"Theatrical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lytton. (For some reason, Barbara's friends always chuckled at this point in the story.) "Barbara, who is so clever," she went on, "almost starved to death. And Laurie, the black sheep, after various struggles and failures fell in with some theatrical people and finally collaborated with a successful playwright in writing a play. Perhaps it was partly luck. But the play made a tremendous hit, Laurie kept his pledges, and Barbara has had to pay him a small fortune to meet ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... was executing a spirited shake-down on the sidewalk—at six o'clock of a misty October morning. Looking out, we caught an endearing glimpse of the life of the most lovable of all professions. It was a theatrical company that had played a one-night stand at the local opera-house the evening before, and was now once more upon its wandering way. They had certainly been up till past midnight, but here they were, at six o'clock of ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... rest is your affair. It is told in a pleasant haphazard fashion, enriched with flashes of caustic wit and disfigured with a good deal of ungrammatical and slovenly writing. I think I never met a novelist who did more execution among the infinitives. Also I suspect that Mrs. SAUNDERS' zeal for theatrical setting outran her knowledge of it, otherwise she would hardly have permitted a dramatist to speak of his "caste," or the leading lady to leave the theatre (even under circumstances of faintness) in her stage ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... years ago," went on Bat, "I went broke on a wrestling tournament in 'Frisco; and right away I had to look around for something to run the wolf off the property. In Oakland there was a theatrical manager who had nerve enough to do Shakespeare, and he was rehearsing 'As You Like It.' A friend of mine tipped me off that there was a week's work for me if I went after it; and go after it I did. Acting was new to me, and it had my nerve a little; but the director told me not ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... Paseo Colon, so picturesque with its palmtrees and electric light, which makes it like, in the evening, a theatrical decoration, and whose ornament has been very happily ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... with pig-tails and frilled drawers. A cab meandered by, whose cocher wore a blue coat and a black-glazed hat. To Soames a kind of affectation seemed to cling about it all, a sort of picturesqueness which was out of date. A theatrical people, the French! He lit one of his rare cigarettes, with a sense of injury that Fate should be casting his life into outlandish waters. He shouldn't wonder if Irene quite enjoyed this foreign life; she had never been properly English—even ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lawyer, of good birth, if he wrote plays at all, would certainly not vamp up old stock pieces. That was the work of a 'Johannes Factotum,' of a 'Shakescene,' as Greene says, of a man who occupied the same position in his theatrical company as Nicholas Nickleby did in that of Mr. Crummles. Nicholas had to bring in the vulgar pony, the Phenomenon, the buckets, and so forth. So, in early years, the author of the plays (Bacon, by the theory) had to work over old pieces. All this is the work of the hack of a ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... taken seriously. Behind the hocus-pocus of such fine-sounding words, the bombast, the theatrical clash and clang of the swords and pasteboard helmets, there was always the incurable futility of a Sardou, the intrepid vaudevillist, playing Punch and Judy with history. When in the world was the like of the heroism of Cyrano ever ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... passed through the fringe of fashionable London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial London, and, finally, maritime London, till we came to a riverside city of a hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter and reek with the outcasts of Europe. Here, in a broad thoroughfare, once the abode of wealthy City merchants, we found the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... referred to in this letter, but in the next year the novel was dramatised by John Brougham, the actor and dramatist, and produced in New York on March 26, 1849. Brougham is rather an interesting figure. An Irishman by birth, he had a chequered experience of every phase of theatrical life both in London and New York. It was he who adapted 'The Queen's Motto' and 'Lady Audley's Secret,' and he collaborated with Dion Boucicault in 'London Assurance.' In 1849 he seems to have been managing Niblo's Garden in New York, and in the following year the Lyceum Theatre in Broadway. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... wagon road led across 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 of civilization. To the far south, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... second-hand weaklings, not only by his work but still more by his method and temper. In actual achievement he did not quite fulfill the promise of his early books, and cannot be set high among his craft. He was an inferior artist; and though he achieved naturalism of matter, he clung to the theatrical artificiality of style which was in vogue. But if he had broken away from all traditions, he could have gained no hearing whatever; he died young—twenty years more might have left him a much greater figure; and he wrought in disheartening loneliness of spirit. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... table. He said that his sight was failing, and that he had been advised to rest his eyes as much as possible. He would be obliged if Paul would write a letter for him from dictation. He dictated a lengthy business letter setting forth the terms on which he was willing to accept the management of a theatrical provincial tour, and when it was finished he ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... themselves, chiefly in dancing, which they do in a strange manner, running round about to the sound of gongs, flutes, and trumpets, which do not form a very agreeable concert. They use the same music at their comedies, or theatrical diversions, of which they are extremely fond: These comedies consist of a strange mixture of drama, opera, and pantomime, as they sometimes sing, sometimes speak, and at other times the whole business of the scene ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... dramatic talent. He was a man of deep sentiment, shown to his friends by the countless graceful acts as host, and shown to his players. As soon as a Fitch play began to be a commodity, coveted by the theatrical manager, he nearly always had personal control of its production, and could dictate who should be in his casts. No dramatist has left behind him more profoundly pleasing memories of artistic association ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... charm in seeing her thus adapting herself to the cabin, a charm quite as powerful as that which emanated from Siona Moore's dainty and theatrical personality. What it was he could not define, but the forester's daughter had something primeval about her, something close to the soil, something which aureoles the old Saxon words—wife and home and fireplace. Seeing her through ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... Theatricals, Temperance Plays, Drawing Room Plays, Fairy Plays, Ethiopian Plays, Guide Books, Speakers, Pantomimes, Tableaux Lights, Magnesium Lights, Colored Fire, Burnt Cork, Theatrical Face Preparations, Jarley's Wax Works, Wigs, Beards, and Moustaches at reduced prices. Costumes, Scenery, Charades. New catalogues sent free containing full description and prices. Samuel French & Son, 38 E. 14th ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... these actors by James Burbage in Finsbury Fields, just north of London. It was in this theater that Shakespeare probably found employment when he first came to the city. The success of this venture was immediate, and the next thirty years saw a score of theatrical companies, at least seven regular theaters, and a dozen or more inn yards permanently fitted for the giving of plays,—all established in the city and its immediate suburbs. The growth seems all the more remarkable ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... however, her fears proved groundless. Masterman himself opened the door for her as she went up the steps. "Saw you coming," he explained. "Just got out from town. Ena's been telling me the most distressing thing—the most damnably theatrical, idiotic thing. Perhaps you've heard ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... will often yield excellent material for theatrical costumes, and of much better quality than would be bought new for the purpose. But if the stuff is to be purchased, two materials will be found especially suitable and inexpensive. For the peasants' costumes canton flannel is recommended ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... house, and found in his drawing-room the usual collection of theatrical prints and portraits of opera-dancers, mixed up with those of old statesmen, which he seemed to think perfectly natural, and no doubt he fancies he has good reason for so thinking. There were also a piano and some European luxuries ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... 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 ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Some aver that people are nowadays too cultivated, too highly educated, to take pleasure in a play; others opine that the novel has supplanted the drama; others again declare that it is the prevalence of a religious sentiment on the subject that has damaged theatrical representation. For my own part, I take a totally different view of the subject. My notion is this: the world will never pay a high price for an inferior article, if it can obtain a first-rate one for nothing; in other words, people are come to the conclusion ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... 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 tempting ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... position and the calendar advertisement of a brewery which, as I could not fancy Cousin Egbert being in the least concerned about the day of the month, had too evidently been hung on his wall because of the coloured lithograph of a blond creature in theatrical undress who smirked ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... tumult of heart and brain. The news of Grace Rudd had flashed upon her as revelation of a clear possibility where hitherto she had seen only mocking phantoms of futile desire. Grace was an actress; no matter by what course, to this she had attained. This man, Scawthorne, spoke of the theatrical life as one to whom all its details were familiar; acquaintance with him of a sudden bridged over the chasm which had seemed impassable. Would he come again to see her? Had her involuntary reserve put an end to any interest he might have ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... slow to appreciate the truth. Accustomed thoroughly to every phase of the make-believe world in which she dwelt, she recognized unerringly in the new John Danton's words and actions something entirely unreal and apart from the theatrical. The conviction that Henry Phillips was not acting came to her with a blinding suddenness, and it threw her into momentary confusion, hence her responses were mechanical. But soon, without effort on her part, this embarrassment fell away and she in turn began to ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... do such a frivolous thing as go to the theatre?" said a pretty, languishing creature at his elbow, the wife of a London theatrical manager. "Suppose you come and see us in 'The Minister's Wooing,' first night next Saturday. I've got one seat in my box, for somebody very agreeable. Only it must be somebody ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... black old masters in the dark corners of the gaudy churches need it; I think scarcely anything of a cardinal's big, blazing footman, unless the sun shines on him, and radiates from his broad back and his splendid calves; the models, who get up in theatrical costumes, and get put into pictures, and pass the world over for Roman peasants (and beautiful many of them are), can't sit on the Spanish Stairs in indolent pose when it rains; the streets are slimy and horrible; the carriages try to run over you, and stand a very good chance of succeeding, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... influence the taste of the poorer classes. During several weeks of the present year, operas in an English dress were simultaneously performed at three of our theatres. The very gods in the galleries now look benignly down upon the Italian strangers, which—to use a theatrical phrase—draw better houses than any ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... 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 harm. The ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... that the theatre is in a bad way, that the English Drama is dead, but I suspect that every generation in its turn has been told the same thing. I have been reading some old numbers of the Theatrical Magazine of a hundred years ago. These were the palmy days of the stage, when blank verse flourished, and every serious play had to begin ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... had been mixed up in something not very creditable at the settlement lately. As it happened, Maud Barrington overheard him and made him retract before the company. She did it effectively, and if it had been any one else, the scene would have been almost theatrical. Still, you know nothing seems out of place when it comes from the Colonel's niece. Nor if you had heard her would you ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... Theatrical performances should afford amusement and excite mirth, as well as give instruction. People who visit theaters desire to be entertained and to pass the time pleasantly. Anything which excites mirth ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... began to attain importance in the time of Polygnotus was scene-painting for theatrical performances. It may be, as has been conjectured, that the impulse toward a style of work in which a greater degree of illusion was aimed at and secured came from this branch of the art. We read, at any rate, that one Agatharchus, a scene-painter who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... read along with the Duke of Guise, and the Vindication of that play. The prefaces and dedications are, of course, prefixed to the pieces to which they belong; but those who mean to study them with reference to theatrical criticism, will do well to follow the ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... gave our talents for a good cause. It was rather a peculiar part for a minister's daughter to take, the straight-laced saints suggested, but the minister's daughter smiled, knowing she had helped in a good cause, and she still lives to tell the story of her theatrical achievement in the little town of Santa Cruz, and how the first money was obtained to get a fire engine for ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... rather a bohemian resort. Alphonse Karr discovered it somewhere back in the dark ages, and advertised it—the Etretatians were immensely grateful, and named the main street of the town after him—and since then a lot of artists and theatrical people have built villas there. It has a little beach of gravel where people bathe all day long. When one's tired of bathing, there are the cliffs and the downs, and in the evening there's the casino. You ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... sweetly sleeping, in a chamber on the basement, well out of range of the bakehouse, to which, like a couple of conspirators, we descended. It was not exactly the spot one would have selected for a permanent residence if left free to choose. It was, perhaps, as Mr. Dickens's theatrical gentleman phrased it, pernicious snug; but the ventilation was satisfactory. There were two ovens, which certainly kept the place at a temperature higher than might have been agreeable on that hot September night. Kneading troughs were ranged round the walls, and in ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... on our fashionable thoroughfares. Among the small game the skins of Squirrels are used for linings, and the soft, velvety fur of the Mole is manufactured into light robes, and very fine hats, and in theatrical paraphernalia is sometimes employed for ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... people could get in for a stroke, though they came mostly running (distance five miles); but the Horse-charges were beautifully impressive on Lacy's theatrical performers, as was the Horse-Artillery to a still more surprising degree; and produced an immediate EXEUNT OMNES on the Lacy part. All off; about 7 P.M.,—Sun just going down in the autumn sky;—and the Battle of Reichenbach a thing finished. Seeing which, Daun also immediately ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... terminate, however, with the departure of the Indian. Another scene was enacted, but, unlike the popular mode of theatrical procedure, the farce ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... by editorial beneficence with ticket of admission to theatrical entertainment by adolescent students at Westminster College, I presented myself at the scene of acting in a state of liveliest and frolicsome anticipation on a certain Wednesday evening in the month of December ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... not seem to strike an answering note in Lucien. He turned from me in silence, and with an offended expression took his hat and his proofs, and—humorist and skeptic as he was ordinarily, he parted from me with the words, uttered in a theatrical tone: ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... and Arts and Crafts guilds, and Pre-Raphaelite movements, and movements towards realism, and lectured about art, and wrote essays on art, and produced their art-historians, and their archaeologists, and all the rest of it. Why, even the theatrical managers of travelling companies brought their dramatic critics with them when they went on tour, and paid them very handsome salaries for writing laudatory notices. Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... the humming of honey bees to a field of flowers at noon, or the desolate moaning of the tide to a lonely ocean coast at night. It is not an exaggeration, nor a mere bit of ill nature, to say that there are thousands of fastidiously cultivated people today who would think it all theatrical in the extreme, and would be inclined to despise their own taste if they felt a secret pleasure in the scene and the song. But in Rome even such as they might condescend to the romantic for an hour, because in Rome ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... thus a scene, it is not dramatically rendered; if you took the dialogue, what there is of it, together with the actual things described, the people and the dresses and the dances and the banquets—took these and placed them on the stage, for a theatrical performance, the peculiar effect of the occasion in the book would totally vanish. Nothing could be more definite, more objective, than the scene is in the book; but there it is all bathed in the climate of ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... army officer, who was foolish enough to imagine he loved me, foolish enough to propose every three days for the last three years and foolish enough to bore me until in self-defense I escaped from his clutches. As for myself, at least I am not the young woman who can stand staying in that gaudy theatrical hotel for another day longer. I have done so many bold, unmaidenly things that you may believe it easy for me. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... 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 dupe named M'Lane, until the Government having decided upon the apprehension ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... 'A Blot on the "Scutcheon,"' is chiefly interesting, as it was the occasion of a quarrel between its author and that most eccentric of theatrical personalities, Macready. The quarrel was, our critic points out, a matter of money. But Browning failed to see this; he was a man of the world in his poems, but ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... to the impressions of the Reader, and wholly unadapted to the requirements of the actual stage. The plan here chosen, involves throughout the repose, the thought, and sentiment of Actual life, instead of the hurried action, the crowded plot, the theatrical elevation which the Stage necessarily demands of the pure Drama. I have only to ask that I may not be condemned for failing to fulfil the conditions of a species of writing which ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... part of September "La Vie Francaise" announced that Baron du Roy de Cantel had become its chief editor, M. Walter reserving the title of manager. To that announcement were subjoined the names of the staff of art and theatrical critics, political reporters, and so forth. Journalists no longer sneered in speaking of "La Vie Francaise;" its success had been rapid and complete. The marriage of its chief editor was what was called a "Parisian event," Georges du Roy and the Walters having occasioned much comment ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... was perhaps somewhat theatrical and unnecessary, inasmuch as the descent was by a very narrow, steep, and slippery flight of steps, and any rashness or departure from the beaten track must have ended in a yawning water-butt. But Mr Tappertit being, like some other ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... available for any school of opinion. But it so happened that the rise of Cleveland in politics coincided with the artistic career of Joseph Keppler, who came to this country from Vienna and who for some years supported himself chiefly as an actor in Western theatrical companies. He had studied drawing in Vienna and had contributed cartoons to periodicals in that city. After some unsuccessful ventures in illustrated journalism, he started a pictorial weekly in New York in 1875. It was originally printed in German, but in less than a year it was issued ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... I recommend theatrical representations to you; which are excellent at Paris. The tragedies of Corneille and Racine, and the comedies of Moliere, well attended to, are admirable lessons, both for the heart and the head. There is not, nor ever was, any theatre comparable ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... he did not realize the extent of his misfortune. How could he? Fate is always expected to deal its great blows in the grand manner. But our expectations are fustian spangled with pinchbeck; we look for tragedy to be theatrical. Meanwhile, every day before our eyes, fate works on, employing for its instruments the infinitesimal, the ignoble and ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned palate,—spit ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... passing through Glasgow, I put up for the night at an hotel near Sandyford Place, and met there an old theatrical acquaintance named Browne, Hely Browne. Not having seen him since I gave up acting, which is now, alas! a good many years, we had much to discuss—touring days, lodgings, managers, crowds, and a dozen other subjects, all ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... name Lamar," Kennedy explained. Then an expression of gratification crept into his face. "Miss Lamar was 'up- stage'?" he mused. "That's a theatrical ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... not think me intrusive," he said, "but I judge that you're not now engaged, and as I'm at present in want of the services of a first-class theatrical company, I ventured ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... stood, clutching the railing, bent forward and staring into the audience. Bassett watched him, considerably surprised. It took a great deal to startle a theatrical publicity man, yet here was one who looked as though he had ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... BOBECHE, a French theatrical clown, under the Empire and the Restoration, son of an upholsterer of the St. Antoine faubourg, the type of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... theatrical!" she sighed. "The streets seem so clean and the buildings so white and the sky so blue and the people so gay. Yet I suppose the bitterness of life is here as in the other places. Why do you want to call at your ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... means," continued Kathleen, raising her voice to a slightly theatrical pitch, and extending her arm so that the lamplight fell all over it—"the chief thing that it means is to be free—yes, free as the air, free as the mountain streams, free as the dear, darling, glorious, everlasting mountains themselves. Oh, to know freedom and then to be torn ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... struggle in the House of Commons was tremendous. The Anti-Unionists had the advantage of the oratory of Grattan, who, though he had not been in Parliament since 1797, now purchased a seat for L2,400, and entered the House in a theatrical manner in the midst of the discussion. But his vehement and abusive style of declamation could not in debate be compared with the calm reasoning of Castlereagh. The most able speeches against the measure were not those ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... the privileged classes. Modern inquiries show, indeed, that this was the attitude of the great body of the French clergy long before what is called the 'Revolution.' The majority of the representatives of the clergy in the States-General of 1789 did not wait for the theatrical demonstrations in the Tennis Court of Versailles, about which so much nonsense has been talked and written, to join the Third Estate in insisting upon a real reform of the public service. No French historian has ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... heart the commandment to "wash one another's feet" is perhaps the most ridiculous ever given by the Son of God. In the semi-theatrical church entertainments men may pay a large sum for the privilege of kissing the most handsome lady, and for similar or more shameful indulgences, but to humbly wash a brother's feet would be shocking in the extreme. "If a man love me he will keep my words." John 14:23. Where ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... all he needed, and was now a man of large wealth. How he should invest it was the question that next concerned him. He finally decided to try and obtain the monopoly of theatrical performances in Havana on condition of building there one of the largest and finest theatres in the world. This was done, paying the speculator a large interest on his wealth, and he died at length rich and honored, his money serving as ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... is undeniably Mrs. Radcliffe's masterpiece. No one would claim that his character is subtle study, but in his interviews with the Marchesa, Mrs. Radcliffe reveals unexpected gifts tor probing into human motives. He is an imposing figure, theatrical sometimes, but wrought of flesh and blood. In fiction, as in life, the villain has always existed, but it was Mrs. Radcliffe who first created the romantic villain, stained with the darkest crimes, yet dignified and impressive withal. Zeluco in Dr. John Moore's ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... They rode on, side by side, each content with seeing only that which lay on the surface—both of his companion and of himself. In a word, they were living life naturally, without demanding of the great theatrical manager to know exactly what parts they were to play in the human comedy. Externals sufficed just now; the fragrant still forests, the pulse-stirring sunshine, the warm, fruitful earth below and the blue ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Theatre," in King Street, St. James', was built for Braham, the celebrated singer. "The Olympic" was a small house in Wych Street, Drury Lane, now destroyed. "The Strand Theatre" was famous for its burlesque extravaganzas, a form of theatrical amusement which of late has become exceedingly popular. The "New Globe Theatre" (destroyed so late as 1902) and "The Gaiety" (at the stage entrance of which are the old offices of Good Words, so frequently made use of by Dickens in the later years ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... carefully avoids the various devices employed by Hill to indicate direct divine intervention; consequently the late arrival of the news of the uncle's death (which was expected throughout the play) is without special meaning, and serves only as a theatrical device intended to heighten the emotional effect. The Gamester, then, is a clear reflection of the state of English thought in the middle of the eighteenth century, in which a declining theology becomes suffused with the ideas ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... without any means of support. To keep the little home together his mother went out washing for her neighbours, leaving little Hans to take care of himself. Being left to his own devices, Hans developed his theatrical tendencies by constructing costumes for his puppets, and making them perform his plays on the stage of his toy theatre. Soon he varied this employment by reading plays and also writing some himself. His mother, though secretly rejoicing in her son's talent, soon saw the necessity ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... he hurried up dinner that we might all be in time. The diplomatic table complimented me on having "spotted the winner," and on either table lay a festive programme informing us that the Serbian theatrical company, which had abruptly shed its mourning, was giving a gala performance "in honour of the accession of our ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... architectural beauty. But do not think that when you have attended a dozen such places as the Hofoperntheatre, the Hofburgtheatre, the Deutsches Volkstheatre and the Carltheatre you have sensed the entire theatrical appeal of Vienna. Far from it. No city in the world is punctuated with so large a number of semi-private intimate theatres and cabarets as Vienna—theatres with a seating capacity of forty or fifty. You may know the Kleine Buehne and the Max und Moritz and the Hoelle, but there are ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... she was mistress of the conversation, adding that she stood with her head thrown back like Mlle. Duchesnois in the character of Chimene, meaning by this comparison to stigmatize her attitude and language as theatrical. So effective was her appeal that he felt the need of something to save his own role, and accordingly he bowed her to a chair, and in the moment thus gained determined to strike the key of high comedy. Taking up the conversation in ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... man on the steam-boat, with such a contented face that, if it did not lie, he must be the happiest man on earth. That he indeed said he was: I heard it from his own mouth. He was a Dane, consequently my countryman, and was a travelling theatrical manager. He had the whole corps dramatique with him; they lay in a large chest—he was a puppet showman. His innate good-humour, said he, had been tried by a polytechnic candidate,[D] and from this experiment ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... adherents of Christ. Partisan has the narrow and odious sense of adhesion to a party, right or wrong. One may be an adherent or supporter of a party and not a partisan. Backer is a sporting and theatrical word, personal in its application, and not in the ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... his first dress rehearsal and who was a good deal occupied with wigs and lingerie. Here one detail leads to another, and anyone who goes in wholeheartedly may go in dreadfully deep. Their room came to be strown with all the disconcerting items of a theatrical wardrobe. Cope soon reached the point where he was not quite sure that he liked it all, and he began to develop a distaste for Lemoyne's preoccupation with it. He came home one afternoon to find on the corner of his desk a long pair of silk stockings and a too ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... fruitless. See Reichardt's Vertraute Briefe. "These two (Lobkowitz and Esterhazy) are the heads of the great theatrical direction, which consists entirely of princes and counts, who conduct all the large theatres on their own account and at their own risk." The close of this letter shows that it was ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... Jack conspired for the Eagle's good. Together they planned to remove him to some fairer quarter of the city. Together they read and discussed the letters which poured in upon them from theatrical managers, Wild West shows, music halls, and other similar enterprises, and from romantic girls and shrewd photographers, and every other conceivable kind of crank. The offers of the music halls Jack was inclined to consider worth while. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... these statistics are unique in theatrical and publishing history for it will now be possible in any large city to read or witness "Peg o' My Heart" in the five phases of her career to date, viz., novel, printed play, acted comedy, photo ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... in a fume. 'It's not meself that'll do it; d'ye hear, Masters? I'll go like the biggest gentleman of all, or like the sleuth I am, but no child-rescuing and kid-copping for me! Let his honour give us,' with a theatrical gesture, 'a ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... repelled the attack by reminding him that music was not included in dramatic art, which covered tragedy and comedy alone. This he knew very well. What he had done was to try to generalise my proposition, so that it would apply to all theatrical representations, and, consequently, to opera and then to music, in order to make certain of defeating me. Contrarily, we may save our proposition by reducing it within narrower limits than we had first intended, if our way of ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... has its burger school on the mutual-instruction system, its reading society, and its agricultural society. In every little town in this country, the traveller finds educational institutions and indications of intellectual taste for reading, music, theatrical representations, which, he cannot but admit, surpass what he finds at home in England, in similar towns and ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Citizens' undertook to rebuke Smyth. But he retorted, not without reason, that the affair at Queenston is a caution against relying on crowds who go to the banks of the Niagara to look at a battle as on a theatrical exhibition.' ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... had an ungovernable propensity to make a display of sensibility; a fine theatrical scene upon every occasion; a propensity which she had acquired from novel-reading. It was never more unluckily displayed than in the present instance; for her audience and spectators, consisting of the landlady, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... really a comical sight. He trembled at being noticed, for he might lose his position; and he made timid and ridiculous gestures, quite a theatrical display of love signals, to which the women responded with ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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 ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... thinnest white pine; the arabesque screens and lattices that looked as if made of pierced cardboard; the golden minarets that seemed to be glued to the shell-like towers, and the hollow battlements that visibly warped and cracked in the fierce sunlight,—all appeared more than ever like a theatrical scene that might sink through the ground, or vanish on either side to the sound of the prompter's whistle. Recalling Raymond's cynical insinuations, he could not help fancying that the house had been built by a conscientious genie with a view to the possibility of the lamp and ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... theatrical duel! How smooth and quiet the bright blades are! they glide into contact. They are polished and slippery, yet they hold each other. So these two men's eyes met, and fastened: neither spoke: each searched the other's face keenly. Raynal's ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... 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 the ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... doubt that the Crusades had a vast influence upon our literary tastes, as well as upon the national manners and the festivities of Christmastide. On their return from the Holy Land the pilgrims and Crusaders brought with them new subjects for theatrical representation, founded on the objects of their devotion and the incidents in their wars, and these found expression in the early mysteries and other plays of Christmastide—that of St. George and the Dragon, which survived to modern times, probably owing its origin to this ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... last, this time in earnest. As at Bazeilles the effect was theatrical; the curtain rolled slowly upward to the flies, disclosing the setting of the stage. From a sky of transparent blue the sun poured down a flood of bright, golden light, and Maurice was no longer at a loss to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... theatrical-looking individual had come up to them. He wore a shabby frock coat and a black slouch hat, which he raised with an elaborate flourish when ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... sister, an excellent old maid as ever lived, and the favourite of all the young people of her acquaintance, says that it is quite a pleasure to nurse him. She was reading the "Inheritance" to him as he lay in bed, and he enjoyed it amazingly. She is a famous reader; more quiet and less theatrical than most famous readers, and therefore the fitter for the bed-side of a sick man. Her Ladyship had fretted herself into being ill, could eat nothing but the breast of a partridge, and was frightened out of her wits by hearing a dog howl. She was ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... houses and hospitals in Constantinople. In Lent, especially, his bounty to them was incredible. His discourses were powerful exhortations to the universal mortification of the senses, and he was particularly severe against all theatrical entertainments. Some time after, the emperor became enamored of Theodota, a maid of honor to his wife, the empress Mary, whom he had always hated; and forgetting what he owed to God, he was resolved to divorce her ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... nevertheless, when what is termed a "slashing article" upon a popular work makes its appearance, the public are too apt to receive it without scrutiny. Satisfied with the general effect, as with that produced in a theatrical representation, they do not bear in mind that that which has the appearance of gold, would prove upon examination to be ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... my story, gentlemen, remains to be told. Some six weeks ago, happening, in search of a theatrical engagement, to find myself in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge, I fell in with a pedestrian whose affability of accost invited me to a closer acquaintance. He introduced himself as the Reverend Josias Micklethwaite, a student of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... whom I must think. There were three hundred people in the cast of "Three Cheers," at the Shaftesbury Theatre, in London. And I began to hear now that unless I went back the show would be closed, and all of them would be out of work. At that season of the year, in the theatrical world, it would be hard for them to find other engagements, and they were not, most of them, like me, able to live without the salaries from the show. They wrote to me, many of them, and begged me to come back. And I knew that it was a desperate time ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... the floor among his papers, strung them together with a bodkin and a piece of string—revised them, wrote all the titles and honours by which he was personally distinguished at the head of the first page, and then read the manuscript to me with loud theatrical emphasis and profuse theatrical gesticulation. The reader will have an opportunity, ere long, of forming his own opinion of the document. It will be sufficient to mention here that it answered ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... too much for him. He did his best to admire, but the task was beyond his powers, and he raised no protest when some scoffer affirmed that, though Browning might be a great poet, he was a mighty poor judge of painting, when he gave in his beautiful poem immortality to this tawdry theatrical canvas. 'I think,' said Sir John, 'we had better go back to the hotel and order lunch. It would have been wiser to have ordered it before we left.' We were all so much touched by his penitence that no ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... this absurd theatrical scene,' said the Chevalier indifferently but impatiently; but at this moment the door flew open and in burst a girl in a white night-dress, her hair dishevelled, her face pale as death,—burst in and ran to old Vertua, raised him up, took him in her arms, and cried, 'O father! O father! ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of old Spanish and American stock and educated in the public schools of Philadelphia. He entered the office of the 'Philadelphia Press' in 1889 and served for ten years on the paper in every capacity from that of proof-reader to theatrical critic and editorial writer. In 1899 he came to New York and entered the newspaper field, working successively on the 'Sun', the 'Herald', and the 'Times'. For a short time he was engaged in journalistic work in Mexico, having been co-founder, in 1906, of 'El Diario' ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... looked at me so askance that I made an opportunity of talking to him. I should like to read his "Travels" to see what he made out of the riddle. In similar circumstances, and without explanation, I had fun talking French and swapping boulevard reminiscences with a member of a Parisian theatrical troupe making a long jump through northern Wisconsin. And once, at six of the morning, letting myself into my own house with a latch-key, and sitting down to read the paper until the family awoke, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... profession. Last on the list of tragic aspirants comes a gentleman of thirty-one, M. Aubert, who goes through a scene from Hamlet in a very tolerable manner. He was in the army, was doing well and was rising in grade when, seized by the theatrical mania, he relinquished his profession and turned his attention to the stage. Thus far, he has proved, practically speaking, a failure: he has won no prizes, and no manager will engage him. This is his last chance, as his age will prevent him, by the rules of the Conservatoire, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... short, if we have all seen "She Stoops to Conquer" acted, Mr. Abbey has had the better fortune of seeing it off the stage; and it is noticeable how happily he has steered clear of the danger of making his people theatrical types—mere masqueraders and wearers of properties. This is especially the case with his women, who have not a hint of the conventional paint and patches, simpering with their hands in the pockets of aprons, but are ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... downfall than "Bully" Hayes himself, who was seated in a private box with a lady. He had come to Sydney by steamer from Melbourne, where he had left his ship in the hands of brokers for sale, and almost the first thing he saw on arrival were the theatrical posters concerning himself and ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... come of a good stock. But the great musical talent that was developed in the third generation both in Felix and his sisters, failed entirely in his brother, who, to save his life, could never have sung "God save the Queen." In the little theatrical performances of the whole family for which Felix composed the music, and his sister Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical brother—was it not Paul?—had generally to be provided with some such part as that of a night watchman, and he managed to get through his song with as much ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... had reached the theater. The play soon commenced. Mr. Pettigrew enjoyed it highly, for he had not had much opportunity at the West of attending a high class theatrical performance. ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... course my parents knew nothing about these people. When I told my mother a great deal of private history of people who came to our house, she was thunderstruck and could at last understand my contempt for so-called good society. I have visited in later years only in artistic and theatrical circles; I consider that class of people more natural than the other ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... said Bert. "But they didn't give Florette no front-page headlines, an' maybe you don't read the theatrical news." ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... careless manner in which they were piled one upon another. A third apartment was filled with flasks of wine, with casks probably containing spirits, and boxes, the contents of which they did not pause to examine. A fourth contained male and female habiliments, spread out like the dresses in a theatrical wardrobe. Most of these garments were of the gayest and costliest description, and of the latest fashion, and Leonard sighed as he looked upon them, and thought of the fate of those ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... abandoned the playing of music, which otherwise would have been a constituent part of the sacrifice or worship he had in hand at the moment. Even in modern China, music is prohibited during solemn periods of mourning, and officials are often degraded for attending theatrical performances on solemn fasts. In 212 B.C., when the First August Emperor was, like Saul or Belshazzar, beginning to grow sad at the contemplation of his lonely and unloved greatness, he was suddenly startled at the fall ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... the Cornish coast, the fleets had their first meeting. There were 136 sail of the Spaniards, of which ninety were large ships, and sixty-seven of the English. It was a solemn moment. The long-expected Armada presented a pompous, almost a theatrical appearance. The ships seemed arranged for a pageant, in honour of a victory already won. Disposed in form of a crescent, the horns of which were seven miles asunder, those gilded, towered, floating castles, with their gaudy standards and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in his right hand and pulled the trigger, which, as he had forgotten to reload it, was a mere theatrical performance. Next second there was such a mix-up that for a while I could not distinguish which was Anscombe, which was the wildebeeste, and which the horse. They all seemed to be going round and round in a cloud of dust. When things settled themselves a little I discovered ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... nodded to everything he heard, concluding with a mock doleful shake of the head. 'My poorest subaltern!' he sighed, in the theatrical but cordially melancholy style of green age viewing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... piece of work which will no doubt strike you as a sort of theatrical expedient. And yet what else could have been done? The problem was to find out the untrustworthy member of the group. But no suspicion could be fastened on one more than another. To set a watch upon them all was not very practicable. Besides, that proceeding often fails. In any case, it ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... mushroom Emperor, his anterooms crowded with the titled charlatans of Europe, his court radiant with countesses created overnight. And it was the Emperor, with his love of theatrical display, of gorgeous ceremonies; with his restless reaching after military glory, the weary, cynical adventurer, that the boy at St. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... her son. She chose one with the mildest discipline possible, one of those colleges for the children of wealthy parents, where there is no severity, where the boys are allowed to eat pastry when they are taking their walks, and where the professors believe in more theatrical rehearsals than punishments. During the seven years he was there, Mme. Mauperin never missed a single day going from Saint-Denis to see him during the recreation hour. Rain, cold, fatigue, illness, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... eyes flashed out from beneath black eyebrows that ran, unbroken, right across the root of the nose, and a set of large, even, pearl-white teeth gleamed through a well-kept, coal-black moustache and beard. The fellow was attired in a showy, theatrical-looking costume, consisting of blue cloth jacket, adorned with a double row of gilt buttons and a pair of bullion epaulettes upon the shoulders, over a shirt of white silk, open at the throat, a sword-belt of black varnished leather, fastened by a pair of handsome brass or gold ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... goat, I know that you've got a tongue like a viper, that you can't keep quiet for a moment. But do you suppose that I care what you say?" Coquelin passed, talking, in a group of listening friends, and with a sweeping wave of his hand bade a theatrical good day to the people in the carriages. But I thought only of Mme. Swann, and pretended to have not yet seen her, for I knew that, when she reached the pigeon-shooting ground, she would tell her coachman to 'break away' and to stop the carriage, so that she ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of Railway and Steamship Lines, connecting Toronto daily with all parts of America and Europe; of various classes of manufactures, which have grown up in a quarter of a century or so. No less than five notices of theatrical and other amusements appear; these entertainments take place in spacious, elegant halls and opera houses, instead of the little, confined rooms which satisfied the citizens of Toronto only a few years ago. Some forty barristers and attorneys, physicians ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... in sentiment, trite in comedy, wrought on traditional lines, inculcating no philosophy, making no intellectual appeal whatever, may it not be that the attitude of the frequenters of the theatre has made it hard for him to do anything else? If he has until lately evaded in his theatrical work any attempt at a true criticism of life, if he has ignored the social, religious, and scientific problems of his day, may we not attribute this to the fact that the public have not been in the mood for these elements of seriousness in their theatrical entertainment, have ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... still a tradition, and applied for a job. It was frankly a charity job, but Kitty was never to know that because she fell into the newspaper game naturally; and when they discovered her wide acquaintance among theatrical celebrities they switched her into the dramatic department, where she had astonishing success as a raconteur. She was now assistant dramatic editor of the Sunday issue, and her pay envelope had four crisp ten-dollar notes in ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... honoring her sons, and it is but natural that in Germany every town and village should have vied in doing honor to the memory of one of their greatest poets. The letters which have reached us from every German capital relate no more than what we expected. There were meetings and feastings, balls and theatrical representations. The veteran philologist, Jacob Grimm, addressed the Berlin Academy on the occasion in a soul-stirring oration; the directors of the Imperial Press at Vienna seized the opportunity to publish a splendid album, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... gathering around the great Emperor at Dresden, there was an Austrian general, half a military man, half a diplomatist, but not a striking figure in any way. One evening the Empress Marie Louise, on her way to the theatrical performance, spoke a few empty words to him, merely because she happened to meet him. He was the Count of Neipperg. How astonished Napoleon would have been if any one had told him that one day this unknown officer would succeed him as the husband of Marie Louise. ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... description; that, further, they are protected by the commercial instinct of the Libraries, who will not stock an article which may offend their customers—just as, in the case of Plays, the Public are protected by the common-sense of theatrical Managers; that, finally, they are protected by the Police and the Common Law of the land. But despite all these protections, it is no uncommon thing for an average citizen to purchase one of these disturbing or dubious books. Has he, on discovering its true nature, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... shot in a duel by Lord Canterville on Wandsworth 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. At last everything ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... decided to be rid of his former guide. As in more recent times in Japan the condemned man was expected to be his own executioner, and Seneca opened his veins and allowed the life to ooze from them with a stoicism that was certainly heroic if not untainted by theatrical display. The character of Seneca will ever remain one of the puzzles of history, for the grave moralist was accessory to the murder of Agrippina, and not unsuspected of licentiousness, and of the accumulation ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... Stevenson. There is a portrait of him, in oils, in a rich gold frame; but there are also two prints of Queen Victoria. On the walls, besides, are old line engravings of the eighteenth century, one of which, and heaven knows how it got there, is after a theatrical picture by De Wilde; and there are oleographs from the Christmas supplements of the Graphic and the Illustrated London News of twenty years ago. Then there are advertisements of whisky, gin, champagne, and beer; and photographs ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... them in Robert le Diable, or Linda di Chamouni, or on the stage generally—long gray robes down to their feet, cocked hats with cockle shells, long wands; some barefoot, some with sandals: on they passed, singing religious songs. Then came the peasantry, all in perfect theatrical harmony, costumes rigidly correct a la Sonnambula. German artists dressed in Sunday clothes a la Der Freyschutz. A cafe with festoons of lemon-peel hung from window to window—they are not up to this idea in Fra Diavolo. Pretty girls in latticed windows, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... queer ornament made of short feathers also depending from the neck; it looked like the mouth of a porte-monnaie. When I wished to examine it, the wearer popped it over his mouth, and opened that extensive feature to its fullest dimensions, laughing most heartily. He had a very theatrical air, and the extraordinary mouthpiece made him look like a demon in, or out of, a pantomime. In taking this ornament off his neck he broke the string, and I supplied him with a piece of elastic band, so ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... starving, and you know it. Now, begin from the beginning. I won't have such theatrical nonsense. How dare you! Yes, how dare you!" she repeated, as anger filled her, "bursting in to Evie's wedding in this heartless way. My goodness! but you've a perverted notion of philanthropy. Look"—she indicated the house—"servants, people out of the windows. They ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... crowd is generous and easily swayed. A theatrical audience of scalliwags and thieves will howl applause at the triumph of virtue and the downfall of the villain; and each separate member will go out into the street and begin to practise villainy and say 'to hell with virtue.' If ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... many in court, more especially to the theatrical folk behind the man with the white hair, the gesture was but one more subtle touch in an exhibition ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... oil and wick. The trunk of a tree, with lamps suspended between the branches. Another, a naked boy, beautifully wrought, with a lamp hanging from one hand, and an instrument for trimming it from the other, the lamp itself representing a theatrical mask. Beside him is a twisted column, surmounted by the head of a Faun, or Bacchanal, which has a lid in its crown, and seems intended as a reservoir of oil. The boy and pillar are both placed on a square plateau, raised upon lions' claws. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... 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 ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... asides in particular seemed impossible, and I think the more carefully the pieces are put on the stage the more critical I become concerning their probability; and when I hear the praise of the beautiful and expensive theatrical wardrobes which, in the case of actresses seem to set the fashion for the wealthy and well-born, I feel that it is a costly means of making the story more unlikely. I seem to lose the identity of the heroine who in two hours wears three or four different toilettes complete. ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... of address. The Century Atlas and Gazetteer is a book amongst a hundred. Finally, the Era Almanack for 1890, conducted by EDWARD LEDGER, is, as usual, full of information concerning things theatrical—some of it gay, some of it sad. "Replies to Questions by Actors and Actresses" is the liveliest contribution in the little volume. The Obituary contains the name of "EDWARD LITT LEMAN BLANCHARD," dramatist, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... taking possession of my flat, I paid a visit to a celebrated expert in theatrical "make up," and paid for his help and advice. It is not an easy thing for a young woman to transform herself into an old one, and I have a weakness for doing a thing well, when I set about it. He was a delightful man! I remember him with the liveliest ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... or Surrey way. No toy battlements of modern villa or tea-garden are those over which the rough-bearded men, in hoods and leather coats, lean in the summer, watching the citizens disporting themselves in the Moorfields, or in winter sledging over the ice-pools of Finsbury. Not for mere theatrical pageant do they carry those heavy axes and tough spears. Those bossed targets are not for festival show; those buff jackets, covered with metal scales, have been tested before now by Norsemen's ponderous swords and the hatchets of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... nervous fear and vain attempt to shuffle responsibility off himself give tragic interest to his theatrical washing of his hands. The one thing that he feared was a riot, which would be like a spark in a barrel of gunpowder, if it broke out at the Passover, when Jerusalem swarmed with excited crowds. To avoid that, the sacrifice of one Jew's life was a small matter, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... dollars. Would he have chattered of that very person? No! Of anyone else but that particular person! It was easy to picture Nita, her head whirling with possibilities, hitting upon the most conspicuous player in the group—dark, tense, theatrical Flora, already pointed out to her as one of the two female leads in the opera.... But of whom had she really ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... "The theatrical gentlemen have a confident hope of its success. I know not that any alterations for the stage will be necessary; if any, they will be trifling, and you shall be duly apprised. I would suggest that you should not attend any except the latter rehearsals—the managers have requested ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... saw a placard tacked on the side of a doorway that read: "Fifty girls, neat sewers, wanted immediately on theatrical costumes. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... poisons, and most ostentatiously avowing whatever would most effectually startle the prejudices of others.(2) Preposterously seeking for the stimulus of novelty in abstract truth, and the eclat of theatrical exhibition in pure reason, it is no wonder that these persons at last became disgusted with their own pursuits, and that, in consequence of the violence of the change, the most inveterate prejudices and uncharitable sentiments ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... amateurish absurdities, was entangled for a time by a rapturous infatuation and allowed a giddy woman with seductive habits and a silken voice to cajole, dominate, ridicule, and ignore him. His imploring theatrical appeals to her to come to him are piteously pathetic. The rational parts of his letters are without example in neat concise phrase, and portray a man possessed of great human virtues. It is when the love-storm attacks him that he flies into extravagances, ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... carry out this determination that she was regarded by her masculine intimates as one of themselves, and whatever pleasures they enjoyed in her society, were enjoyed upon the same principle as they would have delighted in a good dinner, an agreeable theatrical performance, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation. |
