... understood, consequently, how inevitably these big corporations strengthen one another's hands; and it must be added that they had political as well as economic motives for so doing. Although the big fellows sometimes indulge in the luxury of fierce fighting, such fights are always the prelude to still closer agreements. They are all embarked in the same boat; and surrounded as they are by an increasing amount of enmity, provoked by their aggrandizement, they have every reason to lend one another constant ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... the foregoing strain of sentiment. Who could suppose it a prelude to detailed reminiscence on the author's part of sensual pleasures—the basest—enjoyed in the past? The venerable voluptuary keeps himself in countenance for his lascivious vein, by ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... 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 ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... 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

... occupied by the Russian fleet at that moment. No sooner was the message decoded and its purport made known than mutual congratulations were exchanged; for even as the fall of 203 Metre Hill into the hands of our soldiers had been the prelude to the surrender of Port Arthur, so now the fact of the Russian fleet being in square 203 on the chart was accepted as an omen ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... 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 more disagreeable. ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... and the wise, and the witty, and even of the gay. Regnard, the author of the last French comedy after Moliere, was atrabilious; and Moliere himself, saturnine. Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Burns, were all more or less affected by it occasionally. It was the prelude to the more awful malady of Collins, Cowper, Swift, and Smart; but it by no means follows that a partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs. But ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... flushed with wine, I forgot my prudence. Snatching the guitar from him, after a prelude which created the greatest astonishment of all present, I commenced one of my most successful airs: I sang it in my best style, and it electrified the whole party. Shouts proclaimed my victory, and the defeat of my relative. Some embraced me in their enthusiasm, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... of pity, of trials undergone in common. And as she knew that she was always in demand in society because of her talent, because of the artistic entertainment she furnished at select parties, being always ready to lay her long gloves and her fan on the piano, as a prelude to some portion of her rich repertory, she labored constantly, passed her afternoons turning over new music, selecting by preference melancholy and complicated pieces, the modern music which is no longer content to be an art but is becoming a ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... passport into houses, and when they spy a convenient opportunity, they seldom fail to avail themselves of it. It is necessary to watch them strictly, as articles frequently disappear in a mysterious manner whilst Gitanas are telling fortunes. The bahi, moreover, is occasionally the prelude to a device which we shall now attempt to describe, and which is called HOKKANO BARO, or the great trick, of which we have already said something in the former part of this work. It consists in persuading some credulous person to deposit whatever ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... without the use of his hands; and at night, huddling his greasy tatters about him, he would crawl into some miserable lair of leaves and refuse, where, dirty, cold, and hungry, he passed, in broken ghost-haunted slumbers, a wretched night as a prelude to another wretched day. Such was the only human being deemed fit to associate at arm's length with one who had paid the last offices of respect and friendship to the dead. And when, the dismal term of his seclusion being over, the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... abbe, Lyodot and D'Eymeris at Vincennes are a prelude of ruin for my house. I repeat it—I arrested, you will be imprisoned—I imprisoned, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and then the silence was so new and terrible that it seemed the prelude to some dreadful noise. Footsteps in the court! Two men. He fell back from the door on tiptoe, as if they could have seen him through its ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... had it not recalled to my mind something I had previously heard concerning a singular custom among these islanders. Though the country is possessed by various tribes, whose mutual hostilities almost wholly prelude any intercourse between them; yet there are instances where a person having ratified friendly relations with some individual belonging longing to the valley, whose inmates are at war with his own, may, under particular restrictions, venture with impunity into the country of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... Kate Sparks 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 of who had ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... 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 statue ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... 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 ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby

... the ten-hour basis. But the dispute in October, which was marked by a complete lack of ill-feeling on the part of the men and was one of the most peaceable labor disputes of the year, was in reality a mere prelude to a second disturbance which broke out in the plant of Swift & Company on November 2 and became general throughout the stockyards on November 6. The men demanded a return to the eight-hour day, but ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... is very delicate and plaintive,—a thin, wavering, tremulous whistle, which disappoints one, however, as it ends when it seems only to have begun. If the bird could give us the finishing strain of which this seems only the prelude, it would stand first among ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... 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 ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... women, of the vast majority, the clatter and clash of housewifery prelude and postlude the spring song of their years. And the rattle of dishes, of busy knives and forks, the quick tapping of Maud's attendant feet, the sound of young and ravenous jaws at work: these sounds were in Joan's bewildered ears, and the sights which they accompanied in her bewildered eyes, just ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... the assertion of individual right, and these united the widely variant elements of the community in a loyal union. It was the amalgamation of such spirits in Virginia in 1676 which demanded the right of personal liberty, of universal suffrage, and of representation; and here was fought the prelude of that great drama one hundred years later, when a Virginian, in the name of a whole nation, penned the immortal words which proclaimed to all the world the "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Here were the Lees, the Patrick Henrys, ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... pale and still, That holds so passionless a sway? Lies death in this ethereal chill, New life, or prelude of decay? ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob

... enhancing our gratifications. I was, beside, desirous of administering a fund, and regulating an household, of my own. The short distance allowed us to exchange visits as often as we pleased. The walk from one mansion to the other was no undelightful prelude to our interviews. I was sometimes their visitant, and they, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... A low murmur, prelude of the coming storm, ran through the theatre, and Professor van Huysman permitted himself to snort distinctively, for which he was very promptly, though quietly, called to order by his daughter, who was sitting in front of the platform between him and Lord Leighton. ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... the facts of the Haymarket meeting and the events which lead up to it. What the press made of it was the prelude to one of the rawest frame-up trials ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio

... comparativement rien. Mais lorsque nous voyons representer ces choses, les actes sont comparativement tout, et les mobiles ne sont plus rien. L'emotion sublime ou nous sommes entraines par ces images de nuit et d'horreur qu'exprime Macbeth; ce solennel prelude ou il s'oublie jusqu'a ce que l'horloge sonne l'heure qui doit l'appeler au meurtre de Duncan; lorsque nous ne lisons plus cela dans un livre, lorsque nous avons abandonne ce poste avantageux de l'abstraction d'ou la lecture domine la vision, et lorsque nous voyons sous nos yeux, un homme ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck

... themselves at Bruges, where they remained in peace for a few years, till the Austrian Government drove them out. The same fate overtook the inmates of many monasteries and convents at Bruges in the reign of Joseph II., whose reforming zeal led to that revolt of the Austrian Netherlands which was the prelude to the invasion of Flanders by the army of the ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... a fitting prelude to the captain's tales afterwards, and Mr. Chalk, with the stem of his long pipe withdrawn from his open mouth, would sit enthralled as his host narrated picturesque incidents of hairbreadth escapes, or, drawing ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... it, but Stevens was an 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 Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... act of kindness was only a prelude to a greater one. That is to say, it was the introduction to a sumptuous dinner, composed of flesh and fish of every description, in which there was no lack of turkeys and capons. All set out with the intent of manifesting ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... escaped the keen search of men armed not only with immense power, but with great sagacity and intelligence. The hopes which had wakened in the general's heart seemed justified as he listened to the vague echo of a tender and melancholy air, 'La Fleuve du Tage,'—a ballad whose prelude he had often heard in Paris in the boudoir of the woman he loved, and which this nun now used to express, amid the joys of the conquerors, the suffering of an exiled heart. Terrible moment! to long for the resurrection of a lost ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... country the destinies of which he no longer could help to control. The spark of enthusiasm which he and the followers of Mirabeau had tried to kindle in the hearts of an oppressed people had turned to raging tongues of unquenchable flames. The taking of the Bastille had been the prelude to the massacres of September, and even the horror of these had since paled beside the ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... stillness was broken by a prelude from the organ, which dropped to a low tone, a ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... America ended the war; and the treaty of peace with the United States was a prelude to treaties of peace with the Bourbon powers. Their actual gains were insignificant. France indeed won nothing in the treaties with which the war ended; Spain gained only Florida and Minorca. Nor could they feel even in this hour of their triumph that ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... the great and splendid and divine things of life are wonderfully simple." (Quotation marks again.) "When I have to do my aphorisms," Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, "I prelude my trance by turning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that ensures that the Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous rush, but in ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... us. "Strange," said a gifted metaphysician once, "that the barrel organ, man, should terminate every tune with the strain of immortality!" Not strange, but divinely natural. It is the tentative prelude to the thrilling music of our eternal bliss written in the score of destiny. When at night we gaze far out into immensity, along the shining vistas of God's abode, and are almost crushed by the overwhelming prospects that sweep upon our vision, do not some pre monitions of our own unfathomed greatness ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... bending a bow sent as a challenge by the Shah of Persia, and which had baffled the efforts of all the pelhwans or champions of the Ottoman court. His first advancement to the post of equerry was only a prelude to the attainment of higher honours, and he became successively governor of Buda and of Egypt, capitan-pasha and serasker in Candia. His exploits in the latter capacity had endeared him to the troops, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... overdoing. This ideal necessitates far larger athletic grounds than most of our colleges have reserved. It may necessitate the abolition of some of the big contests that have been the excitement of many thousands. But it must not be forgotten prelude and preparation for life; they must not be allowed to usurp the chief place in a man's thoughts or to unfit him for his greatest after-usefulness. [Footnote: Cf. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 90, p. 534; Outlook, vol. 98, p. 597.] Is it wrong to smoke? Statistics ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... be very proud," I was beginning, as the mere prelude to resolute excuses; but the eye of Raffles opened wide upon me; and I hesitated weakly, to ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... fall of the Soga and the abdication of the Empress Kogyoku, her son, Prince Naka, would have been the natural successor, and such was her own expressed wish. But the prince's procedure was largely regulated by Kamatari, who, alike in the prelude and in the sequel of this crisis, proved himself one of the greatest statesmen Japan ever produced. He saw that the Soga influence, though broken, was not wholly shattered, and he understood that the great administrative reform which he contemplated might ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... lids of dusk are falling O'er the dreamy eyes of day, And the whippoorwills are calling, And the lesson laid away,— May Mem'ry soft and tender As the prelude of the night, Bend over you and render As ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... fear of impinging on Mr. Young's copyright that prevents me reprinting the graphic ballad of The Wanderer and the prologue of The Strollers, which reads like a page from the prelude to some Old-World miracle play. The setting of these things is frequently antique, but the thought is the thought of today. I think there is a new generation of readers for such poetry as Mr. Young's. I venture the prophecy that it will not lack for them later when the time comes for the inevitable ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... warning him continually when he is in danger of making a fool of himself. Thus, whenever through mere idleness I begin to waste the irrecoverable moments of eternity, I always think of that masterly phrase (from, I think, the "Prelude," but I will not ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... by the heels along the floors, that he should not stir nor make offer to oppose them, further than by mild words to expostulate with them, until Minerva from heaven should give the sign which should be the prelude to their destruction. And Telemachus promising to obey his instructions departed; and the shape of Ulysses fell to what it had been before, and he became to all outward appearance a beggar, in base ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the appearance of that rough flatboat that made me wish I had hailed her quiet crew; for, strange to say, they did not send after me a shower of slang phrases and uncouth criticisms, the usual prelude to conversation among flatboat-men when they desire to cultivate the acquaintance of a fellow-voyager. In fact, it was rather startling not to have the usual greeting, and I wondered why I heard no friendly expressions, such as, "Here, you river thief, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... each of these four elderly ladies, their distinct idiosyncrasies, and their former high position as members of a now moribund nobility, left a lasting impression on my memory. One might expect, perhaps, from such a prelude, to find in the old Marquise traces of stately demeanour, or a regretted superiority. Nothing of the kind. She herself was a short, square-built woman, with large head and strong features, framed in a mob cap, with a broad frill ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... long night, Cordova soon fell asleep; but Alzura and I sat up chatting till within an hour or two of dawn. We could hear the hostile skirmishers peppering away at each other at intervals, and somehow the sounds seemed to be the prelude to a coming battle. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... of that time he emphasised his appreciation by making her a present of a valuable violin. She still continued her regular studies with Jokisch, until, acting on the advice of her friends, she obtained a hearing from Ysaye, and played for him Bach's prelude and fugue ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee

... early, just after the morning had been born, so as to miss nothing. And first of all we had a quick rush through the flowery valley of Wawona—a kind of prelude to the music of the great redwoods. And I think it helped me to appreciate and understand them. We saw Stellar Lake, named by inspiration, for it looks a blue sky half full of stars; and I had my first sight of a fish hatchery. I'd no notion it could be so exciting to watch the career ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... army under the command of General Wayne, whether we regard it as a proof of the perseverance, prowess, and superiority of our troops, or as a happy presage to our military operations against the hostile Indians, and as a probable prelude to the establishment of a lasting peace upon terms of candor, equity, and good neighborhood. We receive it with the greater pleasure as it increases the probability of sooner restoring a part of the public resources to the desirable object of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... Then, as they whirled round a bend they suddenly, and without warning, found themselves sweeping through a gorge with vertical, rocky, fern-grown banks on either hand. Too well they knew what that sort of thing was the prelude to. There were rapids ahead, almost to a dead certainty, and they had missed their chance of inspecting before attempting to shoot them, for there was no landing on either of those vertical banks; while as ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... a fine ethical purpose. He is not to be placed with the professional litterateurs of his country, Boston novelists, New York poets and the like. He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... the end of that morning in the woods, was quite aware that she was in love. She wondered why she had not thought of it before, and concluded that in the prelude she had been merely fascinated by the first enthralling man she had known. The trap-door of her heart was not jealously guarded; nevertheless, it was not yawning for an occupant. Just how and when Trennahan slipped in, she ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... to be effected by the present System of solitary Travellers; but by a grand Plan, with a numerous Company; beginning with Commerce, as the natural Prelude to Discovery, the Fore-runner of Civilization, and a preliminary Step, indispensable to the Conversion of ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... these two examinations was unquestionably very great in spreading consternation and bewilderment far and wide; but they were only the prelude to the work, to that end, arranged for the day. The public mind was worked to red heat, and now was the moment to strike the blow that would fix an impression deep and irremovable upon it. It was Thursday, Lecture-day; and the public ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... 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 of Sardinia ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold

... river— Sleeps, like a happy child, In slumber undefiled, A premonition of sublimer days, When war and warlike lays At length shall cease, Before a grand Apocalypse of Peace, Vouchsafed in mercy to all human kind— A prelude and a ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... which, by Rousseau, and many people, have been pronounced to be the happiest; by others, the only happy days of existence; and which, by some privileged or prudent few, have been found to be but the prelude to the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... our feelings have been under such trying conditions, with that mountain of matter alongside to which so much sheer hard labour had to be done, while the sky was getting greasy and the wind beginning to whine in that doleful key which is the certain prelude ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... 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, ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... years of steadily declining health, began at last to rally, and it is to this first gush of the recovery of his once splendid bodily condition that we owe not only "The Gay Science", which in its mood may be regarded as a prelude to "Zarathustra", but also "Zarathustra" itself. Just as he was beginning to recuperate his health, however, an unkind destiny brought him a number of most painful personal experiences. His friends caused him many disappointments, which were the more ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... declaration of war. She will find the empire ready. Here at home and in the far-off dominions the sure instinct of our peoples teaches them that the ruin of France or of the Low Countries would be the prelude to our own. We can no more tolerate a German hegemony in Europe than we can tolerate the hegemony of any other power. As our fathers fought Spain and France in the days of their greatest strength to defeat their pretense to Continental ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... comprised Patrick O'Shea, Annie Rooney, Spotted Tail, etc. This petition was followed by two others of similar character, bearing Indian names of such significance as the wit of the opposition could invent. After this dignified prelude the House discussed the measure at length, and defeated it by a vote of 38 ayes, 39 noes. A reconsideration was moved and the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... touching some moving chords, he could see how the furtive tears coursed down the cheeks of the loving girl, or the young, neglected wife; how they moistened the eyes of the young man, enamoured of and eager for glory. Can we not fancy some young beauty asking him to play a simple prelude, then, softened by the tones, leaning her rounded arms upon the instrument to support her dreaming head, while she suffered the young artist to divine in the dewy glitter of her lustrous eyes the song sung by her ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... 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, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... 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 ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... of fact, struck sooner than Damaris anticipated, the sound and sight of it reaching her without prelude or opportunity of preparation. For early in the afternoon of the second day she spent downstairs, as, sitting at the writing table in the long drawing-room, she raised her eyes from contemplation of the house-keeping ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... vanish past the curtain, thought: 'What a lovely thing she is!' And he got up too, but instead of following, went to the piano, and began to play Mendelssohn's Prelude and Fugue in E minor. He had a fine touch, and played with a sort of dreamy passion. It was his way out of perplexities, regrets, and longings; a way ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... every point of her territory by her warlike foe, so that she could hardly hope more from subsequent efforts, however strenuous and united, than to postpone the inevitable hour of dissolution. The cruel treatment of Malaga was the prelude to the long series of persecutions, which awaited the wretched Moslems in the land of their ancestors; in that land, over which the "star of Islamism," to borrow their own metaphor, had shone in full brightness for nearly eight centuries, but where it was now fast descending ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... with these people commenced that long series of losses and troubles to which their conduct formed the prelude. They were to live in the little shanty that we had just left, and work the farm. Moodie was to find them the land, the use of his implements and cattle, and all the seed for the crops; and to share with them the returns. Besides this, they unfortunately ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... 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 ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... peace—Gameiro took upon himself the execution of the spurious ministerial decree issued by Barbosa on the 27th of February, 1824, which had been abrogated by the Emperor, through the same minister, in the July following, as a prelude to my employment in the tranquillisation of the Northern provinces. Gameiro did not venture previously to apprise me of the act lest I should resist it—but insultingly sent an order to the officers of the Piranga to "disengage themselves from all obedience to my command." (Se desligao de toda subordinacao ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... of this change was greeted with little enthusiasm by the old soldiers in our midst, but old soldiers are invariably pessimists, and imagine that every inspection is the prelude to more "dirty work at the cross-roads" and that every change made in their dispositions ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... 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; it has the head of one, the limbs of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... petticoat and shift, whilst my thighs were, by an instinct of nature, unfolded to their best; and my desires had so thoroughly destroyed all modesty in me, that even their being now naked and all laid open to him, was part of the prelude that pleasure deepened my blushes at, more than same. But when his hand, and touches, naturally attracted to their center, made me feel all their wantonness and warmth in, and round it, oh! how immensely different a sense ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... other thus, may he not be who would part you! Be of good cheer and keep your eyes cool and clear." At this they both rejoiced and Naomi called for a lute and, when they brought it, she took it and tuned it and played a lively measure which enchanted the hearers, and after the prelude sang these couplets, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... broke, a cry of grief was heard, the icy kiss of death conquered; the prelude ended; so that the drama of life might ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... method and structure. Neither his avowal of cold-blooded artifice, nor his subsequent avowal to friends that an exposure of this artifice was only another of his intellectual hoaxes, need be wholly credited. If he had designed the complete work in advance, he scarcely would have made so harsh a prelude of rattle-pan rhymes to the delicious melody of the second stanza,—not even upon his theory of the fantastic. Of course an artist, having perfected a work, sees, like the first Artist, that it is good, and sees why it is good. A subsequent analysis, coupled with a disavowal of any ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe

... have endeavoured to show that the public betrothal or formal 'troth-plight' which was at the time a common prelude to a wedding carried with it all the privileges of marriage. But neither Shakespeare's detailed description of a betrothal {23} nor of the solemn verbal contract that ordinarily preceded marriage lends the contention much support. Moreover, the whole circumstances of the case ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft; And so it chanc'd, for many a door was wide, From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft, 30 The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide: The level chambers, ready with their pride, Were glowing to receive a thousand guests: The carved angels, ever ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... A prelude was played on the piano, and Legras standing there in his velvet jacket sang "La Chemise," the horrible song which brought all Paris to hear him. All the lust and vice that crowd the streets of the great city appeared ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... This 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 sort of eyes had ever ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... to himself, was a youngish, somewhat plump woman who had arrived at the last moment. He had not been introduced to her, nor to the four other strangers, for it had lately reached Bedford Park that introductions were no longer the correct prelude to a meal. A hostess who wished to be modern should throw her guests in ignorance together and leave them to acquire knowledge by their own initiative. This device added to the piquancy of a gathering. Moreover, there was always a theory that each individual was well ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... Carroll works by the pure reason, but this is not so strong a contrast; for, after all, mankind in the main has always regarded reason as a bit of a joke. Lear introduces his unmeaning words and his amorphous creatures not with the pomp of reason, but with the romantic prelude of rich ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton

... 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 him the plot of the melancholy ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... began my opera at the end. When I received the first chorus of my libretto by post (I composed the Siciliano in the prelude later) I said in great good humor ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... and Judy show was given first as a sort of prelude to the games which were to follow, and in these even the older girls joined with spirit. The main idea seemed to be that everyone should do his or her best to make the party a success and to give the poorer children as good a time as possible. Ben, be ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard

... a common word for a Prelude (often extempore), intended as a kind of introduction to two or three more formal movements. The Italian for a peal of bells is tocco di campana, and we have the word in English under the form tocsin, an alarm bell. The trumpet-call known as 'Tucket,' which occurs seven times in the stage directions ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor

... valuable, or even necessary, by way of illustration,—disfigure the printed page; and some prefer that they should be thrown all together at the end of each volume, or at the close of a series; such as—in Wordsworth's case—"The River Duddon," "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," 'The Prelude', 'The White Doe of Rylstone', etc. I do not think, however, that many care to turn repeatedly to the close of a series of poems, or the end of a volume, to find an explanatory note, helped only by an index number, and when perhaps even that does not meet his eye at the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... Thursday, September 13, 1916, the British forces won German trenches to the southeast of Thiepval and a heavily fortified place known as Wunderwerk. This was the prelude to a series of brilliant victories won by the British troops which had not been surpassed during the entire fighting in the Somme area. At 6 a. m. on September 15, 1916, the British attacked on a front of about six miles, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... "moralities," although they did not have a role in the action. Their function was to interject comical comments from time to time. The comments aimed to be witty, but were generally gross, coarse, and obscene. Late in the fifteenth century, in France, a buffoon recited a prelude containing licentious jests to an edifying morality ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... chords from the piano melted into a rippling prelude, and Winifred breathed easier when her friend began to sing. Her voice was sweet and excellently trained, and there was a deep stillness of appreciation when the clear notes thrilled through the close-packed hall. No one could doubt that the first part of the aria was a success, for half-subdued ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... anxious eagerness; and from the 3rd of July, public criers, walking the streets of Cairo, announce each morning what progress it has made since evening. More or less authentic traditions assert that the prelude to the opening of the canals, in the time of the Pharaohs, was the solemn casting to the waters of a young girl decked as for her bridal—the "Bride of the Nile." Even after the Arab conquest, the irruption of the river ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... 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 glorious day ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... alter or abolish it and institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Here was the prelude to the historic drama of democracy—a challenge to every form of government and every privilege not founded ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... utterance free. 'Other than this, O Pallas! was thy promise to thy father, that thou wouldst not plunge recklessly into the fury of battle. I knew well how strong was the fresh pride of arms and the sweetness of honour in a first battle. Ah, unhappy first-fruits of his youth and bitter prelude of the war upon our borders! ah, vows and prayers of mine that no god heard! and thou, pure crown of wifehood, happy that thou art dead and not spared for this sorrow! But I have outgone my destiny in living, to stay ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... destroyed to prepare us for better things. The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants grow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of Nature's gentle showings to man of ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan

... the first days, as a measure of precaution, European women and children had been hurriedly collected into places of refuge lest the horrible excesses perpetrated by the Indian mob at Amritsar might prove the prelude to a repetition of Cawnpore. The hardships and anxiety they underwent and the murderous outrages actually committed on not a few Europeans moved most of their fellow countrymen and countrywomen to unmeasured resentment, and not until they gained at last ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... to abandon that purpose. In 403 he was overtaken and again defeated by Stilicho at Verona, Alaric himself barely escaping capture. Stilicho, however, permitted him—some historians say, bribed him—to withdraw to Illyricum, and he was made prefect of Western Illyricum by Honorius. Such is the prelude, followed in history by the amazing exploits of Alaric's second invasion ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... together it was certainly enough to rivet her whole attention, and make her leave unopened the rest of the correspondence, for such a prelude to adventure had seldom sounded in Riseholme. It appeared, even as her husband had told her at lunch, that Mrs Quantock found her cold too obstinate for all the precepts of Mrs Eddy; the True Statement of Being, however often repeated, only seemed to inflame it further, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... some sorrowful element, and Mary's national, as well as natural desire, as therefore toward an elaborate festal ceremony. As soon as this intention was put into words their very echo seemed to be a prelude to ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... to excite the public curiosity respecting his future Shakspeare: he liberally presented Dr. BIRCH with his MS. notes for that great work the "General Dictionary," no doubt as the prelude of his after-celebrated edition. Birch was here only a dupe: he escaped, unlike Theobald, Hanmer, and Grey, from being overwhelmed with ridicule and contempt. When these extraordinary specimens of emendatory and illustrative criticism appeared ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... cayenne, and one teaspoonful of made mustard, rub smooth and add one-half teaspoonful of vinegar, one tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce and the juice of one small lime. Lay the tripe in this sauce as soon as it is removed from the fire. Serve with buttered toast. An excellent prelude to this dish is a plate ...
— Joe Tilden's Recipes for Epicures • Joe Tilden

... are beginning to be wise. Remember that knowledge of evil was the prelude to the Fall. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... 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 the following morning before breakfast. But this was ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... play upon the pipe organ. I find my music. The 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 child educator is nonsense or otherwise according to the observer's point ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... arose from the west. In the afternoon it was heard to descend from the east, and that 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 ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... side door, and carefully bolted it. Then he resumed his seat, and, resting his ponderous, seamy jaw upon the flat of his hand, waited for her to begin. He was used to all sorts of devices as a prelude to requests for office or emolument, and his expression betokened little interest or expectation. Had not the serious character of the communication she was about to make rendered coquetry at the moment distasteful to Mrs. Carey, she would assuredly ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... Bride's Prelude," a story in verse, after merely glancing at the opening of the tale, devotes eight stanzas to description introduced for the purpose of background and atmosphere. Two of them ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith

... moment's thought, he began: "In order to give you a quiet, and therefore a more artistic prelude to the tragedy of the battle, I shall touch lightly on some of the incidents of our march to the field. I will take up the thread of our experiences on the 15th of June, for I think you were quite well informed of what occurred before that date. The 15th was one ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... of the events, not important in themselves, but which seem to have the relation of a prelude to the great tragedy, was derived from three persons, Mr. Conkling, Mr. Blaine, and Mr. Marshall Jewell. At the request of the President, Mr. Conkling called upon him the Sunday preceding the day of catastrophe. The President gave Mr. Conkling ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell



Words linked to "Prelude" :   serve, chorale prelude, preliminary, inception, play, music, function



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