"Actress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sarah Bernhardt was at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham, giving "La Dame aux Camelias". Paul wanted to see this old and famous actress, and he asked Clara to accompany him. He told his mother to leave the key in ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... cried, with a bright smile of understanding. "I see! Yes, I have a double—a really remarkable double. Have you never seen Hetty Glynn, the actress?" ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... get my trumps out," Karen—now almost a genuine actress, too—breathed tremulously. "I do wish Nita were playing this hand. I know I'll muff ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... not to be harder on me than I deserve," she answered, gently. "Did you ever hear of an actress ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... would play the mad woman? I doubt if any woman could do it sufficiently well to deceive the doctors. There was an Italian woman,' and they talked of the great Italian actress for some time and then Dick said: 'Well, Kate, I must be about my business. I'm sorry ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... best actress. We'll leave it to her. Give us a specimen now, old sport, and show us how you'll do it. Oh, that's ripping! It'll take them in no end. I should like ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... I promised an actress to write her a play, With herself, of course, in the leading part, With abundance of bathos paraded as pathos, And a gallery death of a broken heart— It's a capital plan, I find, to try To arrange a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... the lady who is to play the part of Mrs. Dowey is sure to want to suggest that our heroine has a secret sorrow, namely, the crime; but you should see us knocking that idea out of her head! Mrs. Dowey knows she is a criminal, but, unlike the actress, she does not know that she is about to be found out; and she is, to put it bluntly in her own Scotch way, the merriest of the whole clanjamfry. She presses more tea on her guests, but they wave her away from them in the pretty manner of ladies who know ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... forgot. The heroine is a distinguished actress, you know, and Kentucky could play that sort of part to perfection. But I don't think a lady would like to cut up, much, in ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... stay long at Treport. He had only come to see his sisters on his way to Dieppe, where he expected to meet a certain Leah Skip, an actress from the 'Nouveautes'. If he kept her waiting, however, for some days, it was because he was loath to leave the handsome Madame de Villegry, who was living near her friend Madame de Nailles, recruiting herself after the ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... go because, I go because she's my favourite actress. (Applause.) Ask me why Norma Talmadge ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... seen Alexander. Then, in the middle of the month he found himself one evening in a peacock cluster of fine folk, at the theater—a famous actress to be viewed in a comedy grown the rage. The play was nearly over when he saw Alexander in the pit, turned from the stage, gazing steadily upon him. Ian placed himself where he might still see him, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... prudent or wise that your purchases for each season include not more than six new gowns, take the advice of an actress of international reputation, who is famous for her good dressing in private life, and make a point of adding one new gown to each of the six departments of your wardrobe. Then have the cleverness to appear in these costumes whenever on view, making ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... the very first words the actress, whose name was Almeria, spoke. When the curtain began to draw up, and I saw the bottom of her black petticoat, and heard the soft music, what an agitation I was in! But before that we had long to wait. Frederica told me we should wait till all the dress boxes were full, and then ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... said, smiling, "that it sounds to a hardened New Yorker like yourself about like the interview of a young actress who declares that she intends to elevate the stage. But in my case, I am in the position of one who doesn't want the stage to lower her. I don't want to grow cold, Aubrey, and I hope never to allow ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... beneath her sobs in the little lace border, but she looked up with real tears on her face. Even her tears obeyed her will. She was a good actress, also she knew ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... actress of England, born at Brecon, the daughter and eldest child of Roger Kemble, manager of an itinerant theatrical company; became early a member of her father's company, and at 19 married an actor named Siddons who belonged to it; her first appearance in Drury Lane as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... forget. And mother Coupeau and she had lamented together in the back-room as they reckoned that they required at least twenty francs. How could they obtain them, those four pieces of a hundred sous each? Mother Coupeau who had at one time done the charring for a little actress of the Theatre des Batignolles, was the first to suggest the pawn-shop. Gervaise laughed with relief. How stupid she was not to have thought of it! She quickly folded her black silk dress upon a towel which ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... wit and rich store of experience availed him nothing when Mrs. Damerel discoursed thus. The silvery accents flattered his ear, and crept into the soft places of his nature. He felt as when a clever actress in a pathetic part wrought upon him ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... she said, with an air of honest anxiety that would have done credit to an actress, "here is this man again. You know I promised to try and help him when he was here before. Simon needs an assistant, he tells me; would you ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... well pleased with the turn of events. After all, nothing could have been better than Zara's being late. Circumstance often played into the hand of an experienced manipulator like himself. Now if she only kept up this attitude of indifference, which, indeed, she seemed likely to do—she was no actress, he knew—things might be settled ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... to have been a play written when he was thirteen. It was performed at the house of a friend, in the presence of a famous actress of that day; but in after years Irving had forgotten even ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... very fond of pleasing, in her youth; one saw as much still by her affected manners. She would have made an excellent actress, to play fantastic parts of that kind. Her flaming red countenance, her shape, of such monstrous extent that she could hardly walk, gave her the air of a Female Bacchus. She took care to expose to view her"—a part of her person, large but ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Marvelling, as he was always moved to marvel, at her bright mind and clever wit and clear insight, he was driven to the superlatives again to find words to describe her reading. Artistically, and as with the gifted sympathy of a born actress, she seemed able to breathe the very atmosphere of the story. None of his subtle nuances were lost; there was never an emphasis misplaced. Better still, the impersonation was perfect. By turns she became himself, Joan, Fidelia, Fleming, or one of the subsidiary characters, speaking the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... the first question asked about any new play was, Is there a ghost in it? The Castle Spectre had set this fashion. It was one of the first plays I saw, when I was a very little girl. The opening of the folding-doors disclosing the illuminated oratory; the extreme beauty of the actress who personated the ghost; the solemn music to which she moved slowly forward to give a silent blessing to her kneeling daughter; and the chorus of female voices chanting Jubilate; made an impression on me which no other scene of the kind has ever made. That is my ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Professor Bolton was fleeing from the newspapers. I am fleeing for the newspapers—to attract their attention—to lure them into giving me that thing so necessary to a woman in my profession, publicity. You see, I am an actress. The name I gave you is not my stage name. That, perhaps, you would know. I employ a gentleman to keep me before the public as much as possible. It's horrid, I know, but it means bread and butter to me. That gentleman, my press-agent, evolved the ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... many such women, brilliant mondaines from many lands domiciled in that Paris of the so-dead yesterday to serve by stealth their respective governments; but never, it was true, a woman of the caste of Cecelia Brooke; unless, indeed, this were an actress of surpassing talent, gifted to hoodwink the most skeptical and least ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... of the duet, which was ever so much nicer. I was with Mrs. Joyce in one scene of her pantomime, "John Smith," which was far and away the best part of the entertainment. Mrs. Joyce was charming, and showed us what a really fine actress she is. The enlisted men went to laugh, and they kept up a good-natured clapping and laughing from ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... time a fair. The place was crowded with company of every description. A troop of young girls and boys, dressed in theatrical habits, welcomed us in a pantomimical dance. The invention was novel; animation and grace attended their every movement. Before the dance was quite concluded the principal actress, who represented a queen, stopped suddenly, as if arrested by an invisible arm. Herself and those around her were motionless. The music ceased. The assembly was silent. Not a breath was to be heard, and the queen stood with her eyes fixed on the ground in deep abstraction. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 1844 Phelps, a most intelligent actor and a serious student of Shakespeare, opened the long-disused Sadler's Wells Theatre in partnership with Mrs Warner, a capable actress, whose rendering of Imogen went near perfection. Their design was inspired by "the hope," they wrote in an unassuming address, "of eventually rendering Sadler's Wells what a theatre ought to be—a place for justly representing the works of our great dramatic poets." This hope they ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... other causes adduced for breaking off his intended marriage. Word came that he had been very intimate with a certain woman on his way out to Melbourne;—a woman supposed to be a foreigner and an actress; and the name of Cettini was whispered. He did not know whence the rumour came;—but on one morning Robert Bolton, half-laughing, but still with a tone of voice that was half-earnest, taxed him with having as many loves as Lothario. 'Who is ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the next day in the office, any time they get to thinking about it. The other way is to get two actors for your lovers that the audience, young and old, can't help falling in love with; a young actor that the females in the audience think they'd like to marry, and a young actress that the males all think they'd like to marry. It doesn't matter much about the writing; just have something interfere between them from eight-fifteen until along about twenty-five minutes after ten. The two lovers don't necessarily have to know ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... we take you to see Odry in 'Les Saltimbauques' to-night," said Leon to Gazonal, "we must go and pay a visit to Madame Cadine,—an actress whom your committee-man Massol cultivates, and to whom you must therefore ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... the reader is to be ensnared into absorbing something useful, it must be hidden somehow among the flowers. A treatise on religion must be disguised as a love story in which a young clergyman, sworn into holy orders, falls in love with an actress. The facts of history are imparted by a love story centering around the adventures of a hitherto unknown son of Louis the Fourteenth. And a discussion of the relations of labor and capital takes the form of a romance in which the daughter of a multi-millionaire steps voluntarily out of her Fifth ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... haunted eyes; this would never do for her present business. Determined to meet craft with craft, she wried her mouth to a smile, she drove peace into her eyes, took a bosomful of breath, and turned to be actress for the first time in her life. This meant to realize and then express herself. She was like to become ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... them. Olga, for all the various charms of her face, had never thus affected him. But then, he had known her a few years ago, when, as something between child and woman, she had little power to interest an imaginative boy, whose ideal was some actress seen only in a photograph, or some great lady on her travels glimpsed as he strayed about Geneva. She, in turn, regarded him with the coolest friendliness, her own imagination busy with far other figures than that of a would-be ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... which certainly require no aggravation from spectral agency." The play was much condensed for presentment on the stage; but it would not appear that Belvidera's dying speech, quoted above, was interfered with. Boaden, in his memoir of the actress, expressly commends Mrs. Siddons's delivery of the passage, "I'll dig, dig the den up!" and the action which accompanied ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... was the outcome of the man's genius. Drexley's words were ready enough in the open streets with the fresh wind in their faces and the sunshine streaming around. In the theatre and immediately afterwards in the manager's room, where a famous actress had dispensed tea, and compliments and congratulations were the order of the day, he had ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... before his mother imposed upon the family lawyer, who came to America to look for the Earl's heir. Then came the descriptions of the new Lord Fauntleroy and his mother. Sometimes she was a gypsy, sometimes an actress, sometimes a beautiful Spaniard; but it was always agreed that the Earl of Dorincourt was her deadly enemy, and would not acknowledge her son as his heir if he could help it, and as there seemed to be some slight flaw in the papers she had produced, it was expected that there ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... like their male prototypes, of many kinds, and it would be idle to enumerate them. There is the kind of woman that "has a career," using this term neither sarcastically nor flatteringly. The successful artist of whatever sort—painter, musician, actress—has usually been quite spoiled for domesticity by the reward of money and adulation given her. Nowhere is the lack of proportion of our society so well demonstrated as in the hysterical praise given to this kind of woman, and ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... no doubt of it; now, as the actress, skilled in every wile, hid the hand holding the ring, as well as the other empty one, behind her back, she would know how to manage so that she could use the garland which Hermon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... look upon, and her mind was so uncramped by conventionalities that it could adapt itself to almost any sphere to which she might direct it. He expected his life-work to be upon the stage, and what an actress Miss Dearborn would make if properly educated—as he could educate her! With this most important purpose in view, why should he waste his time? The Archibalds could not much longer remain in camp. They had limited ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... a famous actress suddenly dropped dead at the close of a splendidly played tragedy. She was carried home, and preparations were made to bury her. The play had been gotten up with great care and expense, and a fine actor was the hero. The public demanded ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... before this it had become impossible to think at all of Mme. Bernhardt's Hamlet as a man, if it ever had been possible. She had traversed the bounds which tradition as well as nature has set, and violated the only condition upon which an actress may personate a man. This condition is that there shall be always a hint of comedy in the part, that the spectator shall know all the time that the actress is a woman, and that she shall confess herself ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his side, with a childish grace more attractive than the studied movements of the most accomplished actress, Cherry stuffed the proceeds of her first attempt into the pocket of her guardian, and then, throwing herself into position, went through the wild and grotesque movements of the tarantella, with a life and freshness that drew from ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... you, a reputedly clever man, can be! I don't suppose there is a woman in the house who has not detected the fact that I am in love with Stafford Orme, though I have tried to hide it from them—and you will admit that I am not a bad actress." ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... of James Heyward, Nathaniel's brother, was in striking contrast with this. When on a tour in Ireland he met and married an actress, who at his death in 1796 inherited his plantation and 214 slaves. Two suitors for the widow's hand promptly appeared in Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, and Charles Baring, his cousin. Mrs. Heyward married the latter, who increased the estate to seven or eight ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the husband of the celebrated actress, was born in Rushall-street, in this town, whilst his father kept a public-house, known by the sign of the London apprentice, whose death was occasioned by sparring or wrestling with a person named Denston. The ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... it was impossible that anything very bad could come from such a man. And, pursuing her reasoning aloud: "It couldn't have been very awful," she argued; "something foolish about an actress, was it not? And that could not concern ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... variety theatre demands for its "turns" little plays called sketches, to last twenty minutes or so, and to enable some favorite performer to make a brief but dazzling appearance on some barely passable dramatic pretext. Miss Lillah McCarthy and I, as author and actress, have helped to make one another famous on many serious occasions, from Man and Superman to Androcles; and Mr Charles Ricketts has not disdained to snatch moments from his painting and sculpture to design some wonderful dresses for us. We three unbent as Mrs Siddons, ...
— Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress • George Bernard Shaw
... the plays audible, and had the town to themselves, till a lawyer, Mr. William Collier, M.P. for Truro, in spite of the counter-attraction of the trial of Sacheverell, obtained a license to open 'Drury Lane', and produced an actress who drew money to Charles Shadwell's comedy, 'The Fair Quaker of Deal.' At the close of the season Collier agreed with Swiney and his actor-colleagues to give up to them 'Drury Lane' with its actors, take in exchange the 'Haymarket' ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... celebrated actress of the Theatre-Francais, Paris. Mature at the time of the Restoration. She was the mistress of the police-officer Peyrade, by whom she had a daughter, Lydie, whom he acknowledged. The last home of Mlle. Beaumesnil was on rue de Tournon. It was there ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... all. She was too much in the mood of a moralist to see the play merely as a work of art; she could not keep her mind from reverting to matters having nothing to do with the play, such as the versatility of an actress's domestic relations. And she could not but feel that in so far as the play diverted her, it did so at the expense of that strenuousness of endeavor for extraordinary usefulness which her mind had taken under the spell ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Gertrude Foster, the young California actress, who added attraction to many programs with her brilliant readings, and Jessie, daughter of Superior Judge Waldo York, who won the prize of $75 offered by Dr. Ella Whipple Marsh, superintendent of franchise of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... of Drury Lane. He shows heaven, in order that he may carry debauch into it; and avails himself of the most sacred and sublime parts of our creed as a vehicle for a scene-painter's skill, or an occasion for a handsome actress ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fashionable operas, and to stand at the director's desk and let the thing loose to the right and left," he tells us. He did not seek in the least to avoid the French style but on the contrary felt confident, that an actress like Schroeder-Devrient could even in such frivolous music invest his Isabella with dignity and value. With such expectations in art and life before him, he took unhesitatingly the serious step of engaging himself to Mina Planer, a beautiful actress at ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... check, and one only, to the flow of Mr. Kenyon's prosperity. Careful mothers occasionally objected that he was not married, and that his sister was an actress. Why did he let his sister go on the stage? And why, if she was an actress, did he allow her to live in his house? It did not seem quite respectable in the eyes of some worthy people that these things should be. But ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "I did that quite as well as an actress could! But now what am I to do? How long can I keep this up? Heigh-ho 'let the world slide!' I'll not reveal myself until I'm driven to it, for when I do——! Cap, child, ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... I recovered from the deep humiliation of this experience. Then (the exactions of the Olivers quickening my memory and at the same time deadening my pride) I remembered something which I had heard the old actress say during my time at the boarding-house about a hospital in Bloomsbury for unfortunate children—how the good man who founded it had been so firm in his determination that no poor mother in her sorrow should be put to further shame about her innocent child ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... Humour, a taking Familiarity in throwing herself into the lowest Seat in the Room, and letting her hoop'd Petticoats fall with a lucky Decency about her. I know she practices this way of sitting down in her Chamber; and indeed she does it as well as you may have seen an Actress fall down dead in a Tragedy. Not the least Indecency in her Posture. If you have observ'd what pretty Carcasses are carry'd off at the end of a Verse at the Theatre, it will give you a Notion how Dulcissa plumps into a Chair. Here's a little Country Girl that's very cunning, that makes ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... from a side table a book—the actress's scrap album—and came back flirting its pages. At one she pressed it open and held it toward him, triumphantly pointing to a clipping. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... water which by no means assuaged the inner fires. While she was washing the breakfast dishes the other two were discussing Mrs. Lee's hair. Grandmother insisted that it was a wig, as play-actresses always wore them and Mrs. Lee was undoubtedly a play-actress. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Brian Sotherst. Sotherst was rich, and one of the most popular young men about town. Letty Shaw, although she had had one or two harmless flirtations, was well known as a self-respecting and hard-working young actress who loved her work, and against whom no one had ever had a word to say. Consequently, the shock was all the greater when, within a fortnight of her engagement, she was thus to be seen openly supping alone ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of a menageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her in some way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that she might have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however, even if you were not sufficiently initiated to know—as all the Grossies, for instance, knew so well—that her origin, so far from being enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... Asked Hopalong in surprise. "Well, well," laughed the clerk. "You punchers are easy. Any third-rate actress that looks good to eat can rope you fellows, all right. Now look here, Laura, you keep shy of her corral, or you'll be broke so quick you won't believe you ever had a cent: that's straight. This is the third year that she's been here and I know what ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Miss Elizabeth Dyke (born 1793), an actress who fascinated him at the Kilkenny private theatricals in 1809. To the outer world, Mrs. Moore's bird, as she called him, was a sprightly little songster, who lived in a whirl of dinners, suppers, concerts, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Kimpsey. "She takes awfully well, doesn't she! It reminds me—it reminds me of pictures I've seen of Rachel, the actress, ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... this world, to be sure! As my Cousin Hilary sat by me, and asked me if I went often to the play, and if I had seen Mrs Bellamy, [A noted actress of that day] and whether I loved music, and all those endless questions that people seem as if they must ask you when they first make acquaintance with you,—all at once there came up before me the white, calm face of Annas Keith, and the inner vision of Colonel Keith in his prison, ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... degree. In 1819 he obtained the Chancellor's prize for Latin verse, the subject being "Syracuse." He gave early promise of his future eminence as an orator, and in his youth he used to practise elocution under the instruction of Lady Derby, his grandfather's second wife, the actress, Elizabeth Farren. In 1820 he was returned for Stockbridge in Hampshire, one of the nomination boroughs whose electoral rights were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832, Stanley being a warm advocate ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... A celebrated French actress, in the wane of her charms, and who, for that reason, began to feel weary of the world, exclaimed, whilst she was recounting what she had suffered from a faithless lover, "Ah! c'etoit le bon ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... them came the splendid Magdalen, brown, warm, voluminous, scarcely brushing the grass with her sandalled feet. Her hair flew; pins seemed scarcely to attach the flying silks. An actress of course, a line of light perpetually beneath her. It was only "My dear" that she said, but her voice went jodelling between Alpine passes. And down she tumbled on the floor, and sang, since there was nothing to be said, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... stop, I know, as long as you can trail round in a white gown with your hair down, and wear gold-paper jewelry. You are the best actress we've got, and there'll be an end of everything if you quit the boards," said Jo. "We ought to rehearse tonight. Come here, Amy, and do the fainting scene, for you are as stiff as a poker ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... husband of a beautiful and popular actress who is billboarded on Broadway under an assumed name. The very opposite manner in which these two live their lives brings a dramatic climax to ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... actor contemporary with Shakespeare. These rumours are not corroborated; but there is no doubt that it was at one time the property of D'Avenant, and that it subsequently belonged successively to the actor Betterton and to Mrs. Barry the actress. In 1693 Sir Godfrey Kneller made a copy as a gift for Dryden. After Mrs Barry's death in 1713 it was purchased for forty guineas by Robert Keck, a barrister of the Inner Temple. At length it reached the hands of one John Nichols, whose daughter married James Brydges, third duke ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... parts, and by the graceful sweetness, the intense pathos, the sublime vehemence of passion she displayed. She was often in his thoughts as he wrote: and, when he had finished, he became anxious that his tragedy should be acted, and receive the advantage of having this accomplished actress to fill the part of the heroine. With this view he wrote the following letter to a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Theatre, and took, when she could, her children to the play. One of her sons became an actor, and her daughter Elizabeth offered herself at eighteen—her father then being dead—for engagement as an actress at the Norwich Theatre. She had an impediment of speech, and she was not engaged; but in the following year, leaving behind an affectionate letter to her mother, she stole away from Standingfield, and made a bold plunge into the unknown ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... step nearer, and speaking in almost a whisper, "you are not glad either! For once speak the truth! Hypocrisy is always difficult to you. You are the worst actress I ever saw—speak the truth for once! Who is there to hear you but me? I, who know it already—who have known it ever since that first evening in Dresden! Do you recollect?—but of course you do—why do I ask you? Why should ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... new to the delights of theatre-going, had recently seen a great actress play Lady Macbeth, and, fired with the spirit of emulation, she had been enacting the sleep-walking scene for the benefit of her country neighbour. Miss Becky Crawlin lived only half a mile down the road from the old Ray homestead, ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... small party have met with security and profit for a little chicken hazard in Curzon-street, at which Mr. C-t has occasionally acted as croupier and banker. Elliston used to say, when informed of the sudden indisposition or absence of a certain little actress and singer-"Ay, I understand; she has a more profitable engagement than mine this evening." The amorous trio, Cl-g-t, Charles H-r-s, and the exquisite Master G-e, may not have cause to complain of neglect. The first of these ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Giles, with the same level quietude, as he regarded the red coals. "One who has smiled where she has not loved and loved where she has not married. Before Mr. Charmond made her his wife she was a play-actress." ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... sometimes another, they make a thousand different wry faces, to which the dancing lady answers with an astonishing precision. She finishes with gently reclining towards the musician; the sounds of the instrument gradually become weaker; the eyes of the actress are half closed; she gently presses her bosom; every thing expresses violent passion. But it is not possible to give an idea of what now passes, nor the air of indifference with which the woman, who lately played a like part, joins her companions. The young people form themselves into a circle, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... what I remembered, and such authentic history as there is of my parents' movements, I gather that this attic was in theatrical lodgings in Glasgow. My father was an actor, my mother an actress, and they were at this time on tour in Scotland. Perhaps this is the place to say that father was the son of an Irish builder, and that he eloped in a chaise with mother, who was the daughter of a Scottish minister. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... outward respect such an injunction be accompanied, the bottom of the cup is always the same, and the honey at the edge is but a weak palliative. Being no ordinary woman by birth, do not terminate like an ordinary actress your splendid and magnificent role on this great stage. Know how to leave before the audience is weary; while they can say, when they miss you from the scene, "She was still fine in her role. It is ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... the Actress.—"When I was a poor girl," said the Duchess of St. Albans, "working very hard for my thirty shillings a week, I went down to Liverpool during the holidays, where I was always kindly received. I was to perform ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... Felicity, "and she hasn't a good complexion. Mind you, she says she's going to be an actress when she grows up. Isn't ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to the theatre the next night, and again the next, which was the last of the company's stay in the town; and the spell of the false Florimel grew so strong upon him that at the close of the final performance he sent up his card to the actress, and presently, as in a dream, found himself stumbling among scenery and dipping under beams on his way to the actress's room. If she were only as like Jenny close to, he felt he must follow her to the end of the world; and indeed the illusion still held as ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... temper, action—and yet at the time these made no such impression. Even Sexton never questioned her identity; in face, figure, dress the resemblance was absolutely perfect. Good heavens, but she is an actress!" ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... talents, he would not, in all probability, have risen to acknowledged eminence in his profession for many years, if he had not fallen under the observation of Mrs. Siddons. That extraordinary actress, little less illustrious for private virtues than splendid talents, being engaged one summer in the northern theatres, observed with pleasure and astonishment, a young man of abilities far above the crowd that played with him. To adopt her own words, she at the first ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... on that same evening must escape disguised—she is a good actress, Ned, and did not play Beaumarchais's comedies at the little Trianon for nothing; the King will have more trouble—to Courbevoie, where a detachment of the Swiss Guard will be found to escort their Majesties to Compiegne. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... attracted by a very sweet and charming actress. She appeared to me as the impersonation of all that was lovely. Her complexion was fair, and her hair golden—a head that Murillo would have loved to paint. She was rather petite, but, oh dear me, what a figure! What ankles! What sweetly moulded neck and arms! ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... a minute criticism of the actress's playing, which she upheld against the world; and then she passed to the other topics of the day—a fine art exhibition, at which she had seen some most remarkable paintings; a stupid novel about which too much fuss was being made; a society intrigue which she spoke ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... all of the ladies wore walking-dresses and bonnets, although a few were in the evening attire that they would have worn to a dinner-party. Mrs. Warner Miller wore a bronze-green Ottoman silk with panels of cardinal plush; Mrs. Potter (the amateur actress) wore a bright green Ottoman silk short dress, with a tight-fitting jacket of scarlet cloth, richly embroidered; Mrs. John A. Logan wore a dress of peacock-blue satin, trimmed with blue brocade; Mrs. Marshal Roberts wore a brown velvet dress, and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... till then," she said, throwing her arms round his neck. "There!" she said, as she embraced him, passionately to all appearance, and plied him with the coaxing caresses that are part of the business of such a life as hers, like stage action for an actress. ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... calls it, and stayed there awhile with one Axius.[39] He returned thence to Rome to undertake some case for Fonteius, and attended the games which Milo was giving, Milo having been elected AEdile. Here we have a morsel of dramatic criticism on Antiphon the actor and Arbuscula the actress, which reminds one of Pepys. Then he defended Messius, then Drusus, then Scaurus. He mentions all these cases in the same letter, but so slightly that we cannot trouble ourselves with their details. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... the front, the back of the box being filled by Knights of the Southern Cross. Hats and handkerchiefs were now again waved, and on every side resounded "Viva l'Emperador, l'Emperadriza, la Monarchia!" This enthusiasm having been rewarded by gracious acknowledgments, the drop curtain rose, and an actress came forward to recite a prologue in praise of the Emperor. Then followed a piece of which I understood very little; and the whole was concluded by a ballet, greatly superior to my expectations. During the performance, the Emperor gave audience in his ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... quickening patronage of Louis XIII.'s lordly minister, Cardinal Richelieu, was a great public interest of those times in Paris. Moliere's evil star, too, it was perhaps in part that brought him back to Paris, from Orleans. He admired a certain actress in the capital. She became the companion—probably not innocent companion—of his wandering life as actor. A sister of this actress—a sister young enough to be daughter, instead of sister—Moliere finally married. She led her jealous husband a wretched conjugal ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... figure, with beautiful, expressive gray eyes and fair wavy hair, and a peculiar liveliness in her movements." She was a woman of large and tender heart, electrified with a temper incisive and immediate. She was an actress of genuine skill, "her sense of grace and beauty in all things infallible." She did not appear at the theatre in Prague until the first day of January, 1814. She bore a curious resemblance to Therese Brunetti in a fresher edition, and was ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... keen glance, the inspector followed her suggestion. In the back of the case was a picture of a coquettish face, undoubtedly that of an actress. It was not carefully fastened in, but roughly cut out and pressed in with ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... manager of a travelling company of actors, with one of whom, William Siddons, she had married when she was eighteen. She was born at Brecon, in Wales, July 5, 1755, and had already attained to some distinction as an actress in 1775, when she made her first appearance in London. From then until her retirement in 1812 her career was a succession of triumphs. She died in London, June 8, 1831. Naturally, she was a favorite subject with the portrait painters of her time. The sweet-faced ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... as the tune is lost for ever unless Bishop [Sir Henry Rowley, an English composer and professor of music at Oxford in 1848. Among his most popular operas are Guy Mannering and The Kniqht of Snowdon] happens to find the notes, or some lark teaches Stephens [Catherine (1794-1882): a vocalist and actress who created Susanna in the Marriage of Figaro, and various parts in adaptation of Scott.] to warble the air—we will risk our credit, and the taste of the Lady of the Lute, by preserving the verses, simple and even ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... cell that held a half-nude woman. It was a little box of a place, with a rude bedstead in one corner, filthy beyond the power of water to cleanse. The occupant sat on a little bench in another corner, with her eyes rolled up to Jim's in a tragic expression, which would make the fortune of an actress. He ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Madame Desforets?' cried Langham, surprised this time quite out of discretion. Catherine looked at him with anxiety. The reputation of the black-eyed little French actress, who had been for a year or two the idol of the theatrical public of Paris and London, had reached even to her, and the tone of Langham's exclamation struck ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... abnormal, but she had head enough to realize the fact that absolute unemotionlessness in a woman detracts from her charm. She therefore simulated emotion. She had a spiritual make-up, a panoply of paint and powder for the soul, as truly as any actress has her array of cosmetics for her face. She made no effort to really feel, she knew that was entirely useless, but she observed all the outward signs and semblance of feeling more or less successfully. She knew that to take up her position in Harry Edgham's house like a marble bust of ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman |
