"Actor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... put in charge of me when I was at Combray, might refuse to take my note. I had a suspicion that, in her eyes, to carry a message to my mother when there was a stranger in the room would appear flatly inconceivable, just as it would be for the door-keeper of a theatre to hand a letter to an actor upon the stage. For things which might or might not be done she possessed a code at once imperious, abundant, subtle, and uncompromising on points themselves imperceptible or irrelevant, which gave it a resemblance to those ancient laws which combine such cruel ordinances as the massacre ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... keep the appointment he had been so eager to make, so that at length even Dr. Bayly was tempted to doubt something evil in the 'design that carried with it such a conflict within the bosom of the actor.' It soon became evident, however, that it was but the dread of such possible consequences as I have already ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... bedroom below, Miss Moppet, whose soul was thrilling with mingled delight and terror at being an actor in a "real story," waited as she was told until she heard the deep voice of the clock, sounding rather more awful than usual, say "one, two, three!" and then tiptoeing over the bare floor she opened with small trembling fingers the tiny aperture and whispered, "Are you there?" starting ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... a man spends too much on such persons, or maintains those comedians who practice unlawful mirth, he sins as encouraging them in their sin. Hence Augustine says (Tract. c. in Joan.) that "to give one's property to comedians is a great sin, not a virtue"; unless by chance some play-actor were in extreme need, in which case one would have to assist him, for Ambrose says (De Offic. [*Quoted in Canon Pasce, dist. 86]): "Feed him that dies of hunger; for whenever thou canst save a man by feeding him, if thou hast not fed him, thou ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... sees with their eyes, speaks with their tongues. His strains are such as he himself—per se—would not, perhaps could not, have originated. In this light he may be said to bring to his subject not one mind, but several; he becomes not one poet, but many; for each actor in his drama has a share, and an important share, in the lyrical estro to which he gives birth. This it is which has imparted any verve, variety, or dramatic character they possess, to the ballads contained in this production. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... walk, and soon reached the store, where they found the group of idlers, that always frequent shops in the country, busily engaged in discussing the affair in which Thomas had been the principal actor. As the boys entered, the hero of the Pinchbrook Battle was saluted with a volley of applause, and his conduct fully approved and commended, for a copperhead in that day was an abomination ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... the trouble has been discovered and as a part of his re-education, the patient is instructed while under only light hypnosis to 'form a picture' in his mind. He is asked to imagine a movie screen and to see himself 'just like an actor' on this screen playing a part. He is told that the picture looks 'very real'—'3-D' in fact—and that he can see himself acting and looking the way he really wants to look and act. Various scenes are suggested ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... Beryllus, a loquacious Sicilian, who, as an actor, had seen better days ere pirates robbed him of his liberty, had heard many new things, and his hearers listened eagerly; for ships coming from the north, which touched at Pelusium, had confirmed and completed the evil tidings that had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rhetorical in one way, more natural in another. A good example, in which the new rhetoric is not oppressive, is the account of the sea fight at the end of Act III. Even when Harris followed his original most closely, we seem to hear the actor, speaking in a new tongue, in a more relaxed and colloquial rhythm. The reader will find it both amusing and instructive to compare the two versions of Act II, scene ii. The new cadences do more than merely prove that Harris had no ear for ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... and musketry as threw them into disorder. Gen. Lee sent all his disposable troops to the rescue, but the Federal fire was so terrible as to disconsert the coolest veterans. Whole ranks of the Confederate troops were hurled to the ground. Says an actor in the conflict: 'The thunder of cannon, the cracking of musketry from thousands of combatants, mingled with the screams of the wounded and dying, were terrific to the ear ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... oftenest to degenerate into mere slovenliness and vulgarity. It is in vain, too, to expect that the meanness of those parts may be redeemed by the excellence of others. A poet, who aims at all at sublimity or pathos, is like an actor in a high tragic character, and must sustain his dignity throughout, or become altogether ridiculous. We are apt enough to laugh at the mock-majesty of those whom we know to be but common mortals in private; and cannot permit Hamlet ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... residing in him, and renders this very exercise possible. (2) Though the Apologists believed in the divine origin of the revelation given to the prophets, on which all knowledge of truth is based, they could nevertheless not be induced by this idea to represent God himself as a direct actor. For that revelation presupposes a speaker and a spoken word; but it would be an impossible thought to make the fulness of all essence and the first cause of all things speak. The Deity cannot be a speaking ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... of Lauderdale, who was the chief actor in these scenes of violence and iniquity, was completely approved and justified at court; but in consequence probably of the state of politics in England at a time when the Whigs were strongest in the House of Commons, some of these grievances were in part ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... reader acquainted circumstantially with three memorable cases of murder, which long ago the voice of amateurs has crowned with laurel, but especially with the two earliest of the three, viz., the immortal Williams' murders of 1812. The act and the actor are each separately in the highest degree interesting; and, as forty-two years have elapsed since 1812, it cannot be supposed that either is known circumstantially to the men ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Meantime the principal actor in this little Russian episode, as the Baron von Rabenstein, captivates the hearts of our English ladies at the ball-room, and empties the pockets of our English gentlemen at the rouge et noir table in the fashionable German watering-place of Lugundtrugbad. