"Tragedian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were—and the mouth had little lines at each corner which seemed to say he had endured much, much pain, which of course he had not, but which nevertheless seemed to ask for, and I suppose earned him some, sympathy. Dick in his way was an actor, a tragedian of sorts, but with an element of humor, cynicism and insight which saved him from being utterly ridiculous. Like most actors, he was a great poseur. He invariably affected the long, loose flowing tie with a soft ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... in the sepulchral tones of Bensley, the tragedian, were judged to have a depressing effect upon the audience—a conclusion which seems reasonable and probable enough, although Boswell suggested that "the dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more." Goldsmith himself was chiefly disturbed at the line describing him as "our little ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... regarded her as far more of the tragedian than the singer. "Her voice, since I have known it," observes Mr. Chorley, in his "Modern German Music," "was capable of conveying poignant or tender expression, but it was harsh and torn—not so inflexible ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... grateful sigh where the breeze played over him. He was a big, bearlike, swarthy man with the square-hewn, deep-lined face of a tragedian, and a head of long, curly hair which he wore parted in a line over his left ear. Jones was a character, a local landmark. This part of Texas had grown up with Blaze, and, inasmuch as he had sprung from a free race of pioneers, he possessed a splendid indifference ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... of guests were Taglioni, 'in her youth the famous dancer, and in her old age Comtesse Gilbert de Voisins, the stupidest and most respectable of old dames,' and Ristori, the tragedian, who stayed at Sloane Street 'with her husband, the Marquis Capranica del Grillo, and their ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... taste over-anxious not to commit itself, and refining and diminishing nature as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his expatiating on the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the French Tragedian in his hand. His skull was sharply cut and fine; with plenty, according to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative organs; and his poetry will bear them out. For a lettered solitude and a bridal properly got up, both according to law and luxury, commend us to the lovely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... with the earlier Greek conception, namely, that history begins with a golden age from which there is a continual decline. The theory of the fragment is expressed by a series of authors from the same and the immediately succeeding period. It occurs in Euripides; a later and otherwise little-known tragedian, Moschion, developed it in detail in a still extant fragment; Plato accepted it and made it the basis of his presentation of the origin of the State; Aristotle takes it for granted. Its source, too, has been demonstrated: it was presumably Democritus who first advanced it. Nevertheless the author ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... dish and tip it neatly into the cat's ear, and scream with delight as Sultan shook his sleepy head. To dip the tip of the cat's tail into the water and mimic the scrubbing of the floor was an everyday pastime. In addition to being an engineer and a comedian the bird was also a high tragedian. In the cool of the evening upon the going down of the sun the cat and the bird would set out together to the accustomed stage. Baal Burra burrowing through the long grass, painfully slow and cheeping ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... whispered intercourse with that happy gentleman, who was allowed to find a resting-place on her sofa. The signora had a way of whispering that was peculiarly her own, and was exactly the reverse of that which prevails among great tragedians. The great tragedian hisses out a positive whisper, made with bated breath, and produced by inarticulated tongue-formed sounds, but yet he is audible through the whole house. The signora, however, used no hisses and produced all her words in a clear, silver tone, but they could only be heard by the ear into which ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... but he greatly impressed me; and I can say that at least he had a voice which strangely stirred those who heard it. Here was a man who made people laugh at the size of his mouth, while he carried in his heart a burning ambition to be a tragedian; and so after all he did play a part in ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... four years of unsurpassed trial his capacity had steadily grown, and his delicate fairness, his pitifulness, his patience, his modesty had grown therewith. Here is one of the few speeches ever delivered by a great man at the crisis of his fate on the sort of occasion which a tragedian telling his story would have devised for him. This man had stood alone in the dark. He had done justice; he had loved mercy; he had walked humbly with his God. The reader to whom religious utterance makes ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the little man; "the poorest tragedian that ever lived never wished himself the best of low comedians. The court fool had an excellent salary, no doubt; and, likely enough, had got two-thirds of all the brain there was in the palace. But not a wooden-headed man-at-arms but ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... tragedian, buffoon—all in one. There was no shade of human emotion which he did not seem capable ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... demeanour, those eyes humbly declining, those unstudied gestures, that passionate tone, that mild countenance of a man penetrated with his subject, conveying to the mind the most luminous ideas, and to the heart the most tender emotions. Baron, the tragedian, coming out from one of his sermons, truth forced from his lips a confession humiliating to his profession; "My friend," said he to one of his companions, "this is an orator! and we ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... tragedian, who strains after what in stage parlance are called points, and calculates on being interrupted by loud clapping before the sense of the sentence be complete, or else wants breath to finish it, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... view of the French Revolution, which is so popular among French writers who object to the supernatural and the mystical everywhere else, is to us a thing most incredible, most puerile, most mischievous. People talk of '93, as a Greek tragedian treats the Tale of Troy divine, or the terrible fortunes of the house of Atreus, as the result of dark invincible fate, as the unalterable decree of the immortal gods. Even Victor Hugo's strong spirit does not quite overcome the demoralising doctrine ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... much averse from being laughed at in private life— perhaps because Fate had willed that he should be laughed at so much in his public capacity. Could he have had his way, indeed, Tournicquot would have been a great tragedian, instead of a little droll, whose portraits, with a bright red nose and a scarlet wig, grimaced on the hoardings; and he resolved that, at any rate, the element of humour should not ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... reasoning. I was SURE, for once, that I had the best side of the argument. I boldly maintained the just distinction between a tragedian and a mere theatrical droll; between those who rouse our terrour and pity, and those who only make us laugh. 'If (said I,) Betterton and Foote were to walk into this room, you would respect Betterton much more than Foote.' JOHNSON. 'If Betterton were to walk ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... that Eckhof was a great tragedian, who rivalled successfully the great French actor, Monsieur Dennis. This public voice, though but the voice of the people, found entrance everywhere, even in the saloons of the nobles and cabinets of princes. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the comic side of it more than I. In the theatre of life everyone may be amused except the actor. [Brightening] Theres an idea in this: an idea for a picture. What a pity young Bentley is not a painter! Tarleton meditating on his destiny. Not in a toga. Not in the trappings of the tragedian or the philosopher. In plain coat and trousers: a man like any other man. And beneath that coat and trousers a human soul. Tarleton's Underwear! [He goes out gravely ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... of course, that he is acquitted of the charge, and stands recorded as our friend and benefactor. Our case is just that of the Trojans, who entertained the tragic actor only to find him reciting their own calamities. Well, recite away, our tragedian, with these pests of ours ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... to the Middle Ages while he speaks: no book written on the subject could so fully give you the flavor of the times. He recalls Froissart. If you are not affected by C——'s stories, you had better pretend to be. But that, I am sure, will not be necessary: a great tragedian was lost when he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... counterfeit the deep tragedian; Speak and look back, and pry on every side, Tremble and start at wagging of a straw, Intending deep suspicion: ghastly looks Are at my service, like enforced smiles; And both are ready in their offices, At any time to grace my stratagems. But what, ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... found! If he hide him under the mane of the British lion, beneath the paw of the Russian bear or among the lilies of France, he must be found and plucked thence for punishment! If there be no extradition treaty, then the strong hands of our power must make one. He was a tragedian. Had he ...
— Abraham Lincoln - A Memorial Discourse • Rev. T. M. Eddy
... was the only one of the company actually in the fabricated banquet hall itself. Clinging to him still were the grim flowing robes of the Black Terror. As though he were some old-fashioned tragedian, he was pacing up and down, hands behind his back, head bowed, eyes on the floor. More, he was mumbling to himself. It was evident, however, that it was neither a pose nor mental aberration. Shirley was searching for something, ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... almehs, songs of gypsies, or Chinese jugglers? One of the Ivans brought a programme. It was not difficult to decipher the word "[Russian: MACBETH]," and to recognize, further, in the name of "Ira Aldridge" a distinguished mulatto tragedian, to whom Maryland has given birth (if I am rightly informed) and Europe fame. We had often heard of him, yea, seen his portrait in Germany, decorated with the orders conferred by half a dozen sovereigns; and his presence here, between Europe and Asia, was not the least characteristic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... lectures were the delight of all, for this happy-hearted, boyish man would, in some marvellous fashion, discover all the humorous habits and comical dispositions and actions of every living thing. The little wiry-haired Irish terrier was a comedian, he declared. The bull-moose was a tragedian, the black bear cub was a clown, the lynx a villain, and the migrating birds a sweet, invisible chorus. Then to each and all he would attach some fascinating story, explaining why they resembled these characters. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... could be more admirable of their kind, who have not only given great satisfaction in the representation of the most different characters, and also in their own, but we have seen even a comedian gain great applause in tragedies, and a tragedian in comedies;—and shall not I attempt the same thing? When I say I, O Brutus, I mean you also; for, as for myself, all that can be done has been done. But will you plead every cause in the same manner, or are there some kind of causes which you will reject? or will you employ the same ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... reflection shows two flaws in this definition. First of all, the theme of poetry, or any other fine art, need not always be gladsome, but can appeal to some other strong emotion, provided it be high and noble. The tragedian is one who is thrilled with awe and sorrow, and strives to excite a like thrill in others. Again, though the craving for sympathy hardly ever fails to follow close on the experience of deep feeling; and though, as we shall presently see, fine art is but an extension of language whose chief end ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... rivalry between two leading theatres, that culminated in a great riot, occurred. Edwin Forrest, the great tragedian of that day, and many a year later, and Macready, a celebrated English actor, seemed almost pitted against each other in the same play, Hamlet. A certain party coming into existence had taken for its watchword Americanism of a rather narrow sort, and was protesting against all foreign influence. ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Why should we call an actress of comic characters a comedienne and an actress of tragic characters a tragedienne, when we do not call a comic actor a comedien or a tragic actor a tragedien? Possibly it is because 'comedian' and 'tragedian' seem to be too exclusively masculine—so that a want is felt for words to indicate a female tragedian and a female comedian. Probably it is for the same reason that a male dancer is not termed a danseur while ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... richly furnished. No one could surpass him in depth of feeling or in readiness of intellect. The theatre was his ideal world. If he had possessed a slender well-shaped figure, he might have been the first tragedian on any stage; the heroic, the great, filled his soul; and yet he had to become a Pulcinella. His very sorrow and melancholy did but increase the comic dryness of his sharply-cut features, and increased the laughter of the audience, who showered plaudits ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... to write pamphlets." Steele replied with his usual warmth; but indignant at the charge of "vassalage," he says, "I will end this paper, by firing every free breast with that noble exhortation of the tragedian— ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... made a tour of the provinces, and finally, in London, engaged in a remarkable war with the great tragedian, Edmund Kean, which divided the town into two factions. But Booth tired of the struggle, in which the odds were all against him, and in 1821 sailed for America. He won an instant success, and was a great popular favorite until the day of his death. ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... repeating the dying scene so long as it suited the managers to prolong the sorry exhibition. Macready, whose dramatic genius and refined sensibilities revolted at a spectacle so degrading, describes him as he appeared at Bath, in 1815: "I was at the theatre," says the tragedian, "on the morning of his rehearsal, and introduced to him. At night the house was too crowded to afford me a place in front, and seeing me behind the scenes, he asked me, knowing I acted Belcour, to prompt him if he should be 'out,' which he very ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... in Guernsey, two or three years before his appearance on the London boards, Savery Brock was enthusiastic in his admiration, and predicted the future eminence of that celebrated tragedian, in whose memoirs his name is ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Cousin, Canst thou quake, and change thy colour, Murther thy breath in middle of a word, And then againe begin, and stop againe, As if thou were distraught, and mad with terror? Buck. Tut, I can counterfeit the deepe Tragedian, Speake, and looke backe, and prie on euery side, Tremble and start at wagging of a Straw: Intending deepe suspition, gastly Lookes Are at my seruice, like enforced Smiles; And both are readie in their Offices, At any time to grace my Stratagemes. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... fact, I noticed that our friend the cook, who had made a goose out of a hog, was placed next to me, and he stunk from sauces and pickle. Not satisfied with a place at the table, he immediately staged an impersonation of Ephesus the tragedian, and then he suddenly offered to bet his master that the greens would take first place in the ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Do you know the tragedian walk as taken off on the comic opera stage, the termination of each strutting, dragging step accentuated by cymbals smashed together F-F-F? That was how the god walked. He was all in scarlet, with a long feather sticking ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... which you see in the editorial columns of country papers and counting noses at the theater doors. Booth's agent was one Matthew Canning, an exploded Philadelphia lawyer, who took to managing by passing the bar, and J. Wilkes no longer, but our country's rising tragedian. J. Wilkes Booth, opened in Montgomery, Alabama, in his father's consecrated part of Richard III. It was very different work between receiving eight dollars a week and getting half the gross proceeds of every performance. Booth kept northward when his engagement ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... poetic sensibility, a beautiful voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had, perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tragedian often went through a part in a perfunctory manner.[A] But those early days in Ireland marked the sunrise of his genius—a time no less noble, in its freshness and promise, than the later glory ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... up!" said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; "show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be;—they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no!—it's ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... kind and just in all your dealings with those you come across. But if you are tempted to use abuse, mind that you yourself are very far from what you abuse him for, dive down into your own soul, look for any rottenness in yourself, lest someone suggest to you the line of the tragedian, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... of the important news which was known to have arrived in port, but which every one had interpreted in his own way. Euripides was no more! But neither the news nor he who brought it could create more than a momentary stupor; and the tipsy fun soon renewed itself, at the expense of the living tragedian and the dead. Aristophanes alone remained grave. The value of the man whom he had aspersed and ridiculed stood out before him summed up by the hand of Death. He recalled the failure which had marked the now hopeless limitation of his own ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... for he really was not without shame in this matter; and Polly was far better suited than Dolly for a scornful and arrogant will like his. Deeply despising all the female race—as the Greek tragedian calls them—save only the one who had given him to the world, he might have been a God to Polly if he had but behaved as a man to her. She looked at him now with an imploring gaze, from the gentleness ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... drawing at first only an outline, puzzled how to fix more than the main idea, and gradually seeing it develop and clarify as he works upon it or lets it work. Here at any rate Shakespeare put a good deal of himself into Iago. But the tragedian in real life was not the equal of the tragic poet. His psychology, as we shall see, was at fault at a critical point, as Shakespeare's never was. And so his catastrophe came out wrong, and ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... in the first place, he was of a chastity so inviolate that, after the loss of his wife he never indulged in any sexual pleasures, recollecting what is told in Plato of Sophocles the tragedian, that being asked when he was a very old man whether he still had any commerce with women, he said "No," with this further addition, that "he was glad to say that he had at all times avoided such indulgence as a tyrannous ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... when John Kemble bade farewell to the Liverpool audiences. It took place in the summer of 1813. The play was "Coriolanus." The house was crowded to excess, and the utmost enthusiasm was exhibited in favour of the great tragedian; who, although not a townsman, was at any rate a county man, he having been ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... my mite of admiration to the French stage, I am fully aware of its faults, of the long declamation and the fade galanterie that prevailed before Voltaire made the grand reform in that particular: and on this account I prefer Voltaire as a tragedian to Racine and Corneille. The Phedre and Athalie of Racine are certainly masterpieces, and little inferior to them are Iphigenie, Andromaque and Britannicus, but in the others I think he must be pronounced inferior to Voltaire; as a proof of my argument I need ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... Francois Joseph Talma (1763-1826), the great French tragedian. Lamb, introduced by John Howard Payne, saw him in "Regulus," but not understanding French was but mildly interested. "Ah," said Talma in the account by James Kenney printed in Henry Angelo's Pic Nic, "I was not very happy to-night; you must see ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... The young tragedian who represented Scipio Africanus is named Smith. His family came to the village to live only a few weeks before the school opened. Scipio is a very enterprising and ingenious lad. Colonel Coffin's boy leaned over the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Cooke, of Astley's, began to exhibit a way of making a horse lie down, which bore as much resemblance to Mr. Rarey's system, as Buckstone's or Keeley's travestie of Othello would to a serious performance by a first-rate tragedian. Mr. Cooke pulling at a strap over the horse's back, was, until he grew, by practice, skilful, more than once thrown down by the ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... generous. At Rochefort he waited in the hope that something might turn up. One month after Waterloo, he received orders from the new French government to leave French soil inside of twenty-four hours. Always the tragedian, he wrote a letter to the Prince Regent of England (George IV, the king, was in an insane asylum) informing His Royal Highness of his intention to "throw himself upon the mercy of his enemies and like Themistocles, to look for a welcome at the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... most cherished and secret designs. One Captain Dunnitt, who lived in the house before I came, adroitly made his account of this eavesdropping propensity of the landlady, by settling his weekly bill with a silver-mounted pistol, instead of the dollars justly due. He had been a tragedian as well as a captain, and was saturated with Shakspeare and other bards to a far greater amount than with money; and when his week came round, he used to stride up and down his room with much gnashing of teeth and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a greater actor than Cibber, and a tragedian to boot, took a more business-like view of the proceedings, thinking thin houses the greatest indignity the stage could suffer. "Men of taste and judgment (said he) must necessarily form but a small proportion of the spectators at a theatre, and if a ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... slowly moves this horrible tableau. Staring at reflected shadows, Paul shrinks backward. Dropping an oar, he grasps the pearl handle of his oft-whetted blade. With forward poise, in striking attitude, every nerve at tense strain, stands this crazed tragedian. Pierre is near enough to hear mutterings. Soon the relaxing form is again seated, while boat ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... inclemency of the weather, quite a respectable number of the rank and fashion of the city assembled last night to witness the debut upon metropolitan boards of the young tragedian who has of late been winning such golden opinions in the amphitheatres of the provinces. Some sixty thousand persons were present, and but for the fact that the streets were almost impassable, it is fair to presume that the house would have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard, Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you rant and you roar, Through the horrible grin of your larva's wide bore. Nay, farther, which makes me complain much, and frump it, You make his long nose your loud speaking-trumpet; With the din of which tube my head you so bother, That I scarce can distinguish my right ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... but turned a calculating eye on the others. If his news had had power to rouse Jude, how would it act now? Billy, freckled and sharp-eyed, was a born tragedian. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... of Miss Mitford in the 'Life of Macready' by Sir F. Pollock. The great tragedian seems not to have liked her with any cordiality; but he gives a pleasant account of a certain supper-party in honour of 'Ion' at which she is present, and during which she asks Macready if he will not now bring out her tragedy. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... them,' address—not one, but five or six—of his 'town correspondents,' he would get answers about as harmonious as if he had consulted the same number of German commentators on the meaning of a disputed passage in a Greek tragedian. Some of the personages are purely fanciful—for instance, Mr. Harrison—such a man as never did exist, but I imagine might very well exist, among us. But, as the development of these characters is still in manuscript, it would be premature ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... point, Maxwell, the tragedian from Marlboro, obtained the floor. He is one of the most amusing characters connected with the big show. He hadn't "seen any chairs raised," and, folding his arms and throwing himself back in a tragic and majestic position, said: "I, gentlemen, was the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... with as much glee and expectation, to the scene of agony and fiendish torture, vitiated by the frightful exhibitions of the circus and the arena, as men in modern days would feel, in going to enjoy the fictitious sorrows of some grand tragedian. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... for his age, and powerful but monotonous. Surely he was not very intellectual, though he did witch the town so marvellously. 'If they admire me so much, what would they say of Mr. Harley?' quoth the boy, simply. Mr. Harley being the head tragedian of the same strolling company—a large-calved, leather-lunged player, doubtless, who had awed provincial groundlings for many a long year. Yet the boy's performance of Douglas charmed John Home, the author of the tragedy. 'The first time I ever ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... to be turned out to starve the moment they were broken-winded. That fate is sure to overtake the best of them sooner or later. The career of a great opera-singer is rarely more than half as long as that of a great tragedian, and even when a primadonna or a tenor makes a fortune, the decline of their glory is far more sudden and sad than that of actors generally is. Lady Macbeth is as great a part as Juliet for an actress of genius, ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... Young, the tragedian, dined here to-day. We were very glad to see him again, for he is a very estimable as well as agreeable member of society, and reflects honour on ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... The tragedian had just signed a contract to tour South Africa. He told a friend of it at the club. The friend shook ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... able to judge, holds indisputably the first place in this respect, although his purpose was not strictly biographical. In the figures which he brings before us, guilt and destiny are wondrously mingled. He is a kind of unconscious tragedian. That genuine tragedy which then found no place on the stage, 'swept by' in the palace, the street, and the public square. The 'Words and Deeds of Alfonso the Great,' written by Antonio Panormita during the lifetime ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the same way to all chemical and mechanical agents. A dose of hydrocyanic acid, administered per ora to the most sagacious woman imaginable, affects her just as swiftly and just as deleteriously as it affects a tragedian, a crossing-sweeper, or an ambassador to the Court of St. James. And once a bottle of Cte Rtie or Scharlachberger is in her, even the least emotional woman shows the same complex of sentimentalities that a man shows, and is as maudlin and idiotic as ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... and whistles. The clarinet flings an obbligato high over the heads of the dancers on the cabaret floor. It makes shrill sounds. It raves like a fireless Ophelia. It plays the clown, the tragedian, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Booth, the great English tragedian, died in America while returning from a lucrative tour to California. Booth made his debut at Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1814 as Richard III. His personal resemblance to the hunchbacked tyrant conformed so well to the traditions of the stage, and his personification ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... make me laugh Joyously, riotously, Tall, dark villains, and heroes with blonde hair Make me laugh uproariously... (I could elope with a tragedian!) ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... river, joins the main line. The steamer now passes Riverdale, with its beautiful residences and the Convent of Mount St. Vincent, one of the prominent landmarks of the Hudson, located on grounds bought of Edwin Forrest, the tragedian, whose "Font Hill Castle" appears in the foreground, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... deep tragedian! Speak, and look back, and pry on every side, Tremble, and start at wagging of a straw. Pretending deep suspicion; ghastly looks Are at my service like enforced smiles, And both are ready in their offices, At any ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... Cp. ii. 60. Quintilian alludes several times to the extreme beauty of his voice and his commanding delivery—better, he thinks, than that of any tragedian he had ever seen. To read, his speeches were ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... light. The Ounce, a variety of the Panther is, however, easily tamed and trained to the chase of deer, the gazelle, &c.—for which purpose it has long been employed in the East, and also during the middle ages in Italy and France.—Mr. Kean, the tragedian, a few years since, had a tame Puma, or American Lion, which he kept at his house in Clarges-street, Piccadilly, and frequently introduced to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... on his breast; but his inward man, his mind, on the contrary, was richly furnished. No one could surpass him in depth of feeling or in readiness of intellect. The theatre was his ideal world. If he had possessed a slender well-shaped figure, he might have been the first tragedian on any stage: the heroic, the great, filled his soul; and yet he had to become a Pulcinella. His very sorrow and melancholy did but increase the comic dryness of his sharply-cut features, and increased the laughter of ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... considerably above the average of mankind, and would have been greater save for the geometrical curvature of his lower extremities, which gave him all the appearance of a walking parenthesis. His hair was black and streaky; his complexion atrabilious; his voice slightly raucous, like that of a tragedian contending with a cold. The eye was a very fine one—that is, the right eye—for the other optic was evidently internally damaged, and shone with an opalescent lustre. There was a kind of native dignity about the man which impressed me favourably, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... of others, though he laid great store by it as the proper framework to support the sublimest efforts of poetry. He asserted that he was too metaphysical and abstract, too fond of the theoretical and the ideal, to succeed as a tragedian. It perhaps is not strange that I shared this opinion with himself; for he had hitherto shown no inclination for, nor given any specimen of his powers in framing and supporting the interest of a story, either in prose or verse. Once or twice, when he attempted such, he had speedily thrown ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... are no gods. Euripides the tragedian durst not openly declare his sentiment; the court of Areopagus terrified him. Yet he sufficiently manifested his thoughts by this method. He presented in his tragedy Sisyphus, the first and great patron of this opinion, and introduced ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... feeling, or even common humanity, he was at least anxious that the people of France should believe that he had these good qualities. It is said that, on the evening before he left Paris on his last campaign, he sent for the tragedian Talma, and had taught to him the action, features and aspect which he the next day employed when he left his wife and child to the care of the national guard. The following scene will at once show ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... lot, on location. part, role, character, dramatis personae[Lat]; repertoire. actor, thespian, player; method actor; stage player, strolling player; stager, performer; mime, mimer[obs3]; artists; comedian, tragedian; tragedienne, Roscius; star, movie star, star of stage and screen, superstar, idol, sex symbol; supporting actor, supporting cast; ham, hamfatter *[obs3]; masker[obs3]. pantomimist, clown harlequin, buffo[obs3], buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello[obs3]; pulcinello[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... with a keener relish, because we had, in addition to our dignity as part of 'the family' (for she had for those invisible bonds by which community of blood unites the members of a family as much respect as any Greek tragedian), the fresh charm of not being her customary employers. And so with what joy would she welcome us, with what sorrow complain that the weather was still so bad for us, on the day of our arrival, just before Easter, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... were skilful in all the learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their books of all sorts; in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into Holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek poets, and one of them a tragedian; the question was notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the primitive doctors, but with great odds on that side which affirmed it both lawful and profitable; as was then evidently perceived, when Julian ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... man, whose affections are set upon an unattainable object, be otherwise than unhappy?" asked Vernon in a solemn tone, no bad imitation of Macready; indeed the speaker, whilst uttering these sentiments, thought it sounded very like it; for he had often seen that eminent tragedian, and greatly admired ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... interpose. SALVINI, I say, is a great Artiste, no doubt of it, a marvellous Tragedian; and ARTHUR ROBERTS is not, in the true dramatic sense of the word, a genuine Comedian; but he is, in another sense a true Comedian, though of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... and Pepper Sneed were the ones who made the most trouble for the manager. Mr. Bunn was an former Shakespearean actor. With his tall hat and frock coat—which costume he was seldom without—Mr. Bunn was a typical tragedian of the old school. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... stage-manager, who, like Shakspere, became very wealthy by the profession. Burbage was the great tragedian, and the original performer of Richard III. Condell was a comedian, part-proprietor of the Globe Theatre; it is to him and Heminge we are indebted for the first complete edition of Shakspere's works, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... he had lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should triumphe againe on the Stage, and have his bones newe embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at severall times) who, in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding!' There is no categorical record of the production of a second piece in continuation of the theme, but such a play quickly followed; for a third piece, treating of the concluding incidents of Henry VI's reign, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... that we had none but English actors in this country,—and as soon as they came here, they wanted to own land. They could not do it in England. The elder Booth owned a farm at Bellaire. Thomas Cooper, the celebrated English tragedian, bought a farm near Philadelphia, and it is a positive fact that he is the first man who ever owned a fast trotting horse in America. He used to drive from the farm to rehearsal at the theatre, and I believe has been known on some occasions, when in ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... hundred. But we cannot believe the additions which Douris the Samian, who says that he is a descendant of Alkibiades, makes to this story, to the effect that Chrysogonus, the victor at the Pythian games, played on the flute to mark the time for the rowers, while Kallipides the tragedian, attired in his buskins, purple robe, and other theatrical properties, gave them orders, and that the admiral's ship came into harbour with purple sails, as if returning from a party of pleasure. Neither Theopompus, nor Ephorus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... to forego their green-room traditions, to forswear their Tate and Brady emendations, in their heart of hearts they love him not; and it is with a light step and a smiling face that our great living tragedian flings aside Hamlet's tunic or Shylock's gaberdine to revel in the melodramatic glories of The Bells and The ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... *Bretagne, 10 to 20 frs. Alittle to the east of the church Ste. Philomne is a smaller house, the H. and Pension Cannet, 8 to 10 frs. Immediately opposite the church is the Villa Sardou, where in 1858 the accomplished tragedian Rachel died of consumption. At that time none of those broad roads existed which now encircle the house. Above the church is the "Place," commanding a very pretty view. Omnibus, 6 sous. Cab to Cannet, and return by the Grasse road, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... think I have a genuine hatred for anybody. I am well aware that I differ herein from the sturdy English moralist and the stout American tragedian. I don't deny that I hate THE SIGHT of certain people; but the qualities which make me tend to hate the man himself are such as I am so much disposed to pity, that, except under immediate aggravation, I feel kindly enough to the worst of them. It is such ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... was thrown out by the House of Lords. He had difficulties first with his company, then with the lord chamberlain, and had to face the keen rivalry of the other theatres. A longstanding quarrel with Macready resulted in the tragedian assaulting the manager. In 1840 Bunn was declared a bankrupt, but he continued to manage Drury Lane till 1848. Artistically his control of the two chief English theatres was highly successful. Nearly every ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... shaking your heels at Willis's rooms, and your elbows at the Union Club. If I felt pleased at finding you at home, how was my satisfaction increased, by hearing from a yellow-bellied waspish footman that you were busy with the first tragedian of the day? Good! said I to myself, this must be Kemble: there is no man better able to appreciate my labours—I'll break in upon them without ceremony. On approaching your worship's door, I heard the words "knuckle down" articulated in a shrill voice. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... all the shaving in the world could not redeem for the blue shade of the strong black beard which at midnight showed almost black. But for his black, mocking eyes, he might have been taken for the seedy provincial tragedian of ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... I shall always believe that the stage lost a great tragedian in Wallace. With a magnificent gesture he threw the can of condensed milk at Jones, who was so stunned he did not try to dodge. "Thoughtless man! Murderer! it's too late!" cried Wallace, laying me back across his knees. "It's too late. His teeth are locked. He's far gone. Poor boy! poor ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... the harangue which Gaudissart prepared as he went along, as a tragedian makes ready for his entrance on ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... christened Tom, and born the lawful son of Mr. and Mrs. Bob. In an Italian adaptation of DUMAS' preposterous play of KEAN, which we once saw at the great theatre of Genoa, the curtain rose upon that celebrated tragedian, drunk and fast asleep in a chair, attired in a dark blue blouse fastened round the waist with a broad belt and a most prodigious buckle, and wearing a dark red hat of the sugar-loaf shape, nearly three feet high. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Wendell Phillips, in his sanctum, for the same purpose. I have invited Ralph Waldo Emerson by letter, and all three have promised to come. In the evening, with Mr. Jackson's son James, the most diffident and sensitive man I ever saw, Miss B—— and I went to the theater to see Dussendoff, the great tragedian, play Hamlet. The theater is new, the scenery beautiful, and, in spite of my Quaker training, I find I enjoy all ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Witches Curse, an Operatic Tragedy is rather a nice thing, but I'd like to try Macbeth, if we only had a trapdoor for Banquo. I always wanted to do the killing part. 'Is that a dagger that I see before me?" muttered Jo, rolling her eyes and clutching at the air, as she had seen a famous tragedian do. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and high affection for him resulting therefrom, did so deeply affect my mind that it was some pretty time before my passion could prevail to express itself in words, so true I found those of the tragedian: ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... in the absence of a friend and brother comedian, to speak of himself, as he does in this piece, as "a mere Toole"? How can such a metamorphosis have taken place? We trust that Mr. THOMAS THORNE, Temporary Tragedian, will amend his sentiments. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... are divine! The very actors on the stage, who have most excelled in their profession, have not only succeeded in very different characters, though still in the same province; but a comedian has often acted tragedies, and a tragedian comedies so as to give us universal satisfaction. Wherefore, then, should not I also exert my efforts? But when I say myself, my worthy Brutus I mean you: for as to me, I have already done all, I was capable of doing. Would you, then, plead every cause in the same manner? ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... so well as he who on occasion can be seriously majestic. Yet when he altogether abandons his strong ground, and chooses to tumble and make grimaces before us, like an ordinary clown, he becomes simply offensive. The great tragedian is capable on due occasion of pleasant burlesque; but sheer unadulterated comedy is beyond his powers. De Quincey, in short, can parody his own serious writing better than anybody, and the capacity is a proof that he had the faculty of humour; but for a genuine substantive ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... now. Of the lower class of actors we have seen something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination to identify the walking gentleman with the 'dirty swell,' the comic singer with the public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and distress; but these other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs. With the exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be classed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... they continued every day for a long time, till winter and the cold weather coming on put an end to their delirium. For this disorder they seem, in my opinion, indebted to Archelaus, a tragedian at that time in high estimation, who, in the middle of summer, at the very hottest season {18b} of the year, exhibited the Andromeda, which had such an effect on the spectators that several of them, as soon as they rose up from it, ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... hero, that hung to him for life, was the idea that he could write poetry. The tragedian always thinks he can succeed in comedy; the comedian spends hours in his garret rehearsing tragedy; most preachers have an idea that they could have made a quick fortune in business, and many businessmen are very sure that if they had taken to the pulpit there would now be fewer ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... more difficult to compose than Tragedy Concanen, Mr. Congreve, self-educated His comedies Driven from the stage by Mrs. Centlivre Constance (a German lady) Constant, Benjamin de, his 'Adolphe' Constantinople, St. Sophia The seraglio The first sea view Cooke, George Frederick, tragedian, an American Life of The most natural of actors Coolidge, Mr., of Boston Copet Cordova, Admiral ——, Sennorita 'Corinne,' notes written by Lord Byron in Corinth ——, capture of See 'SIEGE OF CORINTH.' Cork, Countess of Cornwall, Barry (Bryan Walter Proctor) 'CORSAIR, the; a Tale' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... his glory, "no less superintendent of literature than of finance," and he undertook to recall to the stage the genius of Corneille. At his voice, the poet and the tragedian rose up ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... across the road, and Patsy dropped on a near-by stone with the anguish of a great tragedian. "Seven miles—seven miles! I'm as near to it and I know as much about it as when I started three days ago. Sure, I feel like a mule, just, on a treadmill, with Billy Burgeman ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... do with religious themes what the David Garricks and the Macreadys and the Ristoris and the Charlotte Cushmans did with secular themes. On a stage as unpretentious as foot ever trod there would be an impersonation that would move the world. The greatest tragedy of all times would find fit tragedian. We were not there that August morning to see an extemporised performance. As long ago as last December the programme for this stupendous rendering was all made out. No man or woman who had the least thing objectionable in character ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... when taking tea with David Garrick, the tragedian, and Peg Woffington, about the year 1735, was amused at Garrick's audible complaints that the fascinating actress used too much of his costly tea at a drawing. In 1745 the British yearly consumption of tea was but 730,000 lbs. The Scotch Judge, Duncan Forbes, in his published letters ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... eminent Roman tragedian, flourished during the time of Cicero, but the dates of his birth and death are not known. The name seems to show that he was a freedman of some member of the Clodian gens. Cicero was on friendly terms with both him and Roscius, the equally distinguished comedian, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... something better should offer, but his resolution was soon broke by an accident. Being to play the part of Guyomar in Dryden's Indian Emperor, who kills Vasquez, one of the Spanish generals; and forgetting to exchange his sword for a foil, in the engagement he wounded his brother tragedian, who acted Vasquez, very dangerously; and though it proved not mortal, yet it so shocked the natural tenderness of Mr. Farquhar's temper, that it put a period ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... earnest with Parsifal? For, that he was laughed at, I cannot deny, any more than Gottfried Keller can.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} We should like to believe that "Parsifal" was meant as a piece of idle gaiety, as the closing act and satyric drama, with which Wagner the tragedian wished to take leave of us, of himself, and above all of tragedy, in a way which befitted him and his dignity, that is to say, with an extravagant, lofty and most malicious parody of tragedy itself, of all the past and terrible earnestness and ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... his body-guard when the inhabitants were at their public assembly, and slew them all from the youth upwards, and how he had consecrated and crowned the spear with which he killed his uncle Polyphron, and used to address prayers to it and call it the Slayer. Once when he saw a tragedian performing Euripides' tragedy, the 'Troades,' he went suddenly out of the theatre, and sent a message to him to be of good courage, and not act worse for this, for he had not left the house because he disliked ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... his personal safety than by admiration for murder as a fine art. He remembered the fate of the German, and was unwilling to share it." "He adopted a policy of non-intervention," said the Eminent Tragedian, who in his hours of leisure, was something of a politician. "I should rather say of laissez faire, or, more precisely, of laissez assassiner," laughed the Editor. "What was the Fascinating Friend supposed to have in her portmanteau?" ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... ministered to the greatness of Aristophanes, in the tear shed by him to the memory of his rival, in the hour of his own triumph; and we may be quite sure that when Mr. Browning depicted that scene, and again when he translated the great tragedian's words, his own eyes were dimmed. Large tears fell from them, and emotion choked his voice, when he first read aloud the transcript of the 'Herakles' to a friend, who was often privileged to ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... greatly weakened his rivals. Of these two actors some short notice may not be uninteresting. Hart had been a Cavalier captain during the Civil Wars, and was a pupil of Robinson, the actor, who was shot down at the taking of Basing House. Hart was a tragedian who excelled in parts that required a certain heroic and chivalrous dignity. As a youth, before the Restoration, when boys played female parts, Hart was successful as the Duchess, in Shirley's Cardinal. In Charles's time he played Othello, by the king's command, and rivalled ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... McCullough, the tragedian, was giving his splendid impersonations of the two masterpieces of Shakespeare at the national Capital. The morning following one of these, Mr. Knott and I, passing along the avenue on our way to the House, were stopped ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... American tragedian).—Ordinary holidays is just so much junk. Me and ERNEST don't hold with them. Our idea of a holiday is to go down town and hear jokes. The more jokes we hear the bigger stock we have not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... (a partner in "The Rolliad"), John Kemble, Perry (of the Chronicle), Dr. Glover (a humorist of the day), and John Coust. Kemble and Perry fell out over their wine, and Perry was rude to the stately tragedian. Kemble, eyeing him with the scorn of Coriolanus, exclaimed, in the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... impulses of the moment—a born actor from head to foot. He fairly thrills the audience in the great scene of the duke de Nemours from Louis XI. This youth, M. Guitry, is undoubtedly, if his life be spared, the coming tragedian of the French stage. Then we have the first one of the lady competitors, Mademoiselle Edet, a tall, awkward girl of eighteen, with a flat face and Chinese-like features, dressed up in a gown of cream-yellow foulard trimmed with wide fringe and made with a loose jacket, whereon the fringes wave ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... And so Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal, Ausonius, Statius, Politian, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... is the manner of the great tragedian's death. Sire, would it not be worthy of the reign, the breast, the conscience of Charles X., to draw this class of artists from the cruel position in which they are left by that excommunication that weighs upon ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... issued by the A.M.E. Church. There were numerous autobiographies, that of Frederick Douglass, first appearing in 1845, running through edition after edition. On the stage there was the astonishing success of Ira Aldridge, a tragedian who in his earlier years went to Europe, where he had the advantage of association with Edmund Kean. About 1857 he was commonly regarded as one of the two or three greatest actors in the world. He became a member of several of the continental academies of arts and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... of coughing that seized the silversmith prevented the rest of this speech from being heard, but Chichoy must have been saying terrible things, to judge from his murderous gestures with the blowpipe and the face of a Japanese tragedian ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... God.' That were no tragedy, but an heroic epic, even as the prophet Isaiah had prefigured. The true tragedy, the saddest sorrow, lay in the martyrdom of an Israel unworthy of his sufferings. And this was the Israel—the high tragedian in the comedy sock—that I tried humbly to typify ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... naturally turned upon the dramatic art and upon Shakespeare. Every person present except the king of the feast was an American, and a Shakespeare fanatic as well. Rather to the surprise of even his most ardent admirers, the great tragedian proved to be a keen and intelligent Shakespearian scholar, not only of the roles that he has made his own, but also of the whole of the works of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... required to dress in a suit of chain-armor and wear iron pots on their heads, they would be as ridiculous as most tragedy actors on the stage. The pit which recognizes Snooks in his tin breastplate and helmet laughs at him, and Snooks himself feels like a sheep; and when the great tragedian comes on, shining in mail, dragging a two-handed sword, and mouths the grandiloquence which poets have put into the speech of heroes, the dress-circle requires all its good-breeding and its feigned love of the traditionary ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... population of the good city of Brussels was in a state of excitement. Talma, the great French tragedian, was that evening to close his engagement by appearing in his favourite character of Leonidas; and from an early hour in the morning, the doors of the theatre were beset with waiting crowds, extending ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... fact, though," he said, after a pause, laughing guiltily, "I have done a little of that already. I prepared her, as it were, for my coming. I sent her studies of two pictures I made last winter in Berlin. One of the Prime Minister, and one of Ludwig, the tragedian at the Court Theatre. I sent them to her through my London agent, so that she would think they had come from some one of her English friends, and I told the dealer not to let any one know who had forwarded ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... Edmund Keane, the Tragedian visited Horncastle with his company, in the first half of the 19th century, and acted in a large building, which is now the warehouse of Mr. Herbert Carlton, Chemist. The mother of Mr. Henry Sharp, Saddler, and the late Mr. Henry Boulton, of St. Mary's Square, among others, witnessed ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... cord formed his hat-band, and two tassels, as huge as those of drawing-room curtains, fell upon his back. His collar was plentifully embroidered as well as his coat-sleeves, and a black seam ran down his trousers. He wore spurs of prodigious size, and looked, in the main, like a tragedian about to appear upon the stage. The other man was young, stout, and good humored; and he talked sententiously, with a little vanity, but much courtesy. The Federals had nothing to say to these, they dealt only with equals in rank. It became a matter of professional ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... the trickster," said L'Estrange to the Austrian prince. "The revenge of a farce on the would-be tragedian." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the tragick and comick poet, the comedian must be involved in much more difficulties, without taking in the obstructions to be encountered equally by both, in an art which consists in raising the passions, or the mirth of a great multitude. The tragedian has little to do but to reflect upon his own thought, and draw from his heart those sentiments which will certainly make their way to the hearts of others, if he found them in his own. The other must take many forms, and change himself almost into as many persons, as he undertakes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... first year of the magazine a dramatic event occurred that caused unusual excitement in Philadelphia, and led to important consequences. The great tragedian, George Frederick Cooke, whom Edmund Kean pronounced "the greatest of all actors, Garrick alone excepted," arrived in New York and appeared on 21st October, 1810, as Richard III before two thousand spectators ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... pretty willow-woven basket lay the head of Booth's old pensioner, which head the old pensioner had bequeathed in due legal form to the tragedian, begging him henceforth to adopt it as one of the necessary stage properties in the fifth act of Mr. Shakespeare's tragedy of "Hamlet." "Take it away, you black imp!" thundered the actor to the equally aghast negro boy, whose curiosity ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... amused at his credulity; he laughed readily and was not fond of sulking. Nor must we forget that this preeminent tragedian was a perfect comedian, and that this fact entitled him to true enjoyment of the humorous side of life. Have I not somewhere read: "Beware of ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... other morning, a communication signed "Tragedian," purporting to come from the father of three boys, (each remarkable in his way,) particularly attracted our attention. He stated with peculiar succinctness some singular developments of genius in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... was a grand ball, attended by over a thousand of the elect, and for the multitude there were dramatic and musical entertainments. At Her Majesty's Theatre one night the famous tragedian, Mr. Phelps, and the great actress, Miss Helen Faucit, in the tragedy of Macbeth, froze the blue blood of a whole tier of royal personages and made them realize what crowns were worth, and how little they had earned theirs, by showing what men and women will go through with to ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... warrant of arrest on every chance scrap of paper. And the Comic Muse is even less indulgent. When Aristophanes would mock the creations of Euripides, which are meant to move the public by their declining fortunes, he at once turns the tragedian ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... moment; but when he had swung the door violently open the way was still obstructed. The painter of "Louisiana refusing to enter the Union" stood before him, his head elevated loftily, one foot set forward and his arm extended like a tragedian's. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... tragedian, who, Mrs. Siddons said, was capable of giving her lessons, replied to the observation, 'Vous avez du beaucoup etudier l'antique.' 'Je l'ai beaucoup senti.'"—From Mrs. Kemble's article 'On the Stage' ('Cornhill,' 1863), reprinted ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... interludes and licentious pantomimes: they even quoted classical authority to prove that a "stage-player" was considered infamous by the Romans; among whom, however, Roscius, the admiration of Rome, received the princely remuneration of a thousand denarii per diem; the tragedian, AEsopus, bequeathed about L150,000 to his son;[148] remunerations which show the high regard in which the great actors were held among the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... is the title of MASCAGNI'S new Opera. The title, anglicised, would be suitable for an old-fashioned transpontine melodramatic tragedian, who could certainly say of himself, "I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... E. Burnside, whom I had known as a cadet at West Point, and my old friend, Captain (afterwards General) Richard Tyldin Auchmuty of New York, who since I had last seen him had passed through the Civil War. This reception was given in honor of the then young but gifted tragedian, John E. McCullough, with whom the Beale family had formed a friendship in ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... opportunities for studying that art. Tragedy dogged my footsteps and marked me for her own from the first. I was bullied; that was bad enough. I was caned; that was worse. I had to learn Latin verbs; that was worst of all. I was a practised tragedian at seven. Acts one, two, and three were performed as a rule once a day, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... than a man—he is a type or symbol. He is 'the old mystical tragedian of the Middle Ages, Everyman.' It is an epic, because it celebrates the universal man with all his glorious failings and glorious virtues. The love of Pendennis for Miss Fotheringay is a different thing to the ordinary love of man for woman; it is rather the love that is in every man for every ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... a fine carriage!" exclaimed Beauvallet rudely. He was the first tragedian of the Comedie, and the most uncouth man ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... door of the shack and watched the man tramping up the beach toward the end of the point. What a dignified stride he had! Rather, it was the stride of a poseur—like nothing so much as that of the old-time tragedian, made famous by the ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... communicate itself to the puppets, and they perform their parts with a fidelity to theatrical unnaturalness which is wonderful. I have witnessed death agonies on these little stages which the great American tragedian himself (whoever he may happen to be) could not surpass in degree of energy. And then the Burattini deserve the greater credit because they are agitated by the legs from below the scene, and not managed by cords from above, as at the Marionette Theatre. Their audiences, as ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... will be to the end of time? Here grew into manhood and renown the Lord Burleigh, King, Bishop of London, the poet Cowley, the great Dryden, Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, Dr. South, Matthew Prior, the tragedian Rowe, Bishop Hooper, Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Friend, the physician, King, Archbishop of Dublin, the philosopher Locke, Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, Bourne, the Latin poet, Hawkins Browne, Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery, Carteret, Earl of Granville, Charles ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was immediately appreciated by an audience thoroughly conversant with that tradition, and often with several previous masterpieces treating it. By merely leaving out an incident, or omitting to appeal to a sentiment, a Greek tragedian could flood his whole work with a new significance. So that the temptation to be eccentric, the temptation to hit too hard or at random because he was not sure of exactly where the mind stood that he would impress, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... he awaits each inevitable word, and how pleased he is to find that everything comes out as he expected! He reserves his full emotion for the true dramatic climax. If a great tragedian could be assured of having such an appreciative audience, how pleasant would be the pathway of art! The tragedy of Cock Robin reaches its hundredth night with no apparent falling off in interest. ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... advocates at the bar. At first, it is said, he as well as Demosthenes, was defective in his delivery, and on that account paid much attention to the instructions, sometimes of Roscius, the comedian, and sometimes of Aesop, the tragedian. They tell of this Aesop, that while representing in the theatre Atreus deliberating the revenge of Thyestes, he was so transported beyond himself in the heat of action, that he struck with his sceptre one of the servants, who was running across the stage, so violently, that he laid him dead upon ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... and Sixth Avenue, is a handsome freestone edifice. It is the property of Mr. Edwin Booth, the famous tragedian. It is devoted exclusively to the legitimate drama, and will be conducted in a style worthy of the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin |
