"Performer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Should the voice agree in style with the different varieties of prose? It should, and the performer should endeavor to produce the exact ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... than the percussion of hands, a man would execute a pas seul, which it is to be presumed he enjoyed. Again, with a riper and better sense of musical methods, the performer accompanied himself, or, as in this case it usually was, herself, on the double-pipes, the guitar or the tambourine, while the familiar hand-clapping was done by attendants. A step not unlike that of the abominable clog dance ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... young man arrived, and, duly arrayed, was received into his stall at vespers, the bishop assisting. It was then that the people heard the music of the organ, rolling over them for the first time, with various feelings of delight. But the performer on and author of the instrument was forgotten in his work, and there was no re-instatement of the former favourite. The religious ceremony was followed by a civic festival, in which Auxerre welcomed its future lord. The festival was to end at nightfall with a somewhat rude popular pageant, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... of frugality and self-denial by the Continental Congress put an end temporarily to plays in the colonies outside the British lines and put Washington into a greater play, "not, as he once wished, as a performer, but as a character." There were amateur performances at Valley Forge, but they aroused the hostility of the puritanical, and Congress forbade them. Washington seems, however, to have ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... played Charlot, 'proved', says Cibber, 'not only a good actress, but was allowed in those days, to sing and dance to great perfection. In the dramatic operas of Dioclesian and King Arthur, she was a capital and admired performer. In speaking too, she had a sweet-toned voice, which, with her naturally genteel air and sensible pronunciation, rendered her wholly mistress of the amiable in many serious characters. In parts of humour, too, she had a manner of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... "Yes, a fodefeel performer. I don't know what that means, but he must be queer. But I think Larry would be all right, and Joe. You ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... the son of an instrument maker, a fairly good performer and an even better composer," the musician began. "Thus at an early age I had mastered the laws of musical construction in its twofold aspects, the material and the spiritual; and as an inquisitive child I observed many things which ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... circus performer nearly ran against him. He looked up and made a forward jump. He seized the handkerchief and the two odd objects it contained with a fervent cry that astonished ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... as well. In music, to take but a single example, are present the same elements that constitute the appeal of pictures,—skill in the rendering, a certain correspondence with experience, and the power of imaginative interpretation of the facts of life. The music-hall performer who wins the loudest and heartiest applause is he who does the greatest number of pyrotechnic, wonderful things on the piano, or holds a high note on the cornet for the longest time. His success, as with the painter whose aim is to create illusion, rests upon men's ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... without words" on an instrument he knew as little of as the music he was parodying, was beyond all bearing! Then, if ever, did my wretched master dig his fingers into his ears, and writhe and shiver and groan at each discord produced by that inhuman performer. He retreated into the innermost recess of his bedroom; he even hid his unhappy head beneath the clothes, if haply he might escape the agony of this torture. But it was hopeless. The shrieks and groans of that brutal ophicleide would have ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... a glory to think that even a Mexican rebel could not have been guilty of so heinous a crime. The performer of that cowardly deed was a Frenchman, living among the Indians of the west, who, for the sake of a paltry sum of gold, came to the aid of the rebels with many thousands of the savages. His next step was to ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... practice are required in order so to make and adjust the machines described by me as not to overlook the smallest particular, I should not be less astonished if they succeeded on the first attempt than if a person were in one day to become an accomplished performer on the guitar, by merely having excellent sheets of music set up before him. And if I write in French, which is the language of my country, in preference to Latin, which is that of my preceptors, it is because I expect that those who ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... however, interesting, deeply so; one of those rare beings who fill your eye in every mood. Her passion for music, and the great excellence she had attained as a performer, drew us together. I was her daily visitor; but, if my admiration ever softened into tenderness, it was the tenderness of pity for her unsatisfied ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... engagement cleared away, secure of his ship. I suppose he was about thirty: a powerful, active man, with a blue eye, a thick head of hair, about the colour of oakum and growing low over the brow; clean-shaved and lean about the jaw; a good singer; a good performer on that sea-instrument, the accordion; a quick observer, a close reasoner; when he pleased, of a really elegant address; and when he chose, the greatest ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... murderous nature. But I incline to the belief that it is because the invariable use of heavy tackle has blinded the fishermen to the wonderful leaping and fighting qualities of this long-nosed, long-toothed sea-tiger. The few of us who have hooked barracuda on light tackle know him as a marvelous performer. Van Campen Heilner wrote about a barracuda he caught on a bass rod, and he is not likely to forget it, nor will the reader ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... accomplished young men of his time. He was well read in the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in all the moderns of any merit who had written in English, French, or Italian. He had a good ear for music, and was no indifferent performer on the violin, which he used to play like a bass viol, seated on a chair with the instrument between his legs. To the music of the harpsichord and clavichord he was extremely partial, but the smallness of his hands ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... tomorrow. Do you know what the public is after in its pursuit of art? To shout bravos, to throw flowers and wreaths upon the stage, to have something to talk about, to be seen by others, to say Ah and Oh, once in a while to take a hand in unhitching a performer's horses—these are the public's real wants, and I satisfy them. If they pay me half a million, I in return furnish a living to a legion of cabmen, writers, milliners, florists, tavernkeepers. The money is made to circulate. People's blood is made to circulate. Young girls become engaged, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... library (in which I was supposed to be waiting), the active young footman was in the hall, answering the door. It mattered little, as I thought. In my aunt's state of health, visitors in general were not admitted. To my horror and amazement, the performer of the soft little knock proved to be an exception to general rules. Samuel's voice below me (after apparently answering some questions which I did not hear) said, unmistakably, "Upstairs, if you please, sir." The next moment I heard footsteps—a man's footsteps—approaching the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... attempted by his predecessor. Smith thrills thousands in daily flights and skiey acrobatics, including crazy dips and loops, startling dashes to the earth and illuminated flights through the night air. (See p. 192.) Smith became in a day an attraction outshining, perhaps, any other single performer ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... singing, done in the village hall by one of the villagers, will arouse more criticism and more enthusiasm among his friends and neighbours than can be excited by the most consummate performance of a professional in a great city theatre, where no one in the audience knows or cares for the performer. ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... Silver was a star performer. What other fire-horse ever mastered the intricacies of the automatic halter release? It was Silver, too, that picked from the Captain's hip-pocket a neatly folded paper and chewed the same with malicious enthusiasm. The folded paper ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... show that very little amount or force of breath is needed to produce effective tones, the impression must exist in the mind of the performer that there is a free flow of breath through the larynx; otherwise the tone will seem restricted and will be weak. The forced holding back of the breath begets a restraint that has a bad effect on the singer's delivery. While the breath must be controlled, there is such a thing as ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... was a twin brother of Gil Alvarez. They were known among their few friends as Jack and Gil. They were trained athletes; their father had been a circus performer, and under peculiar circumstances the two brothers had been trained for the profession, but owing to reasons satisfactory to themselves, and as recorded in previous records of their exploits, they had decided become detectives, ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... the first son of Stenatlihan, who was made to conceive by the sun's rays as she lay asleep on the eastern slope of a mountain. He is the War God and miracle performer, the culture hero who in parallel legends appears in many North American aboriginal cults. Great monsters in the form of giant antelopes, rolling stones, and beasts of hideous conception are supposed to have inhabited the earth for a time, destroying its people. These monsters typify only ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... addresses of a swarthy foreigner who had a foothold a yard beyond the curbstone, and who was turning the crank of his instrument with all the rapid regularity of the thorough mechanician. The whole street rang. "'Ah, perche non posso odiarti!'" hummed Truesdale in unison with the organ, as the performer, after an intricate cadenza, returned to the original theme. "That's the only recognizable thing I've heard these fellows play since I came over. I wonder who puts together all the shocking stuff they are ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... elucidate, obey, and express. The genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry and sweetly torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I remember I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer, the pride of the English stage; and all I then heard and all I now remember of the tragedian was that in which the tragedian had no part; simply ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... It has been claimed by some that the cobra is not influenced by the music, but by movements of the Hindu performer, who dances, salaams, etc., continually while giving exhibitions. Very recently, however, Momsen has proven the contrary by ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... near you, in Florida) added his voice for a time, but soon relapsed into silence. The fact was characteristic; for, wherever I went, I found it true that the mocker grew less musical as the place grew wilder. By instinct he is a public performer, he demands an audience; and it is only in cities, like St. Augustine and Tallahassee, that he is heard at his freest and best. A loggerhead shrike—now close at my elbow, now farther away—was practicing his ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... from a private source that he uses a disc of twelve inches diameter which he rolls upon a straight rail.' The 'rolling is a very creditable one; it is as much below the mark as Archimedes was above it. Its performer is a joiner who evidently knows well what he is about when he measures; he is not wrong by 1 in 3000.' Such skilful mechanicians as the builders of the pyramid could have obtained a closer approximation still by mere measurement. Besides, as they were manifestly ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... the showerer, the slayer of the malevolent, profound, mighty, of impenetrable sagacity, the dispenser of prosperity, the enfeebler, firm, vast, the performer of pious acts, Indra has given birth to the light ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... convenience. The caste themselves have the following legend of their origin: Once upon a time Parmeshwar [244] was offering rice milk to the spirits of his ancestors. In the course of this ceremony the performer has to present a gift known as Vikraya Dan, which cannot be accepted by others without loss of position. Parmeshwar offered the gift to various Brahmans, but they all refused it. So he made a man of clay, and blew upon the image and gave ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... born in Albany, New York and before she started her writing career she was a file clerk, music teacher and a carnival performer. Her hobbies are reading science fiction novels, going to the opera and listening to ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... average excellence. The Ladies here are real Ladies, not stuffed imitations, as at Cambridge. Mrs. SIM, Mrs. MORRIS, and Miss FARMER, were all good. But the one really brilliant performance was that of Crab, the dog, by a wonderful Variety performer from the Theatre Royal, Dogs' Home, Battersea. If this gorgeously ugly, splendidly intelligent, and affectionately versatile animal is sent back at the conclusion of the run of the piece to be asphyxiated at Battersea, I shall never believe in the gratitude ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... went off—not with a loud report, but with a gentle and lofty tenor piping, somewhere in the neighbourhood of F, or it might have been only E (though, indeed, a photograph would have suggested that Emanuel was singing at lowest the upper C), and the performer slowly resumed ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... lady made in her quaint frock against the crumbling garden wall. He spoke a very pretty speech about her appearance. But he found her haughty indeed considering that she was nothing but an upstart vaudeville performer. She had no manners at all, he decided, for she did not even suggest that he sit down. He actually had to make ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... and the young King of Navarre, though proof to the artifices of his gossip Guise, was not adamant to the temptations spread for him by Catherine de' Medici. In the harem entertained for him in the Louvre many pitfalls entrapped him; and he became a stock-performer in the state comedies and tragedies of that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was a clever and versatile performer, caught the air, made up like the Negro, and in the course of the next season introduced Jim Crow and his step to the stage, and so successful was he in his performance that on his first night in the part he was encored twenty times.[1] Rice had many imitators among the white comedians of the country, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... left all alone in the middle, don't you think?" Lord Regalia felt his own similarity to the "ball in a fix" too keenly to appreciate the interesting character of the amusement, or the coolness of the chief performer in it; but "Beauty's Solitaire" became a synonym thenceforth among the Household to typify any very tender passages "sotto ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... obliged to make millions laugh. I do not like Chaplin's work, but I have to admit the good intentions and the enviable laurels. Let all the Art Museums invite him in, as tentative adviser, if not a chastened performer. Let him be given as good a chance as Mae Marsh was given by Eggers in Fullerton Hall. Only let him come in person, not in film, till we hear him speak, and consider his suggestions, and make sure he has eaten of the mystic Amaranth Apples of ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... embrace. Iemon receives them as would a stone Jizo[u]. O'Iwa, at sight of the fright of Iemon, laughs—ki, ki, ki. At once they fade away; and at once the ghost of Kohei the wakato[u] takes her place, he who was charged with unchaste conduct with O'Iwa. It was the part of the performer to please the uninitiated by some strenuous effort. The first performance at this theatre was for three months—from the seventh to the ninth month. On consideration the drama is of interest. O'Iwa is killed at Yotsuya. With the dead body of the wakato[u] ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... my children, Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates, Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass'd his prelude on ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... remain in her society, of necessity exceedingly small. She would try my temper at home, too, in a thousand ways. When requested by me (often, I own, rather roughly) to entertain the company with conversation, wit, and learning, of which she was a mistress: or music, of which she was an accomplished performer, she would as often as not begin to cry, and leave the room. My company from this, of course, fancied I was a tyrant over her; whereas I was only a severe and careful guardian over a silly, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who, having thrown a rope high into the air, has a boy climb it until he is lost to view. He can even have the feat photographed. The camera will click; nothing will appear on the developed film; and this, the performer will glibly explain, "proves" that the whole company of onlookers was hypnotized! And he can be certain of a very profitable following to defend and ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... his Royal Highness coming forward to the front of the box and himself directing the musicians, keeping time earnestly with his right hand, in which was a long black opera-glass. This he occasionally used, but merely to look at the orchestra, not, assuredly, to detect a negligent or inefficient performer; for in the schooled orchestra of Reisenburg it would have been impossible even for the eagle eye of his Royal Highness, assisted as it was by his long black opera-glass, or for his fine ear, matured as it ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... their cost in other countries. In Somaliland, for instance, for the price I paid for my nine, I could get one hundred and sixty-three camels! But the Somali camel from all accounts is a very poor performer, compared to his kinsman in the Antipodes, his load being about 200 lbs. against the Australian's 6 to ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... the case of the meditations on the small ether, &c., on the other hand, the text says nothing as to their having to be performed by priests, and we therefore assume in accordance with the general principle that 'the fruit belongs to the performer,' that the agent there is the person to whom Scripture assigns the fruit.— Here terminates the adhikarana of ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... cried with a chuckle. "That dog 'll be worth money to the show, by the time I've trained him. 'The Wonderful Black and Tan Performer,' &c. We'll keep him shut up till we're far from here, and if any questions is asked it's our dog, and that boy's a thief that have stole him from ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... visits, indeed, had by no means been frequent, as the ill-humour of Lady Margaret Monckton had rendered them painful to her; yet the opportunities they had afforded her of mixing with people of fashion, had served to prepare her for the new scenes in which she was soon to be a performer. ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... got so unbearing hot! I might have missed it altogether. Wouldn't it have been a shame to lose that sight? The cunning little divil! When he gets to toddling down that log to meet me, won't he be a circus? Wonder if he'll be as graceful a performer afoot as ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... shouts and answering cries and laughter. Here, flying round in graceful curves, a dexterous skater cut his name in the ice; there, bands of noisy boys were playing tag, and on the ringing steel pursuing the chase; while every once in a while down would tumble some lubberly urchin, or unskillful performer, or new beginner, coming into harder contact with the frozen element than was pleasant, and seeing stars in the daytime, while bursts of laughter and ironical invitations to try it again, greeted his misfortune. In another place were girls on ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... could not both be referable to the same noun contents, by silently substituting die for dies, MR. COLLIER has blinded his reader and wronged his author. The purport of the passage amounts to this: the contents, or structure (to wit, of the show to be exhibited), breaks down in the performer's zeal to the subject which it presents. Johnson very properly adduces a much happier expression of the same thought from A Midsummer ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... salutation—accomplished by adding something to a rather quick inclination of the body from the hips, with the back and neck held straight expressed deference without affecting or inviting cordiality. It was an elaborate little formality of a kind fancifully called "foreign," and evidently habitual to the performer. ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... illustrious dramatist was born, in the year 1564, and here he also died, in 1616. It has been conjectured, that his first dramatic composition was produced when he was but twenty-five years old. He continued to write for the stage for a great number of years; occasionally, also, appearing as a performer: and at length, having, by his exertions, secured a fortune of two or three hundred a year, retired to his native town, where he purchased a small estate, and spent the remainder of his ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... business houses, chorus girls from the theaters, and a mixed company generally, are to be found sitting around the various tables, drinking. The atmosphere is foggy with cigar smoke. The saloon is all ablaze with light. On the stage is some fourth-rate performer rendering a popular song. There is a long lunch counter, upon which is placed the materials for manufacturing all kinds of sandwiches. There is the flower girl, with her tray of fresh pansies and roses, casting a reflected bloom upon her otherwise pale face. There ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... not trouble to weigh the rights against the wrongs. But look at this boy, here. You recognize him, hey? I charge you with having murdered his father, Major Brooks, as you murdered Coffin. You have run up a pretty long account, my friend, for so clumsy a performer; but I think you have reached the ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a considerable number of poetical experiments when the Dunciad appeared, but he had not yet discovered in what direction his talents could be most efficiently exerted. Bystanders are sometimes acuter in detecting a man's true forte than the performer himself. In 1722 Atterbury had seen Pope's lines upon Addison, and reported that no piece of his writing was ever so much sought after. "Since you now know," he added, "in what direction your strength ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... the straight high-road with its high-tangled hedge-rows on either side than she began to show symptoms of behaving very badly indeed. She bucked and pranced, and stood on her hind legs; she whipped suddenly round, pirouetted upon her own axis with the dexterity of a circus performer, and demonstrated very plainly that, if she only dared, she would like to take to her heels in the reverse direction to that which her ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... enthusiasm with any other person when occasion was felicitous, the subject of interest, and the comedian in his happy vein. Dunlap, were he speaking, might tell you of his [Cooper's] gratuities to the unfortunate playwright and the dramatic performer." In 1832 William Dunlap's "History of the American Theatre" was "Dedicated to James Fenimore Cooper Esq., by his ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... Gaines leaning far forward, looking now at his wife, now at the little group. I followed his eyes. To my surprise, I saw Marchant, his gaze riveted on Edith Gaines as if she had been the star performer in a play. Evidently my chance request to Karatoff had been builded better than I knew. I ran my gaze over the others. Errol was no less engrossed than Marchant. Quickly I glanced at Carita, wondering whether she might be gratified by the performance of a pupil. Whether it was natural ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... mere trick of a juggler! a figure projected on the wall by some ingenious contrivance of glasses. The instrument was found on the body of the performer, who turned out to be the colonel's valet—of course in the enemy's pay, and who furnished them with daily intelligence of all our proceedings. As for the loss of the sabre, which actually startled the ghost-seer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... frail as music. Features of our face, The tones of the voice, the touch of the loved hand, Perish and vanish, one by one, from earth: Meanwhile, in the hall of song, the multitude Applauds the new performer. One, perchance, One ultimate survivor lingers on, And smiles, and to his ancient heart recalls The long forgotten. Ere the morrow die, He too, returning, through the curtain comes, And the new age forgets us and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the shop itself would have held Janice Day's attention even for a moment; but from within (the front door stood ajar) came the wailing notes of a violin, the uncertain bow of the performer seeking out the notes of "Silver Threads ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... express. The genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry, and sweetly torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I remember, I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer,[624] the pride of the English stage; and all I then heard, and all I now remember, of the tragedian, was that in which the tragedian had no part; simply, Hamlet's ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... life, playing in all sorts of places—in taverns, at fairs, at peasants' marriages, and at balls. At last he gained access to an orchestra, and there, steadily rising higher and higher, he attained to the position of conductor. As a performer he had no great merit, but he understood music thoroughly. In his twenty-eighth year, he migrated to Russia. He was invited there by a great seigneur, who, although he could not abide music himself, maintained an orchestra from a love of display. In his house Lemm spent ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... nowadays," the old woman told Ruth once, "are not trained as they once were. I came of circus folk. My people had been circus performers in the old country for generations before my father and mother came over here. My husband was a trapeze performer. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... length, of narrow cylindrical bore, and played by means of a cup-shaped mouthpiece. The tube is bent round upon itself from the mouthpiece to the bell in the shape of a broad C and is strengthened by means of a bar across the curve, which the performer grasps while playing, in order to steady the instrument; the bell curves over his head or shoulder as in the modern helicon. Three Roman buccinas were found among the ruins of Pompeii and are now deposited in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... protection, though not welcome. Methinks," he added, "it is time that I should know who they are that have thus highly honoured my ruined dwelling!" The young lady remained silent and motionless, and the father, to whom the question was more directly addressed, seemed in the situation of a performer who has ventured to take upon himself a part which he finds himself unable to present, and who comes to a pause when it is most to be expected that he should speak. While he endeavoured to cover his embarrassment with the exterior ceremonials of a well-bred demeanour, it was obvious ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... pleasure even in her half-motherly criticism and admonition of some passages. I am afraid he forgot Susy, who listened with the complacency of an exhibitor; Mary, whose black eyes dilated alternately with sympathy for the performer and deprecation of Mrs. Peyton's critical glances; and Peyton, who, however, seemed lost in thought, and preoccupied. Clarence was happy. The softly shaded lights in the broad, spacious, comfortably furnished drawing-room shone on the group before him. It was a picture of refined ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... burlesque of a lovelorn tenor's part, rolling his eyes, clasping his hands, striking his breast, and gyrating about Miss Dwyer-in the most approved operatic style. He had a fine voice and knew a good deal of music; so that, barring a certain nervousness in the performer, the exhibition was really not bad. In his singing he had used a meaningless gibberish varied with the syllables of the scale, but he closed by singing the words, "Are you ready ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... a quite surprising performer on the banjo, which her father had taught her when she was quite a little girl, and invented charming tunes and effects and modulations that had never been tried on that humble instrument before. She could have made a handsome living out of it, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Bellini's 'Sonnambula'; and in a glee, 'You'll See Them on the Ohio,' nothing can be more effective than the skilful blending of the parts. It is, perhaps, the buffo exhibition which will create the greatest sensation, and in this quality they are inimitable. The tambourine performer affects a ludicrous air of pompous sentiment, while the castanet sable hero indulges in all kinds of buffoonery and antics. He is a wonderful player—no Spaniard can rival him in rapidity, delicacy and precision. A scene called a 'Railway ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... wherein the peculiar features of the box consist. The one I am about to describe is, I think, the best of those I am acquainted with, or at liberty to divulge. Indeed, I don't know that any method is better, and this one has the advantage over most others of allowing the performer to get into as well as out of the box, without leaving a trace of his means of ingress. It will be seen the box is paneled, and all the panels look equally firm and fixed. As a matter of fact, one of the panels is movable, though the closest scrutiny would fail to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... of Music.] — N. musician, artiste, performer, player, minstrel; bard &c. (poet) 597; [specific types of musicians] accompanist, accordionist, instrumentalist, organist, pianist, violinist, flautist; harper, fiddler, fifer[obs3], trumpeter, piper, drummer; catgut scraper. band, orchestral waits. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... not at all alarmed. She was eagerly watching Lady Dunstable, as one watches for the mannerisms of some well-known performer. Sir Luke perceived it, and immediately began to show off his hostess by one of the sparring matches that were apparently frequent between them. They fell to discussing a party of guests—landowners from a neighbouring estate—who seemed to have paid a visit to Crosby Ledgers the day before. Lady ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... but he can know; the most sure proof of his remembering is the power to react his part in the original drama, whatever it may have been; if a man can repeat a performance with consummate truth, and can stand any amount of cross-questioning about it, he is the performer of the original performance, whatever it was. The memories which all living forms prove by their actions that they possess-the memories of their common identity with a single person in whom they meet-this is incontestable proof of their being animated by a common soul. It is ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... the Rajasuya sacrifice. The time for the performance of that sacrifice in which Rishis of austere vows kindle six fires with mantras of the Sama Veda, is come for thee in consequence of thy Kshatriya possessions. At the conclusion of the Rajasuya sacrifice when the performer is installed in the sovereignty of the empire, he is rewarded with the fruits of all sacrifices including the Agnihotra. It is for this that he is called the conqueror of all. Thou art quite able, O strong-armed one, to perform this sacrifice. All of us are obedient to thee. Soon will you ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... have a bullfight in their little bullring. On such an occasion the bullfighting outfit is specially imported from one of the larger towns farther inland. Sometimes the whole troupe comes from Juarez and puts on a regular metropolitan production, with the original all-star cast. There is the gallant performer known as the armadilla, who teases the bull to desperation by waving a red shawl at him; the no less daring parabola, sticking little barbed boleros in the bull's withers; and, last of all, the intrepid mantilla, who calmly meets the final ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... little Arctic blossoms shared his exile—for this is nothing less than an exile to a man of cultivation and intellectual tastes. In his house I saw—the last thing one would have expected to find in the heart of Lapland—a piano. Madame Hvoslef, who is an accomplished performer, sat down to it, and gave us the barcarole from Massaniello. While in the midst of a maze of wild Norwegian melodies, I saw the Pastor whisper something in her ear. At once, to our infinite amazement, she boldly struck up "Yankee Doodle!" Something ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... possesses, however, is one which requires no scientific knowledge of music in his audiences to appreciate. Placed at the instrument with any musician, he plays a perfect bass accompaniment to the treble of music heard for the first time as he plays. Then taking the seat vacated by the other performer, he instantly gives the entire piece, intact in brilliancy and symmetry, not a note lost or misplaced. The selections of music by which this power of Tom's was tested, two years ago, were sometimes fourteen and sixteen pages in length; on one occasion, at an exhibition at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... even at the Olympic games formerly celebrated in Greece. The art of running is, like that of dancing, acquirable from a master; but gracefulness of motion is not essential to the perfection of the runner, swiftness being the principal requisite. Hence, whether the performer display his agility by bounding along on the light fantastic toe, or waddling with the zig-zag respectability of a corpulent alderman, if he can first reach the destined goal within a given period of time, he is rewarded, not with a civic ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... because of it. I revert to this merely to show that I have not always acted in a ruffianly manner under these circumstances. It seems rather to depend upon how the thing is done—the mood of the performer—his mental state. Had Mr. Belknap-Jackson been—pardon me—quite drunk, I feel that the outcome would have been happier for us all. So far as I have thought along these lines, it seems to me that if one is to be kicked at all, one ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... this, his daughter Margaret had almost broken that heart by marrying a man of whom he could not approve. Martin Moore was a professional violinist. He was a popular performer, though not in any sense a great one. He met the slim, golden-haired daughter of the manse at the house of a college friend she was visiting in Toronto, and fell straightway in love with her. Margaret had loved him with all her ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... foes; her horse has all four feet off the ground, his means of support, a bronze rod as a sort of fifth or middle leg, being more practical than artistic. "The rider's position in the saddle," as Archie says, "would turn any circus performer green with envy." An altogether atrocious piece of sculpture is this, with an element of grotesqueness in its conception quite unworthy of one of the most serious characters in all history, the Maid to whom, as Carlyle says, "all maidens upon ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Walraven has told me. Pray favor us with one song before some less gifted performer secures ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer, but a composer of no mean merit. All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... four-act play of 'Ingomar.' Though young in years, Miss Anderson is evidently a practiced actress. She knows the business of the stage perfectly, is learned in the art of making points, and, what is more, knows how to bide her opportunity. The wise discretion which imposes restraint upon the performer was somewhat too rigidly observed in the earlier scenes on Saturday night, the consequence being that in one of the most impressive passages of the not very inspired dialogue, the little distance between the sublime and the ridiculous was bridged by a voice from the gallery, which, adopting a tone, ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... in the case of science, provided the number of hours devoted to teaching is not excessive. It is partly because science and teaching are so easily combined that science is vigorous in the present age. In music, a composer who is also a performer enjoys similar advantages, but one who is not a performer must starve, unless he is rich or willing to pander to the public taste. In the fine arts, as a rule, it is not easy in the modern world either to make ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... Freischutz told me that I had stepped, as it were with both feet, right into the magic realm of awe. Any one who had been watching me at that moment could hardly have failed to see the state I was in, and this in spite of the fact that I was such a bad performer on ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... from the pressure of water, and a receptacle partly filled with water was an essential part of every Roman organ. From this feature it was called the water-organ. The Emperor Nero had been a notable performer on the water-organ and had interested himself in some improvements in ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... and received with hilarity by the audience. At another place he would be entertained by listening to jokes of his own invention, coarsely retailed by the clown of the ring, and shouted at by the public as capital waggery on the part of the performer. His own good things from the lips of another "came back to him with alienated majesty," as Emerson expresses it. Then the thought would steal over him—Why should that man gain a living with my witticisms, and I not use ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... copper spire of the old Rathhaus, and there seated within its perforated cupola had drunk from a glass of native wine, and thrown the rest of it, glass and all, down the spire—an ancient custom which, as she only heard afterwards, entitled its performer, though of outside extraction, to make her ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle,* and at the age he was then of, touched well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and joined her old man again, as their children and grandchildren danced ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... originated in the taste for mumming and disguises of all sorts, prevalent at the Bacchic festivals, were an indispensable accompaniment to tragedy. They not only concealed the individual features of well-known actors, and enabled the spectators entirely to forget the performer in his part, but gave to his whole aspect that ideal character which the tragedy of antiquity demanded. The tragic mask was not intentionally ugly and caricatured like the comic, but the half-open mouth, the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... difficult way was to insert surreptitiously a lump of metal into the mixture, using an ordinary crucible. This required great dexterity, but was facilitated by the use of many mysterious ceremonies on the part of the operator while performing, just as the modern vaudeville performer diverts the attention of the audience to his right hand while his left is engaged in the trick. Such ceremonies were not questioned, for it was the common belief that the whole process "lay in the spirit as much as in the substance," many, as we have seen, regarding the whole process ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... as the flickering shadows that fell upon them from the waving trees overhead. The master was fascinated yet troubled. What if there had been older spectators? Would the parents take the performance as innocently as the performer and her little audience? He thought it necessary later to suggest this delicately to the child. Her temper rose, her ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... sometimes when he calls up I am out, just to let him know that he is not the only star performer. ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... place, the simple, bare, almost sordid Teatro Gayarre. Most of the turns were of the same ordinary sort that might be seen in many another music-hall of the long Calle Marques del Duero. But at the end came on a performer who was, I soon found, of altogether another order. The famous Bianca Stella, as the programme announced, shortly to start on her South American tour, was appearing for a limited number of nights. I had never heard ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... how you like this. I differ from your idea of the expression of the tune. There is, to me, a great deal of tenderness in it. You cannot, in my opinion, dispense with a bass to your addenda airs. A lady of my acquaintance, a noted performer, plays and sings at the same time so charmingly, that I shall never bear to see any of her songs sent into the world, as naked as Mr. What-d'ye-call-um has done ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... hour of the relatively trivial instruction of a few children in the higher life, the library must secure a room and pay for its care, a room which if it be obtained and used at all could be used for more profitable purposes; and the performer must study her art and must, if she is not a conceited duffer, prepare herself for her part for the day at a very considerable ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... mother," said young Nisbet slowly, "is the way she manages to come in just at the wrong moment. At interruption, she's the most star performer I've ever run up against. You don't mind my saying that, do you? I'm not throwing any asparagus. I wouldn't be disrespectful about her for the world. But really, for chopping into a conversation, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... tragic to me in this Siamese-twins arrangement of two so uncongenial. I am at one and the same time pupil and teacher, offender and judge, performer and critic, chaperone and protegee, a prim, precise, old maid and a rollicking schoolgirl, a tomboy and a prude, a saint and sinner. What can result from such a combination? That we get on tolerably is a wonder. Some days, however, we get on admirably together, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park |
