"Comedian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gayety, was an affectation, a pose; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... retracted all the concessions she had made concerning him; her rancour had decided that the man of fainting-fits could not be other than an imposter. She had disputes on this subject with M. Langis, who persisted in maintaining that M. Larinski was a great comedian, but that this, strictly considered, did not prevent his being a true count; in the course of his travels he had met specimens of them who cheated at cards and pocketed affronts. Mme. de Lorcy, in return, accused him of being a simpleton. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... had appeared between those of Kemp and Burbage (named in the above list), the one the chief comedian, the other the chief tragedian of the time, in comedies which were acted before the Queen on December 27 and 28, 1594, at Greenwich Palace. The titles of these comedies are not given in the Treasurer's Accounts of the Chamber, from which we take the ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... stage box at the "Gaiety," with an elderly General of Life Guards, a Mistress of the Robes, and the grandfather of the Central American Ambassador at the Court of St. James, and all four of them were smiling at a neat little low comedian, who was singing, without any voice and with the utmost precision, a pathetic romance entitled, "De ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... his opinions, they were founded on 'principle', and with the exception of the two above alluded to, he ought never to be accused of changing. Some years since, the late Charles Matthews, the comedian, (or rather, as Coleridge used to observe, "the comic poet acting his own poems,") showed me an autograph letter from Mr. Wordsworth to Matthews' brother, (who was at that time educating for the bar) and with whom he corresponded. In this letter he made the following observation, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... highways the spell of my singular acquaintance lost much of its potency, and already I found myself doubting the story of Dr. Kreener and Tcheriapin. Indeed, I began to laugh at myself, conceiving that I had fallen into the hands of some comedian who was making sport of me; although why such a person should visit ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... covering themselves up with The Times. In the trains, returning husbands asked each other loudly, "What's all this about zinc?"—all save the very innocent ones, who whispered, "I say, what is zinc exactly?" The music-halls took it up. No sooner had the word "Zinc" left the lips of an acknowledged comedian than the house was in roars of laughter. The furore at the Collodium when Octavius Octo, in his world-famous part of the landlady of a boarding-house, remarked, "I know why my ole man's so late. 'E's buying zinc," is still remembered in the bars ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... him say to Soames. 'There is a type of person to whom the very mention of my name is—oh-so-awfully-funny! In your theatres the dullest comedian needs only to say "The Devil!" and right away they give him "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... misery when the excitement was over. Tragedies deep and dire were the chief favourites. Comedy brought with it too great a contrast to the inner despair: when such were attempted, it was not unfrequent for a comedian, in the midst of the laughter occasioned by his disporportioned buffoonery, to find a word or thought in his part that jarred with his own sense of wretchedness, and burst from mimic merriment into sobs and tears, while the spectators, seized with irresistible sympathy, wept, and the pantomimic ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... interspersing the words o f her song with grimaces and appropriate action. Tavernake sat down with a barely-smothered groan. He was beginning to realize the tragedy upon which he had stumbled. A comic singer followed, who in a dress suit several sizes too large for him gave an imitation of a popular Irish comedian. Then the curtain went up and the professor was seen, standing in front of the curtain and bowing solemnly to a somewhat unresponsive audience. A minute later Beatrice came quietly in and sat by his side. There was nothing new about the show. Tavernake had seen the same thing before, with ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thought. Mitchell was privileged. He was a young man of freckled, sandy complexion, and quizzical grey eyes. "Sly Joker" "could take a rise out of anyone on the quiet;" "You could never tell when he was getting at you;" "Face of a born comedian," as bushmen said of Mitchell. But he would probably have been a dead and dismal failure on any other stage than that ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... the Comedian says, So many Men, so many Minds, and every Man has his own Way; yet no Body can make me believe, there is more Variety in Mens Dispositions, than there is in their Palates: So that you can scarce find ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... St. Clare The Red Lily Mother of Pearl The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard The Garden of Epicurus Thais The Merrie Tales of Jacques Tournebroche Joan of Arc. Two volumes. $8 net per set. Postage extra. The Comedian's Tragedy The Amethyst Ring M. Bergeret in Paris Life and Letters (4 vols.) Pierre Noziere The White Stone Penguin Island The Opinions of Jerome Coignard Jocasta and the Famished Cat The Aspirations of Jean Servien The Elm Tree ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... then, the Formes Figaro was 'developed from the depths of his subjective moral consciousness,' whereas the Figaro of a Southern European is the thing itself—like Charles Mathews playing the part of Charles Mathews, or like the Greek comedian's imitation of a pig's voice, by pinching a veritable pork-let, which he bore concealed within ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... orchestra. theatrical costume, theatrical properties. movie studio, back lot, on location. part, role, character, dramatis personae [Lat.]; repertoire. actor, thespian, player; method actor; stage player, strolling player; stager, performer; mime, mimer^; artists; comedian, tragedian; tragedienne, Roscius; star, movie star, star of stage and screen, superstar, idol, sex symbol; supporting actor, supporting cast; ham, hamfatter [Slang]; masker^. pantomimist, clown harlequin, buffo^, buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... other than the Goncourts, whose insignificance approached at times imbecility, and in addition, Alphonse Daudet, with the air of a cheap comedian and an armful of mediocre books—a truly French diet, feeble, but well seasoned. These poor Giants, of whom Zola would talk, have become so weak and shrunken with time, that nobody is able any longer to make them ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... entertainment at the "Pav." Ingress and egress is not difficult, and the place doesn't become inconveniently hot. The sweet singer with the poetic name of HERBERT CAMPBELL is very funny; which indeed he would be, even if he never opened his mouth. Such a low comedian's "mug!" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... good, bad or indifferent) are so excellently blended as to make the most finished picture of a poetical coxcomb: 'Tis such a master-piece of true humour as will ever last, while our English tongue is understood, or the stage affords a good comedian to play it. How shall I now avoid the imputation of vanity, when I relate, that this piece, on being revived (when I[2] first appeared in the part of Bayes) at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden in the year 1739, was, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... what great talkers think small matter of themselves? He had a slave, a Greek, named Zosimus, of whom he writes to his friend Paulinus, who had an estate at Frejus: "He is a person of great worth, diligent in his services, and well skilled in literature; but his chief talent is that of a comedian. He pronounces with great judgment, propriety, and gracefulness; he has a very good hand too upon the lyre, and performs with more skill than is necessary for one of his profession. To this I must add, he reads history, oratory, and poetry. He is endeared to me by ties of long affection, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... it we observe the choragus, surrounded by masks and other accessories (the choragus was the manager and director); he is making two actors, got up as satyrs, rehearse their parts; behind them, another comedian, assisted by a costumer of some kind, is trying to put on a yellow garment which is too small for him. Thus we can re-people the antechamber of the stage. We see already those comic masks that were the principal ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... giving information concerning the unfair manner in which they were dismissed from life, is popularly alleged to have been a frequent reason why departed spirits revisit the nether world, it is yet only in a play of the witty comedian, Foote, that the reader will find their appearance become the subject of formal and very ingenious pleadings. In his farce called the Orators, the celebrated Cocklane Ghost is indicted by the name of ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... friend Hogarth—the most British of artists, even as Fielding was the most British of writers. But the greatest and most permanent facts of life are to be found in the smallest circles. Two men and a woman may furnish either the tragedian or the comedian with the most satisfying theme. And so, although his range was limited, Richardson knew very clearly and very thoroughly just that knowledge which was essential for his purpose. Pamela, the perfect woman of humble life, Clarissa, the perfect lady, Grandison the ideal gentleman—these were the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... then lone and ever sweet locality. We hear her swearing, as she was wont to do, perchance at the dim looking-glasses, her own house in Pall Mall, given her by the king, having been filled up, for the comedian, entirely, ceiling and all, with looking-glass. How bold and pretty she looked in her undress! Even Pepys—no very sound moralist, though a vast hypocrite—tells us: Nelly, 'all unready' was 'very pretty, prettier far than he thought.' But to see ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... doubt most of the dialogue would be given right at the back of the stage, out of ear-shot of the audience. In ordinary dramas the Villain who may have to use strong language, or in farce the Eccentric Comedian who frequently has to utter more or less playfully a meaningless "big big D," would by Imperial command be compelled to "retire up" to deliver himself of the expletive, and then would have to "come down to the front" and continue the stage-business. ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... comedian will whisper, if you are fortunate enough to get him in confidential mood, that he was really designed by nature to tread the stately walks of tragedy; that had not cruel fate intervened he would now be enthralling the town with his Hamlet, Macbeth, or Othello, and that even yet he has not ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... between Huxley and Gladstone prompted Toole, the great comedian, to send a box of grease-paints to Huxley with a note saying, "These are for you and Gladstone to use when you make up." It was a joke so subtle and choice that the Huxleys, always dear friends of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... said that Poppaea turned Jewess for the sake of her Jewish actor, and desired to be buried by the Jewish rite when she was dying of the savage kick that killed her and her child—the only act of violence Nero seems to have ever regretted. However that may be, it is sure that she loved the comedian, and that for a time he had unbounded influence in Rome. And so great did their power grow that Claudius Rutilius, a Roman magistrate and poet, a contemporary of Chrysostom, and not a Christian, expressed the wish that Judaea might never have been conquered by Pompey and subdued ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the whole head, which they raised considerably in height. About the body fell long and trailing robes of splendid material and colour, and on the feet were thick-soled boots which increased the height by several inches. The comedian played in low shoes or slippers; and "boot" and "slipper" were therefore terms in common vogue to distinguish the two kinds of theatrical entertainment. Of Pliny's two favourite country-houses on Lake Como one was called ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... of the theatre, was an ex-comedian, a wideawake, genial fellow, who had got rid of his illusions and nourished no exaggerated hopes. He loved peace, books and women. Nanteuil had every reason to speak well of Pradel, and she referred to him without any feeling of ill will, and with ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... of a husband who was a skillful farmer or a lucky fisherman; other talents are required to touch the hearts of nobles, and hers remained indifferent, insensible to the sighs of Kawelo. Nobles then, as to-day, regarded pleasure above all things; and a good comedian was worth more to ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... every point." Thus, on Mr. Greenwood's showing, Plautus could not serve Davies, or should not serve him, in his search for a Roman parallel to "good Will." But Mr. Greenwood also writes, "if he" (Shakespeare) "was to be likened to a Latin comedian, surely Plautus is the writer with whom he should have been compared." {0k} Yet Plautus was the very man who cannot be used as a parallel to Shakespeare. Of course no Roman nor any other comic dramatist closely resembles the AUTHOR of As You Like It. They who selected either Plautus ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... memorandum drawn up that Saturday night now lying before me, we all in the greatest good humor glorified each other: Talfourd proposing the Clock, Macready Mrs. Dickens, Dickens the publishers, and myself the artists; Macready giving Talfourd, Talfourd Macready, Dickens myself, and myself the comedian Mr. Harley, whose humorous songs had been the not least considerable element in the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Duke; he turned the great Duke round his finger. The great Duke smiled, or wept, or fell into his arms, by turns. Alexander's military exploits had rung through the world, his genius for diplomacy and statesmanship had never been disputed; but his talents as a light comedian were, in these interviews, for the first time ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... needn't be afraid of telling me what you think. There's only one person in the world who doesn't realise that Mrs. Cream can't act and never will be able to act ... and that's poor old Cream himself. He's as good a comedian as there is in the world—that little man: the essence of Cockney wit; and he does not know how good he is. He thinks that she is much better than he can ever hope to be, and she thinks so, too; but if it were not for him, MacDermott, she wouldn't get ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Higgs completed his satisfaction, for the audience greeted the comedian with roars of applause. As a rule Eckleton took its drama through the medium of third-rate touring companies, which came down with plays that had not managed to attract London to any great extent, and were trying to make up for failures in the metropolis ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... mumbling manner, his expertness in bringing out distinctly a ridiculous or incongruous sentence, and his skill in selecting such sentences at a glance always drew attention and applause; he had the comedian's technique. ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... business was formerly owned by Mr Beach, and at his death the widow undertook the management of the concern, with assistance from her son William, whose stage cognomen was "Little Billy Beach." Mr Beach, junior, was a better class comedian. The company consisted of, in addition to the last-named, Tom Smith, Jonas Wright, Edward Tate, Jack Buckley, John Spencer, Arthur Bland and myself, and a quartette of ladies, viz.—"Bella," afterwards Mrs William Beach; Ann Tracey, afterwards Mrs John Spencer; and Mrs Wright and "Mother" ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... last time in 1815, after I returned from France. He dined, or lunched, with me at Long's, in Bond Street. I never saw him so full of gayety and good-humor, to which the presence of Mr. Mathews, the comedian, added not a little. Poor Terry was also present. After one of the gayest parties I ever was present at, my fellow-traveller, Mr. Scott of Gala, and I set off for Scotland, and I never saw Lord Byron again. Several letters passed between us—one perhaps every half-year. Like the old heroes ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... irresponsible low comedian of the chessboard. "He is a very uncertain, sneaking, and demoralizing rascal," says an American writer. "He can only move two squares, but makes up in the quality of his locomotion for its quantity, for he can spring one square sideways and one forward simultaneously, ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... the common magnet was the theatre, and the Folies Bergeres, featuring a humorous extravaganza, Zig Zag, in which was starred a famous English comedian, drew its ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... century that Shakespeare 'did act exceedingly well.' {43c} But the roles in which he distinguished himself are imperfectly recorded. Few surviving documents refer directly to performances by him. At Christmas 1594 he joined the popular actors William Kemp, the chief comedian of the day, and Richard Burbage, the greatest tragic actor, in 'two several comedies or interludes' which were acted on St. Stephen's Day and on Innocents' Day (December 27 and 28) at Greenwich Palace ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... "Madame Butterfly" warbles mellifluously: "Highball or straight?" And when we reach musical comedy and vaudeville, all thought of drama, technically speaking, is abandoned in watching the capers of the "merry-merry" or the outrageous "Dutch" comedian wielding ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... the shrew where we find her: she certainly is better with the comedian than with the philosopher. But this indistinctness in the moral and political line begets indifference. He who does not keep his own country more closely in view than any other, soon mixes land with sea, and sea with air, and loses sight of every thing, at least, for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... subject, he nevertheless owes, as do all French fiction writers since 1830—Stendhal alone excepted—his literary existence to Balzac; Balzac, from whom all blessings, all evils, flow in the domain of the novel; Balzac, realist, idealist, symbolist, naturalist, humourist, tragedian, comedian, aristocrat, bourgeois, poet, and cleric; Balzac, truly the Shakespeare of France. The Human Comedy attracted the synthetic brain of Zola as he often tells us (see L'Oeuvre, where Sandoz, the novelist, Zola himself, explains to Claude his scheme of a ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... in that generous and loyal spirit which nobody would have appreciated more than the free-hearted Diderot himself. The drift of Goethe's contention is, in fact, the thesis of Diderot's Paradox on the Comedian. But the state of painting in France—and Goethe admits it—may have called for a line of criticism which was an exaggeration of what Diderot, if he had been in Goethe's neutral position, would have found ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... pondering over her answer. A famous French comedian was holding the stage, and the house rocked ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... actors distress nobody but themselves. A tale of woe told off the stage by a broad comedian, begets little sympathy; and if he is in the "heavy line," people say he is used to it, and is only acting—playing off upon you a melancholy joke, that he may judge how it will tell at night. Thus, when misfortune takes a benefit, charity seldom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... and the cavorting of a comedian with funny feet become matters of life, death, and immortality; you grasp the pillars of the universe and strain as you sway back to that befrilled ticket girl. You grip your soul for riot and murder. You choke and sputter, and she seeing that you ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... imaginings has been, not only discussed, but defined with precision and in the end authoritatively proclaimed. Voltaire, in truth, has significantly remarked, in his "Vie de Moliere," when referring to Poquelin's determination to become Comedian as well as Dramatist, that among the Athenians, as is perfectly well known, authors not only frequently performed in their own dramatic productions, but that none of them ever felt dishonoured by speaking gracefully in the presence and hearing ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... it is true, the desire, but not the ability, to be an actress or a songstress. When she played the part of a comedian, no one felt tempted to laugh; but contrariwise it might often happen that, when her part was tragical, impressive and touching even to tears, the faces of her auditors brightened with ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... no weapons. I am aware that the traditional hero is always armed, and that Hotchkiss as the low comedian should have had a revolver that missed fire. As a fact, we had nothing of the sort. Hotchkiss carried the fire tongs, but my sense of humor was too strong for me; I ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... historical attitude toward certain subjects. For example, "The Contrast" contains the first American Stage Yankee—a model for a succession of Stage Yankees to follow. But, whereas Royall Tyler's Jonathan was not especially written to exploit the peculiar abilities of Mr. Wignell, the comedian, most of the Yankee plays of a later date were written to exploit the peculiar excellences of such actors as G. H. Hill and ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists - 1765-1819 • Various
... interrupted. "Upon my word!" Mr. Cardiff had the serious facial muscles of a comedian, and the rigid discipline he was compelled to give them as a professor of Oriental tongues of London University intensified their effect when it was absurd. The rest laughed, and his cousin went on to say that she wished she had the gift. Her daughter echoed her, looking ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... Miller was an English comedian who lived from 1684 to 1738. The year after his death there appeared a little book called Joe Miller's Jests. These stories and jokes, however, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Liston, the famous comedian, was at this time a member of the Durham company, and though he began his career there by reciting Collins's "Ode to the Passions," attired in a pea-green coat, buckskins, top-boots, and powder, with a scroll in his hand, and followed up this essay of his powers with the tragic ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... facetious comedian and song-writer, favoured by Charles II. Known for his collection of sonnets, Pills to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cared for anything but her own body and is one of the stupidest women in the world," thought Pierre, "is regarded by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... In vain you may know him to the core—know him a liar, a comedian—he manages always to get the better of you with his stories. My account, mine!—mine! I was so affected by the thought that my legs seemed to give way beneath me as I went to ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... him through whole ages, and recently sanctioned by the voice of the people, did not scruple to excite a civil war in defence of their six months' sovereignty over a republic, proclaimed by a ferocious comedian, and certainly without the assent of the nation. Had the ill-fated Monarch dared thus to trifle with the lives of his subjects, he might have saved ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... singing coon songs of his own composition. A tragedian famous on two continents and an island first attracted attention by an amateur impersonation of a newly landed Scandinavian peasant girl. One Broadway comedian that turns 'em away got a booking on a Friday night by reciting (seriously) the graveyard scene ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... genius, will eagerly collect little contemporary volumes which seem trash to other amateurs. For example, to a student of Moliere, it is a happy chance to come across "La Carte du Royaume des Pretieuses"—(The map of the kingdom of the "Precieuses")—written the year before the comedian brought out his famous play "Les Precieuses Ridicules." This geographical tract appeared in the very "Recueil des Pieces Choisies," whose authors Magdelon, in the play, was expecting to entertain, when Mascarille made his appearance. ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... the Cid, when he brought out his Illusion Comique, a mediocre piece, Corneille's last sacrifice to the taste of his day. Towards the end of the year 1636, the Cid was played for the first time at Paris. There was a burst of enthusiasm forthwith. "I wish you were here," wrote the celebrated comedian Mondory to Balzac, on the 18th of January, 1637, "to enjoy amongst other pleasures that of the beautiful comedies that are being played, and especially a Cid who has charmed all Paris. So beautiful is he that he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... spectators." Michael Root and John Sleepe, two clever caterers of "Bartlemy," also advertise "a little boy that dances the Cheshire Round to perfection." There is a portrait of Dogget the celebrated comedian (said to be the only one extant, but query if it is not Penkethman?), representing him dancing the Cheshire Round, with the motto ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... enough to the showy entrance way, with the polished and begilded lobby, set with framed pictures out of the current attraction, leading up to the quiet box-office, but she could get no further. A noted comic opera comedian was holding forth that week, and the air of distinction and prosperity overawed her. She could not imagine that there would be anything in such a lofty sphere for her. She almost trembled at the audacity which might have carried her on to a terrible rebuff. ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... wrote two pieces in my library, viz. (1.) Petticoat Plotter, a farce in two acts; acted at Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, 1720, 12mo. This has been mutilated by Henry Ward, a York comedian, and actually printed by him as his own production, in the collection of plays and poems going under his name, published in 1745, 8vo., a copy of which I purchased at Nassau's sale, many years since. (2.) The Doating ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... heart desired. He adored "La Belle Lucerce," the fascinating Snake Charmer, and somewhere in the background the artiste had a husband. Little the audience suspected the passion that devoured their grotesque comedian while he cut his capers and turned love to ridicule; little they divined the pathos of a situation which condemned him behind the scenes to whisper the most sentimental assurances of devotion when disfigured by a flaming wig and a nose that was ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... in a letter to Forster, dated September, 1847, of "improvements in the Margate Theatre since his memorable first visit." It had been managed by a son of the great comedian Dowton, and the piece which Dickens then saw was As You Like It, "really very well done, and a most excellent house." It was Mr. Dowton's benefit, and "he made a sensible and modest kind of speech," which ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... With strong passions in a feeble frame, he had duped his imagination that, like another Pygmalion, he would create a woman by his own art. In silence and agony he tasted the bitter fruits of the disordered habits of the life of a comedian, a manager, and a poet. His income was splendid; but he himself was a stranger to dissipation. He was a domestic man, of a pensive and even melancholy temperament. Silent and reserved, unless in conversation with that ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... believed in the absolute value of conventional signs. As to the grossness of the trap into which he fell, the explanation must be that two sentiments of such absorbing magnitude cannot exist simultaneously in one heart. The danger of that other and unconscious comedian robbed him of his vision, of his perspicacity, of his judgment. Indeed, it did at first rob him of his self-possession. But he regained that through the necessity—as it appeared to him imperiously—to do something at once. To do what? Why, to get her out of the house as quickly as possible. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... celebration of Founder's Day he took the part of Fluellen in a scene from Henry V, and sustained a very different role, that of Karl der Sieberite, in a scene from Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans. Reviewing the performances, The Alleynian said of the former: "In this piece Jones was the comedian. He was clumsy and not quite at home on the boards, but ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... permitted to remain until the close of his season, he would have earned enough, with what he had already, to attain the independence which was his aim and hope. His best friends in London were Charles Reade, Tom Hood, Tom Robertson, the dramatist, Charles Mathews, the comedian, Tom Taylor and Arthur Sketchley. He did not meet Mr. Dickens, though Mr. Andrew Haliday, Dickens' familiar, was also his intimate. He was much persecuted by lion hunters, and therefore had to keep his lodgings something of ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... ill-proportioned. Neither was Mr. Monk ill at ease or ungraceful in his actions. Clothed in that extravagantly correct costume—correct, at least, for a drawing-room, if never for motoring—he had all the appearance of a comedian fresh from the hands of his dresser. One naturally expected of him mere grotesqueries—and found simply the courteous demeanour of a gentleman of the world. So much for externals. But what more? Nature herself had cast Mr. Monk in the very mould of a masquerader. What manner of man was hidden ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... make yourself understood. Money only doesn't have to talk German at the city hall. That is transferred without being translated. The mayor of the town talks, in his public addresses, a lingo that would make the fortune of a vaudeville comedian of the Dutch Daly stripe; and his son, who is his secretary, has the physiognomical symptoms of intellectuality that you might expect in a dude who eats with his knife, or any Brummel of "the bad lands." ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... both had parts in the entertainment. Jack made a good "bones" for the minstrels, and he coaxed his chum to don a burnt-cork face for that one evening, and show what he could do as a comedian of parts. ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... the head through a screen of ethmoids, since he straightened himself, threw his head back, and moved toward the middle of the altar with such pompousness and gravity that Capitan Tiago found him more majestic than the Chinese comedian of the night before, even though the latter had been dressed as an emperor, paint-bedaubed, with beribboned sword, stiff beard like a horse's mane, and high-soled slippers. "Undoubtedly," so his thoughts ran, "a single curate of ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... when a man consents to play the part which du Tillet had allotted to Roguin, he develops the talents of a comedian; he has the eye of a lynx and the penetration of a seer; he magnetizes his dupe. The notary had seen Birotteau some time before Birotteau had caught sight of him; when the perfumer did see him, Roguin held out ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... others, most of them had known little else for weeks than alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused and excited to-night by Mrs. Jellison's audacities as a Londoner is by his favourite low comedian at his favourite music-hall. They played chorus to her, laughed, baited her; even old Patton was drawn against his ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... closely associated with English political and diplomatic history, also died within the month. During the following month, the antiquary, Gaily Knight, and General Sir Henry Clinton, G.C.B., were among the celebrities who passed away. In the month of March, the decease of Mr. Liston, the comedian, attracted public notice. In June, Haydon, the celebrated painter, died by his own hand, impelled by want. He had frequently been indebted to the generous-hearted liberality of Sir Robert and Lady Peel for aid, and the last assistance he ever received was from ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... red-nosed comedian rather shocked George, who had supposed that red-nosed comedians belonged to the past. However, the man was atoned for by three extremely beautiful and graceful young girls who followed him. Round about the small group was ranged a semicircle of handsome creatures in long ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... well arranged, the Marechal de Villeroy arrived about mid-day, with his accustomed hubbub, but alone, his chair and porters remaining outside, beyond the Salle des Gardes. He enters like a comedian, stops, looks round, advances some steps. Under pretext of civility, he is environed, surrounded. He asks in an authoritative tone, what M. le Duc d'Orleans is doing: the reply is, he is in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... 1. Returns to Dover. Low comedian; usher (?); apothecary's journeyman; poor physician ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... a sly comedian could make anything amusing; but one cannot help feeling that if the humour of these famous scenes were really permanent it would force its way even through the frosty air of academic culture into our ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... won't do, my dear fellow! You are going home with me; and I will read you some love-letters from a woman of the world. Then we will go to Mourloup's, and play a game of billiards. That's the place to enjoy one's self. You'll see Joseph, of the Commarin household, a splendid comedian." ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the German comedian, and was a first-rate actor in his line. His jollity proved an offset to the gloom of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... Emery, an eminent comedian, played successfully at Covent Garden Theatre between 1798 and 1820. Among his characters, were those of Dandie Dinmont in Guy Mannering, Dougal in Rob Roy, and Ratcliffe in the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... there came a knock at the door, and a young man entered. He had the broad smiling face of a comedian, and the bulgy forehead of a Baptist Missionary. The Pote introduced him ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... elsewhere, but in the Law Courts Playhouse CHARLES DARLING has been lately at his very best. Dropping in there last week, during the performance of a new farce, entitled Romney's Rum 'Un, I was again fascinated by the inexhaustible wit and allusive badinage of this great little comedian, beside whose ready gagging GEORGE GRAVES himself is inarticulate. Had not GEORGE ROBEY invented for application to himself the descriptive phrase, "The Prime Minister of Mirth," it should be at once affixed to the Law Courts' fun-maker; but, since ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... will be allow'd to be master-pieces of ill nature and satyrical snarling. To these I might add that incomparable character of Shylock the Jew in The Merchant of Venice; but tho' we have seen that play receiv'd and acted as a Comedy, and the part of the Jew perform'd by an excellent Comedian, yet I cannot but think it was design'd tragically by the Author. There appears in it such a deadly spirit of revenge, such a savage fierceness and fellness, and such a bloody designation of cruelty and mischief, as cannot agree either with the stile or characters ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... day he entered the laboratory library in fine spirits, "doing" the decayed dandy, with imaginary cane under his arm, struggling to put on a pair of tattered imaginary gloves, with a self-satisfied smirk and leer that would have done credit to a real comedian. This particular bit of acting was heightened by the fact that even in the coldest weather he wears thin summer clothes, generally acid-worn and more or less disreputable. For protection he varies the number of his suits of underclothing, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... was modestly submitted to the actor Lanoue, who, although he bestowed flattering encouragement on Bailly, dissuaded him frankly from exposing Clothaire to the risk of a public representation. On the advice of the comedian-author, the young poet took Iphygenia in Tauris for the subject of his second composition. Such was his ardour, that by the end of three months, he had already written the last line of the fifth act of his new tragedy, and hastened ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... monument to Emery, the comedian, and Neale, another poet, was buried in the churchyard. But these records combined make but poor claim to such a proud title. The ground on which Chatterton was buried has now utterly vanished, having been covered first by the Farringdon Market, ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... time, and owing to the instigation of Essex, that Tarleton, the comedian, laid himself open to banishment from Court for calling out, while Raleigh was playing cards with Elizabeth, 'See how the Knave commands the Queen!' Elizabeth supported her old favourite, but there is no doubt that these attacks made their impression on her ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... other circumstances. The Government had been anxious to do the man a service—they had commanded the arrest of the Boriskoffs—why, at this very Gessner's bidding! And had not the Count warned him to treat the young Englishman as his own son—merely to play a comedian's part and to frighten him before opening the doors with profuse apologies. Zaniloff did not like the turn affairs had taken. He determined to see the Governor-General without a moment's loss of time. Meanwhile there could be no earthly reason why the girl should not be flogged. ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... having "made jests" "at the Theatre," and again in Harrington's Metamorphosis of Ajax in 1596, as follows: "Which word was after admitted into the Theatre by the mouth of Mayster Tarleton, the excellent comedian." As Tarleton died in 1588 these references cannot apply to the "Theatre" later than this date, and if they apply at all to Burbage's Theatre and the term is not used generically, they apply to it in the years preceding 1583, when Tarleton played at the Theatre ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... proceeding with John Kemble in the Stranger, when he was interrupted by the King, who, in the most affable manner, observed that his general imitations were excellent, and such as no one who had ever seen the characters could fail to recognise; but he thought the comedian's portrait of John Kemble somewhat too boisterous.—"He is an old friend, and I might add, tutor of mine," observed his Majesty: "when I was Prince of Wales he often favoured me with his company. I will ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... office and wrote his column at home. Luckily a favorite old comedian had died recently. He could fill up with reminiscence and anecdote. But it was soon done and he was back in his ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... smash, all right!" exclaimed Carl Switzer, the comedian of the company. "I pelief ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... year 1838 he settled in Philadelphia. He had no very Definite purposes, but trusted for support to the chances of success as a magazinist and newspaper correspondent. Mr. Burton, the comedian, had recently established the "Gentleman's Magazine," and of this he became a contributor, and in May, 1839, the chief editor, devoting to it, for ten dollars a week, two hours every day, which left him abundant time for more important labors. In the same month he agreed to ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... truly an incomparable comedian, for his last observation was made in a tone of remarkable candor, just tinged with sufficient irony to show that he felt he had nothing to ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... theatrical entertainment which may be described as the "At Home" performance, in which he probably never had a rival. Many of us can still remember his yet more gifted son, the younger Charles Mathews, the incomparable light comedian of a ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... celebrated comedian, played the following trick upon Doctor Gower, who was then provost of his college, a man of considerable learning, but rather of a grave ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... at some of Lady Dilke's evenings was the production of French comedies by M. Brasseur, the celebrated comedian, and father of the well-known actor of the present day. At all times in Sir Charles Dilke's life his house was a great meeting-place for those who loved and knew ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... bed, she answered the questions he put to her concerning the actor briefly; then begged of him to excuse her, as she heard voices in the shop. Mr. Lennox had come in bringing two men with him, Joe Mortimer, the low comedian, and young Montgomery, the conductor; and it became difficult to prevent Hender from listening at the doors, and almost useless to remind her of the fact that there were children present, so excited did she become when she spoke of ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... that was revealed in the songstress's acting, in her voice full of charm and tenderness, was inspired by him. He alone lent fire to the glances of those deep eyes, and that idea ought to have made him proud, but the comedian's vanity proved stronger. At the end of the performance he sent for the leader of the claque and rated him soundly. They had missed his entry and his exit, forgotten the recall at the third act; he would complain ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... St. Mary's parish, was buried in old St. Pancras graveyard, 1 March, 1694. Careless historians and critics even now continually confuse Mrs. Mary Lee, Lady Slingsby, with Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, the wife of the celebrated comedian, Antony Leigh. The two actresses must be carefully distinguished. Geneste curiously enough gives a very incomplete list of Lady Slingsby's roles, a selection only, as he allows; he makes several bad mistakes as to dates, and entirely fails to appreciate the merits and importance ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... as tribune and publicist, as comedian and tragedian, showed itself to perfection. He gave a free rein to his imagination in his placards, in which he affected the proverbial language of the moujik, made himself a peasant, more than a peasant, in his eccentric style, to excite patriotism. ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... like Garrick, he was capable of a great variety of moods and parts. How carefully he studied the varieties of gesticulation is indicated by a curious story preserved by Valerius Maximus, that he and Roscius the great comedian used to go and sit in the courts in order to observe the action of ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... whillaloo That oft smacked of "Killaloe," The contagious wrath of Buskin and of Sock Hath abated for awhile, And no more the Emerald Isle On the stage and in the green-room seems to shock. The curtain is rung down, The comedian and the clown, With the sombre putter-on of tragic airs, Are gone, with all the cast, And the Theatre, at last, Is "Closed for Alterations ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... the matter? You look as sad as a low comedian by daylight!" Previous to this salutation came a ringing slap on the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Boucicault; by the resuscitation of the spectacle play, with its lavish tinsel and calcium glare and its multitudinous nymphs; by the opera bouffe, with its frequent licentious ribaldry; by the music-hall comedian, with his vulgar realism; and by the idiotic burlesque; with its futile babble and its big-limbed, half-naked girls. Nevertheless there are just as good actors now living as have ever lived, and there is just ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... campaign of murder is typified by making Von Tirpitz, its inventor, an addle-headed seahorse, the nursery comedian of the sea. Stupid and ridiculous bewilderment stares from his foolish eyes. Another submarine has failed to find a safe victim in a trading ship, but has been hoisted with its own sea petard. The impotence ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... disguises on the stage. All she now wants is teaching and practice, to make her sure of her own resources. The experience of her, thus gained, has revived an idea in my mind which originally occurred to me at one of the "At Homes" of the late inimitable Charles Mathews, comedian. I was in the Wine Trade at the time, I remember. We imitated the Vintage-processes of Nature in a back-kitchen at Brompton, and produced a dinner-sherry, pale and curious, tonic in character, round in the mouth, a favorite with the Court of Spain, at nineteen-and-sixpence ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Othello's occupation's gone!" his chin fell on his breast, and he turned to his son and said: "O God, I am dying! speak to them Charles," and the audience in sympathy cried, "Take him off! take him off!" and he was carried away to die. Poor Edmund Kean! When Schiller, the famous comedian, was tormented with toothache, some one offered to draw the tooth. "No," said he, "but on the 10th of June, when the house closes, you may draw the tooth, for then I shall have nothing to eat with it." The impersonation of character is often the means of destroying health. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... 1588), a volume of songs, sonnets and other poems (Milan, 1601), and a collection of letters, published after her death. She inspired many of the French poets, notably Isaac du Ryer (d. c. 1631). Her son GIAMBATTISTA ANDREINI (1578-1650) was born in Florence, and had a great success as a comedian in Paris under the name of Leylio. He was a favourite with Louis XIII., and also with the public, especially as the young lover. He left a number of plays full of extravagant imagination. The best known ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... in front of the curtain announcing that, "owing to Mr. Renshaw's sudden illness, the talented comedian, Mr. Thomas Mogley, had kindly consented to play Mephisto, at short notice, ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... comedian came to London with his company. The English called him Drousiano, but his real name was Drousiano Martinelli, the same who, with his brother Tristano, visited the court of Philip II, and there is no reason to suppose that he was either the first or the last of his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... is hugely amused at my woe. He says I must remember that you can't slip the Idylls of the King in between the Black-faced Comedian and the Elephant Act. I suppose I must just bear it, grinning if possible, until I have won my footing and then I won't allow so much as a ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... associated with the coarse and the farcical—Lowell's little poem of "'Zekel's Courtship" being the single exception—that it seems hardly adapted to the simple and tender fancies of Hebel. Like the comedian whose one serious attempt at tragic acting was greeted with roars of laughter, as an admirable burlesque, the reader might, in such a case, persist in seeing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... likeness of a ragged black streak. With his large and eccentric ears flapping back in the wind and his afterpart hunched in, he ran round and round the little orchard like a dog gone wild. Altogether a comedian, when he heard children shrieking with laughter, he circled the more wildly; then all upon an unexpected instant came to a dead halt, facing his audience, his nose on the ground between his two forepaws, his hindquarters high and unstooping. And, seeing they laughed at this, too, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... was the nursery of the topical song. There, by lantern or candle-stump, wit Rabelaisian, Aristophanic or Antarctic was cradled into rhyme. From there, behind the scenes, the comedian in full dress could step before the footlights into salvoes of savage applause. "A Pair of Unconventional Cooks are we, are we," and the famous refrain, "There he is, that's him," were long unrivalled in ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... its florid frame, with a silken scarf, which testified to the candour of Greville Fane's bad taste. It made him look like an unsuccessful tragedian; but it was not a thing to trust. He may have been a successful comedian. Of the two children the girl was the elder, and struck me in all her younger years as singularly colourless. She was only very long, like an undecipherable letter. It was not till Mrs. Stormer came ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... hundred francs of me in silver,—an enormous sum at present rates. Three days before he breakfasted with you I met him on the street, and he gave such a piteous account of his poverty that I let him have two louis.' 'If I have been the dupe of a clever comedian,' I said to Bordin, 'so much the worse for him, not for me. But tell me what to do.' 'You must try to get from him a written acknowledgment; for a debtor, however, insolvent he may be, may become solvent, ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... the reform party expresses himself still more emphatically than the comedian. "Lending money at interest," he says in the preface to his treatise on agriculture, "has various advantages; but it is not honourable. Our forefathers accordingly ordained, and inscribed it among their laws, that the thief should be bound to pay twofold, but ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... mean step towards patriotism; that he who, in the common intercourse of life, showed he regarded somebody besides himself, when he came to act in a public situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own. Never may we become plus sages que les sages, as the French comedian has happily expressed it, wiser than all the wise and good men who have lived before us. It was their wish, to see public and private virtues, not dissonant and jarring, and mutually destructive, but harmoniously combined, growing out ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... too slavishly to the plot, nor does he wish us to; and, in fact, we have turned the part made so famous by Mr. IRVING'S father into something a shade more droll, to suit Mr. LESLIE HENSON, than whom, I take the liberty of thinking,"—here the young officer saluted—"no funnier comedian now walks the boards. We are also changing the title from The Bells to The Belles, as being more in keeping with Gaiety traditions. But I must ask you to excuse me; I fancy Sir DAVID BEATTY ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... "William the Conqueror," "Standard Bread." If you are sad, you will feel better. If you are suicidal, you will throw the poison away, and you will not be the first man whose life has been saved by a low comedian. You may wonder why this eulogy of food in all these songs. The explanation is simple. In the old days, the music-hall was just a drinking den, and all the jolly songs were in praise of drink. Now that all modern halls ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... who, however truly he may have been a humorist, is described here rather as a man of fashion. A man of fashion he certainly was, but is best known in our literature as a comedian,—worshipping that comic Muse to whom Thackeray hesitates to introduce his audience, because she is not only merry but shameless also. Congreve's muse was about as bad as any muse that ever misbehaved herself,—and I think, as ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Cambridge, preferred to deliver the impassioned lines of the great renunciation scene in a manner suggesting a small boy (and a sufferer from nasal catarrh at that) speaking a piece at a Sunday-school treat. The recollection of the hideous depression and gloom which the leading comedian had radiated in great clouds fled from him like some grisly nightmare before the goddess of day. Every cell in his brain was occupied, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, by the girl swimming in the ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... if my conjectures are correct she is strangely astute. At heart she is, perhaps, quite simply a crazy romantic or a comedian. It amuses her to manufacture little adventures, to throw tantalizing obstacles in the way of the realization of a vulgar desire. And Chantelouve? He is probably aware of his wife's goings on, which perhaps facilitate his ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... with the Shumans and holding off for better terms before he signed a new one. The owners were staggered at the prices they had to pay him, at that, but they recovered and were still blowing warm when they authorized him to engage Devereux, Stewart, Astor and McGill (McGill was the chief comedian, the Cosmetic King) for all of these ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... a bear came from the thicket, not the growl of an ordinary black bear, comedian of the forest, but the angry rumble of some great ursine beast of which the black bear was only a dwarf cousin. Then he moved swiftly to ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Chancellor of the ex-Savoyard, GEORGE GROSSMITH, now entertaining "on his own hook"), doesn't seem to be a born Savoyard, non nascitur and non fit at present. Good he is, of course, but there's no spontaneity about him. However, for an eccentric comedian merely to do exactly what he is told, and nothing more, yet to do that, little or much, well, is a performance that would meet with Hamlet's approbation, and Mr. GILBERT'S. Mr. FRANK WYATT, as "the new boy" at the Savoy School, doesn't, as yet, seem ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... as Miss Lowell's, for instance. Of course the mere chopping up of unrhythmic prose into capitalized lines without glow, without emotion, is not poetry, any more than the blank verse of the second-rate nineteenth-century "poetic drama," which old Joe Crowell, comedian, described as "good, honest prose set up hind-side foremost." We may eliminate that from the discussion once and for all. But the genuine new poets, who know what they are about, and doubtless why they are about it, I regard with all ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... 'making mouths at the invisible event.' But the times are fast improving; and if the process of sanctity begun under the happy auspices of the present licenser go on to its completion, it will be as necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith as of his conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and Dicky Suett, if he were alive, would have had to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various |
