"William Tell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... highest bidder that he determines to leave France, and we next find him in a Swiss chalet, where he is disgusted by the lack of cleanliness. His feelings can be imagined when he finds that the peasants have no popular traditions and are not acquainted even with the name of William Tell. In despair, Pedro directs his course to Germany, but finds no sylphs or sirens on the banks of the Rhine, while maidens with blue eyes and golden hair are no more abundant there than elsewhere. Greece next receives the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... caught sight of Charles Sumner in a cab, and ran after him. Sumner was then recovering from the blows of the South Carolinian cane or club, and he was pleased to find a young worshipper in the remote Prussian wilderness. They dined together and went to hear "William Tell" at the Opera. Sumner tried to encourage his friend about his difficulties of language: "I came to Berlin," or Rome, or whatever place it was, as he said with his grand air of mastery, "I came to Berlin, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... rather painfully of the lamp? Does not the professor of aesthetics pierce a little too distinctly through the exterior of the poet? And, for one example, are not Schiller's excellent but remarkably platitudinous peasants in 'William Tell' miserably colourless alongside of Scott's rough border dalesmen, racy of speech, and redolent of their native soil in every word and gesture? To every man his method according to his talent. Scott is the most perfectly delightful of story-tellers, and it is the very essence ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... believes "Hudibras" to be an early Saxon poem; another that "Victor Hugo's best known work is William Tell"; another that "Aesop's Fables is a famous allegory." Charlotte Bronte is described as an "American—nineteenth century—children's book." Cicero was "known for Latin poetry." "Dante is an exceedingly bitter writer; he takes you into hell and describes Satan and his ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... his arm, "you could beat William Tell himself, if he were living, with the bow, but what's the use of talking? It can't compare with the rifle and you know it. Just because a gun of yours once flashed in the pan, you threw it away and took up the bow again, but it was a mistake, ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... into complete effect the laws enacted in 1867, which have inaugurated the greatest changes in business and social life, and mark an era in the progress of the people worthy of fetes and commemorative bronzes. We heard the other night at the opera-house "William Tell" unmutilated. For many years this liberty-breathing opera was not permitted to be given in Bavaria, except with all the life of it cut out. It was first presented entire by order of young King Ludwig, who, they say, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Bartley and then lowered their eyes, wondering what the Easterner would do. Bartley felt that this was a test of his nerve, and, while he didn't like the idea of engaging in a William Tell performance he realized that Cheyenne must have had a reason for choosing him, out of the men present, and that Cheyenne knew ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... myself to the drama or the opera, for it seemed to me an equally desirable lot to shoot charmed bullets in "Der Freischutz," or, hidden behind elderberry bushes, to shoot at tyrannical Geslers in "William Tell." In the meantime I learned Tell's monologue, "Along this narrow path the man must come," by heart, and practised the aria, "Through the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... omniscient Press; how the figure of Shakespeare, dead only 300 years, is almost completely lost in the mist of Time, and even the authenticity of his works has become a subject of controversy; when you find that William Tell, supposed to have lived some 300 years again before Shakespeare, and whose deeds in minutest detail have been recited and honored all over Europe, is almost certainly a pure invention, and never existed; when you remember—as mentioned earlier in this book (1)—that it was ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the gravity of the beholder—each tenement so tortured into contrast with the other, that, on one little rood of ground, all ages seemed blended, and all races encamped. No. 1 is an Egyptian tomb!—Pharaohs may repose there! No. 2 is a Swiss chalet—William Tell may be shooting in its garden! Lo! the severity of Doric columns—Sparta is before you! Behold that Gothic porch—you are rapt to the Norman days! Ha! those Elizabethan mullions—Sidney and Raleigh, rise again! Ho! the trellises of China—come ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rebel. Who are the figures in history round whom the people's imagination has woven the fondest dreams? Are they not such rebels as Deborah and Judith[4] and Joan of Arc; as Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Gracchi and Brutus, William Tell, William Wallace, Simon de Montfort, Rienzi, Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, Shan O'Neill, William the Silent, John Hampden and Pym, the Highlanders of the Forty-five, Robert Emmet and Wolf Tone and Parnell, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... heroes are so widely known as William Tell. His exploits have been celebrated by one of the greatest poets and one of the most popular musicians of modern times. They are doubtless familiar to many who have never heard of Stauffacher or Winkelried, who are quite ignorant ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... William Tell!" roared the crowd, and, taking the time from Werner Stauffacher, they burst into the grand old Swiss chant which ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse
... noise of trampling feet and flapping doors, Streams to the numbered seat each pasteboard fits And smooths its caudal plumage as it sits; Waits while the slow musicians saunter in, Till the bald leader taps his violin; Till the old overture we know so well, Zampa or Magic Flute or William Tell, Has done its worst-then hark! the tinkling bell! The crash is o'er—the crinkling curtain furled, And to! the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... call for an illustration of patriotism, you point us to some Horatius or Leonidas of the olden times; or to some William Tell, or Ulysses Grant, of these more modern days. We do not say that these men were not patriots, and patriots of a high order too. But their circumstances were exceptional, and under these exceptional circumstances their patriotism made them ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... also, in a briskly led waltz, a little examination of the health and constitution of a woman can be had. I remember one evening twelve or so years ago—in the Rue Le Peletier, in the old Opera-house, which has burned down—I was on the stage awaiting my cue for the dance in 'William Tell,' you know, in the third act. Two subscribers were talking quite close to me, in the wings. One of the gentlemen was an old pupil of mine. I have had so many pupils! Without wishing to, I heard scraps of the conversation, and these two sentences struck ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... America, become the god Odin or Woden in Scandinavia; and when his worship as a god dies out Odin survives (as Dr. Dasent has proved) in the Wild Huntsman of the Hartz, and in the Robin Hood (Oodin) of popular legend. The Hellequin of France becomes the Harlequin of our pantomimes. William Tell never existed; he is a myth; a survival of the sun-god Apollo, Indra, who was worshipped ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... as an original and creative mind. He modified French music, and left great disciples on whom his influence was radical, though perhaps we may detect certain reflex influences in his last and greatest opera, "William Tell." But ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... "Oh, yes; or William Tell, because I did not take away his, year before last. One would be quite as probable as the other, you wonderfully clever Puss." And Otto ran away barely in time to catch the groom, who ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... opening night—the National Anthem. Frederick takes what he calls seconds; neighbours misunderstand it for an expression of disloyalty. Then the programme starts. Frederick Bulpert, new silk hat at back of head, and arms folded, listens to the "William Tell" overture, Handel's "Largo," and the suite from "Peer Gynt" with the frown of a man not to be taken in and unwilling to be influenced by the approbation exhibited by people round him. A song follows, and he remarks to Gertie that a recitation would be more in keeping ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... chill pallor of the rising moon, while hill and dale resounded with the songs of our men. No sooner had one finished an old metrical legend of the days of Stephan the powerful and Lasar the good, than another began a lay of Kara Georg, the "William Tell" of these mountains. Sometimes when we came to a good echo the pistols were fired off; at one place the noise had aroused a peasant, who came running across the grass to the road crying out, "O good men, the night is advancing: go no further, ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... joining the French "Foreign Legion" during the Franco-Prussian War. Besides the "Songs of the Rising Nation" in connection with his mother, he produced "An Irish Crazy Quilt," prose and verse, and was a frequent contributor to the "Irish People" and other papers over the signature of "Angus" and "William Tell." ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... to read with them these stories of the ancients, because there may be the commingling of legend with history, of myth with fact. You do not hesitate to read them the story of William Tell, although there are woven into it the elements of a very old and wide-spread sun-myth. These mythic elements have been woven around some real historic hero, and the spirit of his heroism breathes through every fold of the drapery. How charmingly Kingsley tells the tales ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... were again brought to a stand by fever in two of my companions, close to the residence of a Portuguese who rejoiced in the name of William Tell, and who lived here in spite of the prohibition of the government. We were using the water of a pond, and this gentleman, having come to invite me to dinner, drank a little of it, and caught fever in consequence. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... of silver from my hoard," was the Conqueror's answer. "But of what use is a hoard to me if I have no place to dwell in?" "Be patient, my son, and trust in the Lord, and let thine elders go before thee." It is perhaps by the light of the later events that our chronicler goes on to make William tell his youngest son that the day would come when he would succeed both his brothers in their dominions, and would be richer and mightier than either of them. The King then dictated a letter to Lafranc, setting forth his wishes with regard ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... nothing in our literary annals more unique and delightful than this history of Longfellow's warm recognition of his old classmate, and the mutual courtesies to which it led. One is reminded by it of the William Tell episode between Goethe and Schiller, though it was in this case only the theme and nothing of material that ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... "Yes; and WILLIAM TELL put an apple on his head, or on somebody else's head, and I thought the name would remind ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... Naples five years before. The most taking number in it is the famous prayer, which has been played and sung in every form possible for a popular melody. The operatic career of Rossini ended in 1829 with the production of his opera of "William Tell," at the Paris Academie, with a brilliant cast. In this work he forswears florid writing, and makes a serious effort at dramatic characterization. The opera is extremely melodious, and a very great advance over any of his former productions. Having ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... William Tell! should the unknown peasant dare—But he is a brave boy, and twice has he done the last service to my race! I love him, Adelheid, little less than thyself; and we will win him ever to our purpose gently, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... a sort of Admirable Crichton. He rode like Nimrod, danced like Terpsichore, drove like Jehu, shot like William Tell, and sang like Sims Reeves. It was in the latter accomplishment, however, that he chiefly excelled; he would stand up at the end of a crowded drawing-room, and, playing a delicate accompaniment on his ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... encounter and crush a sometime professor of natural philosophy with a gift for travelling like a meteor, for confusing like a Jack-o'-lantern, and for striking the bull's-eye of the moment like a silver bullet or a William Tell arrow. Between Richmond and the many and heavy blue lines, with their siege train, lay thinner lines of grey—sixty-five thousand men under the stars and bars. They, too, watched the turning aside of McDowell, watched Shields, Ord, King, and Fremont from the west, trappers ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... restaurants of every kind are lighted up, and quickly filled. Debauchery runs riot, and yet, strange to say, there is very little crime. The respectable classes are less well provided for as regards amusement. I went to the opera, and heard William Tell. The performance was mediocre, though far superior to anything that could be done upon the English operatic stage. But I was chiefly amused in watching the habits of the gentlemen who patronized ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... students, who were under the influence of those journals, would never suffer the play to get as far as the third act. "If it were otherwise," he said, "don't you suppose that we would have tried Schiller's 'William Tell'? The police would have cut out a quarter of it; one of our adapters another quarter; and what was left would reach a hundred representations, provided it could ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Miss Tilly James. Nothing could have pleased her audience any better than the well-known strains of the ever popular "Maiden's Prayer." In response to an encore which Quincy originated, and dexterously led, Miss James played the overture to Rossini's "William Tell" without notes. A fact which was perceived by the few, but ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... judgment of their acts unequalled. King Lear teaches us the folly of a rash judgment with overwhelming force. Evangeline awakens our sympathies as no moralist ever dreamed of doing. Uncle Tom in Mrs. Stowe's story was a stronger preacher than Wendell Phillips. William Tell in Schiller's play kindles our love for heroic deeds into an enthusiasm. The best myths, historical biographies, novels, and dramas, are the richest sources of moral stimulus because they lead us into the immediate presence of those men and women whose deeds stir up our moral ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... the distinction between Gothic and Romanesque arches; they explained what was the matter with the Anabaptists; they told him that the story of the Bishop and the rats at Bingen was a baseless myth, and that probably there had never been any such man as William Tell. Nor did they get all this out of the guide-books which they pored over with such zest. It was impossible not to see that they were familiar with large numbers of the subjects that these books discussed, and that the itinerary which ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... ingenuity nor the accuracy of the theory contained in the second book of the Novum Organum; but we think that Bacon greatly overrated its utility. We conceive that the inductive process, like many other processes, is not likely to be better performed merely because men know how they perform it. William Tell would not have been one whit more likely to cleave the apple if he had known that his arrow would describe a parabola under the influence of the attraction of the earth. Captain Barclay would not have been more likely to walk a thousand miles in a thousand ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nothing to do with its velocity, save as its size and shape might be affected by the friction of the atmosphere. The first person to put into print the story of the falling apple was Voltaire, whose sketch of Newton is a little classic which the world could ill afford to lose. Adam, William Tell and Isaac Newton each had his little affair with an apple, but with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... assassin, dear?" he demanded tensely. "The man who wields a knife or the tyrant who calls the fanatic into being? Brutus or Caesar, William Tell or Gessler? Resistance to ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... throughout his career, but his last period was most prolific both in these and in dramatic composition, and includes such great works as his "Wallenstein," "Marie Stuart," "The Maid of Orleans," "The Bride of Messina," and "William Tell" (1804). His life was a continual struggle against ill-health and unfavorable circumstances; but he maintained to the end the spirit of independence and love of liberty which are the characteristic ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... Anne, I think she'd make a capital William Tell's child. Don't believe she'd be afraid for me to shoot the apple off ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... rock, studded with brilliant spar, like constellations in the sky, seen at midnight, from the deep clefts of a mountain. This is called the Star Chamber. It makes one think of Schiller's grand description of William Tell sternly waiting for Gessler, among the shadows of the Alps, and of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... month, or eighty-four times during the year. This would be about 1,100 francs per evening. Admitted then that his part would contain 1,100 notes or syllables, the price of each syllable would be 1 franc. Consequently in William Tell: ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... known as 'Saxon Switzerland.' Frequent excursions to the Porsberg, to the adjacent Liebethaler, and to the far distant bastion helped to strengthen my unstrung nerves. While I was first planning the music to Lohengrin, I was disturbed incessantly by the echoes of some of the airs in Rossini's William Tell, which was the last opera I had had to conduct. At last I happened to hit on an effective means of stopping this annoying obtrusion: during my lonely walks I sang with great emphasis the first theme from the Ninth Symphony, which had also quite lately been revived in my ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... aged 14, while riding William Tell in his training, was thrown and killed. The horse is ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... which Rubens sat when he painted the immortal Descent from the Cross; or the telescope, preserved in the Museum of Florence, which aided Galileo in his sublime discoveries. Who would not look with veneration upon the undoubted arrow of William Tell—the swords of Wallace or of Hampden—or the Bible whose leaves were turned by some stern old ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... day or two to thaw out and mend bruises, and then ran over to Martigny, crossed the Grand St. Bernard, the St. Gotthard, and the Grimsel passes, spent a week in William Tell's country, prowling about the ruins of old castles and the sites of legendary battles, and finally settled down in Milan to feast my eyes on the pinnacles of its wondrous cathedral. But my failure to reach ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... somebody as an idea. But they are not likely to have happened to many people. The second class of their "myths" consist of the stories that are told everywhere for the simple reason that they happen everywhere. Of the first class, for instance, we might take such an example as the story of William Tell, now generally ranked among legends upon the sole ground that it is found in the tales of other peoples. Now, it is obvious that this was told everywhere because whether true or fictitious it is what is called "a good story;" it is odd, exciting, and it has ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... have beheld Justin Peabody and Nancy Wentworth in the flesh, and have seen the paint of the old Peabody Pew wiped with a damp cloth, its cushion darned and its carpet tacked in place, it is useless to argue; any more than it would be to deny the validity of the egg of Columbus or the apple of William Tell. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... arrow farther and hurl a spear with more accuracy than any man he ever met. Very naturally there are a great number of folklore stories concerning his prowess, some of which make him out a sort of combination Saint George and William Tell, with the added kingly graces of Alfred the Great. Omitting the incredible, we are willing to believe that this man had a giant's strength, but was great enough not to ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... to Europe, and abode a while in France, but not in its capital. He lived deeply retired, gradually restoring his shattered frame to some degree of health by the peace of a resigned mind and the occupation of rural employments. Circumstances led him to Switzerland; and the country of William Tell, and of simple Christian fellowship, could not but soon be found peculiarly congenial to his spirit, long turned away from the pageants and the pomp of this world. In his span he had had all, either in his grasp or proffered to him. For when nothing remained ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... he exclaimed, Then they place in his hands a druidical harp, which to vulgar eyes might resemble a modern gridiron. He touches the chords gently; "pipes to the spirit ditties of no tone;" and you imagine Aeolian strains. At last William Tell's cap is produced. The people who affect to cheat him, apparently cut the rim from a modern hat, and place the skull-cap in his hands; and then begins the almost finest piece of acting that I ever ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... Lucerne is historic, I am told. Here began the Swiss struggle for liberty which we read about. The scene of William Tell's exploits are laid here, and we are shown on the shore of the lake, Tell's Capelle, said to mark the spot where the apple-shooting patriot leaped ashore and escaped from the tyrant Gessler. I do not wonder at men, born and ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... bear would have been an easy shot by daylight, if there had been no baby to consider. But there was that little bundle of humanity, the man's own flesh and blood, and a bullet in order to pierce the bear's heart must strike within a few inches of the baby's head. The task that King Gessler set William Tell, was child's play compared with this. To shoot might mean to kill his own child, and not to shoot might mean a still more terrible death ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... Catholic generally Conservative. Of the precise questions in dispute I know little and shall say nothing; but I do trust that the controversy will not enfeeble nor paralyze the Republic, now seriously menaced by the Allied Despots, who seem to have almost forgotten that there ever was such a man as WILLIAM TELL. Let us drink, in the crystal current leaping brightly down from the eternal glaciers, to his glorious, inspiring memory, and to Switzerland a loving ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... over sideways, glaring at me with his one strange eye. It was just about as close a shot as was William Tell's at the apple. But I knew that reputation for nerve depended on it, so I fired. As the duck ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... to stake me to one of these." Looking over the rolls on top, she mumbled to herself: "Tannhauser, William Tell, Chopin." Louder, she said: "Listen, dear. Ain't you got anything else except all this ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... deposite, hatching monthly broods of alligators, and surrounded by naked slaves, whilst out of the window before him his eye rested upon the snow-covered mountains of Switzerland, and he breathed the pure air of William Tell and liberty. This morning I fell in with an acquaintance whom had not seen for years, and him also I did not recollect. I am very unfortunate in that respect, and I am afraid that I have very often given ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... tube. The well-known Ranz des Paches is the traditional melody of the alpenhorn, which has been immortalized by Beethoven in the finale of the Pastoral Symphony, where the music is generally rendered by a cor aniglais (q.v..) Rossini has introduced the melody into his opera William Tell. Wagner, in the third act of Tristan and Isolde, was not entirely satisfied with the tone quality of the cor anglais for representing the natural pipe of the peasant. Having in his mind the timbre of the alpenhorn, he had a wooden horn made for him with one valve only and a small pear-shaped bell, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Man Telephoning to His Best Girl A Man Meeting and Killing a Rattlesnake Lighting a Lamp Drawing a Cork Looking for a Lost Coin—finding it in one pocket or shoe A Musician Playing His Own Composition The Sleeping Beauty and the Prince (two actors) Goldilocks and the Three Bears William Tell and the Apple (best rendered in caricature with a pumpkin and two actors) Eliza Crossing the Ice The Kaiser Signing His Abdication The Judgment of Solomon (three actors) Brutus Condemning His ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... some charge. Esther ran out to see what was happening, and there she witnessed a disgraceful scene. The lean woman in the muslin dress and the amber beads accused young Mr. Preston of something which he denied, and she heard William tell someone that he was mistaken, that he and his pals didn't want no rowing at this 'ere ball, and what was more they didn't mean to ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore |
