"Prompter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tongue of Slander so presum'd, My vengeance had not been of that slow sort To need a prompter; nor should any arm, No, not a father's, dare dispute with mine, The privilege to die in her defence. None ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... this from Davies, who says (Life of Garrick, i. l24):—'Mrs. Pritchard read no more of the play of Macbeth than her own part, as written out and delivered to her by the prompter.' She played the heroine in Irene (ante, i. 197). See post under Sept. 30, 1783, where Johnson says that 'in common life she was a vulgar idiot,' and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the theater is repugnant, with its cookery, its hobbles, its demand for immediate and brutal success, its army of collaborators, to which one must submit, from the imposing leading man down to the prompter. How much more independent are we in the novel! And that's why, when the glamor of the footlights makes the blood dance, we prefer to exercise it by keeping aloof and to remain the absolute masters of our works. In the ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... from the indignant clearness with which it had addressed the prompter, to a muffled ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... achievements; and it is impossible not to feel a sympathy with its unsophisticated demonstrations thus evinced en masse. Civilization, more than aught else, tends to discourage enthusiasm; and where it is pushed to the utmost degree of perfection, there will this prompter of great deeds, this darer of impossibilities and instigator of heroic actions, be most ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... little theatre in Padua, the ticket-seller gave us the stage-box (of which he made a great merit), and so we saw the play and the byplay. The prompter, as noted from our point of view, bore a chief part in the drama (as indeed the prompter always does in the Italian theatre), and the scene-shifters appeared as prominent characters. We could not help seeing the virtuous ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... The windows of that were also open, and through them they heard the scream of the jiggered and tortured violin, and the pump, pump of the oboe, and saw the moving shapes of men and women in quick transition, and heard the prompter's drawl. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Glibly was incessant, till the tinkling of the prompter's bell, and the rising of the curtain, put an end to his remarks on persons, and turned them all on the piece. I cannot but own the author opened an ample field for the effluvia of critic gall. I know not whether Glibly might influence the tone of my mind, but I think I never felt such ineffable ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and pretend those parts. The lights—the orchestra lights—came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell—which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice; no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to its warning. The actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in them; but it was in myself, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the town, she would only acknowledge two,—Bastholm's library, and the English fire-engine. The curtain in the theatre represents an alley with a fountain, the jets of which are painted as if spouting out of the prompter's box; or is this, perhaps, the English fire-engine? I know not. The scene-decoration for towns represents the market-place of Slagelse itself, so that the pieces thus acquire a home-feeling. This is the modern history of ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... 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
... done, and I fulfil One half my wish, and curb thee to my will, I were a prompter and a prouder man Than earth has known since light-foot lovers ran For Atalanta, lov'd of men and boys. I were a kaiser then, a king of joys, And fit to play with high-begotten pomps As children play with pebbles or ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... back of the stage were two doors for the players, and between them hung a painted cloth or arras behind which the prompter stood. Over these doors were two plastered rooms, twopenny private boxes for gentlefolk. In one of them were three young men and a beautiful girl, wonderfully dressed. The men were speaking to her, but she looked down at Nick instead. "What a pretty ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... hands and assuming the attitude and smile of thankfulness, a slight embarrassment checked him, and he paused, still keeping his posture and his look—the prompter made himself heard by every one but the bewildered Malcolm, who still continued mute, every instant of his silence naturally increasing ten-fold his perplexity—Macduff whispered the words in his ear—Macbeth who lay slaughtered at his feet, broke the bonds of death to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... a worthy companion of Perronet's "Coronation"—if, indeed, it was not its original prompter—as King Robert's great litany was the mother song of Watts' "Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove;" and the countless other sacred lyrics beginning with similar words. As the translation stands in the Church of England, there are six stanzas ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... he literally had intolerance for nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... small stairway and soon stood, with the negro, on the dimly lighted stage. The Nubian walked in front of the prompter's box and pointed so expressively toward the parterre and the parquet, that the impresario at once ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... Both you of my inclining, and the rest; Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Without a prompter." ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... Re. The piece was l'Ajo nell' imbarazzo—a very droll and humorous piece—but it was not well acted, from the simple circumstance of the actors not having their parts by heart, and the illusion of the stage is destroyed by hearing the prompter's voice full as loud as that of the actors, who follow his promptings something in the same way that the clerk follows the clergyman in that prayer of the Anglican liturgy which says "we have erred and strayed from our ways like lost sheep." An Italian audience is certainly ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... the onlookers, the cat being the wizard's property, and therefore, by all rule and prescription, his prompter and familiar. She was not of the received colour, however, her fur being of a rusty red. But as she raised her back, and spat at her master's visitors from under her chubbed tail, she looked demoniac enough for anything. ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... I grievously suspect to have been an addition of the players, which had hit, and, being constantly applauded, procured a settled occupancy in the prompter's copy. Not that Shakspeare does not elsewhere sneer at the Puritans; but here it is introduced so nolenter volenter (excuse the phrase) by the head and shoulders!—and is besides so much more likely to have been conceived in the age of ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... false. Along with the passionate desire for vengeance which possessed him had arisen the keen sense that his power of achieving the vengeance was doubtful. It was as if Tito had been helped by some diabolical prompter, who had whispered Baldassarre's saddest secret in the traitor's ear. He was not mad; for he carried within him that piteous stamp of sanity, the clear consciousness of shattered faculties; he measured ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... curtain; and the orchestra is on the stage itself, behind the actors. There is no prompter and no call-boy. Stage footmen wait at the sides to carry in screens, small tables, and an odd chair or two, to represent houses, city walls, and so on, or hand cups of tea to the actors when their throats become dry from vociferous singing, which is always in falsetto. ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... remained unmoved, and nothing but his brutal stupidity could have prevented him from endeavouring to arrest the tide of public feeling, but he was quite bewildered by the diversion, and for the first time failed in finding a prompter in Field. The Chartist was cowed by Gerard; his old companion in scenes that the memory lingered over, and whose superior genius had often controlled and often led him. Gerard too had recognized him and had made some personal ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... to applaud. The part was not well committed, and sentences were commenced with Shakespearian loftiness and ended with the actor's own emendations, which were certainly questionable improvements. Anything but a tragic effect was produced by seeing the swarthy Moor turn to the prompter at frequent intervals, and inquire, "What?" in a hoarse whisper. A running colloquy took place between Othello and his audience, in which he made good his assertion that he was rude in speech. Since then, Shakespeare has not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... and pulled the door toward her. It opened on a dumbwaiter shaft, empty and impressive. Patsy's expression would have scored a hit in farce comedy. Unfortunately there was no audience present to appreciate it here, and the prompter forgot to ring down the curtain just then, so that Patsy stood helpless, forced to go on hearing all that Marjorie and her leading man wished to improvise in the ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... ibid., pp. 223, 231, 233. (The copy of "Athalie" with the erasures of the police still exists in the prompter's library of the Theatre Francais.)—Id., ibid., p 244. (Letter of the secretary-general of the police to the weekly managers of the Theatre Francais, Feb. 1, 1809, In relation to the "Mort d'Hector," by Luce de Lancival.) "Messieurs, His Excellency, the minister-senator, has expressly charged ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... brown woollen dress, in Italy or Spain we should esteem him a simple Capuchin, but in truth he is a prelate, and a prelate of great power; Bishop Nicodemus, to wit, prime councillor of the patriarch, and chief prompter of those measures that occasioned the civil war of 1841. A single sacristan walks behind him, his only retinue, and befitting his limited resources; but the Maronite prelate is recompensed by universal respect; his vanity ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... in the pageant which Iamblichos called "the indissoluble bonds of Necessity" was about to reappear in his appointed place in response to the call of the unseen Prompter. Hideous are the settings of that pageant to-day; for where in the glowing pages of Dumas we see D'Artagnan, the gallant Forty-five and many another good friend riding in through the romantic gates of Old Paris, the modern historian finds himself concerned with railway ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... traditional hump, the youthful, representative of Richard appeared for the first time before an audience in the Tent Scene, preceded by the Cottage Scene from "The Lady of Lyons." The back drawing-room was arranged as a stage; her mother acting as prompter, though her help was little needed; and, judged by the enthusiastic applause of friends and neighbors, the performance was a great success. The young actress received it all with even more apparent coolness than if she had trodden the boards for years, and made her exits with the calm dignity ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... climbed up from ecclesiastical dignity to dignity, till at last there was only one further height left for him to scale. It could surprise no one to see the vacant mitre set on the astute head of Gloucester's confessor and prompter. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... the prompter of my joys, The soother of my cares, inspiring peace; And I will ne'er forsake thee. Men may rave, And blame and censure me, that I don't tie My every thought down to the desk, and spend The morning of my life in adding figures With accurate ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Baretti to the hornet was truer than she anticipated: animamque in vulnere ponit. Internal evidence leads almost irresistibly to the conclusion that he was the author or prompter of "The Sentimental Mother: a Comedy in Five Acts. The Legacy of an Old Friend, and his 'Last Moral Lesson' to Mrs. Hester Lynch Thrale, now Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi. London: Printed for James Ridgeway, York Street, St. James's ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... you, it was my life To be the prompter every one forgets! (To Roxane): That night when 'neath your window Christian spoke —Under your balcony, you remember? Well! There was the allegory of my whole life: I, in the shadow, at the ladder's foot, While others lightly mount ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... me much, for a M. Weber who is going there with me has copied them. He has a daughter who sings admirably, and has a lovely pure voice; she is only fifteen. [Footnote: Aloysia, second daughter of the prompter and theatrical copyist, Weber, a brother of Carl Maria von Weber's father.] She fails in nothing but in stage action; were it not for that, she might be the prima donna of any theatre. Her father is a downright honest ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... were Helius, Polycletus, Petinus, and Patrobius, the people mightily applauded the act, crying out, as they were dragged through the forum, that it was a goodly sight, grateful to the gods themselves, adding, however, that the gods and men alike demanded justice on Tigellinus, the very tutor and prompter of all the tyranny. This good man, however, had taken his measures beforehand, in the shape of a present and a promise to Vinius. Turpilianus could not be allowed to escape with life, though his one and only crime had been ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... this: kind prompter, touch the bell! Children of mirth and midnight, fare ye well! The vision melts away, the motley crowd Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud; Like his dissolving pageantry they fade, The vap'ry stuff whereof our dreams are made; No more malignant ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... more critical, none was more moved than Fleeming. The rest of us did not aspire so high. There were always five performances and weeks of busy rehearsal; and whether we came to sit and stifle as the prompter, to be the dumb (or rather the inarticulate) recipients of Carter's dog whip in the Taming of the Shrew, or, having earned our spurs, to lose one more illusion in a leading part, we were always sure at least of a long and an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... favorite partner. Sometimes, too, a lot of them pre-empted all the prettiest girls, and danced a special set with them. Thus were they delivered into the hands of the oppressed—the lads made treaty with the fiddlers and prompter to play fast and furious—to call figures that kept the oldsters wheeling and whirling. It was an endurance contest—but victory did not always perch with the youths. Plenty of pursy gentlemen were still light enough ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... the chances of some mistake. Another fable, not much less absurd, represents Shakspeare as having from the very first been borne upon the establishment of the theatre, and so far contradicts the other fable, but originally in the very humble character of call-boy or deputy prompter, whose business it was to summon each performer according to his order of coming upon the stage. This story, however, quite as much as the other, is irreconcileable with the discovery recently made by Mr. Collier, that in 1589 Shakspeare was a shareholder in the important property of a principal ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... sacred to his service, as in his providence he should call for them. No shuffling pretences, no pitiful evasions, when a fair demand was made upon the hallowed store; and no frigid affectation in determining the quality of the demand. A sense of duty was the prompter, candor the interpreter, and good sense the judge. Her disbursements were proportioned to the value of the object, and were ready at a moment's warning, to the very last farthing.* How pungent a reproof to those ladies of opulence and fashion who sacrifice ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... blackness. Rain-drops struck the roof at intervals, a shower of apple-blossoms rustled against the window and drifted on, and below the muffled sound of music and shuffling feet was now and then pierced by the shrill calls of the prompter. There was something ominous in the persistent tread of feet and the steady flight of the gloomy clouds, and quivering with vague fears, Easter sank down from her chair to Clayton's feet, and burst into tears, as he put ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... robbers on a tempestuous night) was feelingly lamenting the absence of his faithful dog, and laying great stress on the fact that he was thirty leagues away, the faithful dog was barking furiously in the prompter's box, and clearly choking himself against his collar. But it was in his greatest scene of all that his honesty got the better of him. He had to enter a dense and trackless forest, on the trail of the murderer, and there to fly at the murderer when he found him resting at the foot of a tree, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... of the lancers and quadrilles. "Face your pardners," he called out as the square dance was begun. Several sets of four couples were formed ready for the first strains of the lancers music and the prompter. "Forward all," and all the couples advanced to the center. "Swing your pardners," "balance corners," the lady and gentleman faced to the right and took steps to the music. "Swing," ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... numberless vexations which have arisen in all ages from the attachment of the sexes, place the vast amount of happiness which is derived from this source—the basis of the whole circle of the domestic affections, the sweetening principle of life, the prompter of all our most generous feelings, and even of our most virtuous resolves—and every ill that can be traced to it is but as dust in the balance. And here, also, we must be on our guard against judging ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... all the lines Are stranger to my lips, and alien quite To car and eye and mind. I tell thee, Cosimo, This play of thine is one in which no man Should swagger on, trusting the prompter's voice; For mountains tipped with fire back up the scene, Out of the coppice roars the tiger's voice: The lightning's touch is death; the thunder rends The very rocks whereon its anger lights, The paths are mined with gins; and giants wait To slay me should I speak with faltering tongue ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... bustling, respectable Westville, she well knew, clung to its own idea of woman's sphere as to a thing divinely ordered, and to seek to leave which was scarcely less than rebellion against high God. In patriarchal days, when heaven's justice had been prompter, such a disobedient one would suddenly have found herself rebuked into ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... the cast had been called together for final instructions. When all were gathered Wee laid down the law. The fairies were not to talk in the wings. All were to keep an eye on the prompter, and Blue Bonnet was especially informed that if the wind apparatus got on a rampage, as it did at the dress rehearsal, and drowned what she was saying at her first entrance, she was to raise her voice and compete with the elements, if ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... stage itself were still lit by gas; hydrogen was used to regulate and modify the lighting of a scene; and this was done by means of a special apparatus which, because of the multiplicity of its pipes, was known as the "organ." A box beside the prompter's box was reserved for the chief gas-man, who from there gave his orders to his assistants and saw that they were executed. Mauclair stayed in this ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... improvisation the monk who played the part of prompter lost his place and skipped some paragraphs. The text returned to San Diego, and with a long series of exclamations and contrasts the father brought to a close the first part of ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... night before the performance we debated the weather prospects until the moon rose. Lysander said his bit of seaweed which he brought from Bognor was as dry as parched peas and he would back it against any fool barometer. Cocklewhite, our prompter, said he didn't want to depress the company, but he had a leech in a bottle of water which rose for fine weather and sank for wet, and he was bound to tell us it was like lead at the bottom at the present moment. Hermia pointed to the heavens, 'Red sky at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... had been left standing, and had been turned into private boxes, and all the timber work had been covered with coloured paper. A little iron chandelier hung beneath the ceiling, and that it might be made to disappear into the ceiling, as it does in great theatres, when the ting-ting of the prompter's bell is heard, a great inverted tub had ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Boys,"—a lifelong play. We too must hear the Prompter's call To fairer scenes and brighter day Farewell! ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... for which we asked their help, and the race in which they promised to be our friendly rivals. [37] Remind them also that this day will test the worth of every man. With learners late in life, we cannot wonder if now and then a prompter should be needed: it is much to be thankful for if they show themselves good men and true with the help of a reminder. [38] Moreover, while you help them you will be putting your own powers to the test. He who can give another ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... of considerable brightness, which blazed cheerfully, and this for about an hour. That flame signified the advent of some spirits of Mercury who, for penetration, thought, and speech, were prompter than those who preceded them. When they were come, they instantly ran over the things that were in my memory, but, owing to their promptness, I was unable to apperceive what they observed. Immediately afterwards, I heard them say that the matter was thus and thus. With regard to the things which ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... was—he might not be able to replace her. To put it out of her power to give him notice again, he offered her marriage, and was accepted. Mrs. Banks sometimes used to visit the theatre, and generally took her seat at the wing by the prompter's table, where she could see tolerably well what was going forward on the stage. On one occasion the tragedy of "Venice Preserved" was being performed. Edmund Kean was Jaffier and Miss O'Neil Belvidera. They were playing to a greatly ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... of his own. One of the depths of Satan, is to counterfeit an angel of light. Another, I believe, is, to stir up the people against their governors, by false suggestions of danger. A third is to be a prompter to false brethren, and to send wolves about in sheep's clothing. Sometimes he sends Jesuits about England in the habit and cant of fanatics, at other times he has fanatic missionaries in the habits of ——. I shall mention but one more of Satan's depths, for I confess I know ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... concourse of people was about: gentles and burghers seated at table, or passing in and out; waiters running back and forth from the fires, drawers from the cabaret. I paused to scan the throng, jostled by one and another, before I descried my master and my knave. M. Etienne, the prompter at the rendezvous, had, like a philosopher, ordered dinner, but he had deserted it now and stood with Peyrot, their backs to the company, their elbows on the deep window-ledge, their heads close together. I came up suddenly to Peyrot's ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... able in the end to discover quite enough to furnish forth a supplementary statement. So that, when the 10th arrived, the day rose upon a group of men breathlessly awaiting a play within a play—with all their parts rehearsed, and the prompter ready. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... flattered myself his Excellency had too good an opinion of me to suppose that I needed a prompter, when either the honor or interests of my country were in question. That as for precedent, part of my business with his Excellency, was to establish one for such of my countrymen as the United States might hereafter send to Spain in the same ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... and air, from that new region brought, As if from Fairy-land. Much I questioned him; And every word he uttered, on my ears Fell flatter than a caged parrot's note, 100 That answers unexpectedly awry, And mocks the prompter's listening. Marvellous things Had vanity (quick Spirit that appears Almost as deeply seated and as strong In a Child's heart as fear itself) conceived 105 For my enjoyment. Would that I could now Recal what then I pictured to myself, Of mitred Prelates, Lords in ermine clad, The King, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... acres of cotton where four hundred and ninety-nine and one twelve-hundredth acres were cultivated last year,—a larger increase, however, than will generally be found in other districts, due mainly to prompter payments. The general superintendent of Port Royal Wand said to me,—"We have to restrain rather than to encourage the negroes to take land for cotton." The general superintendent of Hilton Head Island said, that on that island the negroes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... foreshoulders; then his whole body. There he stood, up to his knees in the water, gazing fixedly at us, apparently arrested in the movement of putting his head down for a lily-pad, and evidently thinking it was some new-fangled moon sporting about there. "Let him have it," said my prompter,—and the crash came. There was a scuffle in the water, and a plunge in the woods. "He's gone," said I. "Wait a moment," said the guide, "and I will show you." Rapidly running the canoe ashore, we sprang out, and, holding the jack aloft, explored the vicinity by its light. There, over ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... called El lindo Diego, the part of which we saw was well performed. A disagreeable feature, however, was in the position of the prompter, who was placed in the centre of the footlights, and kept up a continuous recitation of the play in a monotonous tone, which greatly marred ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite: Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all see-saw, between that and this, } Now high, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... ring. To be sure, in those days every gentleman took his pipe with him; and the fragrant clouds would be some consolation in the eyes, or rather in the noses, of some of us. But still,—almost six hours of tragedy! It is too much of a good thing for these degenerate days; and we must allow the prompter to use his pencil on the actors' copy of "Hamlet," though he strike out page upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... best were a good-natured, merry old dowager duchess, with whom they felt themselves in the altitude to which they were accustomed at Hurminster; a loud-voiced, eager old squire, who was bent on being Lord Northmoor's guide and prompter in county business; also an eager, gushing lady, the echoes of whose communications made Frank remark, after her departure, 'We must beware of encouraging gossip about ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and in honor of whom they now and then roasted a white man, by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists; I am the great patron and prompter of slave-dealers and the grand-master ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... some few fair Parisians among the audience wondered how that German with the tragical countenance had cropped up on a first night to occupy a side box all to himself when fashionable Paris filled the house,—if these could have seen the history played out upon the stage before the prompter's box, they would have found it far more interesting than the transformation scenes of The Devil's Betrothed, though indeed it was the two hundred thousandth representation of a sublime allegory ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the poor wretch was thoroughly courageous in the face of some physical and external dangers. The puniest man in camp could cow him with a look, yet none was prompter than he to face the grave perils of breaking a log-jam, and there was no cooler hand than his in the risky labors of stream-driving. Altogether he was a disagreeable problem to the lumbermen,—who resented any element of pluck in one so unmanly and ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve,[8] familiar toad. Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In pun, or politics, or tales, or lies. Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. His wit all see-saw, between ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Duc de Morny died. He had been the moving spirit in the Mexican imbroglio, and it would be difficult to believe that the withdrawal of the prompter did not have a weakening effect upon the performance. His death, by removing one of the strongest influences in favor of the intervention, not only in the Corps Legislatif and at court, but in the financial world, was certainly one of the many untoward circumstances which helped ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... me and clapping, a thought came to me that made me feel like sobbing. I wondered in my soul how many broken hearts were covered by those lace and velvet garments, and those smiling, superficial faces. The thought absorbed me so that I forgot everything and the prompter thought I'd forgotten my part entirely and gave ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... high suspense. For this hour every man present had waited with a keen desire that had been his prompter and spur through all the long, wearying months of training. All the schooling in theory was now behind. Experience, that hard teacher, was now at the controls. The school of machine gunnery, where dummies and swift moving targets ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... injected anywhere under the skin, vomiting surely follows within a very short time. It is well known that morphine is injected under the skin in preference to taking it through the mouth as its action as a pain killer is much prompter. ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... and Verena did come out, after a little; she came out with a great deal of sweetness—with a very quaint and peculiar effect. She proceeded slowly, cautiously, as if she were listening for the prompter, catching, one by one, certain phrases that were whispered to her a great distance off, behind the scenes of the world. Then memory, or inspiration, returned to her, and presently she was in possession ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... proscribe them as unworthy of every trust. It would have been to me a circumstance of great relief, had I found a moderate participation of office in the hands of the majority. I would gladly have left to time and accident to raise them to their just share. But their total exclusion calls for prompter corrections. I shall correct the procedure: but that done, return with joy to that state of things, when the only questions concerning a candidate shall be, Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... third act. In the first scene of the following act, when he was asked "Why did you not keep your children with you? they would have amused you in many a dreary hour," he turned to reply—and "for the space of about ten seconds, he paused as if waiting for the prompter to give him the word"—says Mr. Whitfield the actor, who was then with him upon the stage—"then put out his right hand, as if going to take hold of mine. It dropt, as if to support his fall, but it had no power; in that instant he fell, but not at full length, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... 1899, on the eve of the Bloemfontein Conference, he writes to Mr. Fischer, prompter and organiser of the Conference, foreseeing the results of the policy advocated by ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... silver Serpent, coiled as before and resting upon a surface of foliage and flowers. In the centre of all was repeated the silver Star within the golden band; the emblem from which the Order derives its name, and in which it embodies its deepest symbolism. Following again the direction of my unseen prompter, I repeated words which may ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... trimmed with pink flowers round on her hand, "let me introduce M. Denoisel again. You have met him before in the old days—that sounds as though we were quite aged, doesn't it?—and he is our theatrical manager, our professor of elocution, our prompter—scene shifter—everything." ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... I fix my head-quarters until the prompter's whistle shall once more summon me to commence a new campaign at New York;—six weeks nearly, with nothing to do,—it will require some management to complete ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... after I left, with great success; the first night, before the Shah and his nobles and the foreign ambassadors, and the second night before more common folk. The two postponements and my early departure prevented me from being on hand as prompter. The winter before, these dusky-faced "bul-buls" had performed before a Teheran audience, and one who was a member at that time tells an amusing story of the individual who acted as prompter on that occasion. One of the performers appeared on the stage sufficiently charged with stage-fright ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... usual for a lady to be removed from the gallery in strong hysterics), and keeps her word by letting her arm fall upon the bed-clothes and shutting her eyes, whereupon somebody says that she is dead, and the prompter whistles for the scene to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... properties with admirable discretion, but lacked the art to use them cunningly. A tolling bell, heard in the silence and darkness of a lonely moor, will quicken the beatings of the heart, but employed as a prompter's signal to herald the advance of a group of black statues is only absurd. After the grimly suggestive opening, the story gradually loses in power as it proceeds and the happy ending, which wings our thoughts back ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... them of his character, and the suspicious circumstances of his visit, it produced no visible sensation. So far, the terrible scene that had just occurred proved favorable to his views, and he required no other prompter than his own feelings to convince him of the expediency of profiting by so unexpected ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... very serious; "do I jest, Carlisle?" And turning to Mr. Cross, the prompter, who stood by, "Fetch me the St. James's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... most excited throughout that long ride it would be difficult to say. Barbara, feeling keenly her responsibility as prompter and leader of the dread enterprise, sat anxious, as she explained to us afterwards, hoping there would be nothing shocking in the play, nothing to belie its innocent title; pleased with her success so far, yet still fearful of failure, doubtful till ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... piano used to stand sat the chief auctioneer with his ivory hammer. Beneath him at a similar table sat an assistant. As the men in red caps brought up the goods the two auctioneers took the bidding together, repeating each other in the manner of actor and prompter at ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... what are elsewhere deemed the rights of property was barely alluded to by the reverend speakers, the latter of whom, after making all kinds of blunders, finally broke down as he was appealing to the "immortal and immutable laws of—of—of"—and here some wicked prompter suggested "Nature," a suggestion adopted by the unhappy speaker before he had time to recollect himself. After this lame and impotent conclusion, a gentleman in a green cap and sash, richly adorned with the harp without the crown, infused some vitality into the proceedings by declaring that the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... contributions to the press. Among the best known of his writings are a series of letters on practical agriculture and political economy, originally contributed to a Kingston newspaper, and subsequently republished in pamphlet form under the title of "The Prompter." The series of historical and topographical sketches forming the first half of the first volume of Gourlay's "Statistical Account of Upper Canada" are also from Mr. Bidwell's pen, and they are upon the whole the most valuable portion ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... conceived of rather as a struggle with the proletariat. Hillar, the producer, has effectually disenchanted the footlights by putting steps down to the audience in the position of the prompter's box. The characters frequently make their entrances as it were from the body of the audience. This is especially striking in the crowding up of the Roman Bolsheviks on to the stage in the opening scene—a remarkable piece of life and action. However, though one naturally ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... say good-bye just yet," she said to them, as she tucked up her voluminous train. "Wouldn't you like to look on for a little while from the wings? You could have the prompter's chair, Lady Cunyngham, so that you could see the audience or the stage, just as you chose, if Miss Cunyngham wouldn't mind standing about ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... turn. But the effect of the recitation of "Palestine" was entirely unrivalled on that as on any other occasion. Reginald Heber,—a graceful, fine-looking, rather pale young man of twenty,—with his younger brother Thomas beside him as prompter, stood in the rostrum, and commenced in a clear, beautiful, melancholy voice, with perfect declamation, which overcame all the stir and tumultuous restlessness of the audience by the power and sweetness of ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... pleasantly, though Mr. Wilkes Booth an observer of the audience, visited the stage and took note of the positions. His alleged associate, the stage carpenter, then received quiet orders to clear the passage by the wings from the prompter's post to the stage door. All this time, Mr. Lincoln, in his family circle, unconscious of the death that crowded fast upon him, watched the pleasantry and smiled ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... to quarrel with Stevens or anybody else, 'twouldn't be your pistols in my pocket that would make me set on, and 'twouldn't be the want of 'em that would make me stop. When it's my cue to fight, look you, I won't need any prompter, in the shape of friend or pistol. Now THAT speech is from one of your poets, pretty near, and ought to convince you that you may as well lend the puppies and say no more about it. If you don't you'll only compel me to carry my rifle, and that'll be something worse to an ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... with a play in which a stage cow appears. He is using what is called a profile cow now, which works by machinery. Last winter this cow ran down while in the middle of the stage, and forgot her lines. The prompter gave the string a jerk in order to assist her. This broke the cow in two, and the fore-quarters walked off to the left into one dressing-room, while the behind-quarters and porter-house steak retired to the outer dressing-room. The audience called for an encore; ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... quiet, betook himself to literature for a relaxation, and composed his comedy, whereof the prompter's copy lieth in my walnut escritoire, sealed up and docketed, "The Faithful Fool, a Comedy, as it was performed by her Majesty's Servants." 'Twas a very sentimental piece; and Mr. Steele, who had more of that kind of sentiment than Mr. Addison, admired it, whilst the other rather sneered at the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Hutton, the writer. Mr. Hutton and Mr. Booth were sitting in the latter's dressing room at Booth's Theater. Booth was, as usual, smoking his beloved pipe. When he heard his cue, he arose, and walked with Hutton to the prompter's entrance, where, giving his pipe to his friend, said: "Larry, will you keep the pipe going until I come off?" Booth entered on the scene; then came the big moment in the play when the nobles and the weak King ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... restoration of Schiller's own arrangement of the acts and scenes. It is said, in defence of the variations which exist between the German original and the version given by Coleridge, that he translated from a prompter's copy in manuscript, before the drama had been printed, and that Schiller himself subsequently altered it, by omitting some passages, adding others, and even engrafting several ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the work of uniting the individual soul with God's purpose that Spirit is our Helper. In the work of righteousness He is a Partner with us. In the life of faith and prayer He is our unwavering Prompter and Guide. In the submission of our wills to God and the chastening of our spirits He is the great Co-worker with us. In the bearing of burdens and the enduring of trial and sorrow He joins hands with us to lead us on. In the purifying of every ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... due to his wit and his valour. There are through the course of the work very many incidents which were written by unknown correspondents. Of this kind is the tale in the second Tatler, and the epistle from Mr. Downes the prompter,[47] with others which were very well received by the public. But I have only one gentleman,[48] who will be nameless, to thank for any frequent assistance to me, which indeed it would have been barbarous ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... embarrassed. After I had been an hour at the play, the manager came around and asked me to go underneath the stage, as they were putting on a ballet of 300 girls, the finest ballet in Europe. It seems there is a little hole on the stage with a hood over it, in which the prompter sits when opera is given. In this instance it was not occupied, and I was given the position in the prompter's seat, and saw the whole ballet ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... hold of the wing, And kept away; but Mr. Thing- umbob, the prompter man, Gave with his hand my chaise a shove, And said, "Go on, my pretty love; ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... patriot of them all; he would carry away the Vice on his back, quick to hell, in every play where he came, and reform abuses' (Ben Jonson's The Staple of News). But our present purpose is with Nichol Newfangle and his arch-prompter. Nevertheless these few general remarks will save us from the necessity of returning to the subject later. The truth of the matter is that here, in Like Will to Like, we have as full a delineation of these two ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... in your cruelty!" exclaimed Woodburn, with mingled disappointment and admiration. "I will forbear to press my suit for the present, but not forever. I will heed the lesson of patriotism you have given me, but only to remember my fair prompter with deeper devotion." ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... kind, to stand up and be seated, just as another thought proper to direct. I hated to be classed, cribbed, rebuked, and feruled at the pleasure of one who, as it seemed to me, knew no guide in his rewards but caprice, and no prompter in his ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... do, on almost every point of religion, of morals, of politics, and philosophy, we like each other uncommonly well. He is a great favorite with Sara. Energetic activity of mind and of heart, is his master feature. He is prompt to conceive, and still prompter to execute; but I think he is deficient in that patience of mind which can look intensely and frequently at the same subject. He believes and disbelieves with impassioned confidence. I wish to see him doubting, and doubting. He is intrepid, eloquent, and honest. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... you all of Coleridge's letters to me, which I have preserved: some of them are upon the subject of my play. I also send you Kemble's two letters, and the prompter's courteous epistle, with a curious critique on "Pride's Cure," by a young physician from EDINBRO, who modestly suggests quite another kind of a plot. These are monuments of my disappointment which ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... He scented danger. Twenty yards ahead a wren was perched on the topmost twig of a thorn-bush, chattering and scolding furiously. Now, there is no bird which gives prompter warning of an intruder than the wren. Whether the intruder be two-legged, man or boy, or four-legged, stoat, weasel, or pole-cat, the plucky little wren always gives the enemy a piece of ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... well for three lines; and Maggie was beginning to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what mas could mean, which came twice over, when he stuck ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the virtue and occult property of it, on a sudden all that were there, both players and spectators, did fall into such an exorbitant temptation of lust, that there was not angel, man, devil, nor deviless upon the place who would not then have bricollitched it with all their heart and soul. The prompter forsook his copy, he who played Michael's part came down to rights, the devils issued out of hell and carried along with them most of the pretty little girls that were there; yea, Lucifer got out of his fetters; in a word, seeing the huge ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... exclaimed the prompter behind him. "You're no good at all; coom along, b'ys. Be civil,—Mike Flaherty will never have it said he brought a shillalah to argy ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... scene ought to be shifted; that the king's household wants a better manager; that there is no necessity for a wardrobe-keeper; that his majesty's company are a set of very bad actors; and he humbly moves that the king should discharge his prompter. Some time ago, the president of this society had a great constitutional point to decide; but not acquitting himself to the satisfaction of the ladies, this spirited female seized the chair of state, and with the crack of her fan opened the business of the evening; declaring, as women had ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... psychology of the prompt reward will be considered later at length, but it cannot be emphasized too often that the prompter the reward, the greater the stimulus. The reward will become associated with the fatigue in such a way that the worker will really get, at the time, more satisfaction out of his fatigue than he will discomfort; at the least, any dissatisfaction ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... hurried after him, leaving Farrell to limp down the hill-side in our wake. For once the dog recognised me as more intelligent or, at any rate, prompter than his master, and gave his whole attention to me. . . . I tumbled down the hill after him in a haste that fairly set my temples throbbing. Once sure of me, he played no more at backwards-and-forwards, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... instances Heminge and Condell reprinted the earlier quarto impressions with a few changes, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse; and it is most probable that copies of those editions (whether surreptitious or not) had taken the place of the original prompter's books, as being more convenient and legible. Even in these cases it is not safe to conclude that all or even any of the variations were made by the hand of Shakespeare himself. And where the players printed from manuscript, is it likely to have been that of ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... subscribed the transcript, which about 1584 he had procured for Roger Ward the printer, in order to authenticate it: hence the connection of his name with the production, in the performance of which he may also have had a share, and he may thus have had access to the prompter's book. The Paul Bucke, who in 1578 was the author of a "prayer for Sir Humphrey Gilbert," was in all ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... attending to her part," remarked the manager. "Coralie is smitten with our friend here, all unsuspicious of his conquest, and Coralie will make a fiasco; she is missing her cues, this is the second time she had not heard the prompter. Pray, go into the corner, monsieur," he continued. "If Coralie is smitten with you, I will go and tell her that ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... prompter's whistle, we must use, as a substitute, the boatswain's call, and, at his shrill pipe, we change the scene to a back parlour in one of the most confined streets at the east end of England's proud and wealthy metropolis. The dramatis personae ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... wings, on the prompt side. Close by stood the prompter, an untidy youth with imperfections of teeth, clutching hard at the red-scored manuscript of "The Orient Pearl." Sundry players, of varying stellar degrees, were posed around in the opulent costumes designed ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... unaccountable prejudice, driven from the stage by one of the leading weekly journals, edited by a gentleman whose biting satire was death to those who had the misfortune to come under his lash. In complete disgust, he retired from the boards, and filled the humble situation of prompter at the Haymarket-Theatre, but afterward left for the United States, where he became a great favorite. But the canker was at his heart. He again quitted the stage, and prepared himself for the Church; but ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... he bungled sadly—his hearing suddenly failing as well as his memory, there was a dead stop. In vain the prompter, the scene-shifter, the candle-snuffer, as loud as they could, and much louder than they ought, reiterated the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... HOLD! Prompter, hold! a word before your nonsense; I'd speak a word or two, to ease my conscience. My pride forbids it ever should be said, My heels eclips'd the honours of my head; That I found humour in a piebald vest, 5 Or ever thought that jumping was a jest. ('Takes off his mask.') ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Arthur down to the royal Henries, which men hear eagerly; and a string of doleful tragedies, merry Italian tales, and Spanish voyages, which all the London 'prentices know. All the mass has been treated, with more or less skill, by every playwright, and the prompter has the soiled and tattered manuscripts. It is now no longer possible to say who wrote them first. They have been the property of the Theatre so long, and so many rising geniuses have enlarged or altered them, inserting a speech or a whole scene, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... marvel of supple, exaggerated grace and the quadrille looked like a free-for-all for unbroken colts. The honor of prompter was conferred upon the sheriff, and he gravely called the changes as they were usually called in that section ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... according to their sweet will. When in opera the recitative commences, it means to them, "The Lord be praised, here is an end to that cursed tempo, which off and on compels us to a kind of rational rendering; we can now float about in all directions, dwell on any note we like until the prompter has supplied us with the next phrase; the conductor has now no power over us, and we can take revenge for his pretensions by commanding him to give us the beat when it suits us," etc. Although perhaps not ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... my destruction and of most ruinous counsels". What are ruinous counsels? those which relate to the recovery of the liberty of the Roman people? Of those counsels I confess that I have been and still am an adviser and prompter to Caesar. Although he did not stand in need of any one's advice, but still I spurned on the willing horse, as it is said. For what good man would not have advised putting you to death, when on your death depended the safety and life of ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... explain. Dryden alleges "charity" as the single impulse of the appointment,—not the merit or aptitude of the candidate. But throughout life Dorset continued to countenance Nahum, serving as standing dedicatee of his works, and the prompter of several of them. We have remarked the want of judgment which Lord Dorset exhibited in his anxious patronage of the scholars and scribblers of his time,—a trait which stood the Blackmores, Bradys, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... letter than the sense, pronounced those words aloud. Oh! (sayes the fellowe softly in his eare) you marre all the play. And with this his passion the actor makes the audience in like sort acquainted. Hereon the prompter falls to flat rayling and cursing in the bitterest termes he could devise: which the gentleman, with a set gesture and countenance, still soberly related, untill the Ordinary, driven at last into a ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... hothouse on Parnassus, and flags of all nations made it very gay that night in honour of the guests who were coming, chief among them, Miss Cameron, who kept her promise faithfully. The orchestra tuned their instruments with unusual care, the scene-shifters set their stage with lavish elegance, the prompter heroically took his seat in the stifling nook provided for him, and the actors dressed with trembling hands that dropped the pins, and perspiring brows whereon the powder wouldn't stick. Beaumont and Fletcher were everywhere, feeling that their literary reputation was at stake; for sundry ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... that they might plunder the canoes of traders who had not a pass from him. The adverse faction now retorted by adding the permission of murder to the permission of pillage. Margry thinks that La Chesnaye was the prompter of this villany.] ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... gloves, hamper—so the first edition; but as the two last words seem only the prompter's memoranda, they are omitted. They are also found in the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the stairs the curtain was drawn up, the auditorium was a void, the stage dark, save for a single gas jet that burned at the prompter's wing, and a gentleman in evening dress was walking to and fro by the extinguished footlights. She was about to step up to the man when she recognised him, and turning on her heel she hurried away. It was Lord Robert Ure, and the memory that had troubled her at the first ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Commodore and appealed for his help in redressing this terrible injury to our Mission. He informed me that he had already called his officers to account, but that all denied any connection with the articles or the picture. He had little doubt, all the same, that some one on board was the prompter, who gloried in the evil that was being done to the cause of Christ. He offered every possible assistance, by testimony or otherwise, to place all the facts before the Christian public ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... Dazincourt, both of acknowledged good character, were selected to give lessons, the first in comic opera, of which the easier sorts were preferred, and the second in comedy. The office of hearer of rehearsals, prompter, and stage manager was given to my father-in-law. The Duc de Fronsac, first gentleman of the chamber, was much hurt at this. He thought himself called upon to make serious remonstrances upon the subject, and wrote to the Queen, who ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... famous actor from Spain is the star of the present season. At rehearsal he is a fallen star, being extremely old and shaky, but at night his make-up is wonderful, and he draws large audiences, who witness his great scene of a detected thief in convulsions. The prompter is seated under a cupola in the centre of the stage near the footlights, as at the opera, and his duties are arduous. It devolves upon him to read over the part of each performer in a suppressed tone, and to direct their manner of exit and their position on the stage. He is unseen by ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... opera this night. The next day it was announced that Mademoiselle —— would take her accustomed place in the performance. I went early to the theatre, and found, to my amazement, there had been some changes made in the orchestra; the prompter's box had been enlarged, and my newly-discovered niche had been rendered inaccessible and almost entirely filled in! In vain did I attempt to find some other position that might correspond to it. I only attracted the attention of the early comers to the theatre. I was obliged to return ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... distorted, as it were, and recombine in a haphazard fashion to form in your mind the strangest of meanings, and that you are reproducing between yourself and the different speakers the scene between Petit-Jean and The Prompter. [Footnote: Les Plaideurs (Racine).] ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... on the door-knob, felt herself obliged to decline this theme so tardily introduced—though the old man's tart tone promised great possibilities. She would have thanked David Marshall for a prompter contribution of conversational material; she felt that her own efforts during this interview had been out of all proportion to his. She made no response, and he stepped forward to conduct her through the outer office to her carriage. "You needn't go through ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... deny to Wagner all the advantages of the new acting which modern stage singers have learnt from his music. The first act of "The Valkyrie," for example, will be absurd so long as Sieglinde, Hunding, and Siegmund are made to stand in solemn silence, as beginners who cannot hear the prompter's voice, until Sieglinde has mixed Hunding's draught. And some of the gestures and postures in which the singers are compelled to indulge are as foolish as the foolishest Italian acting. Who can help laughing ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... secretly put up the ships to their contest, and in the depths of his malignant old soul was not unpleased to see how well his charms worked. There stood the grinning Man-in-the-Moon, his head just dodging into view over the rim of the sea:—Mephistopheles prompter of the stage. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... day after the performance the whole artificial equipment drops away and disappears. The bookkeeper becomes a bookkeeper once more and a natural man. The hour before the footlights has done him no harm. True, he forgot his lines at one place, but what is a prompter for if not to act in such an emergency? Now that it is over the affair may be pronounced a success,—particularly in the light of the gratifying statement that a clear profit has been realized towards paying ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... the master was so absorbed that he did not see or hear the boy and Chad, awed by the stern, solemn face, withdrew and, without a word to anybody, climbed into the loft and went to bed. He could hear every stroke on the floor below, every call of the prompter, and the rude laughter and banter, but he gave little heed to it all. For he lay thinking of Caleb Hazel and listening again to the stories he and the cattle-dealer had told him about the wonderful settlements. "God's Country," the dealer always called it, and such ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... its short-lived race Flit past the scenes and others take their place; Yet the old prompter watched his accents still, His name still flaunted on the evening's bill. Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor, Had died in earnest and were heard no more; Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread They faced the footlights in unborrowed red, Had faded slowly through successive ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... this wreath that night. After he had done this he trembled; he had courted a decision, when, perhaps, his safety lay in patience and time. She made her entree; he turned cold as she glided into sight from the prompter's side; he raised his eyes slowly and fearfully from her feet to her head; her head was bare, wreathed only by its own rich glossy honors. "Fool!" thought he, "to think she would hang frivolities upon that glorious head for me." Yet his disappointment told him he had really hoped it; he would ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... say when the Great Prompter's hand shall ring Down the last curtain upon earth and sea, All the Good Mimes will have eternity To praise their Author, worship love and sing; Or to the walls of Heaven wandering Look down on those damned for a fretful d——, Mock them (all theologians agree On this reward ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... for a singer?" "We boys, sir, acted plays together." "And you played—" "Several parts, sir." "You surprise me, boy!" "Well," said he, "call upon this gentleman tomorrow morning betimes, and he will converse with you." He then turned to the person who was acting as prompter, and whispered him, when Hodgkinson, after getting the gentleman's direction, made his bow. As he was going down the passage a lad followed him and told him the manager had sent to let him know that if he pleased he might come on the stage ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... last years of Puritan rule, and told his stories to the players of the early Restoration. As his Book- keeper with the Duke of York's Company, Downes heard what Davenant had to tell; he also, for his Roscius Anglicanus, had notes from Charles Booth, prompter at Drury Lane. On May 28, 1663, Davenant reproduced Hamlet, with young Betterton as the Prince of Denmark. Davenant, says Charles Booth, "had seen the part taken by Taylor, of the Black Fryars Company, ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... innovation produced utter consternation all round me. The prompter was so much astounded that he thought there was something more coming and did not give the "pull" for the curtain to come down. There was a horrid pause while it remained up, and then Mr. Buckstone, the Bob Acres of the cast, who was very deaf and had not ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... upon the Stage of Time You stand to bow your last adieu; A moment, and the prompter's chime Will ring the curtain down on you. Your mien is sad, your step is slow; You falter as a Sage in pain; Yet turn, Old Year, before you go, And face ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... then, began his first visits to Sloane Street. There, the actors in this little play went through their parts—well trained, well rehearsed. There was never a note of the prompter's voice to reach the ears of Traill from the wings. He listened quietly, sympathetically to her tardy admission of the state of affairs. Three times he went to Sloane Street in the afternoon before he was placed in possession of all the subtle ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... forward to see them; and though we must have been strange objects to them, they continued their dance, without paying the least attention to us. They seemed to be directed by a man who served as a prompter, and mentioned each motion they were to make. But they never changed the spot, as we do in dancing, and though their feet were not at rest, this exercise consisted more in moving the fingers very nimbly, at the same time holding the hands in a prone position near the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... Old Room," the page answered rather resentfully, but resigned himself as he remembered that, however this curtailed his importance, it left open a prompter return to his game ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... salient and made to tell at a distance. Madame Carre scarcely heeded her at first, greeting her only in her order among the others and pointing to seats, composing the circle with smiles and gestures, as if they were all before the prompter's box. The old actress presented herself to a casual glance as a red-faced, raddled woman in a wig, with beady eyes, a hooked nose, and pretty hands; but Nick Dormer, who had a sense for the over-scored human surface, soon observed ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James |