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... were not,' said May Dacre. 'What are tableaux, or acted charades, or romances, to masques, which were the splendid and various amusement of our ancestors. Last Christmas we performed "Comus" here with great effect; but then we had Arundel, and he is an admirable actor.' ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... one ingenious police reporter that the bookkeeper was really the guilty man. He even raked up some story of the man at his lodgings which intimated that Chesterton had some art as an actor. Parts of disguises were found abandoned at his empty rooms. This suggestion was made: That Chesterton was a forger and had disguised himself as Mr. Morrell so as to cash the checks without question. Then ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... nature and destiny of man was thus not a compact and consistent system, but a group of intuitions nourished from widely different regions of soul and sense, and undergoing, like the face of a great actor, striking changes of expression without material change of feature under the changing incidence of stress and glow. The ultimate gist of his teaching was presented through the medium of conceptions proper to another school of thought, which, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... advantage in trying to describe what happened to myself in my passage through life. From the earliest days that I can recollect, I felt myself as a twofold being—as a subject and an object, as a spectator and as an actor. I suppose we all talk to ourselves, and say to our better and worse selves, O thou fool! or, Well done, my boy! Well this inward conversation began with me at a very early time, and left the impression that I was the coachman, but at the same time the horse too which ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... to be tried, that they may see the same: AT LEAST time and place aforesaid, the said Arthur Davies was murdered or bereaved of his life, and they, and each of them, or one or other of them, are guilty, actor or art and part of the said murder, aggravated as above set furth; all which, or part thereof, being found proven by the verdict of an Assize, before the Lords Justice General, Justice Clerk, and Commissioners ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... the material from which was builded an actor. Lewis Paine, who brutally hacked at Secretary Seward while Booth was assassinating the President. He was one of the characters produced for the closing ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... behind the scenes, Orville said, "Barton, you did yourself proud! Keep it up when you appear again in the fourth act, and you may consider yourself an actor." ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... Jonadab, "he was a kind of mildewed article, but as a play actor—well, there may be some that can beat him, but I never ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the actor who complains that his manager forbids him to wear his armlet on the stage. The sympathies of the audience might be entirely deranged by the discovery that the elderly villain was an attested patriot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... de Maillebois was not so reverent to the Imperial Majesty as he should have been. Angry belike at the Adventure now forced on him, and harassed with many things; seeing in the Imperial Majesty little but an unfortunate Play-actor Majesty, who lives in furnished lodgings paid for by France, and gives France and Maillebois an infinite deal of trouble to little purpose. Certain it is, he addressed the Imperial Majesty in the most free-and-easy ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... story in connection with this Richmond visit illustrates the romantic phase of Irving's character. Cooper, who was playing at the theatre, needed small-clothes for one of his parts; Irving lent him a pair,—knee-breeches being still worn,—and the actor carried them off to Baltimore. From that city he wrote that he had found in the pocket an emblem of love, a mysterious locket of hair in the shape of a heart. The history of it is curious: when Irving ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... start of so many others as eager as yourself, at least keeps you in a more unbearable suspense before the curtain rises, if it does not enhance the delight with which you follow the performance and see the actor "bend up each corporal agent" to realise a masterpiece of a few hours' duration. With a player so variable as Salvini, who trusts to the feelings of the moment for so much detail, and who, night after night, does the same thing differently but always well, it can never be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... public speakers. Much of the time that is spent in teaching boys to walk upon stilts, might be more advantageously employed in teaching them to walk well without them. It is all very well whilst the pupil is under the protection of his preceptor. The actor on the stage is admired whilst he is elevated by the cothurnus; but young men are not to exhibit their oratorical talents always with the advantages of stage effect and decorations. We should imagine, that much of the diffidence felt by young ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... nestles confidingly amid the most savage and sublime forms of nature, he had experienced whatever impulses the creative faculty can receive from mountain and cloud and the voices of winds and waters, but he had known man only as an actor in fireside histories and tragedies, for which the hamlet supplied an ample stage. In France he first felt the authentic beat of a nation's heart; he was a spectator at one of those dramas where the terrible footfall of the Eumenides is heard nearer ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... fair Nature, by divine command Her magic pencil in his glowing hand, A Shakspeare rose; then, to expand his fame Wide o'er this breathing world, a Garrick came. Though sunk in death the forms the Poet drew, The Actor's genius bade them breathe anew; Though, like the bard himself, in night they lay, Immortal Garrick called them back to day: And till Eternity with power sublime Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary Time, Shakspeare and Garrick ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... curses. The fugitive's life was saved by a company of the trainbands; and he was carried before the Lord Mayor. The Mayor was a simple man who had passed his whole life in obscurity, and was bewildered by finding himself an important actor in a mighty revolution. The events of the last twenty-four hours, and the perilous state of the city which was under his charge, had disordered his mind and his body. When the great man, at whose frown, a few days before, the whole kingdom had trembled, was, dragged into the justice ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... excellence to be attained by an employer. And toward this quarry Duncan was now hastening at the full speed of his big Packard-sixty, with the trusted Thompson at the wheel; and toward it, as the chief actor, Richard Morton had started away from Cedarcrest with a broken heart, and with a brain crazed by the calamities that had rushed so swiftly ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... me more like what I supposed mothers to be than any other I had known—"my child, 'it is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe unto them through whom they come!' It seems to me probable that one sin may be written in many books: that the actor, and the inciter, and the abettor—ay, and those who might have prevented, and did not—may all have their share. Thy coming hither, and thy religious life, having received no vocation of God, was not thy fault, poor, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... experienced a grim satisfaction in the boy's complaints. What did these wordy friends of Job know of sorrow and despair? As though they were conditions that could be explained away! He turned almost to the end of the story, and there he paused. A new actor had entered the sorrowful drama. Out of the whirlwind there came a Voice—the voice of the Infinite—and before its thunder the souls of Job and ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... how Waka circumvented Malio and restored her grandchild to the husband designed for her. The whole thing sounds like a dramatic innovation with farcical import, which appeared in the tale without motivation for the reason that it had none in its inception. The oral narrator is rather an actor than a composer; he may have introduced this episode as a surprise, and its success as farce perpetuated it ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... actor in a pantomime, and rehearsed the scene every day for a week, he could not have arrived more precisely, than when he made his appearance at the very moment Mr. Hunter was about to declare ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... quaint animal-like movements of the draped figure. He wears a huge grotesque scarlet mask on his head, and at times makes this monster appear to stretch out and draw in its neck by an unseen change in position of the mask from the head to the gradually extended and draped hand of the actor. The beat of a drum and the whistle of a bamboo flute formed the accompaniment to ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... consultations not in public, but in private, and withdrawn from the knowledge of the many; where when this one point was agreed on, that the accused must be rescued whether by just or unjust means, every proposition that was most desperate was most approved; nor was an actor wanted for any deed however daring. Accordingly on the day of trial, when the people stood in the forum in anxious expectation, they at first began to feel surprised that the tribune did not come down; then when the delay ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... rehearsals, and at last after an arduous struggle, I made my debut at the benefit of one of the stock actors. My name was adroitly whispered about, one or two mysterious paragraphs were published at the expense of the actor, and so—curiosity gave me an ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... sought. He found himself thinking almost enviously of the men with whom he had associated,—Philipson, with whom he had been at college, with three plays running at different theatres, interested, even fascinated by his work, chaffing gaily with his principal actor as to the rendering of some of his lines. Then there was Fardell, also a schoolfellow, now a police magistrate, full of dry and pleasant humour, called by his intimates "The Beak "; Amberson, poseur and dilettante thirty years ago, but always ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... showed plainly in almost every face. When Cutler spoke it was with obvious effort. Everybody realized that Blakely, despite severe personal losses, had been the directing head in checking the progress of the flames. Truman had borne admirable part, but Blakely was at once leader and actor. He deserved well of his commander. He was still far from strong. He was weak and weary. His hands and face were scorched and in places blistered, yet, turning his back on the ruins of his treasures, he desired to go at once to join his comrades in the presence of the enemy. He had missed ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the period of the Truce, and their tragic catastrophe, had weakened her purpose and partially paralysed her arm. When the noble Commonwealth went forward to the renewed and general conflict which succeeded the concentrated one in which it had been the chief actor, the effect of those misspent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... PRODUCE CHILDREN'S PLAYS The author is a recognized authority on the production of plays and pageants in the public schools, and combines enthusiastic sympathy with sound, practical instructions. She tells both how to inspire and care for the young actor, how to make costumes, properties, scenery, where to find designs for them, what music to use, etc., etc. She prefaces it all with an interesting historical sketch of the plays-for-children movement, includes ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... There was also much in Seymour himself as well as in his words to attract the attention of the convention.[995] Added years gave him a more stately, almost a picturesque bearing, while a strikingly intelligent face changed its expression with the ease and swiftness of an actor's. This was never more apparent than now, when he turned, abruptly, from the alleged sins of Republicans to the alleged virtues of Democrats. Relaxing its severity, his countenance wore a triumphant smile as he declared in a higher and more resonant key, that "if this Administration ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... child's agony of disappointment when it finds that it has been laughed at instead of being admired. Amyas would have spoken, but he was afraid: however, the evil brought its own cure. The pageant went on, as its actor thought, most successfully for three days or so; but at last the dupe, unable to contain herself longer, appealed to Amyas,—"Ayacanora quite English girl now; is she not?"—heard a titter behind her, looked round, saw a dozen ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... to lose faith in human nature. Whom now could she believe? Could she venture to put confidence in this confession of Miss Fortescue? Was that her real name, and was this her real story, or was it all some new piece of acting, contrived by this all-accomplished actor for the sake of dragging her down to deeper abysses of woe? She felt herself to be surrounded by remorseless enemies, all of whom were plotting against her, and in whose hearts there was no possibility of pity or ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... friend, the Rector of the parish, who has always been keen on theatricals—he would have made a better actor than parson—is having the church seated with plush-covered tip-seats like a theatre, and proposes to have a performance every Sunday Evening, and as often in the week as funds, and interest in the affair, will warrant. Good Heavens! What has the world ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... solicitors' clerks, which was frequently honoured by visits from former associates who had taken to the stage; these happy beings would condescend to recite at times, to give help in getting up a dramatic entertainment, and soon, in this way, Scawthorne came to know an old actor named Drake, who supported himself by instructing novices, male and female, in his own profession; one of Mr. Drake's old pupils was Miss Grace Danver, in whom, as soon as he met her, Scawthorne recognised the Grace Rudd of earlier days. And it was not long after this that he brought to ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... down my throat. I drink his health in a dose of the cheerful beverage known as jalap, and thresh the sheets with my hot hands. I address large assemblages, who have somehow got into my room, and I charge Dr. Williamson with the murder of Luce, and Mr. Irwin, the actor, with the murder of Shakspeare. I have a lucid spell now and then, in one of which James Townsend, the landlord, enters. He whispers, but I hear what he says far too distinctly: "This man can have anything and everything he wants; ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... behind the outward calm of the dark eyes and dimpling curves, a certain excited interest and delight. The current of thought thus revealed contrasted with the calm which she instinctively turned to him, as the words which an actor speaks aside contrast with ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... an interfering and unprovoked intrusion, had defrauded the other of the child's inalienable right to the center of the stage at least once a year. And when one remembers how crowded was the Madigan stage with jealous performers, any actor at all desirous of an opportunity must ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... vocation for the stage, she did her best to make a living for herself and her child by becoming a professional actress. She was not much of an actress, however, and, being unable to make any mark in London, she passed for a time into the provinces, and at last married an actor and ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the Resurrection I am always reminded of the "happy endings" that editors and actor managers are accustomed to impose upon ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... that every reader can supply from his own exciting souvenirs, is absurd and ridiculous on the part of the brain. It is a conclusive proof that the brain is out of condition, idle as a nigger, capricious as an actor-manager, and eaten to the core with loose habits. Therefore the brain must be put into training. It is the most important part of the human machine by which the soul expresses and develops itself, and it must learn good habits. And primarily it must be taught obedience. Obedience can ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... spreading out his fishing-nets and lines. "It is my belief," he said, "that the pretty fellow yonder is some starveling play-actor without a brass farthing to ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... that he was either drunk or asleep,' he answered. 'Lieutenant Sears describes him as a stupid boor. I am not satisfied that he is not a clever actor. What was his position in this house? What was his real duty here? Suppose it was not to guard this woman, but to watch her. Let us imagine that it was not the woman he served, but a master, and see where that leads us. For this house has a ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... knocked in, one end of his collar was unfastened and stuck up into his face, his watch-chain dangled from his pocket, and a yellow satin slipper was tied to a button-hole of his vest; his nose was vermilion, one eye was black and blue. After a short dialogue with the girl, a third actor appeared. He was dressed like a little boy, the girl's younger brother. He wore an immense turned-down collar, and was continually doing hand-springs and wonderful back somersaults. The "act" devolved upon these three people; the lodger making love to the girl in the short blue ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... number of voices as the curtain slid up, to give place to "Bustling Bodkins," the tramp juggler. The actor came out in his usual ragged make-up, and proceeded to do things with a pile of empty cigar boxes—really a clever trick. Dunk watched him with curious gravity for a while and then started to climb over the footlights ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... "Don't cross me here!" And then, shaking his fist at the hills, "To think," cries he, "that I must leave my bones in this miserable wilderness! Would God I had died upon the scaffold like a gentleman!" This he said ranting like an actor; and then sat biting his fingers and staring on the ground, a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are the first thing to be affected by alcohol. And the way he shot that tread-snail. I've seen men who could shoot well on liquor, but not quick-draw stuff. That calls for perfect co-ordination. And the way he went into his tipsy act at the Times—veteran actor slipping into ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... Dog. The conference over, Angelique speedily dismissed De Pean. She was in no mood for flirtation with him. Her mind was taken up with the possibility of danger to Le Gardeur in this plot, which she saw clearly was the work of others, and not of himself, although he was expected to be a chief actor in it. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Puritans. According to Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World, at the trial of one of these martyrs to superstition, George Burroughs, he was accused by eight of the confessing witches "as being the head actor at some of their hellish rendezvouzes, and one who had the promise of being a king in Satan's kingdom, now going to be erected. One of them falling into a kind of trance affirmed that G.B. had carried her ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... in judgment on the performance after its conclusion—on which occasion wine flowed as copiously for those who had acquitted themselves well, as stripes fell to the lot of the bungler—but all the urban magistrates were legally entitled to inflict bodily chastisement and imprisonment on any actor at any time and at any place. The necessary effect of this was that dancing, music, and poetry, at least so far as they appeared on the public stage, fell into the hands of the lowest classes of the Roman burgesses, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... carefully between the ablative of means and the ablative of the personal agent. Both are often translated into English by the preposition by. (Cf. Sec. 100. b.) Means is a /thing; the agent or actor is a /person. The ablative of means has no preposition. The ablative of the personal agent ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... is the question of cast. The author builds his hero in such a manner that he requires an actor who can sing, dance, be funny, and carry a love interest. When the time comes to cast the piece, he finds that the only possible man in sight wants fifteen hundred a week and, anyway, is signed up for the next five years with the rival syndicate. He is then faced with the alternative ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... uplifted hands or contorted features; but their real business seems to be to make the picture. The drama is thrust upon us, and we cannot ignore it; yet we feel that it is no discovery for the artist, but something that he has learnt like a second-rate actor—that he has, in fact, a "bag of tricks" in common with all the Italian painters of his time, and that he is only pretending to be surprised by his subject. Now every age has its artistic platitudes; but these platitudes of dramatic expression are peculiarly wearisome ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... recognizes that her first interest is the work and the life of the home, she must also be interested in the affairs of the day. The home is the heart and kernel of the affairs of the world. It is a mistake to try to get rid of the work of the home; the right way is to enjoy it; just as a doctor, an actor, a writer, a manufacturer or a merchant enjoys his or her work. The affairs both of the home and the world belong to the woman home-maker. We should take pattern by English and French women, for the English ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... forward his slow horse with the whip, until a sharp cut made the beast swerve, and the chaise toppled over the bank, throwing out the driver and the young lady who was with him. The traveler—it was John Bernard, an actor and a man of culture and accomplishments, spurred forward to the rescue. As he did so he saw another horseman put his horse from a trot to a gallop, and together they reached the scene of action, extricated ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... The great painter of portraits, Gilbert Stuart, tells us of Washington that he never saw in any man such large eye-sockets, or such a breadth of nose and forehead between the eyes, and that he read there the evidences of the strongest passions possible to human nature. John Bernard the actor, a good observer, too, saw in Washington's face, in 1797, the signs of an habitual conflict and mastery of passions, witnessed by the compressed mouth and deeply indented brow. The problem had been ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... followed his remarks; for the comic actor was himself far from aiding public morals by ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... can you do with a Scotchman who's mad clear to the marrow? Especially a rough actor like McNutt. I'd already done a mile from the village when along comes 'Chita in her roadster. You know, old man Alvarado's only daughter. Some senorita, 'Chita is. You should have seen those black eyes of her's flash when she ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's voice, and dignity into Washington's port, and America into Adams's eye. Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to lunch, and the children simply did for me what I could not have done for myself. Frank ran his father on funny stories. Then it all came out. Mr. Furniss is an excellent actor—had he not been a caricaturist he must have been a comedian. His powers of imitation are unlimited. He will give you an Irish jarvey one moment and Henry Irving the next, and the children led him on. But it all at once dawned upon Mr. Furniss that it was interfering with ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... dark corners of the room, and to look under the bed. When at last the spectral head appears at the foot-board, Facanapa vanishes with a miserable cry under the bed-clothes, and the scene closes. Intrinsically the scene is not much, but this great actor throws into it a life, a spirit, a drollery ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... At last the chief actor entered, a powerful black bull with sharp horns and fiercely glistening eyes. He had been in a room with holes in the ceiling through which he had been poked with pointed sticks. He was, therefore, tolerably ill-humored before he entered ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... part was given to Elliston, who liked it, and only wanted a prologue, which I have since done and sent; and I had a note the day before yesterday from the manager, Wroughton (bless his fat face, he is not a bad actor in some things), to say that I should be summoned to the rehearsal after the next, which next was to be yesterday. I had no idea it was so forward. I have had no trouble, attended no reading or rehearsal, made no interest; what a contrast ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... done,—the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter's bell; A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task; And, when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... hope, Had she continu'd widow, to have gain'd An infinite mass of treasure by her death: And that was the main cause,—her marriage, That drew a stream of gall quite through my heart. For thee, as we observe in tragedies That a good actor many times is curs'd For playing a villain's part, I hate thee for 't, And, for my sake, say, thou ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... "Sam's a bad actor when he's drinking," one of Pierce's informants told him. "Letty keeps him pretty straight, but once in a while he gets away. When ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... warrant. Behind him paced the Black Colonel, and as he came nearer to myself and the ladies, I saw them turn as if to ask me whether this was in the programme. So far, the Black Colonel had not let his eyes catch ours. He gave himself to the crowd, as a well-graced actor gives himself to the house when it applauds him. He had the music on his side, too, for, at the platform, the piper stepped aside into a corner, still blowing hard, and this brought the Black Colonel full to the front, immediately beside us. Thereupon he slowly bent in salutation to Marget and ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... height. Rainham at first felt quite disconcerted by the proximity of the ludicrous figure in bathing dress who was leaning over the footlights, and declaiming his woes with a directness of appeal to the audience which alone would have marked the nationality of the robust actor, who was creating so much mirth out of the extremely hackneyed situation. He had got into the wrong bathing-machine (Lightmark seemed to find it intensely amusing) and the trousers of the rightful occupant only came down to his knees. Rainham at first was disconcerted, and then he began to feel ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... to the first performance, and saw to my surprise that the chief actor was a Venetian, and a fellow-student of mine, twenty years before, at St. Cyprian's College. His name was Bassi, and like myself he had given up the priesthood. Fortune had made an actor of him, and he looked wretched enough, while I, the adventurer, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... shows that there is much which we can accomplish without speech. Aside from its value to the drama, pantomime has a large significance for acting. The necessity of making one's self intelligible without words forces the actor to weigh and consider every movement, ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... believe that they alone are patriotic. This illusion, to be just, is not fostered chiefly by the press, which wants to sell its work to all classes; but it has strong hold of the Government office. The Government does not know the people, except as an actor knows the audience; and therefore does not trust the people. It is pathetic to hear officials talking timidly of the people—will they endure hardships and sacrifices, will they carry through? Yet most of the successes we have won in the War have to be credited not so much to the ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... the eastern counties, Robertus le chien and Willelmus le curre, who were living about the end of the twelfth century, are now completely disguised as Ken and Kerr. Modern French has both Lechien and the Norman Lequien. [Footnote: Lekain, the name of a famous French actor, has the same origin.] We owe a few other surnames to the friend of man. Kennett, from a Norman dim. ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... that of a fat man which was as round as the moon. Meanwhile Vulcan arrived in a towering rage, demanding back his wife who had slipped away three days ago. The chorus resumed their plaint, calling on Vulcan, the god of the cuckolds. Vulcan's part was played by Fontan, a comic actor of talent, at once vulgar and original, and he had a role of the wildest whimsicality and was got up as a village blacksmith, fiery red wig, bare arms tattooed with arrow-pierced hearts and all the rest of it. A woman's voice ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... graceful and comical. One of them, oddly enough, had a window in the middle of its stomach out of which a baby kangaroo put its long-eared head and stared at them, then popped it in again and shut the window. The secretary-bird proved himself a grand actor; he marched round his cage, bowed two or three times to Fan, then performed the maddest dance imaginable, leaping and pounding the floor with his iron feet, just to show how he broke a serpent's back in ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... he applauded the sound judgment, and deplored the hard manner of Davenport; he viewed calmly what he regarded to be an overestimation of Edwin Booth—one of the first criticisms of an avowedly negative character I have seen aimed directly at this actor. In other words, Bunce fought hard against the encroachment of the new times upon the acting of his early theatre days. The epitome of his old-time attitude is to be found in Appleton's Journal for April 3, 1869. His better mood was to be met with in his discussion ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... like that of the sufferer, the only difference being that one is physical, the other mental? And this is all that mere sympathy has any power to effect; it has led us to its extreme point,—our flesh creeps, and we turn away with almost bodily sickness. But let another actor be added to the drama in the presiding Inquisitor, the cool methodizer of this process of torture; in an instant the scene is changed, and, strange to say, our feelings become less painful,—nay, we feel a momentary interest,—from an instant ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... life of Francisco Pizarro not much is known with certainty. He was born about the year 1471; but even that date is a matter of conjecture, so little care was had of the coming into the world of the actor who was to play so stirring a part in it. The family from which he inherited his name must have been one of some note in its day. His kinsman and great rival in fame, Cortes, was a Pizarro ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... and ordered the servant to lead Captain Molyneux to Miss Pomeroy. Guy was thus forced to be an actor where his highest desire was to be passive. There was no alternative. In that moment all his future was involved. He saw it; he knew it; but he did not shrink. Honor bound him to this marriage, hateful as it was. The other actor in the scene detested it as much ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... for his collection of autograph letters. It was the picture of a well-known actress. He then recalled an advertisement announcing that this particular brand of cigarettes contained, in each package, a lithographed portrait of some famous actor or actress, and that if the purchaser would collect these he would, in the end, have a valuable album of the greatest actors and actresses of the day. Edward turned the picture over, only to find a blank reverse side. "All very well," he thought, "but ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... be an accident," predicted the grouchy actor. "I think you may count me out of this play, Mr. Pertell. I have had ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... guise the actor belongs to himself. He has put on a mask, beneath it his real face still exists; he has thrown himself into a foreign individuality, which in some sense forms a shelter to the integrity of his own ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... even more at a loss concerning her contemporary, John Brooks, of whom I have no other record than the following letter, which appears in the autobiography of the famous author-actor-manager, Thomas Dibdin, of the Theaters Royal, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Haymarket and others. This one communication, however, absolves of any obligation to dig up proofs of John Brooks' versatility: ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... quite naturally set on such insincere distortions of values as are necessary to a constant succession of "big parts" for themselves. Sincerity does not necessarily exclude heroic characters, but it does exclude those mock heroics which actor-managers have been known to prefer—not to real heroics, perhaps, but to simple and sound studies ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... ways in which all economic threads are interwoven with one another. Thus Paley remarks in his work on the Principles of Morals and Politics, that a tobacco manufacturer even may contribute indirectly to the cultivation of grain; an actor, to industry etc. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... the faltering Delegation at Tours, and to stir the blood of France by his invective. There was a touch of the melodramatic not only in his apparition but in his speeches. Frenchmen, however, follow a leader all the better if he is a good stage-manager and a clever actor. The new leader was both; but he ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... it alone) except disgrace, and that does not hurt those who are familiar with it. Such persons are like the figures which are introduced in tragedies, for as they have the shape, and dress, and personal appearance of an actor, but are not actors, so also physicians are many in title but ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... professional jealousy existed. Bowen, a low comedian of "some talent and more conceit," taunted Quin with being tame in a certain role, and Quin retorted in kind, declaring that Bowen's impersonation of a character in "The Libertine" was much inferior to that of another actor. Bowen seems to have had an ill-balanced mind; he was so affected by Jeremy Collier's "Short View" that he left the stage and opened a cane shop in Holborn, thinking "a shopkeeper's life was the readiest way to heaven." ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... company to be present. At last, when he no longer could hold out, the soldier only surrendered after stipulating for the life of himself and his entire band. Notwithstanding his promise, Strozzi, when once his astonishment at the appearance of the single actor who had played so many parts had given place to anger at the deceit practised upon him, was in favor of hanging the Huguenot for his audacity. But Biron would only consent to have him sent to the galleys, a punishment which he escaped ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... time, and there are signs that audiences took advantage of the plays to express their approval or dislike of a statesman. In a letter to Atticus, written in the summer of 59,[501] the first year of the triumvirate, Cicero describes with enthusiasm how at the Ludi Apollinares the actor Diphilus made an allusion to Pompey in the words (from an unknown tragedy then being acted), "Nostra miseria tu es—Magnus," and was forced to repeat them many times. When ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... son of General Joseph Palmer, a prominent actor in the Revolutionary drama in Massachusetts, and Mary, the sister of Judge Richard Cranch, who resided in that part of Braintree called Germantown. Before the war he dealt in West India goods and hardware, at the town dock. Of his share in the ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... can rarely resist a scene: and such this was considered, and laughed at accordingly, ere next morning. It is, nevertheless, difficult to refuse sympathy to the chief actor. Buonaparte was sincerely attached to Maria Louisa, though he treated her rather with a parental tenderness than like a lover; and his affection for his son was the warmest passion in his heart, unless, indeed, we ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... look; calm and serenity of mind is legible upon the brow in eloquent traits. False gravity, on the contrary, places its dignity in the lines of its visage; it is close, mysterious, and guards its features with the care of an actor; all the muscles of its face are tormented, all natural and true expression disappears, and the entire man ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... ladies sing; and the chap in brown Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale, He rattles the keys ... Some actor-bloke from town ... 'God send you home'; and then 'A long, long trail; I hear you calling me'; and 'Dixieland'.... Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. Silent, I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... there,' exclaimed Sergius eagerly, 'that I found my man—a Rhodian, with the forehead, neck, and sinews of a bull. He could have hugged a bull to death almost. Having him, I felt safe, for who could you obtain to stand up against him? But in an evil hour, not over a month ago, this play actor here—this Bassus—by a stupid trick gained him from me. What, then, have I been able to do for myself since? I have sought far and near to replace him, but without success; and had made up my mind, if you would not postpone the trial, to pay up the forfeit for not appearing, and think no more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... is right. Mr. STODDART is an exceptionally able actor, but of late he has grown intolerably coarse and vulgar while on the stage. His profanity has disgraced himself and the theatre, and his gratuitous insult to an estimable lady, who had the misfortune ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... Another actor had appeared upon the scene. At the spot where the game had entered the water stood the black hound, sniffing the air for some taint of the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... well known that it is part of an actor's duty to make a careful study of gesture; and the same thing is true, to a somewhat smaller degree, of a public speaker. This study must consist chiefly in watching others and imitating their movements, for there are no abstract rules fairly applicable ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... down heavily on the threshold. The lady retreated to the hat-stand, and rested her hand mechanically on the handle of a blue cotton umbrella. Mr. O'Rourke partly turned his head and smiled upon her with conscious superiority. At this juncture a third actor appeared on the scene, evidently a friend of Mr. O'Rourke, for he addressed that gentleman as "a spalpeen," and told him ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of footsteps or the summons of a voice. "Where do you suppose the second little blob of protoplasm with legs came from?" Dr. Andrews asked. "And the third? If that ape who found he could stand erect had walked lonesomely off into the sunset like a second-rate actor on a late, late show, where do ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... naturalness with which he slipped past objects, looked through people, and was unheeded by those whom he most wanted to influence. The remarkable unity of idea sustained by Mr. Belasco as manager, and by Mr. Warfield as actor, was largely instrumental in making the play a triumph. The playwright did not attempt to create supernatural mood; he did not resort to natural tricks such as Maeterlinck used in "L'Intruse," or as Mansfield employed ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... invention; rightly rendered, he said, the whole theatre would be moved by it. It should be received with a moment of absolute silence, a sixty-seconds' silence; then, with one consent, the audience would rise en masse and cheer the actor—myself—and the poet—himself. Admiring the thought, feeling the force of it, I promised him that he might depend ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... his hand a little book that John was required to take and eat. In advancing and taking the book, John himself becomes an actor in the symbolic scene, the same as was the book and the angel from whose hand he took it. Therefore we must now consider John a symbol of something in this vision. Some of the commentators have supposed that this ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... Roosevelt still kept silent, but he told his intimates that he would not run. He did not wish to be President again, especially at the cost of an internecine struggle. I believe that he was sincere; so is the consummate actor or the prima donna, whom the world applauds, sincere in bidding farewell to the stage forever. Nevertheless, which of them is conscious of the strength of the passion, which long habit, and supremacy, and the intoxication of success have evoked, dwells in them? Given the moment and the lure, they ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... loved the spotlight like an actor. The flamboyant oratory at which he excelled had won for him the interstate contest. He was editor-in-chief of the "Verdenian," manager of the varsity football team, and ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... theirs, where the invalid actor lay, and where lately there had been minstrelsy and apparently dancing for his solace, there was now comparative silence. Two women's voices talked together, and now and then a guitar was touched by a wandering hand. Isabel had just put up her handkerchief to conceal her first ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... their hands imploringly to heaven. "Not love me!" they both exclaimed together, with a tone of heartfelt surprise and wounded sensibility, that would have gone far to have made the fortune of a sentimental actor. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the full glow of the fire, while the roar of the wind and the flaring of the red light filled the room with sound and colour. The slim, pale woman looked very weak and small to be the leading actor in this tragic drama of the hills, and the big, stupidly staring man opposite seemed very insignificant as ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... fictitious grief? Or is it that from truth such anguish flows, Ye court the lying drama for relief? Long shall ye find the pang, the respite brief: Or if one tolerable page appears In folly's volume, 'tis the actor's leaf, Who dries his own by drawing others' tears, And, raising present mirth, makes glad ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... Another actor on the world-stage whom I had encountered more than once before was the "heroic" King of Montenegro. He often crossed my path during the Conference, and set me musing on the marvelous ups and downs of human existence. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... drama there came upon the stage a new actor, at first little heeded, but quickly becoming the dominating figure—the Tzucheng Yuan, or National Assembly. This body, consisting of 100 nobles and men of wealth or scholarship appointed by the Throne, and 100 selected members ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... came tiptoeing forward. Even in this abrupt breaking in out of the storm there was something apologetic and deprecating about the man. As he came up, still sheltering his eyes, as though from the surprise of Kitty's loveliness, and not the fire, he had the bearing of a modest actor called before the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... actually did. Those hidden secrets of any human mind which we call motives must ever remain to other minds largely a matter of opinion, but a very fair indication of them can be found when once the actual conduct of the actor has been determined. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane |
