"Theatrical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have what is called in theatrical parlance, a third lower floor. The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one upon the other. There are superior mines and inferior mines. There is a top and a bottom in this obscure sub-soil, which sometimes gives way beneath civilization, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... that had cost her so many tears, and now grew day by day, like a magnificent flower nourished by the black earth of the tomb, she was to be seen draped in her long sombre veils holding interviews with theatrical managers and publishers, busying herself in getting her husband's operas put again on the stage, superintending the printing of his posthumous works and unfinished manuscripts, bestowing on all these details a kind of solemn care and as it were ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... any importance, except in the eyes of children and savages; everything in logic. He would not stand analysis at all. He was without definite character. He was posing, affected, pleased with himself, superficial, and theatrical, and interested in people only so long as they amused him or gratified ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... will," answered Langley, throwing himself into a theatrical attitude. "Look here, Frank, this is the way I'll run that bloody Alvarez through ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... number of excellent book reviews and several columns of theatrical criticism deal with questions of the hour. Among the works referred to, I may mention two of great originality: a book filled with bold paradox by Thorstein Veblen, entitled Peace? An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace; a Russian play in four acts by Artsibashev, War, depicting the cycle of the ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... of twenty her private griefs compelled her to give up singing, for the sound of her own voice made her weep. So from music she turned to poetry, and her first volume of poems appeared in 1818. She began her theatrical career in Lille, played at the Odeon, Paris, and in Brussels, where she was married in 1817 to M. Valmore, who was playing in the same theater. Though she went to Lyons, to Italy, and to the Antilles, she made her home in Paris, ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... of that tendency to excessive accentuation, and that disposition to 'make a hit' or a sensation in every sentence which renders most, or all, Shaksperean or tragic acting so harsh and strained, and which has made the word 'theatrical' in ordinary conversation synonymous with 'unnatural.' Something of this is reflected in the enormous amount of needless italicizing with which the typography of the book is afflicted, and which we trust will be amended in future editions. We cheerfully pardon Mr. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... though, altogether, it has more stateliness than natural ease. The likeness is strikingly accurate, and bears all the intellectual grandeur of the orator. Some objection may be taken to the disposal of the robes, and the arrangement of the toga is in somewhat too theatrical a style. We should, at the same time recollect, that the representation of a British senator in the costume of a Roman is almost equally objectionable. It would surely be more consistent that statues should be in the costume of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... eyes some of the papers appeared to be of a legal or official character, and others like bills of lading, with which she was familiar. Their half-theatrical exhibition reminded her of some play she had seen; they might be the clue to some story, or the mere worthless hoardings of a diseased fancy. Whatever they were, de Ferrieres did not apparently care to explain further; indeed, the next moment his manner changed to his old absurd extravagance. ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... shoddy summer tweed. A very cheap revolver lurked in the hip-pocket of which Billy was so proud. In his third-floor back bed-sitting-room in Judd Street, London, W.C., he had promised himself a moment when that hip-pocket should be referred to, just in that way. It was a cheap bit of theatrical swagger, but the saloon was full, not of harmless theatrical pretences, but bitter racial antagonisms, seething animosities, fanged and venomed hatreds, only waiting the prearranged signal ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... is said, "a foe to snakes." Excellent omen this for Miss FARREN. Laughter everywhere, and no hissing permitted. If hissing heard anywhere, up starts the Laughing Jackass and down he comes on the snake, and there's an end of the hissing. Theatrical Managers would do well to cultivate the Laughing Jackasses, and keep a supply always on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various
... own way in the world as the usher of a Yorkshire school, as an actor in a traveling troupe, and as the clerk and finally the partner in a prosperous mercantile house in London. Smike, his pupil; Crummles, his theatrical manager; Ninetta Crummles, the Infant Phenomenon of the company, Newman Noggs, the clerk of his uncle Ralph Nickleby, the Cheeryble Brothers, his employers, are among the most successful and charming of Dickens's earlier creations. "Mr. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... impressive is that Carey not only refers to the three managers of Drury Lane but mentions them in the same order and as bearing the same relationship to himself. Several highly topical theatrical allusions in the pamphlets, by which the works can be dated, accord closely to the life, views, and writings of Carey. All three managers of Drury Lane were subscribers to Carey's Poems on Several Occasions (1729), which was dedicated to the Countess of Burlington, who ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... plays of Plautus attained a permanent position in ihe theatrical repertoire of Rome is of course well known; but he wrote primarily for his own age, and in a difficult environment. Not only did he have to please a highly volatile and inflammable public, but he must have been forced to exercise tact to avoid offending the patrician powers, as the imprisonment ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... Common, and Lady Barbara died of a broken heart at Tunbridge Wells before the year was out, so, in every way, it had been a great success. It was, however an extremely difficult "make-up," if I may use such a theatrical expression in connection with one of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural, or, to employ a more scientific term, the higher-natural world, and it took him fully three hours to make his preparations. ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... costumes) might breed a fever or some foreign disease, and should be buried or burnt. To this I could not consent however till I had had a little more time to look them over and make drawings of them; not that I ever intended setting up as a theatrical costumier, but I have a great love for anything old, which my friends tell me will ultimately become chronic, so that I shall have to be watched when visiting museums and kindred places, for fear of the ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... hair was streaming and she held a cup in her hand and screamed out her grief and unhappiness. As for the boy who had fallen, he was crawling at our feet, imploring pardon. I was uneasy for fear his prayers would lead up to some ridiculous theatrical climax, for I had not yet been able to forget that cook who had forgotten to bowel that hog, and so, for this reason, I began to scan the whole dining-room very closely, to see if an automaton would ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... presence of Frank Merrill which had induced him to exercise the veto which his extraordinary position gave to him. According to his version, it had been the inclusion in the party of two ladies whose names were famous in the theatrical world which ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... knew one of your rivals who had discovered a method of placing you in a position of extreme absurdity before the eyes of those who were dearest to you—for instance, while you had your mouth crooked like that of a theatrical mask, or while your eloquent lips, like the copper faucet of a scanty fountain, dripped pure water—you would probably stab him. This rival is sleep. Is there a man in the world who knows how he appears to others, and what he does when he ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... no idea how otherwise to pass the evening. In the matter of public amusements Catanzaro is not progressive; I only once saw an announcement of a theatrical performance, and it did not smack of modern enterprise. On the dining-room table one evening lay a little printed bill, which made known that a dramatic company was then in the town. Their entertainment consisted of two parts, the first entitled: "The ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is far more theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a dog of any pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in the hot pursuit of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and you will find the little ball of fur clumsy, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other. The sudden cessation of the toy music, bringing back into undue prominence all the little bush noises which had filled the air before, brought home to Kilbride a position which he had subconsciously associated with those malevolent strains as something theatrical and unreal. He had known in his heart that it was real, without grasping the reality until now. He flung up his ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... and warm clothing. The French, Italian, and German families, who lived in Moscow and now feared the returning Russians when again entering their capital, had asked to accompany the retreating army and formed a kind of a colony among the soldiers; with these families were also theatrical people and unfortunate women who had lived in ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... easy habit of dining in his private rooms, sometimes tete-a-tete with Villebecque, his private secretary, a cosmopolitan theatrical manager, whose tales and adventures about a kind of society which Lord Monmouth had always preferred to the polished and somewhat insipid circles in which he was born, had rendered him the prime favourite of his great patron. Villebecque's step-daughter Flora, a modest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... express their conceptions to the edification of others, in that energy and life, whereby one, as affected himself, declares the truths of God, in a simple, serious, bold, and conscience-touching manner. The difference of this, from human eloquence, loud bawling, and theatrical action, is evident. These may touch the passions, and not affect the conscience: they may procure esteem to the preacher, none to Christ. These are the product of natural art: this the distinguished gift of God, without which, in a certain degree, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... lavender muslin gown with ribbons of the same description, she looked wonderfully light and airy. In fact she had a sketchy appearance as if she required to be touched up here and there, to make her appear solid, which was of great service to her in her theatrical career, as it enabled her to paint on the background of herself any character she wished ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... face to face with three small boys, one staggering with the weight of a pail, the two others bearing a full washtub between them; and with surprise saw them set down their burdens at a distance and come tip-toeing towards me in a single file, with theatrical gestures of secrecy. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... my nature a certain love of effectiveness, a certain taste for theatrical parade and the contriving of odd situations. This bent of mine was whispering to me then to throw wide the window, and, stemming their noisy plaudits, announce to them the truth of what had passed. Yet what if I had ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... side with this chastened English prose, we have men of genius who have fallen into evil habits. Bulwer, who knew better, would quite revel in a stagey bombast; Dickens, with his pathos and his humour, was capable of sinking into a theatrical mannerism and cockney vulgarities of wretched taste; Disraeli, with all his wit and savoir faire, has printed some rank fustian, and much slip-slop gossip; and George Meredith at times can be as jerky and mysterious as a prose Browning. Charlotte ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... looked, a soft light passed across his face, relieving its theatrical firmness, the half-contemptuous curl of his lip. He knew well enough that this event would make or unmake him in Pontiac. He became also aware that a carriage had driven up among the villagers, and had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this waste land toward the crumbling Spanish convent. In this place there was a fine sense of repose, of vast quiet. Everything was dead; the soft spring air gave no life. Even in the geniality of the April day, with the brilliant, theatrical waters of the lake in the distance, the scene was gaunt, savage. To the north, a broad dark shadow that stretched out into the lake defined the city. Nearer, the ample wings of the white Art Building seemed to stand guard against the improprieties ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... made the reputation of his tales by singing them centuries before any one tried to read them. Now no one dares to say they bore him. The reading public, and the editors who cater to it, are just like some stupid theatrical managers I know of, who will never let an author read a play to them for fear that he may give the play some charm that the fool theatrical man might not have felt from mere type-written words on white or yellow paper. By Jove, I know the case of a manager who ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... nod of approval at her reflected self, she tucked Jarvis's manuscript under her arm, and started forth. She had made a close study of all the theatrical columns of the papers and magazines since their arrival in New York, so she was beginning to have a formal bowing acquaintance with the names of the ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... the officers gave their first theatrical entertainment on board, the acting of some of the characters being pronounced above the average; one or two of the younger midshipmen, to whom the parts fell, made very ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... in a romance, only the scene was, in type, laid in Venice. According to this negro-minstrel style of youth, he had been seized from behind, held, robbed of watch and elegant gold chain, red coral shirt-studs, onyx sleeve-buttons, and a porte-monnaie containing fifty scudi, etc., etc. He was the theatrical hero of the hotel for two days, and the recipient of many drinks. Time, the cater of things, never digested this falsehood, and months after the youth had left, I learned that he had lost all his jewelry ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... pious conservative, was always laughing consumedly at the Greek gods, and the Greek gods were supposed to be in the joke. The theatrical season was sacred to the deity of wine and fun, and he, with the other Olympians, was not scandalized by the merriment. In the ages of faith it is also notorious that saints, and even more sacred persons, were habitually buffooned in the Mystery Plays, and the Church saw no ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... that they never learned the fact that "he was divorced from his wife, the former actress, Agnese Schebest, and spent his days going about from place to place. His pseudo-theology or mythology ended in a theatrical comedy, and the comedy in a tragedy." "In 1839 this famous Dr. Strauss—who resolved the gospel history of salvation into an incoherent and self-contradictory mythological poem, and denied the existence of a personal God and ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various
... corn of others passed through the hoppers of Shakspere's brain and came out fine flour, ready for use by the theatrical bakers. With the pen of pleasure and brush of fancy he painted human life in everlasting colors, that will not fade or tarnish with age or wither with the winds of adversity. The celestial sunlight of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... that day, the exploited workers will have realized that new times have come, that Labour will no longer have to bear the yoke of the rich and powerful, that Equality has been openly proclaimed, that this Revolution is a real fact, and not a theatrical make-believe, like so ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... people as to elicit a spark of enthusiasm. Of course they could not have the true ring of royalty, for royalty was not in them. But they could not play the part well. One simple sentence from the Queen or the Prince of Wales, or even from Prince Arthur, would be worth all the theatrical pomp they could display in a generation. Those noblemen had no natural connection with the kingdom, fitting them to take the first place in it. They were not hereditary chiefs. They were not elected by the people. They were mere 'casual' chief-governors; and they formed no ties with the nation ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... novenas, or decorations of white flowers around the statues of the Holy Virgin.—Then, the priests, in their most sumptuous costumes, appeared in front of the magnificent gold of the tabernacle, on a platform elevated and theatrical, and the mass began, celebrated, in this distant village, with excessive pomp as in a great city. There were choirs of small boys chanting in infantile voices with a savage ardor. Then choruses of little girls, whom a sister accompanied ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... of the farmer-general M. de La Popeliniere. This occurred at the time that Paris was theatre mad, and when great actors and actresses were the heroes and heroines of society. At this house the young girl became the central figure in the theatrical and musical entertainments. After passing through this schooling, she stood the test of the court without any difficulty, and completely won the favor of her husband's family, as well as that of the court ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... The governor treated the French authorities with the forms of civility consistent with the friendly relations subsisting at that period between France and Spain. In the streets the coloured people crowded round the agent of the French Directory, whose dress was rich and theatrical. White men, too, with indiscreet curiosity, whenever they could make themselves understood, made enquiries concerning the degree of influence granted by the republic to the colonists in the government of Guadaloupe. The king's officers doubled their zeal in furnishing provision for ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Life had formerly seemed to him to be made up of glory, triumphal entries into cities, accompanied by the fluttering of flags and the flourish of trumpets. He pictured conquests, victories, exaltations! Theatrical magnificence! But now, more ironical, he was contented with quasi-triumphs, if his restless, anxious nature could be satisfied with ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... sitting in Mr. Bouncer's rooms, on the evening of November 5, when a knock at the oak was heard; and as Mr. Bouncer roared out, "Come in!" the knocker entered. Opening the door, and striking into an attitude, he exclaimed in a theatrical tone ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... even for the sake of theatrical effect," said Krag, pulling him into motion again. "The distance has got to be covered, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... diplomatic correspondence she is now displaying, these double papers fabricated merely for exhibition, in which she makes herself talk of morals and principle, as if her qualms of conscience would not permit her to go all lengths with her Holy Allies, are all to gull her own people. It is a theatrical farce, in which the five powers are the actors, England the Tartuffe, and her people the dupes. Playing thus so dextrously into each other's hands, and their own persons seeming secured, they are now looking to their privileged orders. These faithful auxiliaries, or accomplices, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of 800 years," he wrote in this rather theatrical proclamation, "is at last avenged. The gates of the temple of Somnauth, so long the memorial of your humiliation, are become the proudest record of your national glory.... You will yourselves, with all honour, transmit the gates of sandal-wood, through your respective territories, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... "This is a theatrical boarding-place," she said, "and all of our rooms are full save two, and they are to be occupied on the twentieth. You might have them up to that time, I suppose," she added, unwilling to let the chance of making a few extra dollars go by her. "Or perhaps you and your sister could make ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... in three distinct acts,—the agent's act, the assignee's act, the concordat, or certificate-of-bankruptcy act. Like all theatrical performances, it is played with a double-intent: it is put upon the stage for the public eye, but it also has a hidden purpose; there is one performance for the pit, and another for the side-scenes. Posted in the side-scenes are the bankrupt and his solicitor, the attorney of the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... has been formed for the purposes of establishing a thoroughly reliable newspaper in the interests of the Drama, and the shareholders belonging to the Theatrical Profession of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various
... I and in the beginning of the civil wars raised by a number of rigid fanatics, who at last were the victims to it, a great many pieces were published against theatrical and other shows, which were attacked with the greater virulence because that monarch and his queen, daughter to Henry I of France, were passionately fond ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... gold, bequeathed by Sosibius, who died in the reign of Augustus. The theatrical merits of the Syrian cities in the reign of Constantine, are computed in the Expositio totius Murd, p. 8, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... them. Happily—or unhappily, whichever way you look at it—the town council never seem to know quite what to do with them. Beside the penny fair and the brass band, they only seem to be the haven of rest for fifth-rate theatrical touring companies, who manage to pay for their summer outing in the theatre erected at the end. Otherwise their importance consists chiefly in being a convenient place for the "flapper" to "meet mother," and to carry on a violent flirtation, without the slightest danger, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... of ink in a glass of water contaminates it at once. Miss Lucinda took increasing interest in her frivolous young pupil; she listened with half-suppressed eagerness to unlimited gossip about stage-land, and even sank to the regular perusal of certain bold theatrical papers. She ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... gallop riderless across the stage when Alfred was supposed to have been defeated by the Danes. The vision in act ii. scene i. was thrillingly effective; and the whole five acts went very well from beginning to end, the audience being preternaturally quiet,—which disconcerted me until my theatrical mentor praised the silence of that vast crowd, as the best possible sign of success: they were held enthralled as one man till the end came, and then came thunder. Not thinking of what was expected of me in the way of thanks for the ovation ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... alleged French General, was scattering money about on the borders of Vermont, while a plausible American was intriguing at Quebec. With timber cutters and the simplest of artisans as his confederates, this misguided revolutionist hatched his theatrical conspiracy in the neighbouring woods. He proposed to overcome the city-guard with laudanum; and fifteen thousand men were only awaiting the uplifting of his hand! These and similar illusions possessed a poor ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... intrigue and tracked the heroine from untutored savage, wife of the wild Westerner whose excusable suspicions caused him to brand her as private property, to the moment of her triumph as the bejewelled idol of theatrical New York, the conviction grew upon me that here was a tale surely predestined to be the screen that covers a multitude of melodramatics. Presently indeed the suggestion became so insistent that I went further and began to wonder ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... see, far from faithful; he gives you not the scene, but the effect of the scene on his mind; and as Dickens started out to produce not a faithful picture, but a startling emotion, his scene is accordingly gaudy, theatrical, false. For observe, the wind is a respectable wind, and yet afflicted with pettiness of tyranny, and it wreaks vengeance; and this vengeance-wreaking wind does not come up flying, as you would expect ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... dyed dress, out of bits of tulle, lace, plush, and silk, costing nothing, perfect marvels were created, something bewitching—not a dress, but a dream. From the dressmaker's Olga Ivanovna usually drove to some actress of her acquaintance to hear the latest theatrical gossip, and incidentally to try and get hold of tickets for the first night of some new play or for a benefit performance. From the actress's she had to go to some artist's studio or to some exhibition ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... down to the wrestling matches and grinning matches on village greens, were vigorously attacked. One ordinance directed that all the Maypoles in England should forthwith be hewn down. Another proscribed all theatrical diversions. The playhouses were to be dismantled, the spectators fined, the actors whipped at the cart's tail. Rope-dancing, puppet-shows, bowls, horse-racing, were regarded with no friendly eye. But bearbaiting, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... against the unhappy George and his mother, and so successful were her efforts to make divorce difficult that she came out of chambers with thirty thousand dollars in cash, an aristocratic name, and a valuable claim to theatrical distinction. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... ought to go on the stage," chorus the admiring friends of the girl who excels in the work of the elocution class. And sometimes with no other counsel than this, from people who really know nothing about the matter, the girl struggles to enter the theatrical world, only to find that her talent, sufficient to excite admiring comment among her friends, has proved inadequate to make her ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... style, and it was only by the polished classicism of the form, that the romantic matter of the sentiments and the descriptions could have been imported into the colorless literature of the empire. "Atala" is already old-fashioned and theatrical in all the parts which are not descriptive or European—that is to say, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the brilliant demonstration that took place in December, 1816, when an amateur performance was got up in aid of the distress experienced in Liverpool, a distress felt in common with the whole nation. All the leading theatrical and musical amateurs in the town took part in that performance. I dare say that, at this distance of time even, it is well remembered by those who assisted at it, if there be any of them still amongst as. I am quite certain that the patriotic ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... surnames, I am informed, are synonymous with those of a great English theologian and a still greater English astronomer,—and "the Pantomime Cinderella" as she is now performed at Her Majesty's. "Cut and run" must ever be the motto of the Playright's and the theatrical Manager's action; but what astonished me, before I consulted the book, was the omission on the stage of the striking dramatic climax,—especially striking, because a clock is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... relations of life; an opera-box full of the people who hum every number of Wagner and Verdi through, and keep other people from hearing the singers; row after row of theatre-goers who come in late and trample over the virtuous folk who have arrived punctually; any number of theatrical managers who mistake gloom for amusement; three or four smirking matinee idols, whose talents are measured by the fit of their clothes, the length of their hair, and their ability to spit supernumeraries with ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... table, upon which was a capital supper and numerous array of bottles, was the captain of the robbers, a fine-looking man of thirty-five or forty years of age. He was dressed exactly like a theatrical robber, in blue velvet, with a red sash and silver buckles. His arm was passed round the waist of a very pretty girl in the costume of a Roman peasant; that is to say, an embroidered boddice, short bright-coloured petticoat, and red stockings. Her feet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... almost killed Max Venem's blacksmith; Brandes had taken all Venem's money, and then his girl; more than that, he had "made" this girl, in the theatrical sense of the word; and he had gambled on her beauty and her voice and had won out ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... naturally be the case in a provincial town ruled by the Draconian law that a jeune fille a marier must be no more than an animated puppet, while jeunes gens must have their coarse fling before they are fit for refined society. Occasionally an ambulant theatrical troupe gives an entertainment in our little theatre. Once a year Talbot comes, during vacation at the Francais, and gives us "L'Avare" or "Le Roi s'amuse;" but such are small events, to our provincial taste, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... know!" Suddenly into her voice had come the unmistakable note of hysteria. "Your theatrical tricks do not impress me. I know what you are! A spy—an eavesdropper who watches—watches, and listens! But you may go too far! I am nearly desperate—do you understand?—nearly desperate. Speak! Move! ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... visit to Baltimore, I had changed my scene of action from the "Front Street" to the "Holiday Theatre;" smaller, but more comfortable than my first quarters: this city is not so theatrical as the others I have visited, but no audience can be more agreeable; they certainly ought to like a play, for when they do come they enjoy it heartily; and during my present visit the house was unusually well attended. As a residence I like Baltimore ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... the elevator at the fourth floor, and found ourselves in a rather theatrical hallway of draperies and armor. It was very quiet; we stood uncertainly after the car had gone, and looked at the two or three doors in sight. They were heavy, covered with metal, and sound proof. From somewhere above came the metallic accuracy of a player-piano, and through the open window ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on the military reservation. Soldiers taking part in a military tournament require almost as many "properties" and "stage settings" as are needed by a big theatrical company. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... to evening clothes, and looked very handsome, if a little theatrical, for the black was not quite yet off his brows and lashes. ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... cultivate her one real talent, seemed to Eleanor the most unreasonable autocracy. She had no way of knowing that Madam's indomitable pride, still quivering with the memory of her oldest son's marriage to an unknown young actress, recoiled instinctively from the theatrical rock on which so many of her old hopes ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... I stayed lately for more than a fortnight. About Tichatschek, Fischer (now operatic stage-manager), and the theatrical affairs there I must tell you several things when I see you, also about matters at Leipzig. I have settled with Rietz that I shall be present at the final rehearsals and the first performance of "Lohengrin," and shall give you an accurate account of it. When I came to Leipzig, I found a good ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... one in the building," he said, "who isn't either a theatrical agent or a bookmaker. I've got just a small connection amongst the riffraff as a man who can be trusted to collect the necessary evidence in a divorce case, especially if there's a little collusion, or find a few false witnesses to help a thief with an alibi. Once or twice I have even ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Arts includes all kinds of printing, book binding, engraving, photographic apparatus, especially in the line of moving pictures and color photography, theatrical appliances, musical instruments, instruments of precision, wireless telegraphy ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James
... awe-stricken amid this manifestation of the insignificance of man, the sun blazed forth from behind a laggard cloud. The effect was theatrical. It was like throwing the limelight on the scene which marks the climax of some tense situation. Instinctively we lifted our arms and ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... may say that the Guards' Burlesque Company, from a theatrical professional stand-point, were hardly "Gaiety form," but, as amateurs, they were simply magnificent. There was no supper—but this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... more abundantly in the conte en vers than M. Coppee. Where was there ever anything better of its kind than L'Enfant de la Balle?—that gentle portrait of the Infant Phenomenon, framed in a chain of occasional gibes at the sordid ways of theatrical managers and at their hostility towards poetic plays. Where is there anything of a more simple pathos than L'Epave?—that story of a sailor's son whom the widowed mother strives vainly to keep from the cruel waves that killed his father. (It is worthy of a parenthesis that although ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... come to double. But pah! why do I talk with you?" He began to pace the room. "The fact that I have such a delightful home to exchange for gaol is just the thing that should make you believe in my sincerity. No, my respected brother-in-law"—and he made a sudden theatrical gesture, and his voice leapt to a roar,—"understand I will carry on my life-mission as I choose, and never—never to satisfy every fool will I carry the ass." His voice sank. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... rearranging his crumpled paper. "Well, why not? If it wasn't real I wouldn't want it. And I wish you'd keep your pillows out of my theatrical news. I was just reading about a play at the Folies Bergeres, called 'Zig Zag'. They say it's a scream. By the way, Shrimp, how'd you like to fly to Paris to-morrow morning and give it the ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... "why don't you do something? What kind of theatrical soldiers are you? Ring up the fire department! Ah, Fouche, Fouche, if you were only here now! You could at least arrest ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... at this melodramatic display, for he knew Caillaud well; and although this was a little more theatrical than anything he had ever seen before, it was not out of keeping with his friend's character. Nor was it insincere, for Caillaud was not an Englishman. Moreover, there is often more insincerity in purposely lowering the expression beneath the thought, and denying the thought ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... many passengers beside the members of the film theatrical company in the car in which Ruth and her sister rode. Among them, however, were two young ladies, about the age of Alice, and as Ruth went down the aisle once, to get a drink of water, she noted that one of the strangers appeared ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... well on theatrical matters; he is much more vivid and human than many a better-known critic. Here, for instance, is an impression of the old Park ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... 6. THEATER-GOING.—Theaters and theatrical dancing, also inflame the passions, and are "the wide gate" of "the broad road" of moral impurity. Fashionable music is another, especially the verses set to it, being mostly love-sick ditties, or sentimental odes, breathing this tender passion in its most melting and bewitching ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... whose else could you more appropriately borrow, pray? Mistress Ogilvie of Crummylowe presses, sponges, and darns my bachelor wardrobe, but I confess I never suspected that she rented it out for theatrical purposes. I have been calling upon you in Pettybaw; Lady Ardmore was there at the same time. Finding but one of the three American Graces at home, I stayed a few moments only, and am now returning to Inchcaldy by way of Crummylowe." Here he plucked ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... possibility of his becoming a boarder at Mrs. Green's, and a partner in the theatrical enterprise, Mopsey Dowd refused to express any opinion on the matter; but it was said by those who called upon him that he turned the handle of his pea-nut roaster nervously and quickly ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... street Elsie saw a placard tacked on the side of a doorway that read: "Fifty girls, neat sewers, wanted immediately on theatrical costumes. Good pay." ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... Christianity theatrical representations had been gradually going out of use. The Greek tragedies, as we see in the works of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, those models of pure taste in poetry, are founded on the pagan mythology; and in many of them the gods are made to walk ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... sides consist of open arcades adorned with pillars in varied styles, while round their bases are shops for the sale of sweetmeats, beverages, perfumes, and other articles which the theatre-goer or the loitering public may require. What a theatrical Performance was like is a matter belonging to the question of spectacles and amusements. At the back of the largest theatre—that of Pompey—lies a large square surrounded by colonnades of a hundred pillars, where sycamores form avenues and fountains play, while statues of finished ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... Tuesday, August 4th. The opening ceremony took place at 1 p.m. and all the political parties were present, except the Social Democrats, who, according to their traditions, did not appear, and thus escaped the famous hand-shaking scene. The Kaiser and two of his sons appeared in field-grey uniform. His theatrical appeal for the leaders of each party to swear fidelity to the national cause by shaking hands with him, as well as his saying that "Now there are only Germans," may have been spontaneous; but it is far more probable that they were meant to be a diplomatic ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... as he crossed the living room—a man's voice, and then a girl's laugh. He flung open the door. It was a young man in dinner clothes and a tall blonde girl. Tom Franklin, and a vivid, theatrical-looking girl, whom Lee had never seen before. She was inches taller than her companion. She stood clinging to his arm; her beautiful face, with beaded lashes and heavily rouged lips, was laughing. She was swaying; her companion steadied her, but he ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... occasion. Perhaps you will permit me to state in your columns that this year the festival, in this particular, has afforded as melancholy and unquestionable proof of distress as the last, while it bore other evidence, which though trivial in itself, is not unworthy of notice. Last year two theatrical shows visited us, displaying their "Red Barn" tragedies, and illuminated ghosts, at threepence per head, at which they did well; as also did a tremendous giantess, a monstrously fat boy, and several other "wonderful works of nature:" this year only one show of any description attended, and ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... nearly full when Freddie's party arrived. The Leicester Theatre had been rented for the season by the newest theatrical knight, Sir Chester Portwood, who had a large following; and, whatever might be the fate of the play in the final issue, it would do at least one night's business. The stalls were ablaze with jewelry and crackling ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... brow becoming every moment blacker and blacker. To him the exhibition was in every respect objectionable. The brightness of the apparel of the dancers was in itself offensive to him. The approach that had been made to the garishness of a theatrical performance made the whole thing, in his eyes, unfit for modest society. But that his wife should be one of the performers, that she should be gazed at by a crowd as she tripped about, and that, after all that had been said, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... was posing, as so many detectives have a silly habit of doing, and so gave little heed to the hand he lifted in warning. The boys knew little about Gates at that time, and so may be pardoned for the uncomplimentary thoughts with which they noted his theatrical conduct. ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... have been a kind of gala trip. The wives of many of the officers sailed with their husbands; and the time was spent in dancing, in musical and theatrical performances, and ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Kanakas. They are generally fine-looking men. The women are fairer, and with regular features; many of them ride on horseback with men's saddles, dressed in gay riding habits, and with a wreath of flowers encircling their raven tresses, which gives them somewhat of a theatrical appearance. The islands are governed by a sovereign, King Kamehameha the Third, who has a large family, and an income of about 1500 pounds a-year. He has likewise an army, clothed in gay uniforms, but there ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... always aspired to be an actor. One of the first things he did after settling in Sandusky was to organize an amateur theatrical company, composed entirely of people of German birth or descent. The performances were given in the Turner Hall, in the German tongue, on a makeshift stage with improvised scenery. Frohman became the directing force in the production of Schiller's and other classic German ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... driven out of the county for poaching, that he was a country school-master, that he made a "very bitter" ballad upon a landlord, that he tramped to London, that he held horses outside the theatre doors, and that at last he was received into a theatrical company "in a very mean rank." This is all legend, not evidence. That he was a lawyer's clerk, a soldier in the Low Countries, a seaman, or a printer, as some have written books to attempt to show, is not evidence, nor legend, but wild surmise. It might be urged, with as ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... and it is amusing to fancy the little tobacconist, snuff-box in hand, calmly watching the pit fill, or from his elevated position admiring the histrionic talents of his gifted patron. His shop in Fleet street is also memorable. It was the general resort of theatrical men and tyros, who sought to reach the manager through his subordinates, and his little back parlor witnessed the debut of many who afterwards gained applause from larger, ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... of Mrs. Bowring's daughter. He would get over it somehow in the end. He fancied Clare's horror if she should ever know the truth, and his fear of hurting her was as strong as his love. He made no phrases to himself, and he thought of nothing theatrical which he should like to say. He just set his teeth and packed his clothes alone. Possibly he swore rather unmercifully at the coat which would not fit into the right place, and at the starched shirt-cuffs which would not lie flat until he smashed ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... colors vary with the hours and the atmosphere's changing conditions. It is silver, golden, mauve, blue, lemon, misty white, and red by turn. It is seen clearly in the morning with the sun behind you. Afternoons and sunsets offer theatrical effects, often baffling, always lovely and different. Pointed Fusillade and peaked Reynolds Mountains often lose their tops in lowering mists. So, often, does Going-to-the-Sun Mountain in the near-by right ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard |
