"Actor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... solicitude over the most respectable neighbourhood in which he resided. The polestar had its eye even now upon the mansion of an adjacent ex-premier, the belt of Orion was not oblivious of a belted earl's cosy red-brick home just opposite, and the house of a certain famous actor and actress close by had been taken by the Great Bear under ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... us spend the day in sorrow. That which is unreal must in time become unsatisfactory, and those who would compel us to live over again the sorrows of Calvary, may drive us to football, or that which is worse! Let men once think that the church has turned actor, and they will say, "No, we will go to the theatre, for there ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... two and took it. In less than a fortnight I heard the principal 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 to the usual parade of authors! But it is peculiar ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... woman turn on that "loveliest eyes" gag about an actor I always feel that a swift slap from a wet dish-rag would look well ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... keep till the appointed night. And in those stalls—an erect old figure with a serene white head, a little figure, strenuous and eager, with a red-gold head—they would sit through every kind of play, and on the way home old Jolyon would say of the principal actor: "Oh, he's a poor stick! You should have seen ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which every successful farce or melodrama elicits from the newspapers. Give me that critic who rushed from my play to declare furiously that Sir George Crofts ought to be kicked. What a triumph for the actor, thus to reduce a jaded London journalist to the condition of the simple sailor in the Wapping gallery, who shouts execrations at Iago and warnings to Othello not to believe him! But dearer still than such simplicity is that sense ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... clear to him, there had been perhaps less confidence in his tone, for, after all, he was not by nature a man of action, and his character was the very reverse of valiant. Yet so excellent an actor was he as to deceive even himself by his acting, and in this suggestion of some vague fine deeds that he would do, he felt himself stirred by a sudden martial ardour, and capable of all. He was stirred, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... sensibility of the connoisseur. He would never have asked to be left alone with the Venus de Medicis as a modern art-critic is related to have asked to be left alone with the Venus of Rokeby. He would have been at a loss to understand the state of mind of the eminent actor who thought the situation demanded that he should be positively bereft of breath at first sight of the Apollo Belvedere, and panting to regain it, convulsively clutched at the arm of his companion, with difficulty articulating, "I breathe." Smollett refused to be hypnotized ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... as such at all; through them he looks into the immensity of heaven, peopled with gods and godlike men. Consummate acting is that which makes the spectator forget that it is acting. The part and the player become one. The actor, in himself and in the words he utters, is the unregarded vehicle of the dramatist's idea. In a play like Ibsen's "Ghosts," the stage, the actors, the dialogue merge and fall away, and the overwhelming meaning stands revealed in its complete intensity. As the play ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... art an actor in a play, and of such sort as the Author chooses, whether long or short. If it be his good pleasure to assign thee the part of a beggar, a ruler, or a simple citizen, thine it is to play it fitly. For thy business is to act the part assigned thee, well: ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... doubt had he occasion to address The brilliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess, He would have wrought for them the best he knew And led more loftily his actor-crew. How coolly he misquoted. 'Twas his art— Slave-scholar, who misquoted—from the heart. So when we slapped his back with friendly roar Aesop awaited him without the door,— Aesop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh With little tales ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... up in his blankets. "Afraid of me, eh? You better be! I'm a bad actor. I killed Dolores's husband, and took ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... not help eying him keenly. Could he have spoken so heartily if he had known what it was, damning to himself, that Kennedy had tucked away in the laboratory? If he knew, he must have been a splendid actor, one of those whom only the minute blood-pressure test of the sphygmograph could induce to give up a secret, and then only in spite ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... old field of journalism. Willis has his own connection with the tale of the Square, though not a very glorious one. The town buzzed for days with talk of the sensational interview between Nym Crinkle and Edwin Forrest, the actor. Mr. Willis made some comments on Forrest's divorce, in an editorial, and that player, so well adored by the American public, took him by the coat collar in Washington Square and exercised his stage-trained muscles by giving him ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... is left to tell some of its story who was a living actor and had personal knowledge of many of the thrilling scenes that were enacted along the line of the great route. He was familiar with all the famous men, both white and savage, whose lives have made the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... an actor," commented Mr. Lewis, sagely, "but what the hell's the difference? It's the name that's going to carry this act—and it's going to be ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... "a fellow thinks well of himself, or else his neighbors tell him he can save the nation, and he puts a piece in the paper saying how good he is and sets pictures of himself up in store winders like a cussed play-actor, keeps a cash account, and thinks that's politics. I don't care if there ain't ever no more caucuses. This thing ain't going to last. I want to keep in the field. I'll see chances to heave trigs into the spokes of these hallelujah chariots they're ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... lighting fresh cigars and ever having his glass refilled. It was clear to him that on this night Silverbridge could not be made to understand anything about it. And the deed in which he himself was to be the chief actor was to be done very early in the following morning. At last he slunk away ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... stole his brilliant garments and with them his papers. Then in my desperate necessity I dared to masquerade. For I know enough about dancing to estimate that to dance upon air must necessarily prove to everybody a disgusting performance, but pre-eminently unpleasing to the main actor. Two weeks of safety till the Tranchemer sailed I therefore valued at a perhaps preposterous rate. To-night, as I have said, the ship lies ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... greatest actor of his time, delivering that last speech, with its incomparable rhythm! I like to think that he gave the spectators an idea that Valentine's self-sacrifice for Angelica was nothing but a bold device, a calculated effect; otherwise the sacrifice is an excrescence ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... because it furnishes a larger proportion of instances, in which arbitrary power was exercised with comparative mildness, than any other nation ancient or modern. And yet, her whole existence was a tragedy, every actor was an executioner, the curtain rose amidst shrieks and fell upon corpses, and the only shifting of the scenes was from blood to blood. The whole world stood aghast, as under sentence of death, awaiting execution, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 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
... read it. He blew his nose, and walked away for a minute. When he returned, it was to say, with lips that twitched a little in his smooth-shaven actor's face: ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... old plug tried to sell this daughter of his for wife to a merchant in Portland. She had her own ideas—she eloped with the second tragedian from the theatre over there. Hom Kip put detectives on them, and caught her at Fresno. But she'd already married her actor American fashion; and the Portland bridegroom is waiting until father makes ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... She might have been another Elizabeth Fry, another Florence Nightingale. But she had no impulse whatever towards active benevolence, nor any interest in masses of men and women. And, above all, she was not an actor, but a spectator in life, and she evaded, often with droll agility, all the efforts which people made to drag her into propagandas of various kinds. She listened to what they had to say, and she begged for ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... little while a child, and now An amorous youth; then for a season turned Into the wealthy householder: then stripped Of all his riches, with decrepit limbs And wrinkled frame man creeps towards the end Of life's erratic course and like an actor Passes behind Death's ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... the Nile and its inundations, which, it is hoped, will not be deemed an improper or tedious digression, especially as the whole is an extract from Johnson's translation. He is, all the time, the actor in the scene, and, in his own words, relates the story. Having finished this work, he returned in February, 1734, to his native city; and, in the month of August following, published proposals for printing, by subscription, the Latin poems of Politian, with ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... autumn of 1868 the throne of Spain had been vacant in consequence of a revolution in which General Prim had been the leading actor. It was not easy to discover a successor for the Bourbon Isabella; and after other candidatures had been vainly projected it occurred to Prim and his friends early in 1869 that a suitable candidate might be found in Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, whose elder brother had been made ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... and Spain are the countries principally treated of. Lord Holland's first visit to France was in 1791, just after the death of Mirabeau and the disastrous flight to Varennes. LAFAYETTE seems to have been more disposed than any other public actor in the revolution to put faith in the king even after that incident, and his confidence won over the young English traveller. But the weakness as well as strength of Lafayette is well ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... lasted nineteen years, or until 1716, when they were recalled by the Regent. A new troupe was organized under the direction of Louis Riccoboni, a famous actor, and author, among other works, of a valuable history of the Theatre-Italien. Riccoboni took the young lovers' parts and the name of Lelio. The rest of the cast[56] was as follows: Joseph Baletti, called Mario, second lover; Thomasso Vicentini, called Thomassin, who took ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... 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 ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... about 1860 he wrote to a friend, "There is not one man in twenty that is worth the ground he stands on"; and speaking of Napoleon he affirms that, in the well-nigh universal negligence and inefficiency of mankind, we cannot be too thankful for this prompt and ready actor. No one who realizes the hard and bitter struggle for daily bread with which three-fourths of the human race are constantly occupied, would have written such a sentence. The transition from optimism to pessimism is very much ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... get?" asked the stork-mother. "They had no right to overlook the most important actor in the affair, and that was thyself. The learned only babbled about the matter. But so ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... thing removes our awe of it. The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and impunity; the great actor who is called before the curtain by admiring audiences is often waylaid at the ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... a show-actor, looks like." Dirk confided behind his hand to Shorty McGuire. "That's real singin', if ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... one thing to say," Shorty answered. "An' that is Wild Water won't never suffer if he goes broke. He's a good actor—a gosh-blamed good actor. An' I got another thing to say: my figgers is all wrong. Wild Water wins seventeen thousan' all right, but he wins more 'n that. You an' me has made him a present of every good egg in the Klondike—nine ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... its leadership which had once seemed likely to be his. From the moment of his quarrel with Jackson the man changes out of recognition: it is one of the most curious transformations in history, like an actor stripping off his stage costume and appearing as his very self. Political compromises, stratagems, ambitions drop from him, and he stands out as he appears in that fine portrait whose great hollow eyes look down from the walls of the Capitol at Washington, the enthusiast, almost the ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... the plates for the magazine. His son, Edward Trenchard, entered the navy, visited England and induced Gilbert Fox, then a 'graver's apprentice, to return with him to America. In this country Fox became an actor, and for him Joseph Hopkinson ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... serious physical defects by assiduous practice; of his having failed, nevertheless, owing to imperfections of delivery, in his early appearances before the people, and having been enabled to remedy these by the instruction of the celebrated actor Satyrus; and of his close study of the History of Thucydides. Upon the latter point the evidence of his early style leaves no room for doubt, and the same studies may have contributed to the skill and impressiveness with which, in nearly every ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... murmured; "Why, there was never any other but Pevensey! For Ursula knows all,—knows there was never any more manhood in Master Mervale's disposition than might be gummed on with a play-actor's mustachios! Why, she is my cousin, Stephen,—my cousin and good friend, to whom I came at once on reaching England, to find you, favored by her father, pestering her with your suit, and the poor girl well-nigh at her wits' end because she might not have Pevensey. ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... "The Wife," met with unbounded appreciation. Carpenters were employed at sixteen dollars a day to prepare for its presentation. This was the first play ever acted in San Francisco. The company were encouraged to remain, and give other performances; but, as there was only one lady actor, every play had to be altered to conform to this condition ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... indicates a later period, when the people no longer felt insecure, and there was in fact no necessity for the system; and when, not having been disused, it could not but be abused. We derive both from an old citizen of the country, who was an actor in each. One of them, the first, has already been in print, but owing to circumstances to which it is needless to advert, it was thought better to confine the narrative to facts already generally known. These circumstances are no longer operative, and I am ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... itself before my eyes, and I cannot sit by with averted face. I hear the grand chant of Liberty as the beautiful goddess comes nearer and nearer and smites down one Oppressor after another with her red right hand; and I cannot shut my ears. I have been an actor in the great drama of Revolution ever since a lad of twelve. I saw my father borne off in chains to Siberia, and heard my mother with her dying breath curse the tyrant who had sent him there. Since that day Conspiracy has been the very salt of my life. For it I have fought and bled; for ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... wife. As a character sketch Mrs. Dunn's "Zekle's Wife" stands on an equality with Denman Thompson's "Joshua Whitcomb" and with Joe Jefferson's "Rip Van Winkle." To sustain a conception so foreign to the natural characteristics of the actor without once allowing the interest of the audience to flag, requires originality of thought, independence of idea, and genius for action. Mrs. Dunn, herself the author of her sketch, possesses to a remarkable degree the power to impress upon her audience the feeling that the old lady ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... left a widow with a daughter, marries a second time, and her husband turns out a rascal of the worst brand who leaves her without a centimo. Rosa, the daughter of the first marriage, unable to put up with her step-father, elopes with an actor and nothing more is ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... frank and unconscious himself, he went on with a simplicity which the most accomplished actor could not have counterfeited, "That's what I'm always telling Maggie—Miss Warner. She's ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... I have endeavored to describe the public events in which I was an actor or spectator before and during the civil war of 1861-'65, and it now only remains for me to treat of similar matters of general interest subsequent to the civil war. Within a few days of the grand review of May 24, 1865, I took leave of the army at Washington, and with my family went ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... and seen him standin' beside the track j'es' a-cussin' a blue streak. He's a sho-'nough bad actor, that ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... turned. It's going out, Alfred, it's going out. It washed an inch lower last time. Keep up! Keep up! O Lord, help me to hold him! help me to hold him! It's funny," she went on, changing with one of her sudden strange transitions from the part of actor to that of spectator, as it were. "It's funny we neither of us prayed. People in danger do, as a rule, they say in the books; but I ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... some flattering and gallant allusions to myself and some gross compliments to my cousin the chancellor, who, in new silk robe and a fine powdered wig, was also present at this fete. The performers in this little piece, who were Favart, the actor, and Voisenon, the priest, must have been fully satisfied with the reception they obtained, for the comedy was applauded as though it had been one of the of Voltaire. In general a private audience is very indulgent so long as the representation ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Waldegrave, Lord Huntingdon, and Mr. Morrison the groom, and the evening was pleasant; but I had a much more agreeable supper last night at Mrs. Clive's, with Miss West, my niece Cholmondeley, and Murphy, the writing actor, who is very good company, and two or three more. Mrs. Cholmondeley is very lively; you know how entertaining the Clive is, and Miss ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... to have heard the philosopher Rakbasi speak thus: "Every one should know his own talents, and should impartially judge of his own merits and faults; otherwise the actor must be considered more sensible than natural men; for he chooses, not the best part, but that which he can execute best. Shall we allow the actor to be wiser on the stage than ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... of his own situation. And in such complicated subjects, the alteration of a very minute circumstance, unknown to the spectator, will often be sufficient to cast the balance, and render a determination, which in itself may be uneligible, very prudent, or even absolutely necessary to the actor. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... animating the character who is speaking. No person in the play should be made to do or say anything out of character. By the laws of decorum, for instance, old men should be querulous and young boys given to sudden anger. The chorus, also, must be an actor and carry along the action of the play instead of interrupting the play to sing. Horace further warns his pupils to restrict the number of acts to the conventional five, and the number of characters to the conventional three. As an episode presented on the stage ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... 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
... defence. His son Iruka became daijin after his father's death and conducted himself with even greater arrogance. At last his conduct became intolerable and he was assassinated A.D. 645. The chief actor in this plot was Nakatomi-no-Kamatari, who was at this time on intimate terms with the prince who afterwards became ...
— Japan • David Murray
... be for such individual thought and decision in a finished play written by a careful dramatist may be illustrated by Fame and the Poet by Lord Dunsany. One of the characters is a Lieutenant-Major who calls upon a poet in London. Nothing is said about his costume. In one city an actor asked the British consul. He said officers of the army do not wear their uniforms except when in active service, but on the British stage one great actor had by his example created the convention of wearing the uniform. In another city at exactly the same time the author himself was asked the ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... Milton's name does not occur in the Act. Pope used to tell that Davenant had employed his interest to protect a brother-poet, thus returning a similar act of generosity done to himself by Milton in 1650. Pope had this story from Betterton the actor. How far Davenant exaggerated to Betterton his own influence or his exertions, we cannot tell. Another account assigns the credit of the intervention to Secretary Morris and Sir Thomas Clarges. After all, it is probable that he ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... connected with this latter view which never failed to recur to my mind in my long gunning excursions upon Dedlow Marsh. Although the event was briefly recorded in the county paper, I had the story, in all its eloquent detail, from the lips of the principal actor. I cannot hope to catch the varying emphasis and peculiar coloring of feminine delineation, for my narrator was a woman; but I'll try to ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Ruth and Alice DeVere. Their father, a widower, is an actor who has taken up work for the "movies." Both girls wish to aid him in his work and visit various localities to act in all sorts ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... admits fifty. But when Goneril says that even twenty-five are too many, Lear pours forth a long argument about the superfluous and the needful being relative and says that if man is not allowed more than he needs, he is not to be distinguished from a beast. Lear, or rather the actor who plays Lear's part, adds that there is no need for a lady's finery, which does not keep her warm. After this he flies into a mad fury and says that to take vengeance on his daughters he will do something dreadful but that he will not weep, and so ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... so much back," he half whispered, "so much!" He was a fairly good actor, but Doris was ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... stunned and shocked before, his horror was increased a thousandfold when he got into this vortex of the riot, and not being an actor in the terrible spectacle, had it all before his eyes. But there, in the midst, towering above them all, close before the house they were attacking now, was Hugh on ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... to ride behind such a superb team, and he told Dorothy it made him feel like an actor in a circus. As the strides of the animals brought them nearer to the Emerald City every one bowed respectfully to the children, as well as to the Tin Woodman, Tik-tok, and the shaggy man, who were ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... followed, has been preserved in a work called A Detection of the State and Court of England during the last Four Reigns. It is the more curious, as the author, Roger Coke, was a grandson of Sir Edward, the great chief-justice, who was a principal actor in the scene. The king was at Royston, accompanied by Somerset, when it appears that Sir Ralph Winwood informed his majesty of the suspicions that were abroad against the favourite. The king immediately determined to inform Coke; but it is feared that the determination arose not from ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... v. Brayne, printed in C.W. Wallace, The First London Theatre, pp. 82, 90. Whether Burbage was going to the Cross Keys as a spectator or as an actor is not indicated; but the presumption is that he was then playing at the inn, although he was proprietor of ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... as is mentioned in that book on the Commonwealth, not only did AEschines the Athenian, a man of the greatest eloquence, who, when a young man, had been an actor of tragedies, concern himself in public affairs, but the Athenians often sent Aristodemus, who was also a tragic actor, to Philip as an ambassador, to treat of the most important affairs of ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Author and actor-manager walked up the lawn puffing at their cigars. The others sat watching, knowing that the opportunity had come for criticism of ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... ended, and Florette and Freddy would set out gayly once more for Oshkosh or Atlanta, Dallas or Des Moines. Meals expanded, Florette bought a rhinestone-covered comb, and the two adventurers indulged in an orgy of chocolate drops. With the optimism of the actor, they forgot all about the dismal past weeks, and saw the new tour ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... which a man takes to ruin or seriously damage himself generally do seem a mystery to others, and probably are so to himself. Nor is there anything more unusual in the colossal irony of the situation, when we find Scott, just before his own ruin, and in the act of giving his friend Terry the actor a guarantee (which, as it happened, he had to pay), writing[36] words of the most excellent sense on the rashness of engaging in commercial undertakings without sufficient capital, the madness of dealing in bills, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... condition of political parties in Athens in 416 B.C. adds immensely to the enjoyment of the readers of Aristophanes; the fun becomes funnier and the daring even more splendid than before. Moliere's training as an actor does affect the dramaturgic quality of his comedies. All this is demonstrable, and to the prevalent consciousness of it our generation is deeply indebted to Taine and his pupils. But before displaying dogmatically the inevitable brandings of racial and ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... quaestiones agitare juberet solito acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity of the magistrates of Antioch,) et majorem ecclesiam Antiochiae claudi. This interdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity and profanation; and the seasonable death of the principal actor, Julian's uncle, is related with much superstitious complacency by the Abbe de la Bleterie. Vie de ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... effeminate young men know of jealousy? Is not your professor of jealousy the actor who dashes about on the stage with a ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... no connection with the minds and real feelings of the speakers; and, having wandered a little to show his disapproval, he would go to the door and stare at it till it opened and let him out. Once or twice, it is true, when an actor of large voice was declaiming an emotional passage, he so far relented as to go up to him and pant in his face. Music, too, made him restless, inclined to sigh, and to ask questions. Sometimes, at its first sound, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... aspired to be an actor. One of the first things he did after settling in Sandusky was to organize an amateur theatrical company, composed entirely of people of German birth or descent. The performances were given in the Turner Hall, in the German tongue, on a makeshift ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... before him, and a few sentences, carefully polished, at hand for the beginning and the end. He could trust himself in the middle, and was perfectly conscious of that. He frankly liked preaching, liked it not merely as an actor loves to sway his audience, but liked it because he always knew what to say, and was really keen that people should see his argument. And yet this morning, when he should have been prepared for the best he could do, he was ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... man be as good an actor as Mr. Hervey," said, Lady Delacour, "and if he suit 'the action to the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... dozen times with applications for charity. At last, in came the glorious Fanny Kemble, meeting Mrs. Mott in a manner that clearly showed they were warm and well-known friends; and soon came Frederick Douglass. There sat the millionaire philanthropist, the world-renowned actor, the grandest representative of slavery, and the fearless disciple of Elias Hicks. I doubt if the Quaker City ever unveiled so magnificent a tableaux for the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... applauded, or to see them getting attention he craved for himself. He could no sing, but he was a great story teller. Had he just said, out and out, that he was making up tales, 'twould have been all richt enough. But, no—Jock must pretend he'd been everywhere he told about, and that he'd been an actor in every yarn he spun. He was a great boaster, too—he'd tell us, without a blush, of the most desperate things he'd done, and of how brave he'd been. He was the bravest man alive, to hear ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... (d. 1742), actor, originally performed at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs. On 27 Oct. 1721 his name appears as Sir Epicure Mammon in the Alchemist at Drury Lane. Here he remained for eleven years, taking the parts of booby ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... of Mr. Lewes seems to me highly characteristic. How sanguine, versatile, and self-confident must that man be who can with ease exchange the quiet sphere of the author for the bustling one of the actor! I heartily wish him success; and, in happier times, there are few things I should have relished more than an opportunity of seeing him ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... what Feuerbach calls his [Greek: polupraguoshinae], which, being interpreted, means having a finger in every pie. We are used to consider him as a man of letters; but the greater part of his life was spent in labors of quite another kind. He was more actor than writer. He wrote only for occasions, at the instigation of others, or to meet some pressing demand of the time. Besides occupying himself with mechanical inventions, some of which (in particular, his improvement of Pascal's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... that beats high with life. Then it is that great scars are made. Terrible is the anguish. None, it may be, can issue from this soul-sickness without undergoing some dramatic change. Those who survive it, those who remain on earth, return to the world to wear an actor's countenance and to play an actor's part. They know the side-scenes where actors may retire to calculate chances, shed their tears, or pass their jests. Life holds no inscrutable dark places for those who have passed through this ordeal; their ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... An officer of the revolutionary army, and a conspicuous actor in the War of 1812; has ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... aid of the funds of the Sanitary Commission, is one of the indications of the patriotism of the time. Mr. Murdoch, an eminent and estimable actor and elocutionist, has been engaged, ever since the war began, in doing his part towards rousing and sustaining the enthusiasm of the people, by scattering the burning words of patriotic poets in our Western camps and towns. The volume contains specimens of lyric poetry which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... received at first. "Even my friends," writes Gray, in a letter to Hurd, Aug. 25, 1757, "tell me they do not succeed, and write me moving topics of consolation on that head. In short, I have heard of nobody but an Actor [Garrick] and a Doctor of Divinity [Warburton] that profess their esteem for them. Oh yes, a Lady of quality (a friend of Mason's) who is a great reader. She knew there was a compliment to Dryden, but never suspected ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... violently out of his puffed cheeks, so that they collapsed. By this he showed how his austerity loathed the clatter of the stage; for his ears were stopped with anger and open to no influence of delight. This reward, befitting an actor, punished an unseemly performance with a shameful wage. For Starkad excellently judged the man's deserts, and bestowed a shankbone for the piper to pipe on, requiting his soft service with a hard fee. None could say ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... 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
... moment whether to put him down as an actor or a lawyer, but her doubts were soon solved as he gave her his ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... world of solemn meaning in that one little word 'doest.' It teaches us the old lesson, which sense is so apt to forget, that the true actor in man's deeds is 'the hidden man of the heart,' and that when it has acted, it matters comparatively little whether the mere tool and instrument of the hands or of the other organs have carried ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... cried he, clutching me by the breast of the coat with the fury of a highwayman or a spasmodic actor. "Did the villain ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... equal. He used to wear a high-crowned soft felt hat, which was remarkably suited to the Roman-like contour of his face. He was skillful in all things, and might have been equally celebrated as a writer, an actor, or possibly as an artist, if his interest and inclination had led him in either of these directions. What we feel the lack of in him is contemplative depth: he was more Gallic than Germanic. He possessed a ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... attacks, drilling his own soldiers into acting the parts of malcontents, of escaped prisoners, of bloodthirsty barbarians, the while he himself—as chief actor in the play—vanquished the mock foes and took from them mock spoils ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... moment everything seemed to be like a curious waking dream, in which I was the chief actor; for, passing the last tail and going forward, I walked with Joeboy to the front, all being silent about the wagons. From beyond these came the peculiarly soft, chewing sound of working jaws; and I made out, partly by hearing and partly ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... perturbing and tumultuous presence. It was good to hear them talk of George Frederic Cooke, of Kean, and the lesser stars of those earlier constellations. Better still to breakfast with old Samuel Rogers, as some of my readers have done more than once, and hear him answer to the question who was the best actor he remembered, "I think, on ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... clever to deal with a person of humble position, but believed that as soon as she cared to trouble herself to bring it about, he would become entirely devoted to her. And Licquet, with his almost genial skilfulness, so easily fathomed the Marquise's proud soul—was such a perfect actor in the way he stood before her, spoke to her, and looked at her with an air of submissive admiration,—that it was no wonder she thought he was ready to serve her; and as she was not the sort of woman to use any discretion with a man of his class, she immediately ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... as she had said in writing to the Doctor, she went with Miss Skeat and sat in the front box of the theatre, which the great actor had placed at her disposal. The play was Othello. Mr. Barker had ascertained that she was going, and had accordingly procured himself a seat in the front of the orchestra. He endeavoured to catch a look from Margaret all through the first part of the performance, but ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... back in his chair now, looked around for his; cap, took it up, and looked back at her, quietly, still smiling a little. Marise thought, "Neale is as natural in his life as a very great actor is in his art. Whatever he does, even to the most trifling gesture, is done with so great a simplicity that it makes people like me feel fussy ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... was a comic actor of high reputation. Like Tarlton, whom he succeeded "as wel in the fauour of her Maiesty as in the opinion and good thoughts of the generall audience,"[v:1] he usually played the Clown, and was greatly applauded for his buffoonery, his extemporal wit,[v:2] and his performance ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... with which I shall conclude this chapter of ghostly experiences is one for the truth of which I am not prepared to vouch, as I was neither an actor in its scenes nor was it related to me by one who was. Yet were the incidents of any other than a supernatural nature I should consider the authority from which I learned them ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... Duke's office one mornin', when without even knockin'—a remarkable thing for a movie star—in walks Edmund De Vronde. Edmund has caused more salesladies to take their pens in hand than any other actor in the world. His boudoir is hung with pictures of dames from eight to eighty and from Flatbush to Florida. If some of 'em was actual reproductions, them dames was foolish for sellin' shirtwaists, believe me! Edmund is as beautiful ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... which Mr. Young gives to some of these eloquent passages. They are full of poetical and dramatic fire. Indeed, we know of no professor of the histrionic art who could give so accurate an embodiment of Rienzi—as Mr. Young, the most chaste and discreet, if not the most impassioned, actor on the British stage. Again, we can conceive the force of these lines in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... Federal soldiers fired. It is all mystery— grim mystery and surmise; and when there is no chance of either proving or disproving a case I dare say one man's word answers quite as well as another's. At all events, we have your grandfather's testimony as chief actor and eye-witness against the inherited convictions of our somewhat Homeric young neighbour. For eighteen years before the war Mr. Fletcher was sole agent—a queer selection, certainly—for old Mr. Blake, who was known to have grown very careless in the confidence he placed. When the crash ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the misfortune of a mental brilliancy that learns too readily and of a personal charm that wins its way too easily. He danced well; he was facile at the piano; and he had so pronounced a gift as an amateur actor that a celebrated professional had advised him to go on ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... checked shirt open over his chest and revealing a mat of curly gray hair. Burlingham hailed him as Pat—his only known name. But Susan had only a glance for him and no ear at all for the chaffing between him and the actor-manager. She was gazing at the Indiana shore, at a tiny village snuggled among trees and ripened fields close to the water's edge. She knew it was Brooksburg. She remembered the long covered bridge ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... eyes, and, in fact, in the eyes of all who had heard his story, even Phil, the stranger had taken on an added importance, the importance of the chief actor ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... back in my life!" she said. "After setting there for four mortal hours with nothing to say, just boring each other to death, for him to get up like that and make a regular play-actor bow, and kiss my hand! Well, I never ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... silent. The policy of Great Britain towards this country, and the manner in which it was to be met, stirred profound feelings and opened such fierce dissensions as it is now difficult to appreciate. For a brief time Mr. Adams was to be a prominent actor before the people. It is fortunately needless to repeat, as it must ever be painful to remember, the familiar and too humiliating tale of the part which France and England were permitted for so many years to play in our national politics, when our ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... all, not at all. I've always been interested in the theatre. I'll confess to you that I've always wanted to know a real actor or actress. Now that our dear Miss Fairweather turns out to be—er—to have been on the stage for some time before she came to us, my interest in the profession is intensified. I really am quite thrilled over knowing a real, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... fear, and he involuntarily shuddered when he reflected that if justice were done he would he in the place of these men who were about to suffer a shameful death. Moreover, he knew that some day it were far from improbable that he himself would be figuring in a similar scene as a chief actor, or rather chief victim. So, though he ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... surnamed Il Moro, at Novara, in 1501, had indeed greatly shaken the confidence, hitherto nearly universal, in the fidelity and honor of the Swiss; but even at home indignation was awakened by it, a severe examination instituted, and the chief actor executed at Altorf. Indeed it seems generally to have roused the better feelings of the nation. An oath was demanded against the acceptance of pensions and mercenary service under foreign lords; and a levy was not only refused to the French ambassadors, who had come into ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... seated at a desk, and dressed in plain clothes, read French plays with such modulation of voice, and such exquisite point of dialogue, as to form a pleasure different from that of the theatre, but almost as great as we experience in listening to a first-rate actor. We have only to add to a very good account given by Mr. Boaden of this extraordinary entertainment, that when it commenced Mr. Le Texier read over the dramatis personae, with the little analysis ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Of course no one could tell me where Edgar had gone to; but I was tolerably certain he had gone home with the girl. Where she lived I did not know, but I thought it probable the actor could tell me. So we started on to Walker street. There are—or were at the time I speak of—several boarding houses in Walker street. We passed one or two three-story houses with marble steps. 'Shall I ask along here?' said Clarke. 'No,' I answered; 'poor actors don't ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of a play's quality is only applied when it is read. So long as the illusion of the stage gives credit to the action, and the words and gestures of the actor impose themselves on the imagination of the spectator, the latter will pass over a thousand imperfections, which reveal themselves to the reader, who, as he has to satisfy himself with the drama of silent images, will nor be content if this ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Here this excellent actor began to sob most piteously, and the tender-hearted Wilhelmina, unable longer to withstand his moving tale, with a repetition of the interjection, ah! gently dropped into his arms. This was the beginning of a correspondence that soon rose to a very interesting pitch; ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... smart, not less so than his father; but he was also very talented. He did everything well; he sang charmingly, sketched with spirit, wrote verses, and was a very fair actor. He was only twenty-eight, and he was already a kammer-yunker, and had a very good position. Panshin had complete confidence in himself, in his own intelligence, and his own penetration; he made ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... hand rose dramatically heavenwards. His brow grew black and his voice had the vibration of the great orator or the great actor. "When I think of this daily judicial murder of ten long years that I passed through, then waves of blood seem to tremble before my eyes, and it seems as if a sea of blood would choke me. Galley-slaves appear to me very honorable persons ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... incarnate, and just as he would have been in any time or country. Fortune had given him that unforgettable mummer's face,—that clean-cut, mobile visage,—that animated natural mask! No one else had so deep and rich a voice for the rendering of the music and pathos of a poet's lines, and no actor ever managed both face and voice better than he in delivering his own verses merry or sad. One night, he was seen among the audience at "Uncut Leaves," and was instantly requested to do something towards the evening's entertainment. As he was ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... Mr. Riley might have made a good actor. Even here, in an embarrassing situation calling for lines spoken ad lib. and without prior rehearsals, he had what the critics term sincerity. His fine dissembling deceived ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... taken us for something preternatural; yet from the extremity of fear that had prompted them to set their woods in flames, they in a brief space so completely subdued those fears as to approach the very beings who had so strongly excited their alarm. The savage who had been the principal actor in the scene, was an elderly man, rather descending to the vale of years than what might be strictly called aged. I know not how it was, but I regarded him with peculiar interest. Mr. Hume's manners had in a great measure contributed ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... democrat, their mayor. In the Jacobin club were Robespierre; Marat, who denounced fiercely in his journal, "The Friend of the People," as aristocrats, all classes above the common level, whether by birth or property, and the former play-actor, D'Herbois. Danton, and Camille Desmoulins, who belonged to the Cordeliers, took part in its sessions. From this company, the Girondists separated after the fall of the king. The red Jacobin cap came into vogue as ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... "Governess," had also been published and were extremely popular. Like "The Truce of God," they were of the purest moral tone, elegant in diction, the work of a thorough literary craftsman. In 1850, the American actor, Edwin Forrest, offered a prize of $1,000.00 for the best drama written by an American. Miles easily carried off the reward with his play "Mohammed." Rich with all the colors of the East, glowing with the warmth and poetry of Arabian romance and story, "Mohammed" was rather ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... emperors that made fine dishes of the little birds brains, phenicopter's tongues, &c. and of the actor who regaled his guests with nightingale-pie, with just detestation of such curiosity and expence: but thrushes, larks, and blackbirds, are so very frequent between Turin and Novi, I think they might serve to feed all the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... very pleasing performance. He spoke his lines admirably, grouped himself (if the Hibernianism be permissible) excellently, and showed himself in every sense a well-graced actor. Mr. PONSONBY'S Launce, too, was capital, carefully thought out and consistently rendered. One or two of the actors in tights seemed unduly conscious of their hands and knees, but, on the whole, the acting was of good average excellence. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... 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 ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... and flung back skillfully and cleverly the ball of conversation, as he tossed it to her. She was pleased, it was evident, and amused. But she was pleased only as with a clever actor, a brilliant performer on some new instrument now heard for the first time. The gay, wild humor of the young man hit her fancy; his mad wit struck a kindred chord in her mind; but the latent poetry and romance passed unheeded, and the noblest point of all, the good and gracious feelings, made no ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... green figs and tid-bits from his gardens, and delightful girls whose names I don't even know come in big cars and ask to take little Dinkie off for one of their lawn fetes. It even happened that a movie-actor—who, I later discovered, was a drug-addict—insisted on accompanying me home and informed me on the way that I had a dream of a face for camera-work. It quite set me up, for all its impertinence, until I learned to my sorrow that ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... lament to see it thrown away, or rather employed in disseminating bad taste. How rarely is it we see even a subject of any value or interest attempted! It is, as in our play-writing, not the subject, but the peculiarity of some actor, that is to be written up to; so the peculiarities of some few flashy favourite artists employ our best engravers, who ought to be far otherwise employed, in making transcripts from the best works, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... schoolboy read his theme as hear a man begin to prose about public virtue—especially a member of parliament. Keep that phrase, my dear Vivian, till some of the treasury bench come to court you; then look superb, like a French tragic actor, swelling out your chest, and throwing the head over the left shoulder—thus—exclaim, 'Public virtue forbid!'—practise! practise!—for if you do it well, it may be worth a loud huzza to you yet; or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... sketch of his life,—not to gratify his own vanity, or for the pleasure and entertainment of the public, but solely and purposely to prevent the truthful and matter-of-fact biographer of Liston from making the old player the subject of a biographical work. The veteran actor's vehement protests against being represented as a Presbyterian or Anabaptist, and his brief, but pungent comments on certain passages in the Liston biography, are delightful. Methinks I see the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... attraction of Mary-Girl (a silly title) was the engaging personality of Miss MAY BLAYNEY. Always a fascinating figure to watch, she showed an extraordinary sensitiveness of voice and expression. As for that honest and admirable actor, Mr. MCKINNEL, who made the perfect foil to her charms that every good husband should wish to be, he seems never to tire of playing these stern, dour, semi-brutal parts. That more genial characters are open to him his success in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... success. It was won by his victory over the Swedes under Wrangel, at Fehrbellin. Carlyle's characteristic narrative and commentary on this and other triumphs of the Great Elector place him before the reader as one of the chief personages of the Hohenzollern race and a leading actor in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... account of a boy's part in great historical events there is a leading actor, "the last of the Susquehannocks," whose share in the hero's adventures has given the ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... of her life. Of all her friends, she seems to have been most attached to Garrick,—the idol of society, a general favorite wherever he chose to go, a man of irreproachable morals and charming conversational powers; at whose house and table no actor or actress was ever known to be invited, except in one solitary instance; from which it would appear that he was more desirous of the attentions of the great than of the sympathy and admiration of the people of his own profession. It is not common for actors to be gifted with great conversational ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... anything, conceive that he could extend his new dominion over this land, even after he should be laid in his grave? For my part, I think Andrew's amazement did not imply any extraordinary degree of ignorance; he was an actor introduced upon a new scene, it required some time ere he could reconcile himself to the part he was to perform. However he was soon enlightened, and introduced into those mysteries with which we native Americans ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... "I am more than angry that such a thing could have happened, and the principal actor in it have been one who bears the same name as myself. It is cruel—scandalous—disgraceful; and above all, to have exposed you to such an indignity—in custody like a common thief! But there, you shall not ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... the greatest of English writers, was born in 1564, and was pretty well educated for those days. The free school of the town was open to all boys, and his father could afford to send him to it. He early became an actor, and from correcting plays by other people he came to ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... this propensity; and, with every respect, his literary coup d'oeil, except as regards the Alma where he saw for himself, and Inkerman where no coup d'oeil was possible, was somewhat impaired by his having to make his picture of battle a mosaic, each fragment contributed by a distinct actor concentrated on his own particular bit of fighting. If ever military history becomes a fine art we may find the intending historian, alive to the proverb that "onlookers see most of the game," detailing capable ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... "reminds me of one in which I was an actor, and which was impressed upon my mind by a process which few boys are fond of, but which is very apt to make the impression durable. I fished for trout once without line or hook. I got a fine string of them, and myself into a pretty kettle ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... exchange," of the Positivist's dream of moralizing the capitalist, and of the ethical professor's, legislator's, educator's dream of putting commandments and codes and lessons and examination marks on a man as harness is put on a horse, ermine on a judge, pipeclay on a soldier, or a wig on an actor, and pretending that his nature has been changed. The only fundamental and possible Socialism is the socialization of the selective breeding of Man: in other terms, of human evolution. We must eliminate the Yahoo, or his vote will wreck ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... a miracle," he said. "You're a born actor, my son, and you came and went and got away with it just as well as mortal man could wish, and far better than I hoped. Well, Doria was fine. We stung him all right, and when he saw and thought he recognized ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... 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 to ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... righteous actions. Hours indeed, and days and months and years depart, nor does past time ever return, nor can the future be known. Whatever time each is granted for life, with that he is bound to be content. An actor, in order to earn approval, is not bound to perform the play from beginning to end; let him only satisfy the audience in whatever act he appears. Nor need a wise man go on to the concluding "plaudite." For a short term of life is long enough for living ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... times in Paris. Moliere's evil star, too, it was perhaps in part that brought him back to Paris, from Orleans. He admired a certain actress in the capital. She became the companion—probably not innocent companion—of his wandering life as actor. A sister of this actress—a sister young enough to be daughter, instead of sister—Moliere finally married. She led her jealous husband a wretched conjugal life. A peculiarly dark tradition of shame, connected with Moliere's ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... in placid and merciful flight, as upon the wings of a swallow—nay! with not so much as the flutter of the dove.' Besides all this, that he might be yet pleasanter to men, he committed to him also a multitude of blissful dreams, according to every man's desire. One watched his favourite actor; another listened to the flute, or guided a charioteer in the race: in his dream, the soldier was victorious, the general was borne in triumph, the wanderer returned home. Yes!—and sometimes those dreams ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater |
