"Performer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... imitations of art, not real art. This is the reason why no mechanical device, be it never so skillfully contrived, can ever take the place of the living artist. The pianola can never rival the living performer; nor the orchestrion the orchestra; nor the chromo the painting. No mechanical device has yet been invented to produce poetry; even if some shrewd Yankee should invent a printing machine which would pick out rhymes as some printing machines ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... calling Rosa, Rebecca, what's her name, Amelia's little friend—your dearest diddle-diddle-darling?" And this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin's hand, acted over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and in spite of Dobbin's good-natured entreaties to him ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... likewise a puzzle to the uninitiated. To Westerns, the brahmans[33] are best known as the priests of the Hindus; more correctly, however, the name brahman signifies not the performer of priestly duties, but the caste that possesses a monopoly of the performance. The brahman caste is the Hindu Tribe of Levi. Every accepted Hindu priest is a brahman, although it is far from being the case that every brahman is a priest. As a matter of fact, ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... always crops up in a high-tensioned ball team. There were three other chief pitchers on the nine, Toe Barter, Sam Willard and Slim Cooney. Slim and Toe were veterans, and the mainstays of the team, and Sam Willard was one of those chaps so often seen in baseball, a brilliant but erratic performer. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... time for the rest of us all the four years. As for me, I'm only an old tin horn. You need to spend all your breath to get any music. Even then it isn't sickeningly sweet, so to speak. Still for an audience in sympathy with the performer——" ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... is like an AEolian harp; it makes a full and perfect sound of itself. A consonant cannot sound without a vowel, any more than a horn (except such an one as Baron Munchausen's) can play a tune without a performer. ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... thousands in daily flights and skiey acrobatics, including crazy dips and loops, startling dashes to the earth and illuminated flights through the night air. (See p. 192.) Smith became in a day an attraction outshining, perhaps, any other single performer upon the huge ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... the reader imagine was this unobtrusive guest? It was the famous performer of acknowledged impossibilities,—a character of superhuman capacity and virtue, and, if his enemies are to be credited, of no less remarkable weaknesses and defects. With a generosity with which he alone sets us an example, we will glance merely at ...
— A Select Party (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... trumpery to market as I shall, or made such wealth as I will do. I dare say Lady Penelope, and all the gentry at the Well, will purchase, and will raffle, and do all sort of things to encourage the pensive performer. I will send them such lots of landscapes with sap-green trees, and mazareen-blue rivers, and portraits that will terrify the originals themselves—and handkerchiefs and turbans, with needlework scallopped exactly like the walks on the Belvidere—Why, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... exhibition? Also, if any other plate of the Three Hats public-house, Islington, exists than that in the Gentleman's Magazine? Also, if there exists any portrait of Mrs. Sampson, said to have been the first female equestrian performer, and Life of Sampson, who used also to perform at the gardens behind ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... concerts each man had a bamboo, which was of a different length and gave a different tone; these they beat against the ground, and each performer, assisted by the note given by this instrument, repeated the same note, accompanying it by words, by which means it was rendered sometimes short and sometimes long. In this manner they sing in chorus, and not only produced octaves to each other, according to their different species of voice, but ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... the remark about a swelled head, Lance must have been rotting. He wasn't troubling about women or girls—except for tennis and dancing; and Miss Arden was a superlative performer; in fact, rather superlative all round. As a new experience, she seemed distinctly worth cultivating, so long as that process did not seriously hamper the novel,—that was unashamedly his first consideration, at ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... on principle, but he was also thinking of the advantage which might accrue to the drawing-room concert which Cicely had projected (with himself as the chief performer), if he could be brought into contact with a wider circle ...
— When William Came • Saki
... in Albany, New York and before she started her writing career she was a file clerk, music teacher and a carnival performer. Her hobbies are reading science fiction novels, going to the opera and ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... "A performer of a very mean salary, played the Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet so exactly to the satisfaction of the audience, that this little part, independent of the other characters, drew immense houses whenever the play was performed. ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... more or less under protest, because of its length, and because his mind was too practical for the indirect operatic form. He could not remain patient at a recital; the effort to listen to one performer for an hour and a half was too severe a tax upon his restless nature. The Philadelphia Orchestra gave a symphony concert each Saturday evening, and Bok dreaded the coming of that evening in each week for fear of being taken ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... the ablest Whistler, that is, on him who could whistle clearest, and go through his Tune without Laughing, [to] which at the same time he was [provoked [2]] by the antick Postures of a Merry-Andrew, who was to stand upon the Stage and play his Tricks in the Eye of the Performer. There were three Competitors for the Ring. The first was a Plow-man of a very promising Aspect; his Features were steady, and his Muscles composed in so inflexible a Stupidity, that upon his first Appearance ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... gros bonnets of many kinds—ambassadors, cabinet ministers, bankers, generals, what do I know? even Jews. Above all always some awfully nice women—and not too many; sometimes an actress, an artist, a great performer—but only when they're not monsters; and in particular the right femmes du monde. You can fancy his history on that side—I believe it's fabulous: they NEVER give him up. Yet he keeps them down: no one knows how he manages; it's too beautiful and bland. Never too many—and ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... disunited, the musical accompaniment all the while keeping time. These passages are not reckoned essential to the melody, but are considered only as grace notes introduced according to the fancy of the singer, when the only limitations by which the performer is bound are the notes peculiar to that particular melody and a strict ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... man resembles a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... poets call them)—Music, Poetry, and Wine; but, of the other two, one is not always a good friend." And he added, "Well, you may manage some time to let me hear her koto. The Prince, her father, had great taste and reputation in such arts; so, I believe, she is no ordinary performer." ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... await the turn that never comes. Once in a while—a very long while—one meets a brilliant person whose talk is a delight; or still more rarely a wit who manipulates every ordinary topic with the agility of a sleight-of-hand performer, to the ever ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... length and form of the resonance chambers affect the pitch as well as the quality of the tone. This is demonstrated in the trombone, French horn, and other wind instruments. The lengthening of the tube of the trombone lowers the pitch of the tone, and the projection of the hand of the performer into the bell of the French horn has the effect of raising the pitch of the sound. If the variation in length or form is only slight, the result is sharp or flat, and the instrument is out of tune. In the human instrument all the organs ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... just badly enough to be beaten towards the end of the round after an exciting match. It required a good deal of cleverness and self-control to accomplish this, for Lord Ashbridge was a notably puerile performer, but he generally managed it with tact and success, by dint of missing absurdly easy putts, and (here his skill came in) by pulling and slicing his ball into far-distant bunkers. Throughout the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... herself again under her own coverlet. "Did you forsooth go out," She Yeh remarked, "in this smart dress of a circus-performer?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a famous Professor was he, As the great Alexander now may be, Whose fame not yet o'erpast is: Or that new Scotch performer Who is fiercer and warmer, The ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... apartment, where stood a tall stout man, blowing with incredible effect into a twisted horn, which, to all outward appearance, had not long ceased to ornament the forehead of a Highland bull. A common horn it was—and the skill of the strong-winded performer consisted in extracting a succession of roars and bellowings from its upper end, which would have done honour to the vocal powers of its late possessor. A tune it certainly was, for immense outbreaks of sound came at regular intervals, and the performer kept thumping ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Another actor whom he had known was one of the most remarkable men he had ever met, for talent and resources—would that he had confined his talent to its legitimate sphere, namely, on the boards—but, unfortunately, he had chosen to exert it at his, Mr. Pickwick's, expense. (Loud laughter.) This performer tried to live by his wits, as it is called, and he, Mr. Pickwick, had encountered him, and his wits, too and nearly always with success. Mr. Pickwick then humorously described some of his adventures ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... years, and performed everywhere in restaurants, at fairs, at peasants' weddings, and at balls. At last he got into an orchestra and constantly rising in it, he obtained the position of director. He was rather a poor performer; but he understood music thoroughly. At twenty-eight he migrated into Russia, on the invitation of a great nobleman, who did not care for music himself, but kept an orchestra for show. Lemm lived with him seven years in the ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... ceaseless mandarin-like head-wagglings and mutterings of the names of Allah would stupefy anyone's brain up to a point. It is not only Arabs who daze their understandings with godly ejaculations, oft repeated. The marabout leader, who is a kind of maitre de ballet, enfolds each performer in his arms and makes a few passes round him, or kisses him. The uninitiated then reel off in a trance of hypnotic joy; the others do the same, in more theatrical fashion. At the end of each one's trick ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... finals of the boxing and cross country running could not take place until later when we had left the area. On one or two of the spare afternoons we managed to get some Rugby football, and had some excellent games, during which we discovered that our Padre was a performer of ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... sir," replied Dandy; "it's comin'. The young performer on the Pandeans that I tould you of wasn't more than five or six at the most, but a woman over the way, that I made inquiries of, tould me the length o' time the husband was dead. Do you undherstand the mysthery ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... speak well for it is not without merit[28]. Both in peace and in war it is possible to obtain celebrity; many who have acted, and many who have recorded the actions of others, receive their tribute of praise. And to me, assuredly, though by no means equal glory attends the narrator and the performer of illustrious deeds, it yet seems in the highest degree difficult to write the history of great transactions; first, because deeds must be adequately represented[29] by words; and next, because most readers consider that whatever errors you mention with censure, are mentioned through malevolence ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... skins. I believe that his religious vows did not allow him to handle animals—openly—and so he would beckon Roy into the darkness of the temple with a most mysterious air, and would extract all sorts of things from his sleeves just like a sleight-of-hand performer. He was a rich man when ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates, Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass'd his prelude ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... the hearers, spoke about the deceased as a chivalrous fighter for his native land, as a good Christian and a truly noble character. It was touching to hear the parting hymn sung by the sonorous voices of the British wounded, accompanied solemnly on the harmonium by a British performer. All escorted the coffin to the gates. Once outside, it was reverently lifted on to the funeral car, which German gunners escorted to the cemetery. Four British and one French officer, as well as the German doctors who could be ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... had a general penitential gorge. Instrumental music was proscribed, as per Amos fifth chapter and twenty-third verse, and the length of prayer was measured by the physical endurance of the performer. ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... call it the Mozart? Well, Mozart was a wonderful musical genius, who could compose music when he was five years old, and who astonished all Germany by his skill and aptness as a performer. So Charles decided on calling his band the ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... up and down, stretching their hands nervously as if unused to gloves. Presently they fell back, and the organ, in the hands of an amateur performer and an inadequate blower, began to chirp and hoot merrily, by which we knew the bridal party was ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... But this she might also have got from her father, who was passionately fond of music, and was a very respectable performer on the violin.] ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... seeing some engaged in them. One of these our gentlemen saw at Winter Island, on an occasion when most of the men were absent from the huts on a sealing excursion, and in this Iligliuk was the chief performer. Being requested to amuse them in this way, she suddenly unbound her hair, platted it, tied both ends together to keep it out of her way, and then, stepping out into the middle of the hut, began to make the most hideous faces that can be conceived, ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... instrument which, when used by a skilled performer, brings happiness and cheer to those who listen. The harp of God, when understood and skillfully used, brings peace of mind and gladness of heart. The title of this book suggests the thought of good cheer and happiness. The message herein contained, ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... scene where Shakespeare and Garrick give perfection to each other, the feeling heart does not merely accede to the delirium they occasion: it does more, it is enamoured of it, it solicits the delusion, it sues to be deceived, and grudgingly cherishes the sacred treasure of its feelings. The poet and performer ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... call himself "Rossignol"' (the French for nightingale), said the boys' uncle as he gave a hearty clap to the clever performer, 'for he seems as real a nightingale as I ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... decorated with tawdry curtains, and in the larger of the two dancing was going on. Here the crowd was denser and of the same heterogeneous kind. It was a festival of high jinks—a sway of riotous, unbridled merriment. A performer at the piano, with a bottle of beer within easy reach, rapped out the inspiriting chords of a popular melody. Couples glided over the polished floor, some lightly, some galloping, and all reckless of colliding with the onlookers. There was a touch of the risque ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Clumbers. For the first two or three years after these were truly established no other breed seemed to have a chance with them; and even now, though both English and Welsh Springers have done remarkably well, they more than hold their own. The most distinguished performer by far was Mr. Winton Smith's Beechgrove Bee, a bitch whose work was practically faultless, and the first Field Trial Champion among Spaniels. Other good Clumbers who earned distinction in the field were Beechgrove Minette, Beechgrove Maud, the Duke of Portland's ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... violently from the start, and I had chance to know his strength and weakness also. His hand was quick, his sight clear and sure, his knowledge to a certain point most definite and practical, his mastery of the sword delightful; but he had little imagination, he did not divine, he was merely a brilliant performer, he did not conceive. I saw that if I put him on the defensive I should have him at advantage, for he had not that art of the true swordsman, the prescient quality which foretells the opponents action ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a stock jest long before it was associated with Raleigh. The earliest example of it occurs in the "Jests" attributed to Richard Tarleton, the famous comic performer of the Elizabethan stage, who died in 1588—the year of the Armada. "Tarlton's Jests" appeared in 1611, and the story in question, which is headed "How Tarlton tooke tobacco at the first comming up ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... songs, popular airs, opera bits—all delivered in' a resounding barytone and accompanied by thumping chords improvised by the performer. Out through the open windows they floated, and one astonished villages driving by to take the early ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... of the records we have kept for years I have found a source of supply for seed nuts and nursery stock which has proved to be a constant performer. I bud this nursery stock from trees with individual records that have proved themselves to be good performers, I have found that certain varieties have proved themselves not worthy of being planted, and certain other varieties have proven themselves ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... pilgrims passed muffled along with white staves in their hands, and singular to relate, the golden knob of each staff was even one of those great lights which I had taken for stars. These pilgrims moved in a large orbit around the great performer, the golden knobs of their staves shone even brighter at the tones of the violin, and the chorale which resounded from their lips, and which I had taken for the song of the spheres, was only the dying echo of those violin tones. A holy, ineffable ardor dwelt in those sounds, which often trembled ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Scotch abbot of the 7th century. Scott says here: "I am not prepared to show that Saint Modan was a performer on the harp. It was, however, no unsaintly accomplishment; for Saint Dunstan certainly did play upon that instrument, which retaining, as was natural, a portion of the sanctity attached to its master's character, announced future events by its spontaneous sound. 'But labouring ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... proved to have danced a stately pas seul in a minuet, it was to Knox, who knew no better, as if she had indulged in the wildest bobbing of a country fair—nay, he would probably have thought the high-skipping rural performer by far the more ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... diseased nails, that are lepers, that are deceitful, that are born in bastardy of widows or of women having husbands alive; and they also that support themselves by the profession of arms. That Sraddha which is censurable, consumeth the performer thereof like fire consuming fuel. If they that are to be employed in Sraddhas happen to be dumb, blind, or deaf, care should be taken to employ them along with Brahmanas conversant with the Vedas. O Yudhishthira, listen now unto whom thou shouldst give. He that knoweth all the Vedas ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... in a pause of the music, Mrs. Carleton asked her son to sing a particular ballad, and that one was followed by two or three more. Fleda left her corner, she could not contain herself, and favoured by the darkness came forward and stood quite near; and if the performer bad bad light to see by, he would have been gratified with the tribute paid to his power by the unfeigned tears that ran down her cheeks. This pleasure was also ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... gentlemen," he said, "'tis nothing at all, I assure you. On shore I am a circus performer, an' I was just practicing a ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle,* and at the age he was then of, touched well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and joined her old man again, as their children ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... she could only manage her own accompaniments or a sprightly valse. Nan, who did most of the execution of the family, was a very fair performer from a young lady's point of view, and that is not saying much. She always had her piece ready if people wanted her to play. She sat down without nervousness and rose without haste. She had a choice little repertory of old songs and ballads, that she could produce without ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... martyrdom very fiercely and picturesquely—writhing muscles, flaming coals, scowling captains and executioners, swarming groups, and light, shade, color most dexterously brilliant or dark; but in Rubens I am admiring the performer rather than the piece. With what astonishing rapidity he travels over his canvas; how tellingly the cool lights and warm shadows are made to contrast and relieve each other; how that blazing, blowsy penitent in yellow satin and glittering ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... first whether she were intently listening to the music, or whether her mind was upon something far different and far away; he thought the latter. He was right. Ellen at the moment had escaped from the company and the noisy sounds of the performer at her side; and while her eye was curiously tracing out the pattern of the carpet, her mind was resting itself in one of the verses she had been reading that same evening. Suddenly, and as it seemed, from no connection with anything ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Auditorium the other night to hear somebody play on the violin. But that was not a violin which the slender, dark eyed performer used, and the music that so charmed me was not drawn from strings and flashed forth by any ordinary bow. The heavenly notes to which I listened were like those that young leaves give forth when May winds find them, or that ripples make, drawn softly ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... parlor is also the music room. Since a piano should be chosen for quality rather than appearance, an instrument of any finish is allowable in a room, whatever its decorative scheme. Except in a family containing an expert performer, a piano should be chosen for softness and richness of tone, instead of brilliancy. For most households the old cottage organ is a more practicable instrument than the "concert grand" often found ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... allowed to stand on a dais, or raised platform, and look down on his neighbor who is exerting his talent for him, oh, it is all right!—first-rate performance!—and all the rest of the fine phrases. But if all at once the performer asks the gentleman to come upon the floor, and, stepping upon the platform, begins to talk down at him,—ah, that wasn't ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... be recovered: but that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have that drum or ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... business houses, chorus girls from the theaters, and a mixed company generally, are to be found sitting around the various tables, drinking. The atmosphere is foggy with cigar smoke. The saloon is all ablaze with light. On the stage is some fourth-rate performer rendering a popular song. There is a long lunch counter, upon which is placed the materials for manufacturing all kinds of sandwiches. There is the flower girl, with her tray of fresh pansies and roses, casting a reflected bloom upon her otherwise pale face. There are the negro waiters ready ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... self as its central motive can never ring true or achieve any lasting success. Inferior music may be decked out by a capable performer to sound impressive or pretentious, or be invested with a glamour which is largely fictitious, but this surely amounts to false pretences. It is simply a method of misleading the public. Such a performer has misconceived his function, which ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... hill by leaps and circuits as fast as his little legs could carry him, and, with every appearance of a lad who puts duty before pleasure, arrived breathless at the kitchen door, where Alice stood waiting for him. Alice, the somewhat feeble performer on the horn, who had been watching for the boy with her hand shading her eyes, called ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... client does not figure largely on the stage. If he does appear as an actor he may have a small speaking part, but he is not a star. He owns the show, and if it does not pay he loses, or if he wins he gets a proportion of the profits. Consequently he hires the best talent he can afford. The star performer is the lawyer, but as the producer the client has not only the choice in picking the theme, but the play is about him and his troubles. Great drama consists in a conflict of emotions. The emotions of the two opposing clients make a court drama. The acting and the ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... It can be cultivated only among the haunts of men. The taste deteriorates, and the mental standard of excellence which each possesses, is lowered when really good music is seldom or never heard. By "the million," it can be heard only while mixing with the world at large; the performer can acquire his mastery over the instrument, at the cost of much time and labour, and he can maintain this mastery, and the purity of his style, only where he can compare himself with others of acknowledged excellence. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... him be sent to the local unit here. This proved successful. In another instance a union gave us access to its books and helped us to trace all the men of a given name listed there. By this means we found the man we were looking for. One man, a vaudeville performer, we traced through the Bill Board (a trade paper) by discovering the movements of the show with which ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... Roman public, but he had a dangerous rival in Pylades. The latter was magnificent, pathetic, and affecting, while Bathyllus was gay and sportive. All Rome was split into factions about their respective merits. Athenaeus speaks of a distinguished performer of his own time (he died A.D. 194) named Memphis, whom he calls the "dancing philosopher," because he showed what the Pythagorean philosophy could do by exhibiting in silence everything with stronger evidence than ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... to gamble with Hop Wah. He is a very smart one at the business, and he will relieve you of all the money you have, if you play with him. Being a sleight-of-hand performer, he can do things that you could not see. Just go it light on that point. I don't want to have him get into trouble, and that is what he generally does when he wins a whole lot of money. There is always some one to accuse him of cheating, whether they catch him or not, and then there ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... preferred remaining with John Jr., but she was habitually polite, always playing when invited, and now taking her seat at the piano, she brought out sounds far different from those of a new performer. But Mr. Graham, if he heard it, did not heed it, his eyes and ears being alone for 'Lena. Seating himself near her, he commenced talking to her in an undertone, apparently oblivious to everything else around him, and it was not until ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... Freischutz told me that I had stepped, as it were with both feet, right into the magic realm of awe. Any one who had been watching me at that moment could hardly have failed to see the state I was in, and this in spite of the fact that I was such a bad performer ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... of the composer grew in power and beauty he forgot himself and his dilemma in his enjoyment. Two senses were finding abundant gratification at the same time, for it was a delight to listen, and it was even a greater pleasure to look at the performer. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... which is earned) is that property of a good work which entitles the performer to receive a reward from him to whose advantage the ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... But she had always believed that her public career would be a short one. She loved fine music and enjoyed bringing its message home to people, but she had little or no personal vanity, and the life of a public performer entailed a great deal which she already found herself disliking. Recently, too, her successful career had received a slight check. She had made her festival debut at Burstal in "Elijah," and no engagements for oratorio had ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... terrors when she got to them. Well, she is a daring little rider, now, and is perfect in what she knows of horsemanship. By-and-by she will know the art like a West Point cadet, and will exercise it as fearlessly. She doesn't know anything about side-saddles. Does that distress you? And she is a fine performer, without any saddle at all. Does that discomfort you? Do not let it; she is not in any danger, I give you ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... love of singing. I am going to do something that will satisfy me when I ask: 'What would Jesus do?' I am not satisfied, and cannot be, when I think of myself as singing myself into the career of a concert company performer." ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... boys, many of them making perfectly fascinating girls, but when the whistling chorus was written by Happy, Polly was no small aid to him, and again and again this chorus was rehearsed in Middies' Haven, sometimes by a few of the number who would compose it, and again by the entire number; the star performer being a little chap from Ralph's class whose voice still held its boyish treble and whose whistle was like a bird's notes. Naturally, Polly had learned the entire score, for one afternoon during the past autumn ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... tossing the bill from him, so that it floated on to the loaf and settled there, "I suppose we shall none of us think it worth while to ride or drive ten miles to see this wonderful performer." ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... voice was clear, sweet, and free from defects of every kind. He was a chaste performer, and never hazarded any difficulty which he was not certain of executing with the utmost precision. He was, moreover, an excellent actor, so that nothing but the recent remembrance of the gigantic talents of Farinelli, and the grand and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... fund of merit to the performer, which raises him in every future birth, and at length advances him to heaven, where he enjoys happiness for a limited period, or carries him towards final absorption. A person may sink to earth again ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... have always had a stubborn way of disappointing those who love me best. This precocity was taken advantage of by relatives and visitors to furnish them with amusement. Many a time when some one dropped in I was called upon to be the star-performer of the evening. I was compelled to appear whether I felt like it or not. I was tickled in the ribs, because the folks liked to hear my hearty laugh; and I was tossed in the air and stood on my head, because it was thought that these things were as amusing ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... than this? Can it DO this? and if so who and what is to determine the degree of its failure or success? The composer, the performer (if there be any), or those who have to listen? One hearing or a century of hearings?-and if it isn't successful or if it doesn't fail what matters it?—the fear of failure need keep no one from the ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... brother of Gil Alvarez. They were known among their few friends as Jack and Gil. They were trained athletes; their father had been a circus performer, and under peculiar circumstances the two brothers had been trained for the profession, but owing to reasons satisfactory to themselves, and as recorded in previous records of their exploits, they had decided become detectives, and had so acted upon ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... now unhappy personage appear to give it much more consideration than the rest. Hurried on by the force of associating circumstances, and by promptings not of himself or his, he had been an active performer in the terrible drama we have already witnessed, and the catastrophe of which he could now only, and in vain, deplore. Leaning with vacant stare and lacklustre vision against the neighboring rock, he seemed indifferent to, and perhaps ignorant of, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... much coveted post of kebiishi, applied for permission to proceed at once to his brother's assistance. The Court refused his application, whereupon he resigned his office and, like a true bushi, hastened to the war. Yoshimitsu was a skilled performer upon a musical instrument called the sho. He had studied under a celebrated master, Toyohara Tokimoto, now no more, and, on setting out for the field of battle in the far north, he became apprehensive lest the secrets imparted to him by his teacher ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... is a gentleman-performer, and very useful to us managers, for he not only finds his own dresses and properties, but 'struts and frets his hour on the stage without any emoluments. His aversion to salary recommended him to the lessee of Drury-lane theatre, though ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... relating to this production, I hope not to be suspected of arrogating to my own exertions only, the popularity which has attended "The Child of Love," under the title of "Lovers' Vows,"—the exertions of every performer engaged in the play deservedly claim a share in its success; and I must sincerely thank them for the high ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... enthusiast in music, and a very accomplished performer on several instruments. Her favorite had always been the harp, and next ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the fare which it put before its patrons, and here was certainly enough variety of talent to please the most critical—a famous tenor, a popular violinist, a contralto much in favour for her singing of tender and sentimental songs, a notable performer on the violincello, a local vocalist whose speciality was the singing of ancient Scottish melodies, and—item of vast interest to a certain section of the audience—a youthful prodigy who was fondly believed to have it in her power to become a female Paderewski. These ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... pleasure a lively taste for facts in the little Boy; which continued to be the taste of the Man, in an eminent degree. Fictions he also knows; an eager extensive reader of what is called Poetry, Literature, and himself a performer in that province by and by: but it is observable how much of Realism there always is in his Literature; how close, here as elsewhere, he always hangs on the practical truth of things; how Fiction itself is either an expository illustrative ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... Poule, Le Rappel des Oiseaux, etc., were often given. The greatest master of instrumental style in these early days was the Italian, Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). He was famous both as composer and performer—the first, in fact, of the long line of key-board virtuosi—and in his compositions in dance form and in those of a more abstract type there is a sparkling fancy and an adjustment of the thought to his instrument, which will keep them ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... was named for the once famous sleight of hand performer Patler. His house is a cozy, pretty affair, freshly painted and nestled under great embowering trees. Close ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... not detain you," said he, "any longer with an adventure which had not the common merit of a Boulevard spectacle; for it ended in neither the blowing up of a castle, nor, as you may perceive, the fall of the principal performer. As the tide rushed up through the works, I, of course receded, until at length I was caught sight of by the rabble. They poured down, and were now within a hundred yards of me, while I could not move. At that moment a strong light flashed along the cavern from the river, and I discovered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the man—he looked like a skeleton in powder. We were quite ignorant in those days, it is needless to remark, of the fact that this cool, proper-looking Bailli was a great musician, a first-class performer of the STABAT MATER, whose inspiration however depended on his having the shoulders, very DECOLLETEE ones too, of a charming nightingale, over whom the Opera and Opera-Comique fought for many a day, as the desk he laid his music on. Sometimes when the evening was half over a bell was heard ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... back and rewrite this section from the beginning, expunging the statements that Hoopdriver was a poet and a romancer, and saying instead that he was a playwright and acted his own plays. He was not only the sole performer, but the entire audience, and the entertainment kept him almost continuously happy. Yet even that playwright comparison scarcely expresses all the facts of the case. After all, very many of his dreams never got acted at all, possibly indeed, most of them, the dreams of a solitary walk for ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... of seeing himself in the glass could exhibit so strong a temptation to laughter; while to the more knowing in the affairs of costume, it betrays instantly the secret that the exhibitor is simply a walking placard for a tailor struggling for employment, and supplying the performer on the occasion with a wardrobe for the purpose. Brummell's dress was finished with perfect skill, but without the slightest attempt at exaggeration. Plain Hessian boots and pantaloons, or top boots and buckskins, which were then more the fashion than they are now; a blue coat, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... VII. That as every member or guest known to be able to sing, play, or dance, is bound to do so if requested, the performer (especially if timid) is to be kindly criticized and encouraged; it being a fact well known, that the greatest masters of an art are always the most lenient critics, from their deep knowledge of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the arrival of Jenny Lind, the celebrated vocalist and actress. She made her first appearance at the Italian Opera House on the 4th of May, and was received with an enthusiasm never before lavished on any performer: during her stay in England ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... resounded, in which each member of a large circle joined heartily, clearly, and vigorously in his part, obeying the directions of the superintendent. The latter, however, often took the singers by surprise, by suspending with a signal the chorus-singing, and bidding some one or other single performer, by a touch of his baton, to adapt alone some suitable song to the expiring tune and the passing idea. Most of them already showed considerable ability, a few who failed in the performance willingly paid their forfeit, without exactly being made a laughing-stock. Felix ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... pressed from corner to corner, and continued successively towards the centre until there is only room left for the hand to hold the instrument. At each corner is appended a bunch of cockatoo feathers. With this the chief performer keeps a little in advance of the dancers, and whisking it up and down to the time of the music, regulates ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the piano, but she was at no time a very brilliant performer, and the poor girl was so upset by Ida's unconscious and unwilling superiority, that she broke down in the middle of one of those hideous drawing-room pieces which seem specially "arranged" for the torture of those who are blessed or cursed with ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the scene of disturbance as fast as his short legs could carry him. He seldom succeeded in effecting a capture; but if he had that luck, or if he could distinguish the tone of any individual voice so as to be able to identify the performer, he had him up before the "seniority" next morning, where his influence as one of the senior fellows ensured a heavy sentence. But he had been engaged in so many unsuccessful chases of the kind, and his short orations from his window ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... ill-humour of Lady Margaret Monckton had rendered them painful to her; yet the opportunities they had afforded her of mixing with people of fashion, had served to prepare her for the new scenes in which she was soon to be a performer. ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... the power of the long-imprisoned limb to the test by belabouring his wife with it. That same night every tenant in the square was made acquainted with the disguised arm, and the use for which it was reserved, and the ingenious performer was the next morning delivered over to the police. The law, however, allows a man to dispose of his limbs as he chooses; and as the delinquent was never proved to have said that he had lost an arm; and as he urged ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... darkness generally. The Professor will also combat the erroneous impression derived from the dark ages of SHAKSPEARE's time, that the Moon, or the Man in it,—probably a lime-lighterman,—ought servilely to follow the movements, in order to throw light upon them, of the Principal Performer. The Professor will observe—"Such a course, on the part of the Direction of the Moon, can only be considered beneficial to Art, when it is directed against 'The Star System.' As each theatrical Star has its own particular ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... wires Died from the touch that kindled them to sound; And the pause follow'd, which when song expires Pervades a moment those who listen round; And then of course the circle much admires, Nor less applauds, as in politeness bound, The tones, the feeling, and the execution, To the performer's diffident confusion. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... at the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, when he was eighteen, was a performer in the regimental band, and after a battle passed a night in a ditch and escaped in disguise, to England, where he eked out a precarious livelihood by teaching music. He supported himself until ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... acting as their medical and ghostly adviser, and would take infinite pains in carrying about subscriptions for distressed individuals, whom he was unable to assist out of his own scanty funds. He sang Italian and French songs with great taste and execution, and was a fine performer on the violin. Such was the careless being to whom Mr. Hurdlestone, for the sake of saving a few pounds per annum, entrusted ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... to be recouered, but that the merit of seruice is sildome attributed to the true and exact performer, I would haue that drumme or ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... by rapping on the head every one who came within his reach. This exhibition seems very absurd, yet not less than one hundred were present—children, boys, old men, and even gentlemen and ladies, were standing by, and occasionally greeting the performer with the smile of approbation. Mr. Punch, however, was not to have it all his own way, for another and better sort of Punch-like exhibition appeared a few yards off, that took away Mr. Punch's audience, to the great ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... Blaze defended himself. "I know her husband, and he's a bad hombre. He backed me up against a waterin'-trough and told my fortune yesterday. He said I'd be married twice and have many children. He told me I was fond of music and a skilled performer on the organ, but melancholy and subject to catarrh, Bright's disease, and ailments of the legs. He said I loved widows, and unless I was poisoned by a dark lady I'd live to be eighty years old. Why, he run me over like a pet squirrel lookin' for ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... was produced at the Park Theater, Philadelphia, on Christmas Eve. It was a success, but not a lavish one. The play was well written and staged, and Elsie Leslie was charming enough in her parts, but in the duality lay the difficulty. The strongest scenes in the story had to be omitted when one performer played both Tom Canty and the little Prince. The play came to New York—to the Broadway Theater—and was well received. On the opening night there Mark Twain made a speech, in which he said that the presentation of "The Prince and the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Petruchio, Mrs. Heidelberg in The Clandestine Marriage, and the Fine Lady in Lethe. Mrs. Clive's (on 4 Oct. 1733, Miss Rafter married George Clive, a barrister) popularity as comedienne and performer of prologues and epilogues is indicated by the frequency of her performances and long tenure at Drury Lane (she retired in 1769) and documented by the panegyrics of Fielding, Murphy, Churchill, Garrick, Dr. Johnson, Horace Walpole, Goldsmith, fellow players, ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... almost a negative. "Yes, of course. But there too . . . music means so much to me, so very much. It makes me sick to see it pawed over as it is among people who make their livings out of it; used as it so often is as a background for the personal vanity or greed of the performer. Take an ordinary afternoon solo concert given by a pianist or singer . . . it always seems to me that the music they make is almost an unconsidered by-product with them. What they're ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the player, ay, and the performer too; for he was dancing a species of quickstep solo, surrounded by a circle of grinning and delighted habitans. The most perfect gravity dwelt in his own countenance meanwhile, alloyed by just a spice of lurking fun in his deep-set eyes, which altogether faded, as a candle blown out, when suddenly ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe |
