"Actor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... course marry a—well, not a President of the United States, perhaps—but an admiral possibly, or a millionaire, or the owner of a fleet of steamships, or something like that. The idea that she should even think of marrying a play-actor was unbelievable. The captain had never attended the performance of an opera; what was more, he never expected to attend one. He had been given to understand that a "parcel of play-actin' men and women hollered and screamed ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Augustine says (De Trin. xiii, 3): "If that actor had said: 'You all wish to be happy; you do not wish to be unhappy,' he would have said that which none would have failed to acknowledge in his will." Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the girl's 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 in ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... words for all the world like a young provincial actor in the role of leading lover. I agreed to his proposition, and before we had reached Lgov I had succeeded in learning his whole history. He was a freed house-serf; in his tender youth had been taught music, then served ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... great-nephew of Shakespeare, a favourite actor. He is credited with being Nell Gwyn's first lover (or Charles I., as the wits put it), and with having brought her on the stage. He died of stone, and was buried at Stanmore Magna, Middlesex, where ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... quickly away: yet a little while and you will be an actor in this busy world, of which at present your knowledge is small. I am doomed never to see you more; but, while I have life and memory, I shall never ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Mrs Root lifted their hands imploringly to heaven. "Not love me!" they both exclaimed together, with a tone of heartfelt surprise and wounded sensibility, that would have gone far to have made the fortune of a sentimental actor. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Gracing the scenic festival)—Ver. 45. Madame Dacier remarks that there is great force and eloquence in the Actor's affecting a concern for the sacred festivals, which were in danger of being deprived of their chief ornaments, if by too great a severity they discouraged the Poets who undertook to furnish ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... appeared an actor who gave a terrible unity to the drama of Irish politics. Cromwell left London in July 1649, 'in a coach drawn by six gallant Flanders mares,' and made a grand progress to Bristol. He landed at Ring's End, near Dublin, on August 14. He entered the city in ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... the criminal in the accused man's appearance. Apparently about thirty years of age, spare of figure, clean-shaven, of a decidedly intellectual type of countenance, he looked like an actor. His much-worn suit of tweed was well cut and had evidently been carefully kept, in spite of its undoubtedly threadbare condition. It, and the worn and haggard look of the man's face, denoted poverty, if not recent actual privation, and the thought was present in more than one mind there in ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... an actor became a writer of plays; but though Ben Jonson extolled his "mighty muse," I doubt whether his Edward II., Dr. Faustus, or Jew of Malta, are now widely popular. Anthony Wood has left a very disagreeable picture ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... a born actor. Well, gentlemen, I won't keep you any longer except to offer my sympathy that you have found A. B. so indifferent a ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... seneschal's simple narrative without profound interest. In reading his account of this disastrous expedition, we are transported, in imagination, to the thirteenth century, and witness, with the mind's eye, the scenes in which he was an actor, and gradually come to feel as if we were not reading a chronicle penned centuries ago, but listening to a Crusader who, just returned from the East, and seated on the dais of the castle hall, tells his story over ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... strange actor was now made evident, and the whole house was hushed in awe and expectation. There was not a man or woman present but knew too well the folly of mingling in a family quarrel. So they held their tongues, and enjoyed ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... but in a generally bilateral fashion. The elements, in substitutional symmetry, are then simply means of introducing variety and action. As a dance in which there are complicated steps gives the actor and beholder a varied and thus vivified "balance," and is thus more beautiful than the simple walk, so a picture composed in substitutional symmetry is more rich in its suggestions of motor impulse, and thus more beautiful, than ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... severs it from the body. He is then closed with by another, who leaps across the prostrate foe, and with an adroit cut rips him open from snout to tail, and the tragedy is over, so far as the struggles and sufferings of the principal actor are concerned. There always follows, however, the most lively curiosity on the part of the sailors to learn what the shark has got stowed away in his inside; but they are often disappointed, for the stomach is generally ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... 'the Paphlagonian' and 'the Tanner.' Indeed, so great was the terror inspired by the great man that no artist was found bold enough to risk his powerful vengeance by caricaturing his features, and no actor dared to represent him on the stage. Aristophanes is said to have played the part himself, with his face, in the absence of a mask, smeared with wine-lees, roughly mimicking the purple and bloated visage of the demagogue. The remaining character is 'the Sausage-seller,' ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... conversion had been blazoned in the most extraordinary pictures: the antiquated baubles in which he had formerly dealt would have found no sale in Paris. Morok had nearly finished dressing himself, in one of the actor's rooms, which had been lent to him. Over a coat of mail, with cuishes and brassarts, he wore an ample pair of red trousers, fastened round his ankles by broad rings of gilt brass. His long caftan of black cloth, embroidered with scarlet and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Robertson having come to London to offer his "History of Scotland" for sale, we went to see the lions together. Home was now very friendly with Garrick, and I was often in company with this celebrated actor. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... both thought and language of the bad taste due to the prevailing Spanish influence. He subordinated the actor to the play, instead of composing, as his predecessors had done, lengthy monologues for mere histrionic display. He did away with absurdly tangled plots, and focussed the interest of tragedy on character. Tragedy thus purified, he made immortal by the strength and elevation of his moral teaching. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... that's just the point Ellis has missed all through. Even if it be true that the world appears to him as a work of art, it doesn't appear so to the personages of the drama. What's play to him is grim earnest to them; and, what's more, he himself is an actor not a mere spectator, and may have that fact brought home to him, any moment, in ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... disporting themselves at the fair. Merry meetings were these; and all enjoyed them, as young people do whatever is lively, dramatic, and social. Every one was full of the brilliant Kirmess, which was the talk of the city, and to which every one intended to go as actor or spectator. Jessie was sadly tempted to spend three of her cherished dollars for a ticket, and perhaps would have done so if there had been any one to take care of her. Laura could not go, and Mr. Vane was away; no other ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... mine: she knew by heart All Calderon and greater part of Lope; So, that if any actor missed his part, She could have served him for the prompter's copy; For her Feinagle's were an useless art,[26] And he himself obliged to shut up shop—he Could never make a memory so fine as That which adorned the brain ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the account of 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 the history of ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... mangled bodies in the court-yard. The father and eldest boy were absent and thus escaped. It would have been well had the lad been among the slain, for his coarse and brutal nature was roused to a thirst for indiscriminate revenge, and shortly afterwards he figured as chief actor in a deed of retaliation as revolting and inhuman as ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... experienced a grim satisfaction in the boy's complaints. What did these wordy friends of Job know of sorrow and despair? As though they were conditions that could be explained away! He turned almost to the end of the story, and there he paused. A new actor had entered the sorrowful drama. Out of the whirlwind there came a Voice—the voice of the Infinite—and before its thunder the souls of Job and ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... was not so strange as the sight of Ludar standing there, noble, huge and motionless, illumined by the strong light, gazing out with shaded eyes into the far distance. To me it seemed like a scene in some weird play of which I forgot that I was myself an actor. ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... I saw that no, my God, it was Martin, no mistaking. He'd been using her voice. When a person first does a part, especially getting up in it without much rehearsing, he's bound to copy the actor he's been hearing doing it. And as I listened on, I realized it was fundamentally Martin's own voice pitched a trifle high, only some of the intonations and rhythms were Miss Nefer's. He was showing a lot of feeling and intensity too and real Martin-type ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... Greenhithe is either the most ingenious liar and the best actor on God's earth, or he knows no more of your lost papers ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... rolled on lead, much used for making "lace," &c., for coffin decoration, was introduced in 1804, being the invention of Thomas Dobbs, a comic actor, then engaged at the Theatre Royal. He was also the designer of a reaping machine, and made one and showed it with real corn for his "Benefit" on the stage of the Theatre ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... so, because the ways of working as well as the consciousness of pleasure in men and women are different. The difference in the ways of working, by which men are the actors, and women are the persons acted upon, is owing to the nature of the male and the female, otherwise the actor would be sometimes the person acted upon, and vice versa. And from this difference in the ways of working follows the difference in the consciousness of pleasure, for a man thinks, "this woman is united with me," ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... that I had small chance of escaping with my life if my presence should be discovered by the men who lay in wait for Harris and the captain; but it was not fear which kept me an auditor when I might well have been an actor to good purpose. I desired to see what would be the end of the act, and, far from being terrorized as I should have been, I enjoyed the invisible scene. It was not that I was unmindful of the danger, but that I was surprised at ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... of an actor, and Evelyn her only daughter, who had been bred for the stage, and her beauty and ability having secured success, she had been enabled to attain all ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... opposite to his uncle, and between Flore and Max, had fraternized with the soldier, and thought him the best fellow on earth. Joseph returned home at eleven o'clock somewhat tipsy. As to old Rouget, Kouski had carried him to his bed dead-drunk; he had eaten as though he were an actor from foreign parts, and had soaked up the wine like ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... his own and his wife's property. So little Will was taken away from school at the age of thirteen, and set to earn his own living as a butcher—his father's trade, we are told. But if he ever was a butcher he was, nevertheless, an actor and a poet, "and when he killed a calf he would do it in a high style and make a speech."* How Shakespeare fared in this new work we do not know, but we may fancy him when work was done wandering along ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the lieutenant, taking in this new actor in the drama with frank curiosity. "But he is ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... Enthusiasm is the being awake; it is the tingling of every fiber of one's being to do the work that one's heart desires. Enthusiasm made Victor Hugo lock up his clothes while writing "Notre Dame," that he might not leave the work until it was finished. The great actor Garrick well illustrated it when asked by an unsuccessful preacher the secret of his power over audiences: "You speak of eternal verities and what you know to be true as if you hardly believed what you were saying yourself, whereas I utter what I know to be unreal ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... found so much leisure for the cultivation of letters amidst the busy strife of politics, closed his career at the age of sixty, in 1458. Though a conspicuous actor in the revolutionary scenes of the period, he maintained a character for honor and purity of motive, unimpeached even by his enemies. The king, notwithstanding his devotion to the faction of his son Henry, conferred on him the dignities of count of Real de Manzanares and marquis ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... this, but not without a long interval, was the pleasure he felt at the terms in which Lord Danesbury spoke of him. No orator accustomed to hold an assembly enthralled by his eloquence—no actor habituated to sway the passions of a crowded theatre—is more susceptible to the promptings of personal vanity than your 'practised talker.' The man who devotes himself to be a 'success' in conversation glories more in his triumphs, and sets a greater value on his gifts, than any ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... said: "I verily believe that he never loved any one else so deeply as his liebes Muetterchen." She must have been a woman of winning manners, for, though she had seven children, the oldest fourteen, she got another husband before her first one was a year in his grave; the second was an actor. Wagner was so fond of his mother that through his life he never could see a ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... in fact, an excellent-hearted and clever fellow, with a world of agreeable talents, a good tenor in a parlor-duet, a good actor at a charade, a lively, off-hand conversationist, well up in all the current literature of the day, and what is more, in my eyes, a well-read lawyer, just admitted to the bar, and with as fair business-prospects as usually fall to the lot of young ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... private, and withdrawn from the knowledge of the many; where when this one point was agreed on, that the accused must be rescued whether by just or unjust means, every proposition that was most desperate was most approved; nor was an actor wanted for any deed however daring. Accordingly on the day of trial, when the people stood in the forum in anxious expectation, they at first began to feel surprised that the tribune did not come down; then when the delay was now becoming ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... professed himself at our first meeting without political interests or convictions, he soon grew into a violent unionist and imperialist. I used to say when I spoke of his poems: 'He is like a great actor with a bad part; yet who would look at Hamlet in the grave scene if Salvini played the grave-digger?' and I might so have explained much that he said and did. I meant that he was like a great actor of passion—character-acting ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... it is a very slight one. They are too sensitive. They seem to forget that they receive and honour some of our countrymen as critics and satirists, but they expect that on leaving their shores their late guests will wash off the critical and satirical sides of their natures just as an actor removes his paint and make-up ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... nodded; Bloeckman looked casually about him, his eyes resting critically on the ceiling and then passing lower. His expression combined that of a Middle Western farmer appraising his wheat crop and that of an actor wondering whether he is observed—the public manner of all good Americans. As he finished his survey he turned back quickly to the reticent trio, determined to strike to ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... of Ruthven was the oldest son of Patrick third Lord Ruthven, the principal actor in Rizzio's murder, on the 9th March 1566, and who fled into England, where he died on the 13th June that year. Having predeceased his father, and leaving no issue, Patrick was succeeded by his next brother, William, who is styled Master of Ruthven, in a charter, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... the same place dwelt a Miller, who had been a busie actor in that rebellion; who, fearing the approach of the Marshal, told a sturdy fellow, his servant, that he had occasion to go from home, and therefore bid him, that if any man came to inquire after the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the gamut of the dramatic scale, we observe that as we descend from the higher forms, such as tragedy, psychological drama and "straight comedy," to the lower, such as musical comedy and burlesque, the license allowed playwright and actor increases so radically that we have a difference of kind rather than of degree. Certain conventions of course are common to all types. The "missing fourth side" of the room is a commonplace recognized by all. If we ourselves ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... pensioners for whom provision should continue after my death. The aged music master under whom I developed such abilities as I had, who was crippled now by rheumatism and otherwise dependent on a hard-faced son-in-law; the three small daughters of a dead friend, an actor, whose care and education at a famous school of classic dancing I had promised him to finance—a few such obligations had been provided for, and the rest ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... was naturally led to seek in the laws of nature for the causes of the miracle which, in his childhood, had captivated his attention. What name can be given to the chance which brought within his ken so many facts and books bearing on such phenomena, and made him the principal subject and actor in such marvelous ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... you. For this is a continuation of the book of Gregg Haljan, and of necessity I am the chief actor therein. I shall recapitulate very briefly what ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... us whether all the Lodges in and about London were invited to join in the movement. Unfortunately the minutes of the Grand Lodge only commence on June 24, 1723, and our only history of the events is that found in The New Book of Constitutions, by Dr. James Anderson, in 1738. However, if not an actor in the scene, he was in a position to know the facts from eye-witnesses, and his book was approved by the Grand Lodge itself. His account is so brief that it may be given as ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... of herding this delicate and high-spirited youth with the hardened criminals of the State." His strident, monotonous tone, and the cynical inflections of his voice made the spectators shiver with emotion as under the power of a great actor. He paced before the judge twice before speaking again. "Your Honor, there is more in this case than has yet appeared. Everyone in this room knows that the elopement of Dorothy Burland is at the bottom of this ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... Gretchen is a woman." Frau Schmidt would nod proudly and reply, "Yes, we have seen that; my Peter and I—we are very happy." Thus Gretchen left her girlhood behind her. It was her habit, so Grundelheim tells us, to walk out in the forest with one Hans Breitel, an actor at the municipal theatre. He used to teach her to talk to the birds, and when she besought him ardently to tell her stories of the theatre, he would relate to her the parts he had nearly played. Gretchen's heart thrilled—oh to be an actress, an actress! On her twenty-fourth ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... and spoke to him fiercely in harsh, guttural Huron. Robert did not understand the words, but they sounded like a stern rebuke for poor work with the paddle. The blow and the words stimulated him, keyed him to a supreme effort as an actor. All his histrionic temperament flared up at once. He made a poor stroke with the paddle, threw up much surplus water, and, as he cowered away from Tayoga, he corrected himself hastily. Tayoga uttered a sharp rebuke again, but did not strike a second time. ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as the regions of childhood and youth detained me. But as I approach the middle scenes, I begin to fear the revival of the old torture; that, from the dispassionate reviewer, I may become once again the suffering actor. Long ago I read a strange story of a man condemned at periods unforeseen to act again, and yet again, in absolute verisimilitude each of the scenes of his former life: I have a feeling as if I too might glide from the present into ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... foul line. I should like to discover documentary proof that it is not Shakespeare's, but the gag of some actor ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... undecided for the moment whether to put him down as an actor or a lawyer, but her doubts were soon solved as he gave her his name: Sir ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... long since been consigned to the tomb of the Capulets; and both epitaph and monument are thus spoken of by Charles Lamb in the Essays of Elia. Alluding principally to the eccentric attitude of the actor's effigy, he observes, "Though I would not go so far, with some good Catholics abroad, as to shut players altogether out of consecrated ground, yet I own I was not a little scandalized at the introduction of theatrical airs and gestures into a place set apart to remind us of the saddest ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the Borgia. There was a frightful incongruity between civilization and his life—between broad, flat, comfortable, every-day, police-regulated civilization, and the hideous drama in which he was suddenly a principal actor. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... a speaker and actor of the truth,—born such,—and was ever running into dramatic situations from this cause. In any circumstance, it interested all bystanders to know what part Henry would take, and what he would say; and he did not disappoint expectation, but used an original judgment on each emergency. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... was a precious and invaluable person also owing to his capacity of assuming any role, turning himself into any given character, and taking on the corresponding tone, manners, and appearance, and he was, further, a pretty fair actor. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... and Grover, and one or two more of his friends came forward to greet him as he entered, as if nothing was about to take place. But he did not feel actor enough to keep up the farce, and retired to his back seat at the first opportunity, and waited impatiently for ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... Fires: The Exploits of Ben Arnold (Connor), Bismarck, North Dakota, 1926. OP. The skill of Lewis F. Crawford of the North Dakota Historical Society made this a richer autobiography than if Arnold had been unaided. He was squaw man, scout, trapper, soldier, deserter, prospector, and actor in other occupations as well as cowboy. He had a fierce sense of justice that extended to Indians. His outlook was wider than that of the average ranch hand. Badlands and Broncho Trails, Bismarck, 1922, is a slight book of simple narratives that catches the ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... deplores, not without reason, the bitter sarcasm of fate which imposed upon his country the insult of such a conqueror as Charles. He might with equal justice have pointed out in Lodovico Sforza the actor of a tragi-comic part upon the stage of Italy. Lodovico, called II Moro, not, as the great historian asserts, because he was of dark complexion, but because he had adopted the mulberry-tree for his device,[2] was in himself an ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... hands close clasped while these words were spoken apart. She felt as if her hope, half granted, were being snatched from her, as another actor appeared on the scene, a gentleman in a lawyer's gown, and square cap, which he doffed as he advanced and put his knee to the ground before the King, who greeted him with "Save you, good Sir Thomas, a fair morning ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... It seems to me that, while the literary critic stands of course first, as having the wider range, and larger vision, and nobler material, each of the arts has a critic, as it were, assigned to it. The actor is a critic of the drama. He shows the poet's work under new conditions, and by a method special to himself. He takes the written word, and action, gesture and voice become the media of revelation. The singer or the player on lute and viol is the ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... insignificant beside its moral impressiveness are the graceful works whose sentiment does not result from the expression of the form, but is conveyed in some convention of pose, of gesture, of physiognomy! It is like the contrast between a great and a graceful actor. The one interests you by his intelligent mastery of convention, by the tact and taste with which he employs in voice, carriage, facial expression, gesture, diction, the several conventions according to which ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... a mermaid, he bade her sharply go and change her dripping garments, and what Fanny calls 'a decidedly queer' expression came into his face. He could not say anything, poor old chap! and he always behaved with great courtesy to me. I am sure he divined that I was a most unimpassioned actor in that high-comedy plunge ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... Davis; Harrison, the great outdoor painter; Wm. H. Chase, the artist; Bettini, inventor of the new phonograph; Nikola Tesla, the world-wide illustrious electrician; see article about him in Jan. or Feb. Century. John Drew, actor; James Barnes, a marvelous mimic; my, you should see him! Smedley, the artist; Zorn, " " Zogbaum, " " Reinhart, " " Metcalf, " " Ancona, head tenor at ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... belonged to a figure made with joints; he then gave it a chuck of the chin so violent that it sent the head back so as to lean on the coat collar; at last he put it in its proper position, he then operated upon the arms and legs of the image actor in the same manner, and so perfectly lifeless did he appear, that many new comers who had not heard the introductory speech of the showman, absolutely thought that it was on inanimate figure made to imitate a man that was before them, as the orator always designated his piece of still life his mecanique, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... man, and so I found him, else I shouldn't a-followed of him all round the world, and out to Wild Cats' Gulch! But as for this other fellow! Lord! Why, from the minute he made up his mind to marry and rob me, he did nothing but make love! Lord, how he could do it! Like a play-actor! Why, honey, one time he fell on his knees before me and looked up in my face in such a way! And what on earth can an ordinary 'oman do when a man goes down on his marrow bones and rolls up his eyes like a dying duck? She has to sort o' give ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... See "Narrative of Captain John Stewart," an actor in the war.—Magazine of American History, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... audience, how pleasant would be the pathway of art! The tragedy of Cock Robin reaches its hundredth night with no apparent falling off in interest. It is followed as only the finest critic will listen to the greatest actor of an immortal drama. He is perfectly familiar with the text, and knows where the thrills come in. When the fatal arrow pierces Cock Robin's breast, it never fails to bring an appreciative exclamation, "He's killed ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... good actor, or else he was a perfectly innocent man, for he showed not the least sign ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... Galway or Wicklow. A tinker is a tinker wherever you find him, a strong farmer a strong farmer, a landlord a landlord. The same emotions dominate rival brothers in "The Turn of the Road" and in "Birthright," though the Orangeman turned actor wrote the one and the Cork schoolmaster the other. Mr. T.C. Murray is one of those to whom Mr. Yeats has given the name "Cork Realists." His first play, "The Wheel o' Fortune," was produced by the Cork Dramatic Society at the Dun, Cork, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... said, "the one that looks like an actor; he's the humourist of the party. He keeps them in fits of laughter by giving moon-i-yas imitations. He mimics us to our very faces. Their idea of us is too funny! The good-looking little one is his inseparable friend; they hold hands when they're not working. The one with ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... time the Major showed an inclination to discourage the advances of the "play actor," as he privately termed him; but soon the young man's agreeable manner and indubitable appreciation of the old gentleman's stories completely ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Casas, lib. ii. cap. 27. Many of the particulars of this chapter are from a short narrative given by Diego Mendez, and inserted in his last will and testament. It is written in a strain of simple egotism, as he represents himself as the principal and almost the sole actor in every affair. The facts, however, have all the air of veracity, and being given on such a solemn occasion, the document is entitled to high credit. He will be found to distinguish himself on another hazardous and ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... experiences, what were his relations to his contemporaries. The men of his own time do not seem to have recognised his greatness; and Ben Jonson, the court poet, whose blank-verse Shakspeare was content to commit to memory and recite as an actor, stood higher in popular estimation. We only know that he was a successful theatrical manager, and that in the prime of life he retired to his native place, where he died, and had the honours of a village funeral. The greater part of the biography which has been constructed ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Moone, the celebrated actor, who had borne a major's commission in the King's army. The period of his death is uncertain, but he is known to have been dead in 1691. Downes relates that an eminent poet [Lee] seeing him act Mithridates "vented suddenly this saying: ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Blow is so well timed, that the most judicious Critick could never except against it. As soon as any shining Thought is expressed in the Poet, or any uncommon Grace appears in the Actor, he smites the Bench or Wainscot. If the Audience does not concur with him, he smites a second Time, and if the Audience is not yet awaked, looks round him with great Wrath, and repeats the Blow a third Time, which never fails to produce the Clap. He sometimes ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... fine tongue in your head—but of the best," said Ingot with a burst of applause. "You'd make a good actor, a holy good actor. You got a way with you. Coquelin, Salvini, Bernhardt! Voila, you're just as good! Bagosh, I'd like to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... but the very first words all but made him a violent actor as well. Maximilian had turned to Jacqueline. For a moment he paused, then with a ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the words thou hast just spoken have found a lodgment in mine ears. Thy charge, truly, is Mitsunaka; but Mitsunaka's son is mine. This, if any, is a great occasion, and my years point to me as of right the chief actor in it. Be quick! be quick! strike off my head, and show it to Mitsunaka[165] as the head ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... looked sharply at them, and, as he looked from one to the other, he said sarcastically, "Poor little chaps indeed! You said that very naturally, Tritton. It really does you credit as an actor." ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... Because she knew me, and knew that I would not do such a thing lightly, she was terrified. She would lie there, gazing at me, with a dumb fear in her eyes—and I would go on asseverating blindly, like an unsuccessful actor ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... fed him and gave his draughts, the homely old place and the placid expanse of the lake which he saw by turning his head, were as much and no more to him than his own body lying there day after day. They were parts of a pantomime, of which he was actor and spectator, but in which he had no special interest, and which he was perfectly happy to go to sleep and leave. Gradually his brain cleared, and slowly he got back the thread of recollection where it had broken so sharply, and began to spin again; and among the first clear new ideas that took ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... performers absorbed in their parts, forgetting that the landlord has to be paid in money yet to be earned. Behind the stage, the real play, the absorbing interest, the high stakes—occasional discreet laughter through the peep-hole when an actor makes an impassioned appeal to the gods. Democracy in front, the Feudal System, the Dukes and Earls behind—but in plain clothes; Democracy in stars and spangles and trappings and insignia. Or, a better figure, the Fates weaving the web in that mystic chamber, Number Seven, pausing now ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Sepviva St., Phila., Pa., a rare collection of U.S. and foreign stamps, a collection of minerals and an actor's make-up book for a nickel plated ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... more so; but his talk was embarrassed, pre-occupied, spasmodic. He spoke by fits and starts, and seemed to hold back something. Dolly taxed him with it at last. Walter tried to put it off upon her approaching departure. But he was an honest young man, and so bad an actor that Dolly, with her keen feminine intuitions, at once detected him. "It's more than that," she said, all regret, leaning forward with a quick-gathering moisture in her eye, for she really loved him. "It's more than that, Walter. You've heard something somewhere ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... when the whole house rose to greet their favorite and cheered and roared and pounded everything within reach of their hands and feet for twenty minutes, while Booth stood with trembling knees, the tears rolling down his cheeks. Munson remarked with some feeling—he was an intimate friend of the actor—that he remembered the night perfectly, having sat behind Oliver, and that Booth was not only the most accomplished actor but the best swordsman ever seen on the American or any other stage. Munson ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the various defenses that had been erected against the coming of Bud Larkin and his animals, the cowmen and their punchers were making ready for their night's battle. The chief actor in these fevered preparations was Beef Bissell, whose hatred of Larkin was something to frighten babies with ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Scapin^; bunko steerer [U.S.], carpetbagger [U.S.], capper [U.S.], faker, fraud, four flusher [Slang], horse coper^, ringer [Slang], spieler^, straw bidder [U.S.]. imposter, pretender, soi-disant [Fr.], humbug; adventurer; Cagliostro, Fernam Mendez Pinto; ass in lion's skin &c (bungler) 701; actor &c (stage player) 599. quack, charlatan, mountebank, saltimbanco^, saltimbanque^, empiric, quacksalver, medicaster^, Rosicrucian, gypsy; man of straw. conjuror, juggler, trickster, prestidigitator, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... against a pier and was barely saved from sinking with all on board. He made a brief stay in Cincinnati, and continued the voyage accompanied by a boat load of reporters, among whom was also Oliver Byron, the actor. The ice was then disappearing though the water was very cold. He averaged about five miles an hour on the lower river, and the rowing of the newspaper men to keep their boat up with him, was something beautifully scientific. At Delhi the two experienced oarsmen, who ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... with the verities of faith, I judged that for the rest of my opinions I might set freely to work to divest myself of them. For nine years, therefore, I went up and down the world a spectator rather than an actor. These nine years slipped away before I had begun to seek for the foundations of any philosophy more certain, nor perhaps should I have dared to undertake the quest had it not been put about that I had ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... James was but thirteen. It would be as easy to say that Douglas displaced with a rush the two more successful governors of the kingdom, and took their places by storm—and perhaps it would be equally true: yet it would be vain to ignore James as an actor in national affairs because of his extreme youth. In an age when a boy of sixteen leads armies and quells insurrections, a boy of thirteen, trained amid all the exciting circumstances which surrounded James Stewart, might well have made a definite choice and acted with ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... seeing my Spanish Jew, by introducing me to the most celebrated Jew that ever appeared in England. Then turning into a street near one of the play-houses, he knocked at the door of a house where Macklin the actor lodged. Lord Mowbray was well acquainted with him, and I was delighted to have an opportunity of seeing this celebrated man. He was at this time past the meridian of ordinary life, but he was in the zenith of his extraordinary course, and in ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... brilliant hostess in London. And he always found fashion and ceremony a bore. He was so great a favourite in England that he had been given that most English of titles, a knighthood, just as though he were very rich, or political, or a popular actor. In a childish way it amused him, and he was pleased with it. But though he was remarkable for his courtly tact, he loved most of all to be absolutely free and Bohemian, to be quite natural among really sympathetic, witty, or beautiful friends. He liked to say what he thought, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... seldome approoued, to see one shippe turne toward so many enemies, to endure the charge and boording of so many huge Armadas, and to resist and repell the assaults and entries of so many souldiers. All which and more is confirmed by a Spanish Captaine of the same Armada, and a present actor in the fight, who being seuered from the rest in a storme, was by the Lion of London a small ship taken, and is now prisoner ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... quite as plain, however, and sleep seeming to be many thousand miles further off than Niagara, I made up my mind to think a little about Sleep; which I no sooner did than I whirled off in spite of myself to Drury Lane Theatre, and there saw a great actor and dear friend of mine (whom I had been thinking of in the day) playing Macbeth, and heard him apostrophising 'the death of each day's life,' as I have heard him many a time, in the days that ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... when men's minds come to sojourn with their affections, and their diseases eat into their strength; that when too much desire and greediness of vice hath made the body unfit, or unprofitable, it is yet gladded with the sight and spectacle of it in others; and for want of ability to be an actor, is content to be a witness. It enjoys the pleasure of sinning in beholding others sin, as in dining, drinking, drabbing, &c. Nay, when it cannot do all these, it is offended with his own narrowness, that excludes it from the universal delights of mankind, and ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... indeed several of our authorities relate that a scribe named Cn. Flavius published the Fasti and composed forms of pleading—so don't imagine that I, or rather Africanus (for he is the spokesman), invented the fact. So you noticed the remark about the "action of an actor," did you? You suspect a malicious meaning: ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... letter!' A foreigner in an army can have as much provocation as he pleases; if he is anything of a favourite with his superiors, his fellows will task his forbearance. Wilfrid Pierson glanced at the blade of his sword, and slowly sheathed it. 'Lieutenant Jenna is a good actor before a mob,' he said. 'Gentlemen, I rely upon you to make no noise about that letter; it is a private matter. In an hour or so, if any officer shall choose to question me concerning it, I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... billiard-room this afternoon and her head was within an inch of the fender. The poor girl almost killed herself. Besides, I hate a child to have her head turned by a man of thirty. It's such easy going for him, and she's too young to know the difference between an actor and a coachman." ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... possible ludicrous association being pointed out to me, I instantly and thankfully struck out the line. And as to my obstinate tenacity, not only my old acquaintance, but (I dare boldly aver) both the Managers of Drury Lane Theatre, and every Actor and Actress, whom I have recently met in the Green Room, will repel the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... mistaking the tone of Israel Kafka's voice nor the look in his face. Nor did the savage resolution seem altogether unnatural in a man of the Moravian's breeding. The Wanderer had no time and but little inclination to blame himself for the part he had played in disclosing to the principal actor the nature of the scene which had taken place in the cemetery, and the immediate consequences of that disclosure, though wholly unexpected, did not seem utterly illogical. Israel Kafka's nature was eastern, violently ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... not. His own face is too well known for him to have investigated personally, and he's not enough of an actor to get away with using a plexiskin mask. He had to use underlings. And I'm afraid some of them might be in the pay of the ... ah ... opposition. They ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett |
